Росс Макдональд - Meet Me at the Morgue

The anonymous man lay on a rubber-tired table against a coldly sweating concrete wall. Sandy the bellhop had looked down at his face, nodded in nervous recognition, and been booked as a material witness. A few minutes after Sandy was led away protesting, Helen Johnson came in out of the sunlight. She was dressed in high fashion, in hat and veil and gloves. The color of the suit she had chosen was black. In the fluorescent light her hair looked almost black, and her eyes black. Ann Devon was with her.

Death, which banishes the dead to unimaginable distances, brings the living closer together sometimes. The two women linked arms and formed a unit against the silent wind blowing from those distances. Behind them Cleat, lieutenant of detectives, gnawed impatiently on a remnant of cigar. Our eight eyes were drawn to the body against the wall, and wavered away from it.

“What does it mean, Howie?” Ann said. Still in her working dress and flat-heeled shoes, she was shorter and shabbier than the other woman, like a younger sister or a poor relation.

“I don’t know what it means. These are the facts. This man picked up the money at the station – the bellboy he sent for it identified both him and the suitcase. Then he walked the three blocks from the station to the beach, where he’d parked his car. Someone was waiting at the car, or followed him there, stabbed him with an icepick, and made off with the money. We don’t know whether that someone was an accomplice in the kidnapping or not. We have no lead on who it was. Lieutenant Cleat’s men are canvassing the waterfront now, trying to turn up a witness.”

Mrs. Johnson reached out as if to grasp me, but her black-gloved hand stayed empty in the air. “There’s no sign of Jamie?”

“None. That doesn’t mean anything. We didn’t expect to find him here in town. This man was obviously detailed to collect the money. He couldn’t have handled both the money and the boy. There must be at least one other–”

“Fred Miner?”

“That’s our working hypothesis, ma’am,” Cleat said heavily. “Miner’s melted into thin air, along with the boy. It didn’t happen by accident.”

“No.” Her face began to crumple, then straightened itself. “I’ve been thinking wishfully. I hated to believe it.”

Cleat caught my eye and held it, rather grimly: “It’s what I always say. Once a man starts to go bad, he’s bound to go all the way.”

It was no time to argue. I said to Mrs. Johnson: “What does your husband think of this development?”

“I haven’t dared tell him. I left him sleeping, poor dear. Well.” She squared her shoulders and turned to Cleat. “You brought me here to see him, didn’t you? I might as well get it over with.”

“We looked at it like this,” Cleat said. “If him and Miner were in cahoots, you might have seen him with Miner some time, or maybe loitering around casing the joint. He certainly had a line on your routine, mail deliveries and such. I realize it’s a painful ordeal, ma’am.”

“Not at all. I’ve frequently handled cadavers.”

Cleat’s eyebrows jumped.

I said: “Mrs. Johnson was a nurse. But wouldn’t Mrs. Miner be more likely–?”

“I got her waiting outside. Now, Mrs. Johnson, if you don’t mind.”

She and Ann approached the table. Cleat switched on a hanging lamp above it and adjusted the toupee. A.G.L. looked straight up into the light without blinking.

“I’ve never seen him.”

Cleat removed the toupee. The bald head gleamed. Ann caught her breath and leaned forward, craning her neck sideways.

“Head’s sunburnt on top,” Cleat said. “I figure he didn’t always wear the hairpiece.”

“No,” Helen Johnson said clearly, “I have never seen him.”

Ann said nothing. They went out together. Ann called back through the closing door: “I’ll be in the office.”

The door was opened again almost immediately, and Mrs. Miner came in. Cleat seized her roughly by the arm:

“I want you to take a good hard look now, Mrs. What’s your first name?”

“Amy.”

“I want the truth now, Amy. You know him, say so. You have any doubts, I’ll give you a little while to make up your mind. That clear?”

“Yessir,” she answered tonelessly.

“Whatever you do, don’t lie to me, Amy. That’s what they call suppressing evidence. It’s just as bad as the original crime itself. That clear?”

“Yessir.”

“You know and I know,” Cleat said, “that if this fella here was mixed up with your husband, you’d know it. You couldn’t help knowing it–”

“Hire a hall, Lieutenant,” I said.

Amy Miner looked at me gratefully. She, too, had changed to different clothes, a knitted jersey suit that sagged on her thin body. I guessed that she had inherited it from Mrs. Johnson, or from a plumper version of herself.

Cleat placed an arm around her back and propelled her to the table. She winced away, more from Cleat than from the body. Cleat jerked her back by the arm. He hated criminals. He hated anyone connected with criminals.

I moved up behind him. “Easy, Lieutenant.”

His voice remained perfectly bland. “Now watch it, Amy.” With a showman’s gesture, he manipulated the toupee.

Her breath made a small shrill sighing in her nose. “No, I never saw him.”

“Wait now, just take your time.” He whisked the toupee off.

“No,” she said. “I never saw him, with Fred or anybody else.”

“His initials are A.G.L. Doesn’t that suggest a name to you?”

“No. Can I go now?”

“Take one more good look.”

She looked down and wagged her head sharply, twice. “No. And I can tell you, my Fred didn’t do it. He never lifted his hand against man or beast. Never in all the years I’ve known him.”

“What about last February?” Cleat said.

“That was an accident.”

“Maybe. This was no accident. Maybe that wasn’t either. We got two unidentified bodies now. They’re piling up like cordwood. Where’s Fred, Amy?”

She said in a still, cold fury: “If I knew I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Do you know?” Cleat towered over her, working his eyebrows.

“I said I didn’t. Ask me some more if you want, though.”

Balling his fist, Cleat thrust it up into contact with her chin, and held it there. They stared into each other’s eyes like trysting lovers. Cleat moved his fist upward slightly. Her head snapped back.

She stepped away. Her features sharpened to a cutting edge. “Rough me up, why don’t you? Fred isn’t here to protect me.”

“Where is he then? You’re his wife. He wouldn’t leave without telling you.”

“He said that he was coming into town, to see Mr. Linebarge. That’s all he said.”

Cleat glanced questioningly at me.

“She’s telling the truth,” I said. “Miner came to my office this morning. I told you that.”

Cleat turned back to the woman, hunching his shoulders melodramatically. “What else did he tell you, Amy?”

“Nothing.”

“Who’s A.G.L. here?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

He lifted his open hand, which resembled a rough-cut piece of one-inch planking. Her eyes followed its movement in fascination.

I stepped between them, facing Cleat. “Break it up, Lieutenant. If you want to question her, use words. You have a few.”

There was a brisk tapping on the door.

“I’m doing my job,” he said. “It wouldn’t be so tough if you’d do yours. I don’t care how you treat your Goddamn clients. Only keep them in line, that’s all I ask. Keep them out of trouble, out of my hair.”

I had no good answer. Miner had made me vulnerable.

The door swung wide, flooding half of the room with sunlight. The uniformed policeman on guard outside said, with the air of a butler announcing a V.I.P.: “Mr. Forest is here, from the F.B.I.”