The Norths Meet Murder Read online

“Things happen too quickly to have feelings about them, don’t they?” she said. “I mean, by that time things are over, and you begin to have feelings about the kind of feelings you had. And it isn’t as if we knew him, of course.”

  She was, Mr. North saw, coming out of it quickly—much more quickly, as a matter of fact, than he was, and he thought that it must have something to do with speed of perception. He, for example, was only now really shaky and glad to sit down. He sat down and reached for the telephone. “Police?” Mrs. North said, and Mr. North nodded.

  “You know,” he said, “I never called the police. I never really thought I would.” Mrs. North nodded.

  But, an indefatigable reader of directions, Mr. North remembered how to call the police, and dialed the operator. She was cool and impersonal and a long way off, where nothing had happened.

  “I want the police,” Mr. North said. Then he remembered the phrase. “I want a policeman,” he said.

  “What?” said the operator, as if it had come to her very suddenly. Perhaps, Mr. North thought, she has never called the police, either. Mr. North told her again and gave his name and address. “It seems to be murder,” he added, because he wanted to tell somebody about so strange and awful a thing.

  “Thank you,” said the operator, and cut off, leaving Mr. North with a sense of incompletion. He was still glad to be sitting down, but he was feeling better. Mrs. North seemed virtually all right again, excited instead of shocked.

  “You know,” she said, “they’ll think we did it. They always do.”

  It seemed, momentarily, odd to Mr. North that things, including his wife, were going on as usual; that they were talking as usual, and no more clearly or dramatically than usual. Then he decided it was not odd at all.

  “People who find bodies,” he said. “Yes, they do usually.” He paused, thinking it over. “And, as a matter of fact, they’re usually right,” he added. Something was bothering him.

  “You didn’t see it—him, I mean—when you were up there yesterday?” he said. “I mean, of course you didn’t, but—”

  Mrs. North looked at him, and a slight, affectionate quirk appeared at one corner of her mouth. Her voice was very serious, however.

  “No,” she said. “I’d have mentioned it.” She waited until Mr. North looked up.

  Mr. North had a moment to feel that things were all right again. “I—” Mrs. North began.

  But then there was a wailing in the street, and an angry screech of brakes, and the sound of feet hurrying grittily oil the steps outside. A moment later the Norths’ bell rang, in the way only a policeman, or perhaps a boy with a telegram, rings bells.

  “Cops,” said Mr. North, and clicked them in. There were only two of them, at first, and they were in uniform.

  “North?” the one who was ahead said, as if he suspected Mr. North of being hard of hearing. “Gerald North, 95 Greenwich Place? What’s going on here?”

  “We—” Mr. North began. But a great hungry wailing of sirens in the street outside poured in through the open windows of the apartment and drowned his voice. More brakes wailed, and in the background of the sound there was the distant rise and fall of other sirens.

  “My,” said Mrs. North, who was at the front windows. “My—cops! Come and look.”

  “I’ve got cops,” Mr. North shouted back, before he thought. The leading cop said: “Hey, you!” But by that time there were two more cops coming up the stairs.

  “Six cars, every which way,” Mrs. North called, excitedly. “They don’t pay any attention to one-way streets. Seven cars, and there’s going to be a crowd. Oh—!”

  Mr. North faced four policemen, and more were coming. It was all rather absurd—absurd and disproportionate, and for a moment Mr. North thought of the awful quiet upstairs in the bathroom and the faint light on the white body, and how it had begun to float. And now everything was so overwhelmingly alive, and full of sound.

  “Upstairs,” Mr. North said. “Top floor, in the bathroom. We found him.”

  The first two cops pounded on up the stairs. The next two went after them, but two more stayed with Mr. North.

  “Well, buddy,” one of them said, “what’s going on, here?”

  Mr. North looked at him, and said: “Oh, for God’s sake.”

  “Listen, buddy—” the cop said.

  “Where do you think you’re going? To a fire?” Mr. North said, loudly. He was angry, all at once.

  “There’s another one, now,” Mrs. North called, in what was clearly a pleased tone. “A big one, just like anybody’s. And another little one.”

