Death of a Tall Man Read online

  “I know,” Grace Spencer said. She still spoke slowly. “I—I don’t think of anything now, Lieutenant. But—I do feel a little—uneasy.” She smiled faintly. “As if there might be something. But perhaps you’ve created that feeling.”

  Bill nodded. He said they didn’t want to. Only if there was something, they wanted that. If he were hurried, for example—He broke off, because there was something in Grace Spencer’s eyes. She spoke quickly enough when his words stopped.

  “Oh,” she said. “I think he was hurried. He—he moved as if he were in a hurry. I do remember that. As if he were late to an appointment.” Then she stopped and her eyes grew wide. Because, it was clear, the thought that he had had an appointment came into her mind. An appointment with death.

  Bill Weigand brought her back.

  “Does that—that memory he was hurrying—satisfy you?” he said. “I mean, is that what made you feel, as you called it, ‘uneasy’?”

  She hesitated a moment. She did not look, Pam thought, entirely satisfied.

  “It must have been,” she said.

  Weigand thanked her again. He hesitated; said she could go home now, if she cared to. She nodded acceptance of the permission and walked, straight, held-in, back toward the lab. Weigand turned to Nickerson Smith.

  It took only a few minutes to get the essentials. He was Dan Gordon’s uncle; he was the brother of Dr. Gordon’s first wife. He had an office three floors up in the same building; he was an agent for a physicians’ supply company. He had been in his office when Grace Spencer had called him, a few minutes after three, and he had come down at once, on the chance there might be something he could do.

  “Not that there was,” he said. “But I was the nearest relative.” He smiled faintly. “I mean I was the closest,” he qualified. “In a physical sense.”

  He waited. It occurred to Weigand that he was, for practical purposes, disposed of. The next question was routine; Weigand prefaced it with an explanation that it was routine. It was something they asked everyone.

  “From the medical evidence,” he said, “your brother-in-law appears to have been killed between around twelve thirty—a few minutes earlier or later—and two o’clock. But since he was seen leaving the office at about ten minutes after one, we can narrow that a little. Naturally, we want to know where all the people who were—well, associated with him—were during that period. Make it from about one ten to two thirty, to be on the safe side.”

  Nickerson Smith nodded as Weigand spoke. He replied as soon as Weigand had finished. He was matter-of-fact about it.

  “I was in my office from one o’clock until Nurse—” He paused for the name. Weigand gave it to him. “Nurse Spencer called me,” he said. “For about fifteen minutes of that time—from one until say one fifteen, I was alone. Then my secretary came in. I don’t know whether she noticed what time it was, of course. And I didn’t. I’m guessing. But I’d say she came in about ten or fifteen minutes after one. She can assure you I was there the rest of the time.”

  He considered his own statement.

  “That seems to leave some five minutes unaccounted for,” he said. “Assuming the doctor went out at one ten and my girl came in at one fifteen. But—”

  Weigand nodded. The rest of the sentence could be taken as implied. If the doctor left at one ten; if Nickerson Smith was in his office three floors or so above at one fifteen, Nickerson Smith was out. Because he would have had to come down three floors, meet the doctor, persuade—or force—him to return to the office, walk back with him to the private office, kill him—and make sure he was dead—and retrace his steps. All of which, Weigand agreed with himself, couldn’t be done in five minutes. Fifteen would be more like it, and quick work at that. If his secretary agreed, Nickerson Smith was out of it.

  Weigand thanked him and thought that would be all. Smith got up, started across the reception room, hesitated and came back. When he came to speak, he hesitated again and then asked whether he could ask a question. Weigand nodded.

  “About the boy,” he said. “About Dan. I hope you don’t—I hope he isn’t—”

  “Under suspicion?” Bill said. “Of killing his own father? Why should he be, Mr. Smith?”

  “I’m glad,” Smith said. “He shouldn’t be, of course.” He looked at Bill Weigand then as if he had just heard something Weigand had said. “His own father?” Smith said. “But he wasn’t, of course. I supposed you knew.”

  “No,” Weigand said. “Obviously I didn’t.”

