Death of Cecilia, page 4
When she had closed the door, she stood with her back to it, and made no attempt to hide the look of distaste on her face. “This is hardly the sort of place I’d have chosen to receive visitors,” she said, in a tone more of wry humour than embarrassment. I could have told her it wasn’t the sort of place to hold a bum’s convention. But I didn’t. She seemed a nice girl who was trying to lick something big enough to bury her.
Instead, I grinned and stared into her eyes. “The place looks all right from where I’m standing.”
She started to smile, and then the old wary expression came back and she asked abruptly, “What is it you want to know?”
“Whatever you can tell me about your former room-mate —where she went, what she did, the people she met, the sort of person she was—you know, the usual run of questions that have to be answered in an inquiry.”
“But I understood the whole thing was finished.” She moved away from the door and took up a position in front of me. “I attended the inquest, and it was found that Cecilia had committed suicide. Why should anyone have to ask questions now? Are you from the police?”
“No. I’ve merely been retained by Miss Parsons’ family to—” I had to be careful not to talk too much. “They’re not very happy about the verdict,” I ended.
“That’s a queer way of putting it,” she said. “Don’t they believe she took her own life?”
“Bluntly, no.” It’s always the same. Soon’s a woman is asked a question, she thinks it’s a free-for-all quiz session. “My job is to satisfy them that she not only could but did—if she did.”
Her eyes stared over my head for a while, and then they came back to my face. She seemed to be working out what it would cost her if she talked about her dead friend. “So you’re a detective,” she said at last.
“Better call me a private inquiry agent,” I suggested. “Most times I do plenty of inquiring but very little detecting.” With careful emphasis I added, “Some women are a bit scared of detectives anyway, so let’s not use the title.”
“This woman isn’t.” Her face had set in hard lines. “Nothing in pants can scare me—now. I’ve seen most everything a man can do.”
“Who was the man in Miss Parsons’ case?”
She studied the palm of one hand like she was trying to do a spot of fortune-telling, and her dark lashes veiled her eyes. A bracelet of little coloured ornaments on her wrist winked and glittered in the naked electric light above us. It was the only thing that relieved the plain simplicity of her close-fitting frock. Not that anything else was necessary—nature had provided her with all the adornment she needed.
“Supposing I knew,” she murmured, without raising her head, “what good would it do if I told you?”
“All right,” I said, “let’s suppose. In the circumstances, he had a first-class reason for wishing your friend out of the way, hadn’t he?”
She laughed—a cold, brittle laugh that matched the draught playing on the middle of my back. Something in her manner warned me that she was not like other women; Lorna Hill was a dame with a big, deep grudge. I hoped I’d never be the guy to earn her dislike.
“You sound like you’re talking about murder,” she said.
“Maybe I am.”
“Because Cecilia had got herself into a mess? “She shook her head. “If that’s an excuse for killing, then there’d be a lot of dead mothers-to-be, wouldn’t there?”
“We were only supposing,” I pointed out. “First, let’s have all the facts; afterwards we can decide what to do with them. So far we don’t even know that it was anything but suicide.”
“So far, you don’t even know anything at all,” she said. “Why should I help you to rake up a new smell? What’s it to me how she died?”
“She was your friend, wasn’t she?”
“Don’t make me laugh. Friend! “For the first time her face had come alive. She was angry and bitter, and behind it all, confused. “Two girls on the make in New York don’t know what friendship means—especially if they live together—and work together,” she added almost inaudibly.
“Is that where you first met her—The Golden Hourglass?” I asked carelessly.
“Yes. She hadn’t been there long when she started laying herself out to be nice to me. You could see she believed I was the sophisticated woman of the world, to be admired and copied.” Loma Hill laughed again, but it was a different laugh—faintly amused and almost tolerant. “The other girls said she had a crush on me, like high-school kids have for a favourite mistress. That’s what she behaved like—except she didn’t fetch me flowers.”
I stood listening to her even voice against the background of the gale buffeting on the rattling window. Only one-half of my mind was thinking about Cecilia Parsons; the other was wondering why Lorna Hill was sullen and frightened. I knew she’d never tell me, yet I felt it was important to find out.
“It was easy for me to feel sorry for her,” she went on. “She was the typical hay-seed—except for a calculating streak that I didn’t discover till later. And by then we were sharing my apartment. It took me months before I realised it, but she wasn’t at all what she seemed.” She stopped fiddling with her hands and gave me a long straight look. “In case you feel sorry for her—forget it. She knew what she wanted and she didn’t care a damn how she got it. Oh, I know the old ladies from Hopeville thought the sun, moon and stars revolved round her cute little head, but that’s not how she really was. She had looks and personality, and she soon learned that they had a market value in these parts. Soon’s she found her feet she decided to cash in on her only realisable assets; it was that, or an early train to North Carolina with her tail between her legs. And little Cecilia didn’t fancy Hopeville Women’s Guild saying—‘Local girl falls flat on her face in big city’; she had other ideas.”
