Secrets typed in blood, p.26
Secrets Typed in Blood, page 26
A quick trip to East Harlem, and Sam Lee Butcher was hopping into the passenger seat, a big smile on his face.
“Hey, Miss Parker. Thanks for giving me the call. I’m real happy you thought of me.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” I said. “We don’t know what we’re going to run into.”
As I pulled away, I waved at the scowling woman standing on the boardinghouse stoop.
“Sorry if I got you in trouble with your landlady.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble for me,” Sam Lee said, settling back into the Caddy’s leather seat. “But you might want to steer clear of Mrs. Henry. She’s of the mind that white women are nothing but trouble. I told her you and me weren’t involved like that but…she has her opinions.”
“I just rousted you out of bed to go off chasing a man who might be responsible for brutally murdering four people.”
“So?”
“So your landlady’s right,” I said. “I am definitely trouble.”
* * *
—
After three traffic jams and more wrong turns than I could count, we reached Mort’s street, in a quiet, residential neighborhood not too far from the beach.
Rather than make the turn, I parked on the corner and looked down the street to what I deduced was Mort’s address. That deduction was based on the fact that I saw the man himself—easily identifiable by another loud sweater, this one in fire-engine red.
He was walking out of his garage carrying a box half as high as he was tall. I watched as he heaved the box into the back of a delivery van, then turned around and went back into the garage.
“That’s our mark.”
“Looks like he’s getting ready to skedaddle.”
“Yes, it does.”
I let the Caddy glide past the intersection, then turned down the next street over. There were narrow alleys between the houses—thin strips of concrete and weeds, with tall wooden fences on either side.
I pulled up in front of a house halfway down the block and looked down the alley. I could see the side and rear of Mort’s garage just on the other side of the fence.
“Here’s the plan.”
I told it to him. Sam Lee didn’t like it. His principal objection was that he thought we should switch roles. But my role involved the part that would be frowned on by the cops if I were caught, and my first goal of the afternoon was to not get Sam Lee arrested.
Once I had him reluctantly on board, I hopped out and casually strolled across the sidewalk and down the alley. No furtive scurrying or looking this way and that. Remember the first rule of breaking and entering? Act like you belong there.
Once I got to the halfway point, I waited. After a moment, I saw the Caddy pass slowly by the alley on Mort’s side of the line and heard it slow to a stop. Immediately after, I heard Sam Lee’s voice.
“Excuse me! Excuse me, sir!”
A mumbled response from Mort.
“Yes, I’m trying to find 429 Jasper Street.”
Another mumble.
“Any help you can give, sir. This car—it belongs to Miss Myrna Loy. The film star? She’s in town visiting her sister on Jasper Street and—”
There was more, but I was moving. I leapt straight up, grabbed the top of the wooden fence, and pulled myself up and over. Then I lowered myself as gently as I could to the ground.
There wasn’t much clearance between fence and garage, and I had to do a sideways shuffle around the back corner and into a postage-stamp backyard. No door on that side of the garage, but there was a back door into the house.
Its lock was rusty from disuse, but simple enough to force. I was inside in under twenty seconds. I’d been keeping a stopwatch running in my head, and that put me at about a minute since the Caddy pulled up. I knew how Sam Lee could talk when given free rein, so I figured I had another minute before Mort came back inside.
Fingers crossed he’d go into the garage, which was where it looked like he’d been taking that box from.
The back door opened onto a short hall. Before I’d left the Strange Crime office, I’d asked if Mort was married and was told he wasn’t. So hopefully I wouldn’t stumble on anyone.
The first door I came to was an unused bedroom. At least I thought that’s what it was. There was a bed, but I’d have had to dig to find it. There were piles of fur coats and gowns, stacks of paintings, and a column of radios stacked floor to ceiling in the far corner.
I backed out and opened the next door in line.
It was a linen closet, equally stuffed. I glanced down and nearly shrieked when I saw a rotund troll squatting on the second shelf.
I peered closer. A carved wooden Buddha the size of a small child smiled blankly back at me.
My heart was still racing when I heard the Caddy’s horn. Two honks.
“Shit,” I whispered.
One honk was garage. Two was the house.
I didn’t have time to think, so I hurried to the back bedroom and closed the door just as I heard Mort come in the front. I crab-walked around the piles on the floor until I was on the other side of the bed, then I crouched down.
I pulled out my gun and waited.
I heard Mort shuffling around somewhere in the house. He wasn’t being quiet about it. There was a lot of stomping and muttering and the sound of things being moved about.
While I waited I thought about the paintings and the furs and the assorted bric-a-brac shoved into every corner and tried to piece things together.
Was Mort one of Checchetto’s antiques and curio suppliers? Did he also specialize in murder memorabilia?
One of my calves was flirting with a charley horse, so I shifted my weight. My backside nudged something behind me. I had just enough time to mutter my favorite four-letter word before the column of radios came crashing down.
Luckily none of them hit me on the head. Unluckily they made the loudest sound I’d ever heard.
Mort was muttering his own favorite words as he stomped down the hall, flung open the door to the bedroom, and flicked on the ceiling light.
