Stairway to Murder, page 1
Stairway to Murder
A Detective Joe Ezell Mystery
Book Two
by
Phoebe Conn
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ISBN: 978-1-61417-908-5
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Table of Contents
Cover
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Meet the Author
Chapter 1
Los Angeles
Summer, 1947
Monday morning, Joe Ezell started up the stairs to his second floor office carrying a copy of The Los Angeles Times. Focused on the headlines, when he slipped, he fell hard, hit his chin on a step and actually did see stars the way cartoon characters do. He sat where he'd fallen to gather himself. Feeling like a clumsy fool, he wiped his chin on his handkerchief, but the blood on the stairs wasn't his.
Cleotis Cotton, the custodian of the building, entered right after Joe had fallen. "Oh my goodness, Mr. Ezell, let me help you up. Do we need to call an ambulance?" He picked up Joe as easily as he would a bag of groceries, and set him on his feet at the bottom of the stars.
Joe took a deep breath to clear his head. His chin hurt like hell, and he felt thoroughly rattled, but he'd not complain. "No, CC, I'm fine. But something is definitely wrong at the top of the stairs."
Cleotis followed Joe's glance and took a quick backward hop. "Oh my Lord, there's blood dripping halfway down the steps. Does a body hold much more than that?"
"No detective worthy of the name faints at the sight of blood, so I'll go up and investigate. You wait right here and if this is as awful as it looks, go into the drug store and call the police."
"Yes, sir, I'll wait right here."
Joe avoided the blood-spattered steps as he went up, this time with a firm grip on the brass railing bolted to the wall. He needed to go up only halfway to see the woman sprawled on the landing. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear, and he was terribly afraid she was his 9:00 o'clock appointment.
"Call the police, CC," he called, "a woman has been murdered."
CC bolted out the door without asking if she was anyone they knew. Joe stood frozen on the stairs. He had met Georgia Dixon only once, when he'd picked up his girlfriend, Mary Margaret McBride, at the VA hospital in West Los Angeles where both worked as nurses. He recognized her now from her curly brown hair. She'd kept it in a coiled bun for work, but going out the door at the end of the day she'd shaken out the tight curls and let them bounce upon her shoulders.
They had spoken briefly when Mary Margaret had introduced him, but he remembered her when she'd called to make an appointment. Unfortunately, she'd not revealed the cause of her concern, but clearly someone had not wanted her to see him that morning. She lay with her arms flung wide and her legs crumpled beneath her. Her black handbag had fallen open and the contents were spilled near her feet.
Rather than be accused of tampering with evidence, Joe left the purse untouched, and took great care to retrace his steps to the bottom of the stairs and sat down. He rested his head in his hands, and took in great gulps of air. He'd opened Discreet Investigations as soon as he'd passed the test for a private investigator's license. He'd studied the subject and felt fully qualified to follow men cheating on their wives, and vice versa, or perhaps catch an office thief or a clerk pilfering from the till, but murder, with one notable exception, was way beyond his realm of experience.
Max Broderick, a dentist with an office across the hall from Joe's, pushed through the heavy door at the entrance of the building and came to an abrupt halt. "What's wrong, Joe, are you ill?"
Joe looked up and nodded toward the gruesome evidence trickling down the stairs. "A young woman's been murdered. The police have been called, and you better stay right where you are. Believe me, you don't want to see her."
"My god! A murder in our building?" Max gasped. A man in his fifties with thinning hair and thick glasses, he hadn't served in World War II and had no experience with dead bodies. His knees felt weak, and he leaned against the wall. "My patients are all scheduled for the afternoon, do you think the police will have cleared the scene by then?"
As always, Max was meticulously dressed, the handkerchief in the breast pocket of his gray suit matched his tie. He wore handsomely-tailored suits to his office even though he'd slip off his jacket and wear a short white coat to see patients. He seemed to be a nice enough fellow, and they often exchanged hellos in the morning, but neither had been inclined to linger for a full conversation.
"You'll probably have to re-schedule today's appointments," Joe advised. "The police aim to be thorough rather than fast."
"I could go up the back stairs to reach my office," Max replied.
"Better wait. If the police find you upstairs, they might suspect you know more than you actually do."
"Oh right. I'll stay right here then. Maybe I'll go into the drugstore and get a cup of coffee at the counter."
Joe nodded. "Go right ahead."
CC held the door for Max as he went out. "The police said they'd be right here. I told them we'd come into work and found a gruesome murder. That's the word, isn't it?"
"It's gruesome, all right." Joe wondered if Mary Margaret knew why Georgia had wanted to see him. If so, he hoped it wouldn't put the woman he loved in grave danger.
