The Dishonest Murderer Page 9

  The cats followed Pam out of the bedroom and followed her back in again. “The papers,” Pam said, and presented the Times and the Herald Tribune. “Scrambled all right?”

  “Fine,” Jerry said.

  Pam went out again, accompanied by the cats.

  Both newspapers were, as Bill Weigand had predicted, happy over the murder. The Herald Tribune gave it the right hand column of Page One; the Times, more austere, confined it to the left hand column, across the journalistic railroad tracks. But the Times gave it more space.

  For a column or so, the Times, which Jerry dutifully read first, told him little he did not know about Senator Bruce Kirkhill’s death. (“Under suspicious circumstances,” the Times said in its long opening sentence. The understatement, Jerry felt, did the Times immense credit.) The Times gave the facts; then it began to puzzle over them. The police, the Times reported, with a suggestion of disapproval, could not explain why the senator “known for his immaculate dress” had put on such old clothes to be killed in, had found such an inferior doorway to die in. Various explanations had been offered, the Times said, not saying by whom. (By various members of the Times’s city staff, Jerry suspected.) For one thing, the Times told its readers, Senator Kirkhill had long been known for his activity in favor of public housing and slum clearance. It was possible that he had, for reasons of his own, been making a personal investigation of slum conditions and had dressed as he had so as to be able to move in lower East Side areas without attracting undue attention. Presumably, he had been killed, unintentionally, by someone whose purpose was theft. The Times seemed, with puzzled reservations, to prefer this theory, but did not limit itself to it.

  “Although a liberal,” the Times said, “Senator Kirkhill was an outspoken opponent of communism and the possibility that communist sympathizers may have been involved is being considered by the police.” (The copy desk, Jerry thought, should have cut the “although” with which the sentence began.)

  Under a separate headline, the Times ran a column and a half of obituary, and Jerry skimmed through it rapidly before he turned to the Herald Tribune.

  Kirkhill had been wealthy, inheriting a considerable fortune from his father, who had made it in oil; Kirkhill had spent his early maturity making money, also in oil; he seemed to have been precocious at it; he had apparently betrayed no interests less conventional. He had married in 1927, when he was twenty-three, had fathered a son who had died in infancy and a daughter, Celia, who was born in 1930. His wife had died in 1939.

  Early in 1942, Kirkhill had sought, and obtained, a commission in the Army, going in as a captain—and, apparently, as a specialist in oil. He had spent most of his time in Washington, but he had traveled widely, and hazardously, on missions. (Presumably, although the Times did not specify, connected with oil.) He had been in a transport plane which crashed on a Pacific island; he had survived—apparently by tenacity and physical stamina—where a number of other men had died.

  He had left the Army, a lieutenant colonel, in the fall of 1945 and, reading between the factual lines, one could guess he came out a different man, with different interests. He did not return to business, to the making of money. He went into politics, and not to defend the concepts normally dear to the interests of a man of wealth. His advocacy of public housing was an example of this variance from the norm. His even more determined support of a vast middle-western flood control and power project was another. “He became, in his few years of public life, widely known as a progressive of the type once so common in the American west,” the Times biographer remarked, with the air of one writing history. “But he was one of the first to recognize, and to combat, the rising menace of communism.” (This time, Jerry took the conjunction in his stride.)

  Kirkhill had been appointed to the Senate by the governor of his State to fill out the unexpired term of an elderly and docile gentleman who had succumbed to the pressures of government and the advance of years. Kirkhill had been prominent for a freshman senator; the spring before he had received his party’s nomination for the Senate, and, two months before his death, he had been elected. He was survived by a daughter, Celia, and a brother, George.

  Already, the Times had found many persons of importance, chiefly in politics, to lament this untimely taking off in carefully chosen words. Members of the senator’s own party were eloquent, no doubt sincere; members of the opposition party, appropriately more restrained, nevertheless had words of praise. Men associated with him in his business career lamented his passing; even his enemies, now that he could no longer trouble them, were sorrowed by his death. (“He was a determined fighter for what he believed in and a splendid American. Although we many times disagreed, I feel that the whole country is the loser by his death.”—Julian Grainger, director of the Utilities Institute.)

