The Case of the Murdered Muckraker (11 page)

Read The Case of the Murdered Muckraker Online

Authors: Carola Dunn

BOOK: The Case of the Murdered Muckraker
11.36Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“Whaddaya know?” marvelled Gilligan. “What we gotta find is a guy in a derby and boots that prob'ly left Noo York City on the first train.”
“If he crossed state lines to escape prosecution for homicide,” Lambert pointed out with undeterred enthusiasm, “it's a federal offence and you can call us in.”
“Just what I need, another bunch of gover'ment men muscling in on my case. You just ferget what I said about trains, bud. I'm gonna solve this business right here on home territory, and before the election next week. I'm not about to let the Hearst papers make any more cracks about the boys in blue. Where the heck is Larssen with that mug book?”
He went off to confer with Detective O'Rourke.
“What are the Hearst papers?” Daisy asked Lambert. “Someone mentioned them before.”
“Geez, I don't know that much about it. I guess it's local politics.”
Miss Genevieve had caught Daisy's question and interrupted a vigorous argument with Rosenblatt to answer it. “William Randolph Hearst is the proprietor of numerous major newspapers including some in New York, not to mention the International News Service, and a company producing ‘news reels' for movie theaters.”
“Oh yes, I believe he owns several English magazines.”
“Very likely. He is also a Democratic politician, but he is bitterly opposed to the way Tammany Hall runs New York. Partly pique, of course. He stood for mayor of the
city and governor of the state but lost the elections, and later failed even to win the Democratic nomination for governor. His papers regularly sensationalize anything they can find to the detriment of Tammany. He'd have been delighted with the course of Carmody's investigations.”
“I'm surprised Carmody took his information to Mr. Pascoli, then,” Daisy said. “
Town Talk
doesn't belong to Mr. Hearst, does it? I'm pretty sure he doesn't own
Abroad.
”
“No. I shouldn't be surprised if Hearst's political passions overcame his instinct for a scoop and he encouraged Carmody to disseminate his dirt as widely as possible. Besides, a weekly has a different readership from a daily, and goes into more depth, rather than concentrating on sensation.”
“Or maybe Carmody was double-crossing Hearst,” Rosenblatt suggested. “Maybe he had promised Hearst an exclusive and went behind his back to Pascoli. Hearst wouldn't take kindly to that.”
“But I hardly think he'd resort to physical means to show Carmody the error of his ways,” Miss Genevieve retorted. “All he had to do to retaliate was stop Carmody ever writing again for any of his publications. You can't get Tammany off the hook so easily.”
She and the Deputy D.A. resumed their argument about the likelihood of each of Carmody's targets having sent a thug to dissuade him from publishing his discoveries.
Meanwhile Gilligan had sent O'Rourke off on some errand. He returned to Daisy and Lambert. Whereas he would probably have responded to a question with a justifiable refusal to say where the detective had gone, he succumbed without a struggle to Daisy's enquiring look.
“Sent him to see if Pitt's in, and if not, to search his room. That's off the record.” Glowering at the oblivious Rosenblatt, he complained, “Geez, I'd never get nuttin done was I to follow every nitpicking rule. I can't do everything all at once. First you gotta figure out who the suspects are and then you gotta find 'em.”
“And it's less than twenty-four hours since Carmody died,” said Daisy sympathetically. “Besides, you seem to have a huge cast of suspects.”
“Yeah. Me, I wouldn't put this bird Pitt among ‘em. I mean, who's gonna start shooting over a bunch of bits of paper with words scribbled on 'em?”
Daisy rather thought words on paper had started more than one war, though she couldn't call to mind any precise instance. In any case, Pitt's reminiscences seemed unlikely to contain anything inflammatory, and if they did, Carmody would have shot him, not vice versa.
On the other hand … But her reflections were interrupted by a knock on the door and Miss Cabot's inevitable “Oh dear!”
Gilligan jumped up. “I'll get it, ma'am. That better be Larssen or … Hey, where you bin, Larssen?”
“Downtown to get the mug book, Sergeant. You sent me, remember?”
“Smart-ass! You wanna get busted back to patrolman? O.K., Mrs. Fletcher, Lambert, lessee can you pick out the guy you saw.”
“Me?” Lambert protested. “I didn't see his face.”