  “I guess it’s the squad car, Buck,” Mr. North’s adversary said to the other policeman. “Get on inside, buddy.” He said this last to Mr. North, in a tone of dislike, and Mr. North backed farther into the apartment. The two policemen came in with him, and stood looking at him. Then a much quieter voice spoke from the doorway, and the two policemen turned to face another man.

  “What’s going on here?” the new man said, but in a different tone. He said it as if he really wanted to know what was going on there. The policemen saluted.

  “We just got here ourselves, Lieutenant,” the spokesman said. “Some of the boys have gone on up.”

  “Some of them?” the lieutenant inquired. “Well, go up and bring some of them down. Before they take it apart.” He spoke quietly, and did not seem excited or angry. “And you are the man who telephoned?” he said, to Mr. North. “Mr. Gerald North?” Mr. North nodded. “And you found a body, right?” Mr. North nodded again. There seemed, now, to be more connection between the white body upstairs and all this confusion—a connection, as yet remote, but which might grow tangible.

  The new policeman looked at Mr. North as if he saw him, and spoke as if he were speaking to another man. It also helped that he was in ordinary clothing—an ordinary blue suit, with a white handkerchief in the breast pocket, and a soft gray hat, worn tilted forward on his head. He did not seem angry about anything at all, but only interested, and he was, Mr. North guessed, in his late thirties. There was nothing special about him, except an air of interest.

  “Right,” he said. “I’m Lieutenant Weigand, Homicide Bureau. William Weigand. I’d like to talk to you, after a bit. If you’ll just wait until I look-around upstairs? Right?”

  “Of course,” Mr. North said, and Mrs. North, who had left the window and come to the door, nodded. Weigand stood aside, rather obviously, and the two policemen went out. The policeman who didn’t like Mr. North looked at him once more, forbiddingly, but he went. Mr. North closed the door and went with Mrs. North to the front window. The street was full of police cars, all right. They had come in, obviously, from both ends of the block and jammed to stops at any convenient angle. Up at the corner, Mr. North could see a policeman turning cars and trucks aside. Windows across the street were filled with people leaning out and, as they looked down, Mrs. Buano came up from her basement and spoke to one of the policemen. Then she looked up at the Norths, wonderingly, and on up at the windows of the top floor. Across the street people were standing, looking up at the same windows, and more people were coming. Then there was the whine of another siren and an ambulance found a gap to stop in. A young man in white, wearing a cap with “Surgeon” on it in absurdly large letters and carrying a black bag, jumped out and trotted to the steps. He disappeared inside.

  After that not much happened, for a while, except the sound of police voices in the common hall and on the stairs. Most of the policemen seemed to be saying “O.K.” to one another. Then another car came, and men with cameras got out of it, and then there was an especially big car, and three rather big men got out of it. They did not run to the steps, but went with heavy dignity and, in spite of the thick carpeting on the stairs outside, Mr. North could hear them plodding up to the top of the house. But after a very little time he heard them plodding down again and they got in their car and drove away.

  “I guess they didn’t like it,” Mr. North said. “Maybe it isn’t b
ig enough for them.”

  Then two taxicabs came up, almost at once, and young men jumped out of them. The young men had cards stuck in their hats. “Reporters,” Mr. North said. The reporters stopped suddenly after they had run up the outside stairs, and the Norths, with the windows open, could hear them arguing with policemen in the vestibule. “What the hell,” they heard one of the reporters say. “What’s going on here?” It seemed to be the question of the day. Then there was a knock at the door of their apartment. Mr. North went and let in Lieutenant Weigand, and another man in ordinary clothes. The other man looked precisely as a police detective ought to look—he had a square face and a square torso, and Mr. North decided he was an inspector; perhaps even a deputy chief inspector.

  “Now,” said Weigand, “I’d like to have you tell me about it. This is Mullins—Detective Mullins. Take your hat off, Mullins.” Mullins took his hat off and said, “O.K., Loot.”

  “We may as well sit down,” Mr. North said. “Although we don’t know much. He’s dead, of course?”

  “Very dead,” Weigand said. “Quite a little while he’s been dead. And you found him. Right?”