  The Herald Tribune, in a somewhat more sprightly fashion, provided most of the same facts. It, also, said there were many theories to explain the central and most mysterious circumstances of the senator’s death—why he was where he was, dressed as he was. Amnesia was always possible, the Herald Tribune pointed out. A side story from Washington reported that Senator Kirkhill had, in recent weeks, been under unusual pressure and that he had visited a Washington hospital for a checkup, leaving the reader to find what he liked between the lines. The senator’s notorious antipathy to communism was noted, as was also the indignation which his advocacy of the Valley Authority had aroused among “many prominent business men.” The Herald Tribune, Jerry North noticed, had missed the one about slum clearance.

  Jerry North got up, showered in a melancholy fashion, and dressed sufficiently. He went to Pam North and the cats. The cats were spokes in a wheel, their tails high; the hub of the wheel was a paper plate of ground round steak. The Norths also breakfasted. Pam discovered for herself the varied explanations of the two newspapers.

  “The Times thinks he was killed by a landlord,” Pam said. “Because he wanted to clear the slums.”

  “Look, Pam,” Jerry said, “the Times says—” He looked at her. “All right,” he said. “The Times thinks he was killed by a landlord.”

  The other morning papers, brought in by a bribed doorman, had other theories. The News, leaping at the story with unsuppressed delight, told its readers that, in spite of Senator Kirkhill’s liberalism, “amounting almost to socialism, in the minds of many qualified observers,” he had been “a target for attack by many former New Dealers in his own party.” (“I do think,” Pam North said, “that even the News might admit that President Roosevelt is dead.”) The News also, by means on which it was hard to put a mental finger, managed to hint that the senator had been on his way to an assignation. “Among relatives and friends questioned was a fashion model, whose lovely face and unforgettable figure are anonymously familiar to millions of readers of advertisements,” the News reported, licking its lips slightly, but steering wide of libel.

  The Mirror was more forthright about the possibility of an assignation, and worked in, with no difficulty at all, the suggestion of a “love nest.” Its writer, also, had identified Breese Burnley as a model, and noted that she had been “among those questioned.” But if it could not have a “love slaying,” the Mirror indicated its willingness to settle for a rampaging Red. “The F.B.I., cooperating with the police, is believed to be concentrating on this possibility,” the Mirror said, with firm confidence and the knowledge that “is believed” covers editorializing like a blanket.

  The Star, which had been PM, openly admitted its inability to guess how the senator had come to be where he was. “The circumstances are macabre,” it observed, “and the police have as yet no information to explain them.” But the Star did not fail to remind its readers of the violent opposition to the Valley Authority, “with which Senator Kirkhill’s name had become identified,” expressed by the “power interests.”

  “Particularly violent in his denunciation of the project as ‘socialistic’ and a menace to private enterprise has been Julian Grainger, di
rector of the Utilities Institute,” the Star said, and, a safe two paragraphs lower in the story: “Among those questioned by the police, in addition to Miss Celia Kirkhill and Mrs. Haven, was Curtis Grainger, a son of the utilities magnate, who is engaged to the senator’s daughter.”

  There was, as Pam North pointed out, plenty to choose from.

  “A landlord,” she said. “A communist. A New Dealer. This Mr. Grainger. Miss Burnley.”

  “And,” Jerry pointed out, “just somebody who wanted to roll him and got mixed up on the dosage of chloral hydrate. Or didn’t know that the senator had a weak heart.”

  “Or your admiral,” Pam said. “That’s what his daughter’s afraid of.” She poured more coffee. “And it is funny,” she said. “This strange man coming at that particular time. Get down, Sherry. I haven’t finished it myself.”

  Sherry did not get down. She purred, showing that she had heard, showing that she was still waiting for an egg cup, preferably containing egg.

  “Get down,” Jerry said. Sherry, considering this an affectionate greeting, turned quickly, putting her tail in the cream pitcher.