* * *
Jacob Lynch had been a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department long enough to have seen all types of grisly murder scenes, but when death involved such an attractive young woman, he considered it doubly tragic. "Do you know her?" he asked Joe.
Joe stood beside him on the second floor landing, carefully avoiding the blood pooled beneath the victim's head. "I believe she's Georgia Dixon, my 9:00 o'clock appointment, but I didn't check her purse for identification."
"Thanks for having the sense not to disturb her things," Lynch replied. "It's a rare trait." He bent down to pick up a brown leather wallet by her handbag. "You're right. Georgia Dixon. Looks like she works at the VA Hospital, or at least she did. Are you the dentist listed on the building directory?"
"No, that's Max Broderick, he's in the drug store. I'm Joe Ezell, a private detective, and I own Discreet Investigations."
Lynch rolled his eyes. "Wonderful, just what we need. Were you late getting into work?"
"No, I open the office at 9:00 o'clock and arrived a few minutes early. I didn't meet anyone as I came into the building, but there is a back entrance. It's meant more for use as a fire escape route than for general foot traffic."
The police photographer came up the stairs carrying his 4x5 Speed Graphic camera and a satchel of flashbulbs. He took a half-dozen photos of the crime scene and left after a nod to Detective Lynch.
"I'd hate to have his job," Joe murmured. "Do you suppose he can shake the nightmares his day brings?"
"I doubt it," Lynch responded. He walked down the hallway to check the restroom and went down the stairs to the backdoor. When he came back up, he spoke to CC who stood waiting at the bottom of the front stairs. "Do you always keep the building this clean, or were you expecting trouble?"
"No, sir, we never have any trouble here," CC replied. "I keep everything neat as a pin every day. Today was nothing special."
"What time did you get here?" Lynch asked. He had a small notebook in his hand and jotted a few brief notes.
"I leave everything ready to go for the next day before I leave at 6:00 o'clock in the evening. I come in around nine, just like Mr. Ezell."
"Who locks and unlocks the building?"
"That would be Dr. Raymond," CC responded. "He's the pharmacist in the drugstore downstairs, and he owns the building. He's here early to open the drugstore around 8:00 o'clock and closes up at 8:00 o'clock at night. I only have the master key to the offices."
"What happens if a tenant wants to stay late? Do you have a building key, Mr. Ezell?"
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Detective Lynch pursed his lips. "There's an accountant listed on the directory, where is he? Have you seen him this morning?"
"That would be Mr. Bennett," CC answered. "He works long hours at tax time, and vacations most of the summer. He'll be back around the time school starts again in the fall."
"All right, so Miss Dixon enters the building early for her nine o'clock appointment and someone either follows her in or was here lying in wait," Lynch summarized aloud. "If the building had been open since 8:00 o'clock this morning, he would have had plenty of time to arrive before her."
"It's more likely he followed her," Joe interjected. "She mentioned needing to speak with me concerning a private matter. I doubt she would have told anyone she was coming here."
"Clearly someone knew," Lynch countered, "or she could have been a victim of a random killing and just been in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"How likely is that?" Joe asked. He couldn't bear to look at Georgia's body as they talked, and he dreaded having to tell Mary Margaret what had happened to her friend. "Wouldn't the killer have been drenched in her blood? How could he have left the building wearing bloody clothes and not been noticed?"
"Not if he came from behind, grabbed her hair, and slashed her neck in a single stroke," Lynch replied. "There's a blood spray across the wall. It would have missed him. He could have run down the back stairs and been gone before she took her last breath. Go downstairs, and wait in the drug store," the detective directed. "A forensic team will come in to gather evidence, and you shouldn't be in their way."
"Right," Joe replied. He went down the stairs with a careful hold on the rail and avoided stepping in the gore. "Come on, CC, let's get a cup of coffee."
"I could sure use one, Mr. Ezell, maybe two."
"It's on me," Joe added and they left the scene to the police. It bothered him that Lynch had opened the restroom door and smeared whatever fingerprints the killer might have left on the brass doorknob. It struck him as sloppy police work, but he'd keep his opinion to himself.
* * *
Joe had work planned for the day, but after such a ghastly morning, he was in no mood to follow errant husbands and went to his favorite driving range to hit a bucket of balls. There was something enormously satisfying in swinging his driver and watching the small white ball fly into the sky. He'd been working on distance, and had gained a couple of yards in the last month.
When he could no longer put it off, he drove to the VA hospital to wait for Mary Margaret. She was little and cute with curly bright red hair that made her easy to spot when she exited the building along with the others on her shift. He waved so she'd be sure to see him, and she greeted him with a delighted smile.
