Howard Engel - The Suicide Murders

“I’m sure you don’t, under normal circumstances, but this is an emergency.” I heard some talking through the palm of her hand which I didn’t catch and then there was a new voice on the line.

“Who is this?” it asked, “and who do you want?” I thought that in this instance the better part of valour was retreat. I hung up. I waited ten minutes and dialled again, heard the same noises and clicks and heard the first voice again.

“Can I help you?”

“This is Father Murphy over at St. Jude’s and we’re after arranging a high mass for dear Martha Tracy’s poor unfortunate employer, may he rest in peace. But Sister Kenny can’t seem to find the girl’s telephone number at all at all. Would you help us out, Miss, and may the blessing of St. Patrick himself be on you for helping us in this sad business?”

“Will you please stop doing that,” she said, with a steel edge to her voice. “We don’t give out private numbers. If you keep calling I’ll call the supervisor.” The line went dead. I took that hard, and went out for a cup of coffee. I’d had lines in Finian’s Rainbow at school. I’d been one of the silent singers. I just moved my lips during the songs. But I had real lines.

I decided that I’d better go down there to snoop around in my own way. It was Friday, so everybody would be anxious to get away promptly at five. That made the muscle in my cheek relax a little, and when I looked at my hands, they were almost dry. I ordered a chopped egg sandwich. In the seat next to me at the marble-topped counter an old geezer was rapidly making notes. I wondered for a second whether they were on to me, but he didn’t look up at me or at anyone else; the waitress scooped the soupbowl out from under his nose and slid the ham and eggs under without getting in the way of his pencil. I took a sideways look at his notebook; the writing went in all directions. The waitress saw me staring at him when she brought my sandwich. Without any direct reference to my neighbour she said, “I knew a fellow who wore Reynoldswrap in his shorts, once: to keep the radiation away from his precious jewels.”

Back in the office, I put in a call to Niagara. Said I was Sergeant Harrow from Homicide. I found out that Thomas Glassock would be on duty as usual in the Caddell Building beginning at five o’clock. Good. I was back on the track. I didn’t quite know what I was on the track of, but I was back on it and it felt better.

To kill the time before talking to Glassock, I wandered over to City Hall. There were tulips in bud in large cement planters in front of the war memorial as I walked up the wide expanse of front steps. I always got a good feeling walking up these steps which rise to a series of eight doors. Eight doors has a kind of New England town meeting feel. But when I got to the top, all but one of them was locked. There was a message there for me someplace; I decided to pick it up later.

I disappointed the girl behind the counter by not having my assessment with me. When I told her that I didn’t have an assessment, it nearly broke her heart. I asked her where I could find the elected members of council. She directed me and I obeyed.

The wall to wall rug down the corridor between the offices of the aldermen was thick and green. The doors were blue, I couldn’t figure that one. I found Harrington’s door, and was about to knock, when a stenographer picked the wrong moment to be efficient.

“Was there something?” she asked as though we were both speaking English.

“Yes, there was. In fact, there is. Is that Mr. Harrington’s office?”

“Yes, but …” I was wondering whether she was just playing a game with me or whether she really cared whether I got in to see him or not.

“Well, is he in it?”

“Yes, but …” It was happening a little too fast for her.

“Is he with someone?” She shook her head. “Is he asleep?”

“Sir, do you have an appointment to see Mr. Harrington?”

“No. Is it necessary to have one to see an elected official?” I pretended to bristle.

“Not really, but may I ask what is the nature of your business with Mr. Harrington?”

“Well, I wouldn’t tell everybody, but since it’s you, I’ll tell you. I want to ask Mr. Harrington just exactly what he intends to do about my wife. Call it family business or private business, whatever you like, but if he won’t see me, I’m afraid he’ll have to see my lawyer.”

“Oh! Oh dear. Why, of course, yes. You can go right in. I know he’s there. Goodness.” She visibly faded behind her pink plastic glasses, leaving only a smear of rouge and lipstick under her permanent wave. I knocked at Harrington’s door.

He was a big man by anybody’s scale. His face looked like a roast beef dinner with all the trimmings, with a huge portion of nose in the middle. The rest of him lived up to that start. I could see why I’d taken him for a cop the other night in front of the Yates house. He wore a two-piece blue suit with a wide dark blue tie. A brown paper-bag lunch lay spread out in front of him, and he began collecting the evidence in a napkin quickly as I crossed to his desk.

“What can I do for you, Mr.…?”

“Cooperman. Ben Cooperman.” He smiled an election smile and shook my hand until it was raw meat. I took a chair that looked like a cream-coloured plastic tulip and found that I could sit in it without being whisked off to the land of the little people.

“Well, Mr. Cooperman?”

“I’m a private investigator, Mr. Harrington, and I’m looking into some of the circumstances surrounding Chester Yates’ death. I know you were a friend of his. I need your help.” He smiled, but there was no charm in it. He began to size me up for the first time.

“What kind of circumstances?” He chose his words carefully. “Chester shot himself. What could be clearer than that?”

“Two hours before he killed himself, Chester bought himself a present.”

“How official is this?” He looked worried.

“I was there; I saw him buy it. If you were going to kill yourself, would you buy an expensive gift for yourself that you knew you’d never live to use?”

“Present, what kind of present?”

“A ten-speed bike. He got it at MacLeish’s on St. Andrew Street.”

“This is absurd. A bicycle! What are you trying to make of this, Mr. Cooperman? A man is dead. Isn’t that enough? I spent a couple of hours with Chester’s wife last night and now you insult a fine man’s memory with talk of bicycles.” His face was getting to look rare on the outside. He was a big man, and I didn’t want to picture him angry. He looked like he could do angry far too well.

“Look, Mr. Harrington, the normal assumption is that a purchase is made to be used. People who kill themselves don’t buy cars, rent apartments or reserve plane tickets. They may be killing themselves for the first time, but if you check the books in any insurance office you’ll see that every move is predictable, from the small nicks on the throat of a razor suicide to the clothes left at the top of Lovers’ Leap. It’s all been done before, thousands of times. It’s as unlikely for a man to have bought a bike before knocking himself off as for a woman to hang her self wearing long underwear or jump from a slow-moving passenger train. This thing will have to be looked into.”

“What’s the difference? Think of his family, Cooper-man. Walk away for it. That’s my advice.”

“I hear you talking, but I don’t think a little nosing around will hurt.”

“Cooperman, I’m telling the truth when I say that it would be best to drop this. You don’t know what you’re getting into. It’s disgusting, really. Like playing in your own dirt. I don’t want to talk about it any more. I can see that you aren’t prepared to be reasonable.”