  “Well,” Pam said, “we’ve both had enough cream anyway.” She pushed Sherry off the table. Sherry landed partly on Gin. Gin bristled and spoke; then she jumped Sherry, who fled in mimic terror. There was the thudding of cat feet and a sound from the bedroom of something falling. Neither North paid particular attention.

  “It would be interesting to see the evening papers,” Pam said. “Only there aren’t any today, are there? They must be furious.”

  Jerry thought they probably were; a good Friday night murder which they could not touch until the first Monday editions would make any newspaper furious.

  “And the radio doesn’t really like murder,” Pam said. “Real murder, I mean. I mean—”

  Jerry said he knew what she meant.

  “So,” Pam said, finishing her coffee in a decisive manner, “what do we do about your admiral? Do we go see him and—and—” She stopped, looking at Jerry over her cup.

  “Tell him to stop?” Jerry suggested. “Tell him he’s worrying his daughter?”

  “You could always,” Pam said, “tell him this sort of thing will be very bad for his book. Tell him he’s undermining; that, as his publisher, you think he shouldn’t.”

  But Jerry North shook his head. He thought, he said, that they should do nothing, that there was nothing useful they could do. “Stay out of it,” he said. “Let sleeping murders lie.”

  “Your trouble, darling,” Pam said, “is that you’ve got a hangover. You take a dim view.” She, Jerry realized, was taking a bright view. Physiology, he thought, was unfair. “In an hour or two you’ll feel much better,” Pam told him. “Ready for anything.”

  “O.K., Mrs. Haven,” Mullins said. “I think that’s everything. O.K., Willie?” The last was to Blake, who had been taking notes. Freddie Haven looked at him involuntarily.

  “Yes, Mrs. Haven,” Blake said, “it’s William Blake. And—thank you for helping us.”

  She had been almost the last for this private questioning, and she had been able to tell them little. They had not asked much; probably, she thought, they had got what they wanted most from the others—from Howard Phipps, first; from Mrs. Burnley, who had known Bruce so long, had known him when he was married before, when Celia was a baby; from Breese who had known him—how well?—two years earlier, just before he and Freddie had begun to be so much together; from Curtis Grainger, who had hardly, so far as Freddie knew, really known Bruce Kirkhill at all, save as the father of the girl he wanted to marry. Celia had not been questioned; she had sat, while the others went into the small library off the living room, remained, returned, and had looked at nothing; had sat, Freddie felt, in a kind of shock, trying to understand a life in which her father would not be. They had been close; closer, Freddie thought now, than she had realized. Curtis Grainger had sat beside Celia, except during the brief period when the two sergeants, Mullins and Blake, were questioning him.

  Returning from his interrogation, Phipps had looked at her, shaken his head and shrugged. She could not be sure what he meant by that, except that the police were not, he thought, getting anywhere. He seemed, by his shrug, to disapprove of them. But he had not volunteered anything about the questions he had been asked. Fay Burnley had come back, in her turn, and had said, “I can’t think what they’re getting at,” and had then looked quickly at her daughter and said, “They want you now, darling.” Breese had said nothing, had gone, had returned and still said nothing, and had had no expression on her perfect face. Curtis Grainger had come back with his face somewhat reddened, as if he were angry. He had gone to Celia, and put his arm around her, and then, Freddie thought, the girl had seemed to relax a little.

  “If we could talk to you a moment now, Mrs. Haven?” Sergeant Blake said then, from the foyer. He let her pass him and followed her into the library, and closed the door behind him. But the big man named Mullins did most of the actual questioning. It was routine in nature, as routine, so far as she could see, as Sergeant Mullins assured her it was. She had known Bruce Kirkhill casually for several years, during the war, in Washington; she had run into Bruce there, when he was still in the Army. Only for a year and a half had she known him well, only for about six months had they thought of themselves as engaged. She did not know of anyone Bruce had considered his enemy.

  “Surely,” she said, “it must have been somebody in—in that part of town. Someone who robbed him.”