  “Stepfather,” Smith said. “My sister had been married before and he was her son. Not Andrew’s. He took Andrew’s name when he was old enough to decide.” He nodded, keeping it straight. “My sister was Andrew’s first wife, you know.”

  Weigand said he knew that.

  “And,” Smith said, “there’s no doubt the boy’s manner is—unfortunate. He can appear to be very violent. Not that he is, you understand. His own worst enemy, really. But meeting him for the first time—” His tone seemed rather anxious. “I can see how you might get an unfortunate impression, Lieutenant.”

  “Had he quarreled with his stepfather?” Weigand said. “Is that what you’re getting at?”

  “Oh, no,” Smith said. “Not actually. Dan was devoted to his father—really. It’s just that—”

  He stopped, and smiled. He spoke again in a tone of great frankness.

  “Put my foot in it, haven’t I?” he said. “Fond of the boy, you know. Hope I haven’t given you ideas.”

  Weigand shook his head. He assured Smith, inaccurately, that he had been given no ideas. He watched Smith go.

  “Ingenious,” Pam said. “Or is he?”

  Bill told her he could stand to know that one himself. He watched Smith close the office door behind him. Then Bill’s head summoned Stein. Stein was to get him Dan Gordon.

  “He’s with the girl,” Weigand said. It occurred to him that it would have been better, after all, to keep people separated.

  Stein went. He returned. He looked a little red. And he brought Deborah Brooks, not Dan Gordon.

  “He wasn’t with the girl,” Stein said. “She was by herself. She says he’s—gone.”

  There was action then, quick and, on Weigand’s part, angry. As she watched it begin, Deborah Brooks began to cry again.

  The action got nowhere. Dan Gordon was not in the office. And the patrolman who should have been outside the back door was in the men’s toilet. It was one of those things. Dan Gordon had, not knowing whether there was a guard outside the door, taken a chance. The patrolman had taken a chance. Dan’s luck was in; the patrolman’s was out. He would go to some dismal beat on Staten Island, or in distant Queens. And where Dan Gordon had gone was anybody’s guess. And why he had gone—

  Bill Weigand turned on the girl, then. He was not gentle or suave, any longer. His questions were crisp; his attitude was obvious. And Debbie Brooks put her head down on her desk and her answers were muffled in her arms, and by her sobs. He had just gone. She had tried to persuade him not to. She had told him it was dangerous, that it wouldn’t work. But he had gone, anyway.

  “How long ago?” Weigand said.

  Fifteen minutes. Twenty.

  “And you didn’t think of letting us know?” Weigand asked her, his voice unrelenting.

  The girl looked up then. She did not try to stop the flow of tears. She let tears run down her cheeks. She merely looked at Bill Weigand, and she did not need to answer him. Nor did he need an answer.

  “Of course you thought of it,” he said. “And you decided it would be better to cover up for him.” He gave her a chance to answer, and she did not take it. “You were a fool,” he said, flatly. “He couldn’t have done a worse thing. You couldn’t have done a worse thing than help him.”

  She put her head down on her arms again. Weigand looked at her a moment and spoke to Stein.

  “Have Barney take her home,” he said. “If he’s finished the sketch?” Stein nodded. “Right,” Weigand said. “S
ee she gets home.” He turned to the girl. “And stay there,” he directed. “If Gordon shows up, get in touch with us. Do you understand?”

  Her head moved on her arms. She understood.

  And she was as unlikely to get in touch with anybody if her Dan came back, as she was to shave off that softly waving brown hair, Bill told himself. Less likely. So that that would have to be taken care of. Humanity was frequently exasperating; particularly humanity in love.

  4

  MONDAY, 6:05 P.M. TO 8:35 P.M.

  Bill Weigand used the telephone on Deborah Brooks’s desk. She stood and listened to him, and now her eyes were dry and wide. Curtly, Weigand directed that an alarm be sent out for Dan Gordon, twenty-four years old, six feet or a little over, wearing a gray tweed suit with a discharge button in the left lapel, weighing about 160, thin face, brown hair and eyes. It was amazing, Pam North thought, listening to him, how much he had seen of Dan Gordon at what must have been little more than a glance.