It might have been an impartial assessment of Cecilia Parsons’ character, but I didn’t believe it. When I want an honest opinion about a man, I ask another man; when it’s about a woman—I still ask a man. Women don’t seem able to look on these things objectively. Somewhere between the Hopeville heroine worship, and Lorna Hill’s bitter analysis, lay the real Cecilia—frustrated, tempted, seizing the opportunity to lift herself out of the rut without thought for the consequences.
“You can’t blame her for wanting to make good,” I said. “It’s a human failing.”
“She stopped being human when she saw a chance of marrying into—” She bit her lip and turned away.
“Into ten million dollars,” I ended for her. “You’ve gone so far, you may as well give me it all.”
She played with her bangle and kept her head averted. In a muffled voice she said, “I’m the wrong person to ask anything about Cecilia. I tried to like her, but I could never manage it. I can’t even feel sorry for her now.”
“Supposing it wasn’t suicide.” I moved sideways to catch a glimpse of her face. “Don’t you want to see that the guy who did it gets what he deserves?”
“No.” She swung round on me and her eyes were hard. “I don’t know how I’d behave if I were trapped into wrecking my whole life. And that’s what she did—trapped him. The baby was all part of her plan. She was no innocent victim. What would you say if I told you she asked me months ago how the courts decided in paternity cases? Could doctors really prove who the father of the child was? Oh, she knew what she was doing. She found a sucker who fell for the bait, and I don’t blame him. She had all the things that turn a man’s head—and don’t think she didn’t know how to use them! Who am I to act as judge and jury? It wouldn’t take much for me to say that she deserved what she got.”
“Maybe you’re right. But I’ve a job to do. Ever see her and this guy Rowe together—I mean, outside The Golden Hourglass?”
She laughed shortly and shook back her hair. Then she came close to me and looked up into my face. “Not very subtle, my friend. I never mentioned Martin Rowe.”
The perfume from her set little fingers tickling up and down my back, and the curve of her breasts was distracting. I wondered if she were as aloof as she pretended to be.
With an effort I brought my eyes back to hers. “But you know him?” I asked.
“Sure, I know him—everybody in the club does.” She behaved suddenly as though we had known each other for a long time. “Any of the girls will tell you that he did a lot of hanging around the cash-desk. He was attracted by her like any young fellow would be when a come-hither female gives him the works. Why shouldn’t he have been? But you can’t charge him with murder because of that, can you?”
I had an uneasy feeling she was using double-talk, and Cecilia Parsons hadn’t been the only one who knew how to act the come-hither. The look in her eyes was unmistakable. But behind it, beneath the deep shining blue, lay a watchful awareness that was studying me and noting my strength and my weakness. She was laying down a barrage of sex to soften up my defences; if I fell for the red, parted lips, the warm intimate light in her eyes, and the delicately raised eyebrow, the rest would be a push-over.
Cecilia was bad; Martin Rowe was weak. She had changed her mind about talking—too darn quickly for my liking. If anyone* was hard and calculating it was Lorna Hill. Nobody had had any reason to suspect that she might have wanted to shut her friend’s mouth. If the suicide gag turned sour, it would be useful to have a fall-guy in the person of young Rowe nice and handy.
“I’d still like to know,” I said, “if you ever saw them out together.”
“Only once.” She was fiddling with her bracelet again. “I saw her get into his car when she left the club one night. She had told me that she would be staying over with Yvonne, the hat check girl, who was throwing a party. The bit about the party was true—Yvonne had invited me. But I found out next day on the quiet that Cecilia hadn’t turned up.” She paused and shrugged. “Maybe it was none of my business, but I don’t like my alleged friends to lie to me.”
“So you think she and Martin were like that?”
“What do you think? “Her expression was mocking. “You’re the detective and you’re quite a big boy. Still believe that babies grow on gooseberry bushes?”
There was no question about her attitude now. I was in her pocket; to tie me to her chariot wheels, she probably intended to let me steal a first-instalment kiss on my way out. I could be expected to shift the focus of my inquiries away from her, because you don’t get nothing for nothing—except nothing. And that’s the part that worried me—if she hadn’t killed her friend, what kind of secret was she trying to hide?
She must have misread my expression, because she stepped back and said hastily, “Look, I’m not suggesting anything more than that Martin Rowe did what any other guy would have done, given the right encouragement. That doesn’t mean he killed her. So far as I’m concerned, it was suicide, and it’ll be better all round to let it stay that way. I’ve said enough—more than enough. And I can’t stand here talking to you any longer. I’ll have to get ready now to go to work.”
I followed her to the door, and hesitated as I went into the hall. “If you think of anything that might be useful to me, you’ll let me know, won’t you?” I gave her my office address. “Whenever I’m out, the caretaker will give me a message. All you need to say is that you’d like me to call you.”
“There won’t be anything,” she said with an elusive smile, and she was standing closer to me than was strictly necessary. “But if there is, I’ll call you.” She leaned nearer and raised her eyes slowly to mine. For a long minute we exchanged signals that caused something of a flutter on either side. If I hadn’t been expecting the invitation, I’d have developed quite a blood-pressure. Instead, I put two fingers under her chin and tilted her head back. “What’s wrong with the bedroom?” I asked.