  “We both found him,” Mrs. North said. “It was dreadful.” For a moment her face changed, as she remembered how dreadful it was.

  “Yes,” said Weigand. “Right. So you both found him. And how was that?”

  “Well,” said Mrs. North, before Mr. North could say anything, “it was because of the party, really. I was just showing Jerry about the party and we wanted to see if the bathroom was clean.”

  “The party?” Weigand said. “Yes, I see. What party?” He looked a little puzzled and confused.

  “The party we are going to have up there,” Mrs. North said; “only now we won’t, of course. Would you?”

  “No,” said Weigand, “I guess not. Why have a party up there, though? Why not here? I don’t think I get it, entirely, Mrs. North. It is Mrs. North?”

  “This is Lieutenant Weigand, Pam,” Mr. North said. “He’s from the Homicide Bureau. This is my wife, Lieutenant.”

  “Right,” said the lieutenant, and Mrs. North said, “How do you do?” and, “Why don’t we sit down?” Everybody sat down but Detective Mullins.

  “Sit down, Mullins,” the lieutenant said, and Mullins said, “O.K., Loot,” and sat down. It was evident that he was not a deputy chief inspector.

  “Now,” said Weigand, “let’s see if I’ve got this right. You, Mrs. North, planned to give a party in the vacant apartment upstairs, and so this afternoon you and your husband went up to look at it, just—just why, Mrs. North?”

  “To see how it looked,” Mrs. North said. “Why?”

  Weigand looked puzzled and a little alarmed, and evidently before he noticed it said, “What?” Mr. North observed the spread of Mrs. North’s influence, and felt that things would probably be all right.

  “I wanted to show Jerry where we were going to put things,” Mrs. North said. “I decided yesterday, but he wanted to see, too. Didn’t you, Jerry?”

  “No,” said Mr. North, “but it was all right. At first, anyway.”

  “Well,” said Mrs. North, “I didn’t know about that, of course. It wasn’t there yesterday, and you don’t expect them to be. Certainly not in bathtubs.”

  “Listen!” said Weigand. “Let’s get this straight. Right?”

  Both the Norths stopped and looked at him, for a moment honestly puzzled. Then they both laughed.

  “I’m sorry,” Mr. North said. “We get to talking. Pam was up there yesterday, and there wasn’t any body then. That’s all.”

  But Lieutenant Weigand was suddenly very interested, and there was nothing puzzled or doubtful in his expression as he looked at Mrs. North. He took a cigarette from a pack as he looked, and lighted it before he said anything.

  “What’s this about yesterday?” he said, then. “You were up there yesterday, too? Both of you?”

  “No,” said Mrs. North; “I was up there.”

  “And there wasn’t any body?”

  “Not when I was up there,” Mrs. North said. “At least, I don’t think—” She paused, and thought. Slowly her face changed, and there was something like fear in her expression, or perhaps, Mr. North thought, more a shrinking from something unpleasant than fear. “I don’t know,” Mrs. North said. “I didn’t look in the bathroom, I don’t think. Just in the other rooms. And the bathroom door was closed, so perhaps—” There was no doubt about the look, now. “I’m glad I didn’t,” she said. “Not alone.”

  “Look,” said Mr. North, “when was it—when was he killed?”

  “He was killed yesterday,” Weigand said. “Sometime between noon and six in the evening, for a guess.” He paused. “Somebody hit him hard on the head,” the detective went on, slowly and clearly. “With some flat, heavy object. And crushed the skull.”

  Weigand looked at the Norths, neither of whom said anything. Mrs. North looked a little pale.

  “He had a thin skull, probably,” the detective said, “and it simply caved—caved inside, but hardly broke the skin. That’s why there wasn’t much blood. Then whoever did it beat the face.”

  Mr. North nodded. He remembered.

  “Well,” said Weigand, “there it is. Yesterday afternoon, sometime, and probably a blow to stun and then several more blows. And no struggle, so he wasn’t expecting it. And now, Mrs. North, about yesterday—I think you’d better tell me all about yesterday. Just to get things straight. Right?”

  “Everything?” said Mrs. North. “About threading the needle and Pete?”