  “Oh, yes,” Weigand added. “Face slightly asymmetrical. Noticeable particularly when he smiles. Smile goes up one side of his face a little. Right side I think—wait a minute.”

  He turned and looked at Deborah Brooks. His look demanded. Her voice was faint and frightened. But she said, “Yes.”

  “Right side,” Weigand confirmed. He listened then. “Probably not,” he agreed. “He won’t have anything to smile about. However—” He listened again. “Suspicion of homicide,” he said. He said it curtly. Deborah Brooks made a sound which was half a cry, half a spoken protest. “Right,” Weigand said, into the telephone, and put the telephone back in its cradle. He looked at Debbie.

  “What did you expect?” he said. He seemed really to wonder what she had expected. “He’s near the scene of a murder—at any rate, by your own story, he was in the building lobby downstairs at about a quarter to one. He could have waited until his—stepfather, is it?—came down. And he runs away while we’re getting ready to question him.”

  The girl was shaking her head and her eyes were frightened. She tried to speak, or seemed to try to speak, but again she made only a small sound which was not a word, but a little cry. She was very small, standing there, and very lonely, and Pam started to move toward her. But Bill shook his head at Pam and there was no mistaking what he meant. Pam stopped in her motion, and looked a little puzzled. It was not like Bill to be this way, she thought.

  . “And,” Weigand said, still in the dispassionate voice of a policeman, still without inflection, “and we’ll pick him up, Miss Brooks. Don’t think we won’t. Don’t think for a moment we won’t.” He stopped and looked at her. “Every policeman he meets will be after him, Miss Brooks,” he said. “Men he doesn’t know to be policemen will be after him. Wherever he goes—wherever he runs.”

  “He didn’t—” the girl began. Her voice choked. The effort she was making was clear; there was a kind of gallantry in the effort. “He didn’t run,” she said.

  Weigand caught her up.

  “He ran,” Weigand told her. “What would you call it?”

  It seemed easier for her to speak, now. She was pulling herself together under pressure.

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “It’s the way he is. He—he can’t just stay in one place and wait. It’s—it’s as if something was pushing him. Making him go. He can’t just stay and wait.” She looked at Bill Weigand anxiously, watching his face. “That’s all it is,” she said. “He just can’t.” She looked at Weigand again. “Please see,” she said.

  Weigand shook his head. He laughed shortly.

  “He ran,” he told her. “He ran from a murder investigation. People have one reason for doing that—one obvious reason.” He did not give her time to answer. “Barney!” he said, and he raised his voice. “Where the hell are you?”

  Barney Jones came to the door. Weigand barely looked at him.

  “I want this young woman taken—” he began. Then he did look at Detective Barney Jones. “Well?” Weigand said.

  “This,” Jones told him. “I was roughing out the plan at the desk in there and wanted a ruler. I opened the top drawer and—this. It looks to me, Loot, like—”

  Weigand interrupted him by holding out a hand. Carefully, Jones transferred the object he was holding, gingerly in a protective handkerchief, to the lieutenant’s waiting fingers. Bill looked at it. It was heavier than it looked, more substantial. It was a very solid chunk of glass, shaped into half a sphere. Obviously, it was a paperweight. It fitted neatly into the hand, curved side up. Bill Weigand balanced it in his hand, and then Pam, who was now very close, pointed.

  “It’s dirty,” she said. “I mean—it’s dulled, isn’t it? Greasy?”

  Bill Weigand looked at the curved surface. It was dulled. He raised it toward his nose and sniffed a moment and lowered it. He nodded slowly.

  “Perfume,” he said. “Sweetish.”

  Mullins spoke then. His voice was hurried.

  “Listen, Loot,” Mullins said, “the M.E. said there was something on the guy’s hair. The doctor’s.”

  “Yes, Mullins,” Weigand said. “Yes—he said that. He smelled it on his fingers.” He hesitated a moment. “The body’s gone?” he said. Mullins looked unhappy. He said the body was gone—out the back door.

  “Look,” Pam said, “let me.” She leaned close to the half-sphere in Weigand’s hand. She sniffed. She stood up and closed her eyes and remembered. “It is,” she said. “It’s the same. And you know I—”

  She stopped because Weigand’s smile finished the sentence. She resumed. “Well, I do,” she said. “Better than most people, anyway.” She challenged contradiction.