  “Could be,” Mullins said. “Sure it could be. We just have to consider everything, Mrs. Haven.” He smiled at her. “We’re just doing what the Loot wants done,” he said. “Probably won’t come to anything.”

  Her interview, at least, did not come to anything she could understand. Mullins was very polite; he was, in an odd way, almost consoling. And Blake had let sympathy appear openly in his sensitive face. It had been very tactful, and, long before she expected it, Mullins had said he thought that was everything. She had got up and started to leave the room.

  “Oh,” Mullins said. “Almost forgot. Something the lieutenant wanted me to ask. About this man Smiley.”

  She turned and shook her head.

  “O.K.,” Mullins said. “You don’t know him by name. The lieutenant realizes that. But he thought you might just have seen him around—in the building somewhere, maybe. He’s a kinduva soft, fat man. Fat face. Funny voice, like it was fat too. The lieutenant thought maybe—”

  She was ready, by then. She shook her head quickly. At once she wondered whether she had been too ready, had shaken her head too quickly. Should she have seemed to consider?

  But Mullins did not indicate that she had spoken with suspicious quickness, suspicious lack of consideration. He merely nodded, as to the expected thing, and said, again, “O.K., Mrs. Haven. The lieutenant just wanted to know.” He smiled then, candor apparent on his face, in his voice. “Between us,” he said, “the lieutenant would like to get something on Smiley, I guess. Get him off base.” Then Mullins looked at her more intently. “He’s not a man you’d want to know, Mrs. Haven,” he said. “This man Smiley isn’t.”

  “I don’t know him,” she said.

  Mullins said, “Sure.” He said, “O.K.” He went to open the door for her. He said, “Would you ask your father to come in for a couple of minutes, Mrs. Haven?”

  They had all still been in the living room when she returned, or afterward she remembered that they had. She had sought out her father with her eyes and had found that he was already looking at her. She told him “they” would like to talk to him, and watched him get up, tall and straight. Sometimes, she thought he seemed to be growing taller, straighter, as he grew older. She thought so now. He passed close to her. His face was abstracted. But he patted her shoulder as he passed her, and the touch seemed to be to reassure her. But why, unless he was himself uneasy, should he think she needed reassurance?

  Apparently the others had been asked to wait unti
l all had been questioned. And perhaps she should remain with them, as hostess. But they had gone beyond that, she thought, and she did not want to sit with the others, to be reminded by Celia’s drained face of the loss they shared, to be conscious of Fay Burnley’s so bright eyes. She wanted to get by herself so that she could try to understand what frightened her.

  She went to her own room. She tried to think things straight. Was she afraid her father had killed Bruce Kirkhill, or arranged for his murder? I’m not afraid of that, she told herself; I could never be afraid of that. He could never do that, and he had no reason. She corrected herself. I cannot think of any reason, she thought. He did not really like Bruce, did not want me to marry Bruce. But the dislike was impersonal; the admiral did not like, did not understand, “people like” Bruce. That could never have been a motive for murder. To protect her, to protect her from any man who might, in some fashion, appear to her father to endanger her, her father might do almost anything. Except hire murderers, she thought. “Enter two murderers.” Enter one—a private detective named Smiley. But his generalized disapproval of “people like” Bruce Kirkhill would not seem, even to her father, a basis for regarding them as dangerous.

  And yet—her father was involved in some fashion with Smiley, and he had denied it. That involvement concerned Bruce Kirkhill. It did not—it must not!—concern the murder of Bruce Kirkhill.

  And her father would not understand such people, but he would be sure he did understand him. People like Smiley were to be instructed, they were to do what they were told; when they had done what they were told they, as entities, disappeared. Things had been so all of Admiral Satterbee’s mature life. But things were not that way. He would not instruct Sergeant Mullins, Sergeant William Blake. Certainly, he would not be able to instruct Lieutenant Weigand. They would do what they thought appropriate, question or not question, reveal what they had discovered or keep it hidden, as they elected, or as their own superiors elected.