A mixture of surprise and anger crept over her face. “What do you mean? “She wasn’t sure enough of herself to push my hand away.
“My mistake,” I said. I patted her lightly on the cheek. “Just thought for a moment that you’d changed your mind about being in a hurry to get to work. Shows you how easy it is for a guy to get the wrong idea.”
“I’d prefer not to understand what you’re talking about.” Her colour had gone patchy, and her lips were tight. “Now you’ll have to excuse me. Good-bye.” If I hadn’t pulled my head back, I’d have got the door in my face. I heard the key turn in the lock as I went along the corridor.
Chapter Five
It was dark outside—a luminous darkness in which the black-and-white patchwork of snow-plastered walls caught and reflected the occasional street lamp. The wind had slackened for the first time in days, and the heavy flakes drifted down like falling leaves.
Farther along the street, light streamed from the window of a grocery store and laid a broad swathe of sparkling tinsel across the pavement. In the doorway where I stood, the blackness was almost complete. Distant traffic noises were muted by the carpet of snow underfoot, and I seemed to be alone in a world of near-silence.
Alone would have been all right, but I knew that someone on the opposite side was keeping me company. The glimmer of a cigarette pulsed regularly in and out from a doorway that was a dark hole in the dim face of the building wall on my left.
If he were waiting for me, he was careless. But he might have been keeping a date with his girl-friend; or taking the dog for a walk; or doing any one of the thousand things a guy is entitled to do in a free democracy, but would never dream of doing when it’s snowing like hell, and cold enough to inhibit the biological urge in both man and beast.
After a couple of minutes, the tiny red spark flickered outwards from the doorway in a long arc, and went out. In the reflected glow from the grocery store, a white face showed for a moment. I guessed he was taking a quick look, and I drew farther back into the darker shadow.
Another five minutes went by. The situation was becoming farcical. My feet were numb, and I had lost all feeling in my toes; my only consolation was that the guy on the other side must be in an even worse condition. If neither of us made a move, we’d be there until the spring thaw.
All the time, I was trying to work out what he’d do if I left the shelter of the doorway. What good would it do him to rub me out with a gun? That way, the police would put two and two together and reopen the Parsons case—which was the last thing my phone caller wanted. To keep me from further snooping, he had to dispose of me in a manner that would look like accident. Maybe I was gambling with my life, but that was the only logical conclusion I could reach. And there was one sure way of finding out.
My heart was playing hopscotch as I left the doorway in a hurried walk, and turned to the right. Imagination burned a hole between my shoulder-blades, and I was flinching in anticipation as I took the first few steps. If I had backed the wrong gee—it would be any second now. Nothing happened. Another ten yards, and still nothing.
The street was deserted. The sound of my own footsteps was no more than a soft crunching that must have been inaudible to the party who had been waiting for me—just as his would be inaudible to me. I bent my head against the swirling snow and hunched deeper into my collar as I plodded on.
At the next corner, the drift on the sidewalk had been beaten hard by the day-time queues at the bus stop. My shoes made crackling noises on the frozen ridges at the kerb. I crossed to the other side and kept my ears cocked for the tell-tale sounds that would have to be made by anyone following me.
And that was where I made a big mistake. I took it for granted that the guy on my tail would be behind me; the thought never entered my head that he could keep me in sight just as easily from the opposite sidewalk.
As I walked on, the silence behind me was unbroken. Ahead lay the main thoroughfare with the people and the light that spelled safety. The subway was only a few minutes away. A quick glance over my shoulder showed me an empty sidewalk, and I grinned at the imaginary fears that had dogged me since I had left Loma Hill’s apartment. The snow and the darkness had been playing tricks with me; I had conjured up a bogyman out of my own thoughts. By the time I reached the subway, I had dismissed the whole incident from my mind.
The platform was crowded, and I worked my way to the top end where the press of people was not so thick. Two girls beside me stamped their feet and grumbled at the weather. An old man with a lined, dirty face and a drip at the end of his nose, stood wheezing and coughing and beating his hands together. Half a dozen workmen in a tight little group talked baseball. The overhead electric sign said, “Next train is for Columbus Circle.” In the mouth of the tunnel, a red light changed to green.
More people streamed down the stairs and overflowed around us. I found myself jammed between the two girls and the old man near the edge of the platform. One of the girls said, “What’s your hurry, mister? You’ll have us under the train with your pushing.” Someone behind me apologised and another voice complained, “There’s a helluva lot of shovin’ goin’ on.”
A current of warm air blew out of the tunnel, and I heard the distant rumble of the train. Somebody’s elbow was in my back as the crowd surged closer. I shuffled a few inches forward and got my shoulders free. The second girl said, “Some guys think nobody else wants to get home. Take your time, fella.” And then the elbow was jammed in my back again; it felt like the person behind me wanted to push me off the edge of the platform.
With the idea came a terrifying realisation that I might have been taking too much for granted. What if someone had tailed me from Lorna Hill’s place? This was the kind of accident that would ensure that I’d probe no further into the mystery of Cecilia Parsons’ death—and no questions asked. A sudden jolt forward, a lot of shouting, a few hysterical women—and I’d rate a “stick” in the morning papers.