  “Right, Pam,” Bill said. “I know you do.”

  “Then this,” Pam said, and indicated the glass weight, “this is what he—somebody—used?”

  Weigand nodded slowly. But he did not seem entirely satisfied. He said he supposed it was.

  “Only,” he said, “why put it back in the drawer? Which drawer, Barney?” Barney told him the left-hand upper drawer. “Why?” Weigand said. “To hide it? But it wasn’t really hidden. Why?”

  Nobody had an answer for a moment, and then Pam had.

  “Maybe he was just neat,” she said. “A neat murderer.” Nobody replied to that. “Look,” Pam said, “while you think about it, Bill, I want to call Jerry. All right?”

  “In a minute,” Bill told her. He turned back to Barney Jones and held out the weight. “Wrap it up and take it along,” he said. “Technical lab. See if it is hair oil. And so forth. And take this young woman home on your way. See she gets home.” He looked at Debbie Brooks. Her eyes were wet again. “See that you stay there, Miss Brooks,” Bill told her, in a voice without sympathy.

  Barney Jones wrapped part of the Daily News around the glass paperweight, loosely. He got his hat from one of the chairs. He said, “All right, Miss Brooks,” and they went to the door together. Jones moved beside and a little behind her; he opened the door for her. His manner was protective. The door closed.

  “Bill!” Pam North said. Her voice was indignant. “You deliberately—you went out of your way to be tough. You wanted to scare her!”

  “Obviously,” Bill said. “Of course, my dear.”

  “But—” Pam began.

  “Because I want her to run,” Bill explained. “I want her to get scared and run. To her boy—to young Gordon. To warn him.”

  Pam looked at him and said, “Oh!”

  “And you’ll follow her,” she said. “You think she knows where he is?”

  “We’ll follow her,” Bill agreed. “I think there’s a good chance she can at least guess where he is. Better than we can.”

  “Oh,” Pam said again. She considered it. She shook her head.

  “I suppose it may work,” she said, “but I don’t think it’s very fair. Can I call Jerry, now?”

  She dialed. She said, “Hello, darling.” She listened. She said, “I know.” She listened again. She said she was sorry. She h
esitated.

  “Well,” she said, “actually it’s a murder. I just sort of—well, I was just walking past and—” She stopped, and she had the expression of somebody who has been interrupted. Bill listened, amused, to the sound of Jerry’s voice coming from the telephone. The words were not distinguishable; the tone was unmistakable.

  “I didn’t,” Pam said. “It isn’t fair to say I look for them. But I found I could get a taxi and so of course—”

  She was interrupted again.

  “No,” she said, “not exactly. It would be silly to tell a taxicab man to drive straight to the nearest murder. At least, I think it would.”

  The interruption was shorter this time.

  “Listen, dear,” Pam said, and her voice was firm. “It’s too long for the telephone. Bill will want to use it. It’s just as I said—I was passing by and there it was. So of course—” She was not interrupted. She let it die away. “And, Jerry,” she said, “I got you a new tie.” She listened. “Of course it isn’t,” she said, with some indignation. “There isn’t any blood on anything. Not even the body. It’s—it’s a very neat murder.”

  She listened again. Then she told him where she was. Then she listened. Then she said, “But, Jerry—” and then she hung up.

  “He’s coming,” she told Bill Weigand. “Jerry’s coming up to get me.” She smiled faintly, gently. “He says to take me home,” she added. There was the faintest possible emphasis on the word “says.”

  The telephone rang then. Bill picked it up. He said yes, this was Weigand. He listened.

  “Right,” he said. “We’re still here. Will be for some time yet.” He listened again. “Now’s as good a time as any,” he said. “Come along, Mr. Smith.”

  He cradled the telephone and looked at his watch.

  “Mr. Smith has decided there’s something we ought to know,” he said. “He’s been thinking things over. He’s coming down to tell us.”

  “What?” Pam said.

  Bill Weigand looked at Mullins, and Mullins looked back at him. They both seemed interested.