I’m assuming from the way his jaw dropped that he expected to find an accident of gravity, not a snooper. I rose to my feet, gun pointed generally in his direction.
“All right, Mort. I want you to—”
He never got to hear what I wanted him to do because he was already running. Fast. By the time I stumbled over the fallen radios he was out the front door.
I ran after him.
Outside I saw Mort half a block away and moving like he knew what he was doing. I gained some ground, but he had a serious head of steam. He was making a squealing noise as he ran—like a teakettle.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
We’d gone three blocks and he wasn’t slowing and I wasn’t gaining. How was I going to explain to Ms. Pentecost that I let a killer escape because I couldn’t find second gear?
Mort was about to cross a fourth intersection when I heard the squeal of brakes and a wall of Detroit steel appeared in front of Mort. Unlike Thomas Kelly, he managed to dodge around the vehicle, but Sam Lee was already out of the Cadillac and moving.
He hit Mort with a running tackle that should have made the New York Giants consider desegregation.
By the time I caught up with them, Sam Lee had Mort in an armlock that I’m guessing he learned from one of the roustabouts at the circus.
“I got him!” Sam Lee said, grinning. “But he’s pretty squirmy.”
He wasn’t kidding. Mort was twisting and turning, trying to break free.
“Mort. Mort!” He focused on me. I flashed open my coat and showed him the gun again. Something clicked in his eyes and he grew real still real quick.
I glanced around and was pleased to see that everyone on the block seemed to be at work or otherwise occupied. Regardless, I got us off the street as quickly as possible. We loaded Mort into the back of the Cadillac and I kept the gun on him while Sam Lee drove us back to Mort’s house.
I got out and opened the trunk. It was mostly empty except for the spare tire and assorted emergency provisions. I fiddled with the lining on one side and popped open a secret compartment. Among the contents, some of which were not strictly legal, was a pair of police-issue handcuffs.
Mort was silent as the cuffs clicked shut. If that’s not a sign of a man secure in his guilt, I don’t know what is.
I left him in the backseat and told Sam Lee to keep an eye on him.
“You gonna leave me the gun?” he asked.
“I’d like to keep the list of possible charges against you to a minimum. He gets frisky, just chase him down again.”
I went back inside, this time detouring through the garage on my way. It, like the house, was packed with things. A lot of paintings, bric-a-brac, and small pieces of furniture that looked old and uncomfortable.
If I didn’t know better, I would have thought Mort was a fence. Except most of the goods—the tower of radios and the furs being the exception—was unfenceable. It was all one-of-a-kind stuff. Hard to shift on the sly.
It wasn’t a mystery I was going to solve on my own, so I hunted around the house until I found Mort’s phone. I dialed the number I knew best. This time it was answered by the woman herself.
“Pentecost Investigations.”
“Hello, Pentecost, it’s Parker.”
“What have you discovered?”
You might think this rude. Her not leading with an inquiry about my health or her concern for my well-being.
I didn’t. It meant she expected me to handle myself and get results.
I gave her the batch in as few sentences as possible.
“When you say the items are ‘unfenceable,’ I take it you mean they are easily identifiable by the authorities.”
“Exactly.”
There was some rustling on the other end of the line. While she rustled, I thought out loud.
“Okay, so maybe Mort’s connection to Checchetto is that he’s a housebreaker and that was where he was unloading the stuff he couldn’t move through a proper fence. The real hard-to-sell items. Mort doesn’t look like a housebreaker, but he doesn’t look like an Olympic runner, either. Somewhere along the way he asks Checchetto to help him get into Quincannon’s little club. All the years of working for Strange Crime, he’s picked up a twist or three, and he wants to be among his own. Checchetto says no and that sets Mort off. I’m not sure where he intersects with Perkins and Haggard, but I might find something if I dig around here long enough. What do you think?”
There was no answer.
“Boss?”
The sound of the receiver being picked up off the desk.
“I’m sorry. I had to put the receiver down. Did you say something?”
“Oh, nothing useful. Just being a detective.”
“Good,” she said. “Now tell me. Among the contents is there a Buddha?”
“Excuse me?”
“A hand-carved Buddha. A rotund figure about three feet high.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ve always suspected it, but now I know. You’re a witch.”
“I take it that means there is.”
“Yes, there is. Crouched in the closet like a goddamn goblin. You want to tell me how you knew that?”
“Yes, I do.” I could actually hear the smile in her voice. “But I’d like to do it in person. Bring Mr. Cohen here. Now.”
CHAPTER 42
Sam Lee drove. I played guard in the backseat. Mort sat quietly. Any energy he’d possessed had been spent on his attempted escape. His face was sunk in on itself, and he looked like a prisoner on his way to the chair. If death-row inmates were issued red woolly sweaters.
When we arrived at the brownstone, I draped my coat over Mort’s shoulders to hide the handcuffs. Our neighbors were used to strangeness, but I didn’t want to be seen in the process of what was technically kidnapping.
In the office, I removed the cuffs and planted Mort in the chair of honor while Ms. P got up to greet Sam Lee.
