James Chase - Lay Her Among the Lilies

Not an easy job when, in most cases, the man or woman who had disappeared had gone away because they were sick of their homes or their wives or their husbands and were taking good care not to be found again. A job I wouldn’t have had for twenty times the pay Bradley got, and a job I couldn’t have handled anyway.

A light still burned behind the frosted panel of his office door when I knocked. His bland voice, automatically cordial, invited me to come in.

There he was, sitting behind his desk, a pipe in his mouth, a weary expression in his deep-set, shrewd brown eyes. A big man: going bald, with a pouch and bags under his eyes. A man who did a good job, had no credit nor publicity for it, and who didn’t want any.

The placid brow came down in a frown when he saw me.

“Go away,” he said without hope. “I’m busy. I don’t have the time to listen to your troubles; I have troubles of my own.”

I closed the door and leaned my back against it. I wasn’t in the mood for a Police Lieutenant’s pleasantries and I was in a hurry.

“I want service, Bradley,” I said, “and I want it fast. Do I get it from you or do I go to Brandon?”

The pale brown eyes looked startled.

“You don’t have to talk to me like that, Malloy,” he said. “What’s biting you?”

“Plenty, but I haven’t time to go into details.” I crossed the small space between the door and his desk, put my fists on his blotter and stared at him. “I want all you’ve got on Anona Freedlander. Remember her? She was one of Dr. Salzer’s nurses up at the Sanatorium on Foothill Boulevard. She disappeared on May 15th, 1947.”

“I know,” Bradley said, and his bush eyebrows climbed an inch. “You’re the second nuisance who’s asked to see her file in the past four hours. Funny how these things come in pairs. I’ve noticed it before.”

“Who was it?”

Bradley dug his thumb into the bell-push on his desk.

“That’s not your business,” he said. “Sit down and don’t crowd me.”

As I pulled up a chair a police clerk came in and stood waiting.

“Let’s have Freedlander’s file again,” Bradley said to him. “Make it snappy. This gent’s in a hurry.”

The clerk gave me a stony stare and went away like a centenarian climbing a steep flight of stairs.

Bradley lit his pipe and stared down at his ink-stained fingers. He breathed gently.

“Still sticking your nose into the Crosbys’ affairs?” he asked, without looking at me.

“Still doing it,” I said shortly.

He shook his head.

“You young and ambitious guys never learn, do you? I heard MacGraw and Hartsell called on you the other night.”

“They did. Maureen Crosby showed up and rescued me. How do you like that?”

He gave a little grin.

“I’d’ve liked to have been there. Was she the one who hit MacGraw?”

“Yeah.”

“Quite a girl.”

“I hear there was a shindig up at Salzer’s place,” I said, watching him. “Looks as if your Sports fund’s going to suffer.”

“I’d cry about that. I don’t have to worry about sport at my age.”

We brooded over each other for a minute or so, then I said, “Anyone report a girl named Gurney missing? She was another of Salzer’s nurses.”

He pulled at his thick nose, shook his head.

“Nope. Another of Salzer’s nurses, did you say?”

“Yeah. Nice girl: got a good body, but maybe you’re a mite old to bother about bodies.”

Bradley said he was a little old for that kind of thing, but he was staring thoughtfully at me now.

“She wouldn’t be any good to you, anyway; she’s dead,” I said.

“Are you trying to tell me something or are you just being tricky?” he asked, an acid note in his voice.

“I heard Mrs. Salzer tried to kidnap her from her apartment. The girl fell down the fire escape and broke her neck. Mrs. S. planted her somewhere in the desert, probably near the sanatorium.”

“Who told you?”

“An old lady fooling around with a crystal ball.”

He scratched the side of his jaw with the end of his pipe and stared blankly at me.

“Better tell Brandon. That’s a Homicide job.”

“This is a tip, brother, not evidence. Brandon likes facts, and I mightn’t be ready to give them to him. I’m telling you because you may or may not steer the information into the proper channels and leave me out of it.”

Bradley sighed, realized his pipe had gone out and groped for matches.

“You young fellas are too tricky,” he said. “All right, I’ll give it to my carrier pigeon. How much of it is true?”

“All of it. Why do you think Mrs. S. took poison?”

The clerk came in and laid the folder on the desk. He went away still at the slow deliberate pace. Probably his brain worked as fast as his legs.

Bradley untied the tapes and opened the file. We both stared at a half a dozen folded sheets of blank paper for some seconds.

“What the devil…” Bradley began, blood rising to his face.

“Take it easy,” I said, reached out and poked at the sheets with my finger. Only blank sheets: nothing else.

Bradley dug his thumb into the bell-push and kept it there.

Maybe the clerk scented trouble because he came in fast.

“What’s this?” Bradley said. “What are you playing at?”

The clerk gaped at the blank sheets.

“I don’t know, sir,” he said, changing colour. “The file was fastened when I took it from your out-tray.”

Bradley breathed heavily, started to say something, changed his mind and waved a hand to the door.

“Get out,” he said.

The clerk went.

There was a pause, then Bradley said, “This could cost me my job. The cram must have switched the papers.”

“You mean he’s taken the contents of the file and left that as a dummy?”

Bradley nodded.

“Must have done. There was a photograph and a description and our progress report when I gave it to him.”

“No copies?”

He shook his head.

I thought for a moment.

“The fella who asked for the file,” I said, “was he tall, dark, powerful; a sort of movie-star type?”

Bradley stared at him.

“Yeah. Do you know him?”

“I’ve seen him.”

“Where?”

“Do you want those papers back?”

“Of course I do. What do you mean?”

I stood up.

“Give me until nine o’clock tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll either have them for you or the man who took them. I’m working on something, Bradley. Something I don’t want Brandon mixed up in. You don’t have to report this until the morning, do you?”

“What are you talking about?” Bradley demanded.

“I’ll have the papers or the man by tomorrow morning, if you sit tight and keep your mouth shut,” I said, and made for the door.

“Hey! Come back!” Bradley said, starting to his feet.

But I didn’t go back. I ran down the four flights of stairs to the front entrance where Kerman was waiting for me in the Buick.

There were four of us: Mike Finnegan, Kerman, myself and a worried looking little guy wearing a black, greasy, slouch hat, no coat, a dirty shirt and soiled white ducks. We sat in the back room of Delmonico’s bar, a bottle of Scotch and four glasses on the table, and a lot of tobacco smoke cluttering up the air.

The little guy in the greasy hat was Joe Dexter. He owned a haulage business, and ran freight to the ships anchored in the harbour. Finnegan claimed he was a friend of his, but by the way he was acting you wouldn’t have known it.

I had put my proposition to him, and he was sitting staring at me as if he thought I was crazy.

“Sorry, mister,” he said at last. “I couldn’t do it. It’d ruin my business.”