“Maybe sumpin'll jog your memory.” Gilligan took the heavy tome over to Miss Genevieve's desk.
Daisy sat down at the desk, with Lambert leaning over her shoulder. They studied lean, mean faces and broad,
brutal faces, coldly intelligent or piggishly stupid, some smooth-shaven, some with several days' growth of beard. Several were nondescript, but not in quite the same way the man on the stairs had been nondescript, Daisy was sure. She tried to picture each topped with a bowler hat.
Her concentration was not assisted by Lambert's mutinous mutter in her ear, over and over: “But I
didn't
see his face.”
They were nearing the end of the book when again there came a knocking at the door, a peremptory rat-tat-tat.
“O'Rourke's found sumpin!” said Gilligan hopefully, striding towards the foyer as Larssen opened the door.
Daisy heard a babble of voices, one shrill and female and vaguely familiar. She and Lambert turned to watch the sergeant.
“Who … ? What … ?” he said in bewilderment.
“Patrolman Hicks, Sergeant. I nabbed 'em,” a proud voice announced. “They was trying to sneak into Carmody's room!”
S
ergeant Gilligan backed into the Cabots' sitting room. After him swirled a petite woman in a scarlet coat trimmed with white fur, and a scarlet cloche with white feathers—definitely the hat Daisy had seen going down in the lift. Her scolding voice Daisy identified as belonging to the woman who had shouted at Carmody. Framed by the luxurious fur, her delicate features were twisted now in anger, but expertly made up and probably very pretty when good tempered, or in repose. She carried a large lizard-skin handbag, no doubt full of cosmetics.
Half a pace behind her came a man in a calf-length grey overcoat with an astrakhan collar. Of middle height, he had a plump, overfed face presently greasy with sweat. He was worried, even afraid. The hat he carried was a homburg, not a bowler, Daisy noted.
Behind the pair towered Patrolman Hicks, beaming. He was the uniformed policeman Daisy had last seen, looking bored, idly strolling along the passage outside her hotel room.
“This is an outrage!” screeched the woman.
Rosenblatt moved forward. “What's going on? I'm Rosenblatt, Deputy District Attorney in charge of the Carmody case,” he explained when the couple and the patrolman all looked at him askance. “What's up, ma'am?”
They all started talking at once.
“I was guarding Carmody's door, sir,” Hicks reported, saluting, “like I was sent to, and …”
“I am Otis Carmody's wife,” Mrs. Carmody affirmed icily. “I just wanted to retrieve …”
“Don't say another word, honey baby,” bleated her gentleman friend, presumably Barton Bender. “I'll telephone my …”
“Hold it, hold it!” said Rosenblatt. “There's no need for lawyers, sir. I'm not planning anything but a friendly little chat here. Excuse me, ma'am, I better take the patrolman's report first so he can go back to his post.”
“I was guarding Carmody's room, sir,” Hicks repeated stolidly, “like I was sent to, and these guys come along and the dame takes a key outta her purse and sticks it in the keyhole and starts to turn it. So I tells ‘em the room's closed by police orders for investigation of a homicide and I gotta take 'em down to Centre Street. I says nice and polite they can come quiet or I can get out the cuffs, and they come all right but quiet ain't the word! Geez, that dame that looks like a wind'd blow her away ain't never stopped cussing me out since … O.K., sir, I guess you don' wanna hear all that.”
“You can write it all down in your report. How did you end up here instead of headquarters?”
“The elevator boy tol' me Sergeant Gilligan's here, sir.”
“And what I want to know,” put in the sergeant, “is how come the key was already in the lock when you stopped 'em if you was standing guard?”
“Geez, Sergeant,” said Hicks with an injured look, “if I‘d've stood right by the door alla time, there wouldn't no one have tried to get in. They'd've seen me and turned around right when they stepped out of the elevator and gone back down and we wouldn't never have knowed who they was. I went a ways along the corridor and waited where they couldn't see me but I could keep an eye on things, see.”
In the linen room—Daisy was prepared to bet—chatting with Bridget.
“O.K.,” Gilligan said grudgingly, “you done good, I guess. You better get back up there pronto before someone else tries it on.”
“Did anyone else have a key to your husband's room that you know of, ma'am?” Rosenblatt asked.
