Thinning the Turkey Herd, page 6
part #4 of Jimmy Flannery Series
"Back in his hole, wherever that is. Taking a sleep somewhere in the walls. Who knows? The man sleeps by day and lives by night."
The elevator rumbles up the five floors. The door slides open. I hear these feet pounding nails into the linoleum in the hallway, the way cops walk.
In thirty seconds Francis O'Shea and Murray Rourke, fat and skinny, rough and smooth, tough and tender, are standing in the doorway looking Kropotkin and me over like they expect to see signs of cannibalism.
"You know, Flannery, I'm going to hire you out to my brother-in-law, Jackie Diversey," O'Shea says, rubbing his nose which is like a red pickle. "He tells me his undertaking business is a little slow and I never see a man collect dead bodies the way you do."
"I don't think it's funny a young woman's dead," I say.
"My God, butter wouldn't melt in your mouth, Flannery," O'Shea says as he walks past me toward the open door to the bedroom.
Rourke follows him, throwing a glance and a smile at me and saying, "How you doing, Jimmy? Was the door to the bedroom open when you came in?"
"No. I opened it."
"How come you opened it?" O'Shea says from the doorway.
"I was looking around."
"You was looking around by yourself or you was looking around with this person here?"
"My name is Hyman Kropotkin. I'm the owner of this building. Also I live down the hall," Kropotkin says, hot under the collar.
Rourke smiles and lifts up his hand with the palm out.
"No need to get upset, Mr. Kropotkin. We just want to know who's who and what's what. Where's the tenant lives in this apartment?"
"He's out of town."
"Well, see, like that. How come you're in this apartment when the tenant isn't at home? That could be breaking and entering."
"I got a key. I got permission," Kropotkin says.
The elevator starts to rumble going down.
O'Shea's all the way into the bedroom. He's standing by the bed looking down at the woman. Rourke has reached the doorway. Kropotkin's standing next to him. I'm still in the middle of the living room.
"You got the tenant's permission to go waltzing through his house when he's out?" Rourke says, in this pleasant way he's got that calls you a liar.
"I asked him to let me in," I say.
"How come is that, Jimmy?"
"Because I was looking for Joyce Lombardi."
"This Joyce Lombardi?" O'Shea sings out from beside the bed.
Kropotkin, who'd had a close look right after we found her, nods his head.
"The landlord says that's who it is," Rourke says.
"I didn't hear him."
"He's nodding his head."
The elevator's coming up.
Rourke steps out of the doorway to let O'Shea come back out.
"So you took a gander at the naked lady?" O'Shea says, making it sound nasty.
"Well, I had to see who was laying on Mr. Scanlan's bed, didn't I?" Kropotkin says.
"You had to see too, did you, Flannery?"
"I had to see was she dead."
"You satisfied yourself about that?"
"I had a close look."
"You have anything else? Like maybe a little feel?"
"For God's sake, Francis," Rourke says.
"Have a little decency," I say.
"There's a naked corpse in there with her legs wide open," O'Shea says, waving his thumb over his shoulder, turning red in the face, "and you two are getting delicate."
"It's what you're suggesting turns my stomach," Rourke says.
O'Shea spins around on his partner and says, "For Christ's sake, we know about worse than some crazy having it off with a dead body."
"You're talking to Jimmy Flannery," Rourke says. "Show a little sense, Francis."
Captain Pescaro comes walking through the door. "What's going on here?"
"Your detective here's got a filthy mind," Kropotkin says.
"Who are you?" Pescaro says, stepping up close to Kropotkin, standing toe to toe, staring him down even though he's got to bend his head back and look up. It's hard to intimidate a giant like Kropotkin by invading his space, but Pescaro makes it work.
Kropotkin mumbles who he is and backs off two feet.
Pescaro goes to the bedroom door. "You got an identification?"
"It's Joyce Lombardi," I say.
"How come you found her, Flannery?"
"We were just getting Flannery's testimony on that, Captain," O'Shea says.
"So?"
"Janet Canarias comes over to my place and asks me can I ask around about this friend of hers."
"That much I figured out by myself."
"I was over talking to Mr. Kropotkin last night. He ain't seen her since the day before. He told me a couple of people besides Janet Canarias, a man and a woman, was knocking on her door all day yesterday."
"Was the man her neighbor? The one who lives here?"
"No, the one who came around more than once was a stranger to Mr. Kropotkin. The man who lives in this apartment's a salesman and he's out on the road. That's all Mr. Kropotkin can tell me. When I walk down the elevator I pass this front door and I see light under it once. Later on I walk past and it's out. I figure it's on a timer to discourage thieves. When I get home I talk it over with Mary."
