Howard Engel - Getting Away With Murder

“Paulette Wise?” I asked.

“Who is this? I’ve no use for the name Wise. I’ve been Staples again for I don’t know how long. Who is this?”’

“My name’s Cooperman. I’m a private investigator here in Grantham. I’d like to talk to you.”

“If this is about the Triumph, that’s all been cleared up. The bank agreed not to press charges. Have you talked to Mr. MacLeod?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Wi-Staples, this has nothing to do with that.”

“Hart told me that it was all tidied up. If it’s not the Triumph, what is it, Mr. Cooper?”

“Cooperman,” I corrected. “I’d like to talk to you.”

“What is this all about? Are you giving hints, or do you want me to guess?” She was sounding more like what I imagined was her usual self, although I had no way of knowing for sure.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to make a mystery out of it: I want to talk to you about your ex-husband, Abram Wise.”

“Ha! You’ve got a lot of nerve! I wouldn’t talk to the Mounties and I wouldn’t talk to the local police. Why on earth should I talk to you?”

“I can’t make you talk to me.”

“You’re damned right! I bet you don’t even have any paper.”

“Right, again. No warrants, no subpoenas. Not even a note from the teacher. I wish I had something to catch your attention, but I haven’t. The only thing I know for sure is that somebody is trying to kill your ex-husband.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” She laughed at her joke and I tried to go along with it. I wasn’t handling this at all well and I had a feeling that it was going to get worse. I held on to the pause that followed for as long as I could. “Are you still there, Mr. Cooperman?”

“I’m here, but it isn’t doing me any good, is it?”

“You give up too easy. What do I get out of this? And where are you coming from?”

“Mr. Wise hired me. I never met him until a few hours ago, when he sent some people to get me out of bed. He-”

“Well, at least I know you aren’t shitting me. That’s Abe all over. He’d never think of writing you a letter or calling you on the phone. So, he’s put you on the payroll. Good for you. Now, what’s my end?”

“What can I tell you, Mrs.-”

“Call me Paulette, for Christ’s sake! What does your mother call you?”

“Benny. I don’t have any money to give away, Paulette, not money that you’d call money. But I might be able to look into that Triumph business on the side. I know a few people in town. I can’t promise anything.”

“Hart’s not a bundle of joy to me these days, Benny. He’s more damned trouble than he’s worth. But, he’s mine. What am I going to do? I can’t let them send him to jail!”

“I’ll see what I can do. When can I see you?”

“Give me an hour to put my face on. You know where I live?”

“I’ve only got your telephone number. I heard that you used to live over the river in the States. When did you move back here?”

“Six months ago. I still don’t know what you’re after, Mr. Cooperman. I came back because after a lot of moving around, this is where I want to be. Besides, I’m getting to be of an age when it’s good to know where your doctor is when you want him and whether or not he can get you a hospital bed if you need one.”

“Are you in bad health, Paulette?”

“You’ve met Abe, haven’t you? Well, Abe has been bad for my nerves for forty years. And I was older than him when we met. I’m not getting any younger, Mr. Cooperman. But of course, you don’t mean to pry, do you?”

“I’m in a prying business, Paulette.” She laughed at that then gave me an address on Duke Street, not far from Montecello Park. I could walk there from my office in five minutes, if I didn’t run into too many people. I glanced at the clock. Why was it two hours earlier than I thought it should be? I should try to schedule a nap into my calendar for today.

I picked up the telephone again and did the same number I’d just done on Paulette with Wise’s second wife, Lily. She was more polite and cultured in her conversation, but she turned me down flat. She did it so well that it took me a moment to realize it. Lily had dealt with a lot of Fuller Brush people in her day. I had to hand it to her.

It was a big house with a catalpa tree on one side of the porch and a ginkgo tree on the other. There were no leaves on the trees to give me clues, but the long black pods on the one and a few brown fan-shaped leaves at the base of the other helped me make my diagnosis. I climbed up the broad front steps to the large, fan-lighted door. There was an old-fashioned doorbell with a hand-crank. I gave it a turn and heard a wheezy ring for my trouble.

I could see a figure moving from the front of the house towards me through the curtains that covered the glass panel in the front door. In the last century, when this house was built, nothing was as safe as houses. Glass in a door was as good as steel. Privacy was universally respected, except by professional and amateur burglars, which was to be expected. In general, a man’s home was his castle and a closed door was as good as a locked and bolted one.

“Are you Benny?” Paulette Staples asked as she opened the door. I nodded and she moved back so I could enter the hall. “Come in out of the cold,” she said. “I don’t know when this winter’s going to give up. Here, let me take those.” I shed my coat and hat and she hung them on the porcelain-tipped hooks of an ancient hall stand. I could imagine the original owner looking in the mirror, making last-minute alterations to his headgear before braving the cobblestone streets of the 1890s. As a matter of fact, I don’t think they were cobblestone: in Grantham they went from dirt to cement without any in-between stages.

Paulette led the way to the back of the house, where the old kitchen had been turned into a sitting-room. She had reserved, as I guessed, the front room for her sleeping arrangements. “I’ve got tenants upstairs,” she told me. I wasn’t sure whether that was a warning or just information. It was all grist to the mill; I simply filed it in an open and unlabelled dossier in my head. She indicated a comfortable wicker chair for me to sit on. I removed from it a cushion with a few months of accumulated cat hair and sat down.

Paulette Staples appeared to be a middle-aged woman with good skin and a look of having been around. Her clothes suggested that she wasn’t gadding about much any more. She was wearing a pant-suit with a flowered blouse. Her eyes were sharp and busy taking in the stranger. “Would you like a drink?” she asked, with an air of confidentiality and devilment.

“Why not?” I said. Why should I tell her that I hardly ever took a drink during the day. I didn’t have to make her a present of my whole life. She went to a cupboard, which hid a fair collection of bottles and asked, without turning: “Scotch?”

“Rye with ginger ale if you have it.”

“I thought you were a drinker,” she said, busying herself making comforting sounds with ice and glass. When she turned, she held two old-fashioned glasses and delivered one of them to me. Her eyes were a grey I hadn’t seen for some time. I could tell that she had been a great beauty in her day. Dave Rogers had said that she reminded him of Myrna Loy, the late and lamented Hollywood beauty queen. I wondered how many people would remember Myrna Loy’s side-glances that spoke volumes in the language of sex and humour.

“I don’t have to tell you that Abe isn’t my favourite character, do I?” She lit a cigarette, which seemed completely in character. She knew how to talk and time what she said with her smoking. It was an art and it was disappearing from the face of the earth. “I first met him when I worked at Diana Sweets.”