“Not that I know of.” Mrs. Carmody blinked hard and dabbed at her eyes with a corner of a lacy handkerchief, careful not to blot her eye-black. “Oh, this is all so turrible! You must think I'm awful, telling off that poor policeman when he was only doing his dooty, but this has all been turribly hard on my nerves.”
“Won't you sit down and tell me about it, ma'am?”
Rosenblatt ushered Mrs. Carmody to the far end of the room from the desk where Daisy sat, to her annoyance. The woman didn't seem to notice the presence of unofficial others, too busy wiping away tears, real or pretended.
Bender, however, glanced around the room and scowled. He opened his mouth as if to protest but thought better of it. Gem-laden gold rings flashed on his plump fingers as
he took a large, purple-monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket and blotted his forehead. He hung his homburg on the hat rack in the foyer, then took off his overcoat, revealing a corpulent figure clad in a suit of grey-and-lavender check, and a purple bow tie with a flashy diamond pin.
Meekly, he followed his honey baby.
Gilligan went after them. As soon as all four had their backs turned, Daisy abandoned the mug book and Lambert, and tiptoed swiftly across to the Misses Cabot, who were much closer to the scene of the action. She sat down in the chair vacated by Rosenblatt.
Miss Cabot leaned towards her, about to speak. Miss Genevieve put her finger to her lips.
Miss Cabot mouthed a silent “oh dear!” Her knitting needles clicked on.
“Such a turrible shock,” Mrs. Carmody was saying, as she sank gracefully into the chair Rosenblatt held for her, “finding out in the papers this morning Otis was dead.”
“We tried to notify you last night at your hotel, ma'am,” said Rosenblatt, “and again this morning. You weren't there.”
“We went to a party, me and Mr. Bender, that didn't break up till daylight. He persuaded me to take a drive out in the country and get breakfast.”
“Where was that, sir?”
“What does it matter?” Bender blustered. “The papers said Carmody was shot at midday yesterday.”
“So what's the big deal?” Gilligan demanded. “Whaddaya got against telling Mr. Rosenblatt where you was this morning?”
“I don't know exactly. We went with a crowd, in a caravan. I just followed along.”
“Who else was there?” Rosenblatt asked.
“Uh …” A long pause, then Bender said cautiously, “I couldn't exactly give you their names.”
Gilligan was instantly suspicious. “Why not?”
“Who was there, honey baby?”
“Red and Billie, HJ, Mona, Jerry, I think, and wasn't that girl they called Midge with him? That's all the names I can think of.” Mrs. Carmody waved a careless hand. “I didn't know the others.”
“And you don't know their last names? Telephone numbers?” Rosenblatt suggested. Bender and Mrs. Carmody both shook their heads. “How do you keep in touch?”
“Oh, they weren't
friends
, just casual acquaintances. People we met at the party, weren't they, Bart?”
“Who gave the party?”
The pair gazed at each other blankly. They had steered themselves onto a reef, though Daisy couldn't quite see why Rosenblatt had bothered to chase them there.
Mrs. Carmody abandoned the sinking ship. “They were friends of Mr. Bender's. I never caught their last name.”
Bender gave her a look at once wounded and forgiving. “Uh … Not exactly friends. See, things are pretty casual in our crowd … .”
“So you don't know their names.” Rosenblatt shook his head. “But of course you know their address, since you took Mrs. Carmody there. No? Look, why don't you just admit Mrs. Carmody spent the night at your house?”
“The heck she did!” Gilligan exclaimed. “I had a coupla men watching that place, and if they was there, they‘da followed 'em here. What I figure is he's got an apartment
that he takes his fancy women to, so his servants can't tell tales. I‘da found it if I'da had another coupla days.”
“Fancy woman! Barton Bender, are you going to sit there and let a cop insult me?”
“No, no, honey baby. Don't you worry your pretty head. The truth is, Mr. Rosenblatt, I did rent an apartment specially for Mrs. Carmody when she left her husband. She didn't wanna let him know so she took a hotel room, too. It's not a crime to take a hotel room and not stay there.”
“Nor to spend the night with a lady friend.”
“I hadda try and pertect her good name, now, didn't I? You gotta unnerstand, Elva's real sensitive.”
“And you're ready to lie to the police to protect her feelings.”
“Sure, sure, no harm done.”
