David Alexander - Masters of Noir - Volume 2

Ben Muller came through the door, carrying a pink petticoat. “Take a look at this, Pete,” he said.

The petticoat was of nylon, with about six inches of lace at the bottom. It seemed to be new, but there were two large rents in the lace, and the nylon itself bore at least a dozen creases that extended almost the entire length of the garment. When I held it loosely across my forearm, the petticoat bunched itself together from top to bottom.

I glanced at Janice Pedrick. “This yours?”

She nodded.

“You wad it up like this?”

“No. It — it was hanging over the back of a chair when I left the apartment.”

“Looks like we might have something,” Ben said.

The girl frowned at the petticoat, and then at Ben. “What do you mean?”

“It could have been used as a garrote,” Ben told her. “If someone grabbed it by each end, and pulled it taut, it would stretch out into a kind of rope. If you looped it around someone’s neck, and tightened it up, and kept it there long to cause asphyxia, it would leave lengthwise pleats in the material — just like the ones it has in it now.”

I handed the petticoat back to Ben. “Hang on to this,” I said. “Maybe we can book it as evidence, if things fall that way. How’s the doc making out?”

“He said he couldn’t do anything more until he got the guy to Bellevue. I told him he could take the body. Okay?”

“Sure. You get a receipt for it?”

“Yeah.” He took out a handkerchief and sponged at the back of his neck. “Hot in there, and the stink would make a goat sick.”

I turned back to Janice Pedrick. “This friend of yours — this Leda Willard — do you think she’d be home now?”

She looked at her watch. “I don’t think so. She goes to work at five.”

“Where?”

“She works in a jewelry shop, down in the Village. It’s not a regular store. The man she works for makes all his own things. It’s just a tiny little place. He’s been teaching Leda to make jewelry. She always liked doing things like that.”

“How come she goes to work at five?”

“The store stays open until midnight. Leda just has a part-time job, and the only reason she works at all is because she wants to learn enough to start her own shop someday.”

“What’s the name of this guy she works for?”

She gave me the name — Carl Dannion — and an address on Christopher Street.

I put the notebook back in my pocket and gestured for Janice Pedrick to step back inside.

“That reminds me,” she said. “I’ll have to be leaving for work myself pretty soon.”

“Not tonight,” I told her.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m afraid we’ll have to ask you to spend a little time at the station house.”

I had expected something of an explosion. She surprised me. All she did was glare at me a little, and then she shrugged and walked past Ben and me and into the apartment.

“You’d better call for a car, Ben,” I said. “Turn her over to a matron, and let her think about things a while. Maybe a couple of hours down there will make her feel more talkative.”

“You don’t want me to question her?”

“No. Just let her stew a bit.”

“And then what?”

“Get a set of the dead guy’s prints and take them down to BCI. See if they can give us a make on him. While they’re checking, look up the tailor that made his slacks and the guy who made his shoes. Either one of them could probably give you a fast make — provided you can get hold of them.”

We stepped into the apartment. Janice Pedrick was combing her hair before a yellowed mirror over the sink.

“Where’ll you be, in case I want to contact you?” Ben asked.

“I’m going down to the Village.”

“Hell, I figured that much. I mean afterwards.”

“I’ll check in at the station house as soon as I can. You do the same.”

“All right.”

“How do you feel.”

“Sleepy.”

“Yeah. Same here.” I walked to the front door, then turned. “Just lock the place up when the tech boys finish,” I said. “I don’t think we need to leave a stakeout.”

He nodded and crossed over toward Janice Pedrick.

It was a little cooler in the Village, and much quieter. I went down four shallow steps and turned into the Dannion Custom Jewelry Shop. Janice Pedrick had been right about its being tiny. There was room for a very small showcase, a workbench, and not much else. The man who came up to the counter was in his late fifties, a very thin, scholarly looking man with pince-nez and a spade beard.

“Is Mrs. Willard here?” I asked.

“No. I’m sorry, but she hasn’t come in yet. May I help you?” He had just a trace of accent, but I couldn’t identify it.

I took out my wallet and showed him my badge. I couldn’t have got much more reaction if I’d showed him a live rattlesnake. His face blanched and his forehead suddenly began to glisten with sweat.

“Are you with the FBI?” he asked.

“You didn’t take a very good look at my badge,” I said. “No. I’m a city detective.”

He seemed to relax a bit, but not too much. “What can I do for you?”

“Do you know where Mrs. Willard is?”

He shook his head.

“She didn’t call in to say she’d be late for work?”

“No, sir.”

“You know any of her friends?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“You ever see her with a very small man — a guy with a broken nose?”

“No, sir. I’ve never met any of her friends. I’ve never seen her with anyone at all.”

“Not even her husband?”

“No, sir.”

I put my wallet back in my pocket. I was curious about why Dannion had become so upset when he saw my badge, but I had no justification to question him about it. His personal guilts and fears were his own — unless I discovered later that they were connected in some way with the job I was on.

“I guess that’s all, Mr. Dannion,” I said. “Thanks very much.”

“Is Mrs. Willard all right, sir? If she’s in any trouble... That is, she’s a very fine young woman, and if I can be of any assistance...”

“She’d be glad to hear that,” I said. “But this is police business, Mr. Dannion. I can’t discuss it with you.”

I went up the steps and climbed into the RMP car and headed back uptown toward the Bayless Hotel.

At the Bayless, I discovered Leda Willard and her husband had checked out at eleven o’clock that morning. They’d left no forwarding address, but they had left a considerable amount of clothing. The manager had ordered this stored for them, under the assumption that they would contact him later with instructions for forwarding or other disposition.

I got a thorough description of both of them and went back to the station house.

Ben Muller was waiting for me. He’d taken the dead man’s prints to BCI, but BCI hadn’t been able to match them with any in its files. The man’s slacks, it seemed, hadn’t been tailor-made after all, which meant that tracing them would take some time. And the bootmaker who had made his shoes had since closed his shop and gone to Europe.

I sent Ben over to the Paragon Hotel to start checking Janice Pedrick’s alibi, and then I called Harry Fisher, a very good friend of mine who had once been a middleweight contender and was now writing a sports column for one of the tabloids. He knew everyone connected with the prizefight game, retired or active. I asked him if he’d go to Bellevue and see if he knew the dead man. He said he would be glad to. I gave him the phone number of the squad room, and asked him to leave a message if he should happen to call while I was out.

Then I got Headquarters on the phone and asked them to put out an alarm for the apprehension of Leda and Eddie Willard, and gave them the descriptions I’d got from the hotel manager. I asked for a run-through of the records to see if they had anything on either Willard or his wife, and then gave them Janice Pedrick’s name and description and asked for a run-through on her as well.