“Thank you so much for your assistance,” she said, shaking his hand.
“Anytime, Ms. Pentecost. Whenever you need me.”
“I’m afraid now I have to ask you to leave. The conversation we’re about to have might involve information that’s confidential in nature.”
Sam Lee looked disappointed, but he took it in stride.
“That’s all right, ma’am. I understand.”
She took an envelope out of an inner pocket and handed it to him. He peeked at the sheaf of bills inside.
“Oh, no, ma’am. I couldn’t. I was happy to help.”
She smiled. “I also enjoy my work, Samuel. But I expect to get paid for it.”
There was another round of handshakes and Sam Lee left.
That left me, my boss, and Mort Cohen, who hadn’t budged. My boss and I took our respective chairs. I kept the Colt sitting on my desk, within easy reach of my left hand. I had a pencil in my right and a notebook open on my lap, ready to sketch out a shorthand confession.
Mort, I noticed, wasn’t looking at my boss so much as what she had on her desk, which were half a dozen issues of Strange Crime, along with a thick file folder from our third-floor archives, open to display the stack of newspaper clippings they contained.
It wasn’t the file I was expecting, but I recognized it. Things started falling into place.
“Mr. Cohen, thank you for joining us today.”
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here. This woman broke into my house. She had a gun! Then she and that Negro boy chased me down the street. This is…I’m going to call the police. I’m going to call the police and tell them everything.”
Ms. P gave him a look of desert-dry amusement.
“You may use the phone on Miss Parker’s desk.”
“Wh-what?”
“To phone the police. You may do so now, if you wish.”
Mort glanced at the phone then back at her. He didn’t get up.
“I think we can dispense with the preliminaries,” Ms. P told him. “While you might be able to explain your flight from Miss Parker as panic at finding a woman with a gun in your home, you cannot explain the items stored there. I, however, can.”
She opened the file folder and patted the stack of newspaper clippings and police reports.
“Several years ago, the NYPD was faced with a string of burglaries on the Upper West Side. The burglars were very professional. They left no evidence and the police were never able to recover any of the stolen property. Then late last winter the burglaries stopped. At least…they stopped there.”
She moved her hand to one of the issues of Strange Crime and flipped it open to a page she had marked. The Vita-Glow survey.
“Was this your idea, Mr. Cohen?” she asked.
“No! Absolutely not,” Mort said. “I mean, sort of. It’s complicated. I never wanted to be a part of this, I swear to God. I just got roped in and now I can’t get loose.”
Ms. P leaned back.
“Explain.”
Mort looked at me. “Can I…um…can I get a glass of water, please? Do you mind?”
I hid my smile. When suspects start asking for things—cigarettes, drinks, and so forth—that means they’re getting comfortable. Settling in for a long chat.
I fetched him a glass of water from the kitchen. Taking the Colt with me while I did so, because getting comfortable didn’t mean a suspect wasn’t still capable of trying something.
“Thank you,” he said, before downing half of it in a single gulp.
“That was a pretty good chase you gave.”
He gave me a smile that was half pride, half embarrassment. “All-American track and field. Still got it, I guess.”
“Mr. Cohen,” my boss said, not a little impatiently.
“Right,” Mort said. “So I have a regular poker game. Mostly magazine people. One night—this was late in 1945, around the holidays—there’s this new guy at the game. Friend of a friend. Raymond. Said he was in sales. But I’m in sales and I know sales and he wasn’t in sales. Anyway, during breaks I was working on this ad for some kind of exercise gizmo. They wanted a reader survey. Fill it in and get a free something or other and a catalog. My friends were rubbernecking and, I don’t know how it started, but we got to talking about how you can ask people anything in these surveys. If they think it’s about making them healthy, about giving them a better life, they’ll answer. We were making a joke out of it. What’s your favorite sex position? How long’s your…You get the picture.”
He downed the rest of his water and wiped a hand across his mouth.
“Anyway, Raymond asked me out for a drink after. Really grilled me about the whole thing. Asked me how I liked my job, how it paid, and all that. I told him I did okay. Not great. Guys my age in advertising—we’re a dime a thousand, you know? Anyway, that was that. A month later, he gives me a call. Says he has a full-page ad for me. He sends it over. Right away I notice it’s all wrong.”
“It asked the wrong questions.” A statement from Ms. P, not a question.
“You bet it did,” Mort said. “It had all these questions about work hours and habits and finances and—you know, it was just odd. I called Raymond and told him I could help him do it right. He says no. Run it as it is. So I did.”
Ms. P leaned forward in her chair.
“So you weren’t aware at the time of its actual purpose.”
Mort shook his head. “Not until I started getting complaints. People who had filled out the survey weren’t getting their free sample. I called up Raymond. He asked to meet. Same bar, same booth. This time he’s got two other guys with him. None of them look like they’re in the health business, unless it’s on the subtraction side. That’s when they let me in on the scheme.”
It turned out, Mort explained, that Raymond and his friends were the crew who had been hitting those Central Park–adjacent homes. The heat was getting a little too much for them when Raymond sat in on that poker game, saw the advertising man working on his survey, and had a brainstorm.