“Izzat so?” Gilligan broke in. “I guess you'd be ready to do anything for the little lady, huh? Even croak her husband!”
“No!” cried Mrs. Carmody. “You didn't, Bart, did you?”
“No, of course I didn't, honey baby. Not that I wouldn't've if you'da been in danger from him, but he wasn't giving you any trouble a good lawyer couldn't straighten out.”
“He was giving you trouble, then, Mrs. Carmody?” said Rosenblatt.
“Nothing serious,” she said quickly, “like Barton says. We had a bit of a tiff, Otis and me, but we'd have patched things up. A girl can have her fling, same as a man. You know what it's like being married, all ups and downs but till death you part.”
“And death has you parted!” put in Gilligan. “Mighty convenient, ain't it?”
Bender, who had gaped flabbergasted at Mrs. Carmody's last statement, found his voice. “But honey baby, you're going to marry me!”
“So we understood,” said Rosenblatt. “There was talk of divorce, not reconciliation.”
“Howdya know that?” shrilled Mrs. Carmody. “I wouldn't never have let Otis divorce me.”
“Maybe not. What were you looking for in your husband's room?”
“We didn't even get in,” she objected.
“Some stuff Elva left there,” said Bender at the same moment.
“No, it wasn't either. It was some of Otis's papers Bart said I'd need now he was dead. I dunno what, he was gonna look through everything and pick them out for me.”
“Gonna go through Carmody's papers, was you? Course, you wasn't looking for the stuff he got on you, no sirree. Where was you lunchtime yesterday?”
“Business meeting,” Bender said promptly. “Started at eleven and we was still at it at twelve so we sent out for lunch. Didn't knock off till after two.”
“Who was there? Let's have names and addresses, and let's not try on any funny business about not knowing.”
Bender didn't try on any funny business. He gave the names and addresses of three men, one of which made Miss Genevieve raise her eyebrows.
Gilligan was impressed. “Geez, Henry Morgan! The banker's son, huh?”
“Yeah, he just graduated Harvard and they got him starting at the bottom as a messenger, fifteen bucks a week. He wants to spread his wings a little, only nacheral. I got a bit of property he's interested in,” said Bender importantly.
“Waal, we'll check it out, but I guess if you was with him, you didn't shoot Carmody.”
“I'd have told you if he was the man I saw,” said Daisy indignantly.
Gilligan ignored her. “Still, if you're swimming with the big fish, you don't want nuttin to spoil the deal, like maybe stories in the papers, like Carmody was writing. I figure you musta hired it done.”
“You're nuts!”
“Oh I am, am I?” Gilligan said nastily. Standing up, he loomed threateningly over Bender. “Well, lemme tell you,
Mister
Bender, we know you got toughs on your payroll and we know who they are. I'm gonna pull ‘em in and grill 'em and sooner or later one of 'em's gonna crack and spill the works to save himself some grief. And meantime,
Mister
Bender, I'm gonna take you downtown and try if we can improve your memory down at headquarters.” He signaled to Larssen, who lumbered over.
“But …,” bleated Bender.
“You gonna come quietly? Don't wanna scare the ladies, do you?”
“I want to call my lawyer!”
“Now, now,” Gilligan reproved him, “ain't no need for that. You ain't under arrest … not yet. I just wanna ask you a few questions where it's peaceful and quiet, that's all.”
“Elva!”
“I'll call him, Bart. What's his name?”
“Macpherson, James P. Macpherson.”
“See, your memory's improving already.” Gilligan put a heavy hand on Bender's shoulder.
“O.K., I'm coming, I'm coming!”
“I'll telephone Mr. Macpherson, Bart. Right away.” As the sergeant and his minion bore off the hapless man, Mrs. Carmody jumped up, agitated. “I never knew he did it, I swear.”
“I'm sure you didn't, ma'am,” Rosenblatt soothed her, adding with some asperity, “that is, I dare say he didn't. Our good sergeant is inclined to jump the gun.”

Other books

Grounds for Appeal by Bernard Knight
Widow of Gettysburg by Jocelyn Green
Dark Rosaleen by Michael Nicholson, OBE
Baby It's Cold by Madison Faye
A Royal Mess by Tyne O'Connell
Castle Murders by John Dechancie
Murder Packs a Suitcase by Cynthia Baxter