"How's Mary?" Rourke says.
O'Shea throws his partner a dirty look for interrupting my "testimony" that way. "Go on," he says.
"I wondered would somebody worry about timers in what's supposed to be a security building," I say.
"Supposed to be?" Kropotkin says, like I stepped on his toe.
"I got to tell you, Mr. Kropotkin, there's a lot of ways to get into this building and these apartments when you look around a little," I say. "Anyway, now it looks like maybe the killer was in here while we was chewing the fat."
He don't say anything about how maybe Willy Dink was my way in here and there, and neither do I. Don't ask me why Kropotkin don't blow the whistle on Willy Dink. My reason is that I don't want O'Shea and Pescaro yelling in his face after the little man did me the favor and let me into Joyce's flat. At least, not yet.
"Never mind all that," Pescaro says. "Just tell me why you got up out of your nice warm bed to come prowling around a building on Morgan."
"I couldn't sleep. I'm laying there in bed thinking that Joyce Lombardi arrives over to Janet Canarias' apartment around four o'clock in the afternoon, sets down her suitcase, turns on the tape deck, and then leaves. How come she leaves? Because she forgot something at her apartment here and comes back to get it?"
"What?" O'Shea says. "What does she come back for?"
"There's no hair dryer in her suitcase. Maybe she came back for that. Maybe that's her hair dryer around her neck."
ELEVEN
Fifteen minutes later we got a crowd. The boys from Forensics has arrived. They got me and Kropotkin crowded into the kitchen with O'Shea and Rourke after they do what they do to the counters and the cabinets and the glass on the counter. Pescaro's in the bedroom watching them take pictures, making sure they do the coverage.
When he comes into the kitchen I ask him does the medical examiner know what killed her.
"Strangled with the cord of that hair dryer." He gives me a long, hard look. "What the hell's everybody doing crowded in the kitchen? Is this a goddamn wake? Somebody pouring drinks?"
"Forensics told us to stay out of the way."
Pescaro sticks his head out of the kitchen door. "Hey! You through in the living room?"
"You can go in and sit you want to, but don't touch anything on the tables," somebody yells back.
"So, okay," Pescaro says, "let's go take a load off our feet."
We all go into the living room and sit down. I feel like I'm in the smoking room of a funeral home except nobody's smoking. The three cops are sitting there staring at their feet.
"No clothes," Pescaro says.
"What?" Kropotkin says as though he thinks the remark is directed exclusively at him.
"There's no sign of any female garments in this apartment. Nowhere. If she came in here for a little. . ."
"She's got her own place down the hall," I say.
The elevator starts making a racket again. It's like thunder coming up from the river.
"Even if she was dragged in here," O'Shea says, "her clothes should be here somewheres."
"So, what does that tell you?" Pescaro says.
"Her clothes is somewheres else?" I say.
"That's right. And if her clothes are somewhere else, chances are she was killed somewhere else."
O'Shea and Rourke look at one another, then at their boss.
"Call for some uniforms," Pescaro says. "As many as you need. Do this place like there's gold dust in the floor cracks. Anybody you find at home make a list and tell them to stay there. Tell them we'll be coming to talk to them."
Harold Boardman from Forensics comes out. He's wearing throwaway gloves that make his hands look clumsy and deformed. He's carrying the hair dryer in a plastic bag.
"Finished here," he says.
"Is there one of them missing from the bathroom?" Pescaro says.
"If there was one missing from the bathroom how would I know if there was one missing from the bathroom?" Boardman says.
"You find one?"
"We don't find one."
"So, okay, she was maybe in the bathroom and this gamoosh comes on with her. She resists and he grabs the closest thing he can get his hands on."
"What was she doing naked in a man's bathroom she should resist when he lays a hand on her?" I say.
I hear the tap-tap-tap of a woman in heels walking fast and the squeak of rubber soles. I turn to the door just as Janet and Mary come through. Mary throws a look at me that says there was nothing she could do to keep Janet from coming. Janet looks around, swinging her head right and left like a frightened animal looking for a way out. Then she heads for the open bedroom door.
Rourke reaches out a hand, but she tilts herself around it. Pescaro tells her not to go into the room, but she ignores him. I start to chase after her, but Mary stops me and says, "Let her look, if she's got to look."
Janet stops in the doorway for a second. She plants her feet as though afraid she's going to fall. Then she takes a step and lets out a yell. Harold Boardman, this youngster from Forensics, sees her heading for the body and manages to do what none of the rest of us could do. He steps between her and the bed and throws his arms around her. For a second she tries to fight past him, but he holds on and turns her around because he knows she really wants to be turned around now that she's seen what she was afraid to see.