  Both Weigand and Mr. North looked at her, speculatively; Mr. North thought how accurately the detective’s expression pictured his own feelings.

  “Well,” said Weigand, “of course I can’t tell until I hear it. I only want what is pertinent, but perhaps you’d better start everything, anyway, and I’ll stop you if it doesn’t seem important. Right?”

  “Do you always say ‘Right’?” Mrs. North inquired, with interest. Weigand got a little red, and then he smiled. “All right,” he said. “Habit. Now, as to yesterday—”

  Mrs. North said she had got up late, rather, and had had breakfast—“with an egg, because it was Monday,” Mrs. North said—and then had had to do some mending, which took a large part of the morning.

  “That was because of the needle,” she said. “I had an awful time threading it. It’s the eye, you know. Smaller, or something. So it always splits, or just peeks through and I can’t catch it.”

  She paused and looked at the detective inquiringly.

  “All right, kid, be yourself,” Mr. North said, and Weigand looked at him with enhanced friendliness. So Mrs. North had had lunch, rather late, and begun to think about having a party. Then she had thought about the vacant apartment on the top floor and had asked Mrs. Buano—there was a moment’s pause, while Mrs. Buano was identified for Weigand—if she might use it. Then she had gone out for cigarettes and a newspaper and then, about three o’clock, she thought, had gone up to look at the apartment. She had looked at it and come down again and—

  “Now,” said Weigand, “let’s go into that Right?”

  Mrs. North looked interested.

  “Tell me about the apartment,” Weigand said. “Everything you remember.”

  Mrs. North said it was, then, much as it was today, and that Mr. Weigand had, after all, just come down from it. There was a big room in front, she said, and then a narrow hall, with the bathroom opening off it. The thought of the bathroom sobered her and she became suddenly concise. “But you’ve seen that,” she said. “It was hot and dusty, yesterday, and I thought of opening a window, but I decided it wasn’t worth it and—” Then she stopped suddenly. “There was a window open today,” she said. “Open when we went in.”

  “Yes,” said Weigand. “Neither of you opened it. Right?”

  They shook their heads.

  “And—?” Weigand prompted.

  But there was, it seemed, nothing more. Mrs. North had
looked at the two big rooms, mentally placing a table to serve as a bar, and the radio; mentally decorating the room with paper from Dennison’s. Then she had come down. That was all.

  “Yes—?” said Weigand.

  Then nothing else had happened, except that Pete had got lost.

  “Pete?” Weigand said.

  Both the Norths said, together: “Pete!”

  And, after a dignified pause, Pete came out, waving his black tail. He was, Weigand agreed, a very handsome cat, with his black back and white—er—

  “Chest and belly,” Mrs. North said. “Yes.” She looked at him. “Wash yourself, cat,” she said. Pete looked at her and stretched. Mrs. North said he seemed to have got dusty somewhere, while he was lost. The lieutenant was more interested than Mr. North had expected in Pete, and wanted to know about his being lost.

  He was lost, but only for a little while, after she had come down from upstairs the afternoon before, Mrs. North said—she thought she had come down about a quarter after three. She had seen Pete when she came down, but after about half an hour she called him and he had not come. Then she had looked all over and found he wasn’t in the apartment, and realized he had gone out the window onto the roof.

  “The roof?” Weigand said, Mr. North, realizing that it would save time, and probably confusion, took him to the rear windows in the living room and showed him the roof. The roof resulted, Mr. North explained, from another of Mrs. Buano’s improvements.

  She had extended the house at the rear to make room for a kitchen and an extra bedroom. The flat roof of this made a porch outside the Norths’ windows. On it, the iron fire-stairs ended; from it an iron fire-ladder ran down the extension wall to the ground. Pete often went onto the roof, for the sun, and the Norths had frequently thought of making it into a terrace for summer, but never had.

  “He goes out,” Mrs. North said, “and then sometimes he goes on up the fire-escape and sits on the landing or even jumps to windows. The Nelsons often let him in.”

  “The Nelsons, yes,” Weigand said. “The floor above, aren’t they? And they’ve been in California for a month. Right?”