Джеймс Чейз - The Way the Cookie Crumbles

Beigler had got the key to the dead woman’s apartment from the janitor who had shrugged indifferently when Beigler had told him the woman was dead. To Beigler’s questions, he had said he knew little about the woman except her name was Marsh, that she paid her rent regularly, never appeared in the mornings, went out in the afternoons and returned very late each night. She didn’t have much mail and seldom visitors.

Yawning prodigiously, Hess got into the elevator with Beigler and they shot up to the top floor.

Entering the woman’s two-room apartment, they looked around. The living room was comfortably furnished with a big TV set in one corner. There was a double bed in the bedroom and fitted clothes closets. On the dressing table were two silver framed photographs: one of a handsome, dark-haired man in his early thirties; the other of a girl around sixteen or seventeen years of age, her blonde hair in an urchin cut. Her thin, sharp features, pert little nose and large mouth, made her elfin-like and attractive.

A careful search of the various drawers in the apartment revealed very little except a collection of unpaid bills and a number of letters that began: Dear Mummy and ended: all my love, Norena. The address at the head of each letter was Graham Co-Ed College, Greater Miami .

Hess found several specimens of the dead woman’s handwriting which he compared with the suicide note. They seemed to have been written by the same hand. Beigler, who had been reading some of the letters from the girl, Norena, looked up at Hess.

‘I guess she must be the daughter,’ he said and nodded to the photograph on the dressing table. ‘Nice looking kid. I wonder who the father is.’

‘Maybe the midget knows. Let’s go talk to him. He’s just across the way.’

Leaving the apartment, the two men crossed the landing and Hess rang on the front door bell of Edris’ apartment.

After a brief delay, the door opened and Edris looked inquiringly up at them.

‘Oh,’ he said and moved back. ‘Come in, gentlemen. I’m just making coffee. Will you have some?’

‘Sure,’ Beigler said and the two detectives entered the living room.

Hess said, ‘Why aren’t you in bed, Ticky?’

‘Can’t sleep without coffee. I won’t be a second,’ Edris said and with a hop and a skip, he bounced into the kitchenette.

‘Sort of cute, ain’t he?’ Hess said. He looked around the room. ‘For Pete’s sake! He’s got himself his own goddamn armchair!’

‘Why shouldn’t he?’ Beigler said, lowering himself onto the settee. ‘Would you like to be a dwarf?’

Hess thought about it, shrugged and sat down.

‘Why should I care? I’m not a dwarf.’

Edris returned carrying a tray with coffee things. He poured three cups and handed them around, then he sat in his armchair and put his feet up on the footstool.

The three men drank a little of their coffee. Beigler, who considered himself a connoisseur, nodded with approval.

‘Fine coffee,’ he said. ‘You’ve got it just right.’

Edris smiled.

‘Not much I don’t know about coffee.’

‘Never mind the coffee,’ Hess broke in. ‘Let’s hear what you know about this woman. That her husband’s photo in her bedroom?’

Edris was far too smart to fall into that obvious trap.

‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been in her bedroom.’

Hess stared at him, then got to his feet, crossed the landing and collected the two photographs. He came back and offered them to Edris.

‘Who’s he?’

‘That’s not her husband. That’s the fella she ran away with years ago. His name was Henry Lewis. He got killed in a car crash some fifteen years ago.’

‘This her daughter?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Where’s she?’

‘The Graham Co-Ed College, Greater Miami.’

‘Her husband alive?’

‘He’s alive.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘Melville Devon.’

‘Know where he lives?’

‘Somewhere in Paradise City. I don’t know where.’

‘You said she ran off with this guy Lewis? She leave her husband for him?’

‘Yes. From what she told me, she couldn’t get along with Devon. He was a serious sort of fella, always working. After they had been married less than two years, she met Lewis. He had money. So she ran off with him. That was fifteen years ago. She took the baby with her. Lewis liked kids. They had a pretty good time together for a year, then he got killed.’

Hess stared thoughtfully at Edris.

‘She tell you all this?’

‘Yes. Not all at once. When she got blue she would come in here and sit, saying nothing for hours. Then she’d start talking and then she would shut up. She had no money when Lewis died. They were planning to marry as soon as Muriel could get a divorce. She put the baby with foster parents and got a job as a hotel receptionist.’ Edris paused to finish his coffee. He poured more into his cup and pushed the jug over to Beigler. ‘She got into bad company. After a while she started on the needle. She got tossed out of the hotel. She hadn’t the money for a fix so she went on the streets. Some old guy set her up in an apartment. She lived pretty well for the next five years until he died. She sent Norena. that’s her daughter to boarding school. They only got together during the vacations. The drug habit really got her, and she quit New York and came here. Then Johnnie Williams showed up.’

Edris again paused and looked at Hess. ‘Maybe you’d better talk to him. He knows more about Muriel than I do.’

Hess poured himself another cup of coffee.

‘Williams is dead. She killed him. Why didn’t she tell you, Ticky? She told you everything, didn’t she? Why didn’t she tell you she put five slugs into him before she came to La Coquille?’

Edris sat very still. His big eyes clouded. They looked like the eyes of a spaniel.

‘She didn’t tell me. I knew something pretty bad had happened, but she was drunk. I couldn’t get any sense out of her. So she killed him! Well, he had it coming. The dirty, double-crossing son of a bitch!’

‘Just why did he have it coming?’ Beigler asked.

‘She did everything for that slob. She kept him, bought him his clothes, let him have a room rent-free. She was crazy about him. He bled her white. During the last six months or so, he’s been going after the old women at the Palace Hotel. He found one with money. By now, Muriel was broke. She was so far gone on the needle, she couldn’t even get customers. She had the school bills and her regular fixes to pay for. Johnnie was really in the money. When she tried to borrow off him, he laughed at her. I guess he laughed once too often.’

‘How about the daughter? Does she have any idea what was going on?’

‘No. Muriel and she went away on sea trips during the vacations. She didn’t want Norena to come to her apartment too often. She was hoping to take her to the West Indies this vacation, but she had no money and Johnnie wouldn’t stake her.’

‘You being her best friend, you didn’t stake her, Ticky?’

‘She wouldn’t take it from me. I offered, but she couldn’t bring herself to take money from me.’

‘Why not? You were her best friend, weren’t you the guy she always confided in.’

Edris looked thoughtfully at Hess, his eyes stony.

‘I guess she thought I was more to be pitied than her. She never looked on me as a human being. I was just someone, something, to talk to.’

Hess sneered.

‘Did she say she pitied you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, you saved your money, didn’t you, Ticky?’

‘I don’t have all that money to save,’ Edris said.

‘Oh, come on: with your cute tricks, I bet you pick up plenty of tips.’