She reached up to kiss him. "I didn't expect to see you today. Did we have something planned?"
He took her hand as they walked to his car. "I felt like driving you home. I'm afraid I have some awful news, but I'd rather wait until we reach your place to share it."
She climbed into his Chevrolet sedan and smoothed her white uniform skirt to get more comfortable. "That sounds ominous. Won't you give me a hint?"
He shook his head. She rented a place close to work and they were there within minutes. The Spanish style building had a sparkling white exterior and a red tile roof. Bougainvillea in a vivid magenta gave the façade a shot of color. He parked at the curb and went around the car to open her door. She had one of the front apartments on the second floor and stopped to open her compartment in the brass mailbox with a tiny key she kept on her key ring.
There hadn't been any keys among the items that had spilled from Georgia's purse, and Joe was disgusted with himself for not noticing. If whomever had killed her had taken her keys, he would have had time to search her home long before the police arrived. He had Detective Lynch's card, but from what he'd seen, the man wouldn't welcome questions from the public.
The stairs to the second floor apartments were located in the courtyard of the U shaped building. Joe and Mary Margaret often teased each other as they ran up the steps, but that afternoon, he could barely find a smile and his steps were slow.
Mary Margaret unlocked her door, went inside and tossed her purse and keys on the table in the entryway. She went on into the kitchen. "Do you want something to drink?" she called.
"No, thanks," Joe replied. He walked into the living room and gazed out the front windows. He'd practiced what he'd wanted to say, but going over it again in his mind, it sounded stilted and unfeeling.
Mary Margaret carried in a glass of water, sat down on the sofa and bent over to untie her thick-soled white shoes. She kicked them off, wiggled her toes and looked up at him. "Well, we're here, now what is it you wanted to say?"
He turned toward her and jammed his hands into his pants pockets. "Georgia Dixon made an appointment with me for this morning. Did she tell you why she needed a private investigator?"
"No, but didn't she tell you when you saw her?"
"I found her dead in the hallway outside my office."
"What?" Her green eyes widened and then flooded with tears. "She just dropped dead in the hallway?"
He shook his head. "Someone cut her throat."
Mary Margaret made a dash for the bathroom, and he could hear her vomiting into the toilet. He took a long drink of her water and went back to the windows. He feared he'd done that poorly, but there was no way to soften the blow or undo it now.
She came back to the sofa with a box of tissues in her hand. "She was one of my dearest friends."
"I'm so sorry." He came and sat beside her and pulled her into his arms. He let her cry until her sobs turned into hiccups. "Do you know of anyone who might have wanted her dead? A jealous boyfriend, someone at the hospital, anyone?"
She cuddled against his shoulder. "Georgia thought Dr. Felberg was an ass, but he wouldn't have killed her. At least I don't think he would."
"What was it about him that Georgia disliked?"
"She thought, no, we all thought, that he discharged his patients too soon. He'd send them home with a prescription for painkillers and sign off on their charts. He appears to be totally lacking in the compassion a physician should possess."
"Anyone else come to mind?"
Mary Margaret sniffed loudly. "Georgia didn't get along with Gertrude Howland, the head nurse on our floor. Gertrude has been with the VA forever, maybe since the Civil War, and she criticized Georgia for flirting with her patients."
"Did she?"
"Yes, but they loved it. A young man who's lost an arm or a leg needs to believe he's still attractive to women. Georgia regarded flirting as a type of therapy to help her patients regain their confidence and heal faster."
Joe rested his chin atop her curls, and a burst of pain made him quickly pull back. Mary Margaret didn't notice. "Could any of the soldiers discharged early have believed Georgia was offering more than she meant to?"
"It's possible I suppose. She's been working Saturdays at Curtis Mooney's home in Hancock Park. He's a sweet guy, but had a head injury and has trouble coping on his own."
"Who looks after him during the week?"
"It's his brother's home, and there's a staff that sees to whatever he needs. The family was grateful to Georgia for her kindness to Curtis. Someone will have to tell him Georgia is dead, and it will break his heart."
Joe drew in a deep breath. He wondered if Detective Lynch would speak to the Mooney family, and thought probably not. "Was Georgia seeing anyone?"
"Not that I know of. She told me how lucky I was to have met you, by the way."
"I'm the lucky one," he countered.
"True, but Georgia still envied me. She never mentioned any living relatives, but her friends will have to be told. No one from the police came to the hospital. Do you suppose they will tomorrow?"
"Maybe."
She sat back and finally noticed the bruise on his chin. "What happened to you? Were you in a fight?"