"Won't somebody close her eyes?" she says. "Won't somebody cover her with something?"
By the time he's walked her to a chair and sat her down, she's got hold of herself. She's quiet the way people are quiet after they've checked for themselves that the messenger bringing the bad news wasn't mistaken. She pulls her hair back from her temples with both hands and looks up at me.
I kneel down beside her chair and take her hand. "I'm sorry."
"You found her," she says.
I don't know what to say.
"Now I want you to promise me you'll find the one who did it."
I don't give her the song and dance about how it's up to the cops now. I glance up at Pescaro. He nods his head, giving me permission.
"I'll do what I can, Janet. I'll start on it right away. Now, will you go home with Mary and I'll see you later on."
Mary comes over and we help Janet to her feet, which she lets us do although she's got herself under control.
We turn to the front door. A man in a suede jacket and a Tyrolean hat is standing in the doorway with a sample case in his hand. "Just what the hell is going on here?" he says.
"Who're you?" Pescaro says.
"I'm the man who lives here," he says. "I'm William Scanlan."
TWELVE
Forensics is gone. It's Pescaro, O'Shea, Rourke, Scanlan and, by the grace of the silent promise he makes to Canarias when Pescaro nods to me, myself sitting in Scanlan's living room.
The salesman's sitting down, still wearing his hat. He's a mouth breather and every time he lets it out the smell of whiskey hits me.
"Ain't you warm in that thing, Mr. Scanlan?" Rourke says.
"What?" Scanlan says, looking at Rourke with eyes like a couple of hard-boiled eggs. A thousand little veins are busted across his cheeks and nose. His jowls are white and pasty. Even so, it's pretty plain that he was a good-looking man once upon a time.
"Your hat. You should take it off," O'Shea says. "You're sweating. You go out again and you'll get a chill."
"Go out?" Scanlan says, standing up and taking off his hat. "Why should I go out?" He rubs his hand over his bald scalp, then smooths down his fringe of hair all around.
"Maybe to get something out of your car," Pescaro says.
"That's right," Rourke chimes in, "maybe there's something you need that you left in your car?"
"Like maybe you left your telephone book in the glove compartment," O'Shea says.
"I got my telephone book. I got one here in my pocket and I got another one over there by the phone."
"We looked through that one, Mr. Scanlan," Pescaro says. "You don't mind we took a look?"
"I don't mind. Why should I mind?"
"Well, that's hard to say. We don't read minds, Mr. Scanlan, do we?" Rourke says in his sweet way.
They're working him and Scanlan's been around long enough to know they're working him and it's scaring him a lot. They fall into a pattern, taking turns, Pescaro to Rourke to O'Shea. Doing triple plays on him. Making him turn his head from one to the other, breaking his concentration.
Pescaro starts. "We see you got a lot of ladyfriends."
Scanlan tries to make hisself a roguish grin but it comes out all crooked like it's made of melting wax. "I got a few. You know how it is. Salesman on the road."
"Gets very lonely."
"That's right. All those motel rooms. Hotel rooms."
"How many would you say you know?"
"How many what? Motels? Hotels?"
"We're trying to make ourselves clear, Mr. Scanlan," Pescaro says. "You know we don't mean hotels. How many ladyfriends have you got? Is every woman's name in your telephone book a ladyfriend?"
"Well, no, some of them are buyers. Plenty of them are buyers and shopkeepers. I'm in costume jewelry. You know?"
"No, we don't. We don't know about jewelry. Except it's stolen. We're cops."
"I was just saying that most of the women's names in the book are business contacts."
"Not ladyfriends?"
"Well, friends, but not how you mean ladyfriends."
"How do you think Detective O'Shea means ladyfriends?" Pescaro says.
"Well, you know."
"Like Joyce Lombardi?"
"She was a neighbor."
"Her number's in your book. What do you need a neighbor's number she lives forty feet down the hall?"
"Sometimes when I'm on the road I'd give her a call."
"Why would you do that?" Pescaro says.
"Ask her if anybody was coming around asking for me."
"Why would anybody do that?"
"Well, you know, friends."
"Don't your friends know you're a traveling salesman? Don't they know you go away for weeks at a time?"
"Sure, but. . ."
"So why would you call Joyce Lombardi?" Pescaro asks again.
"Sometimes I'd ask her to do a little favor."
"What kind of favor?"
"Well, you know."
"Goddammit, Scanlan," O'Shea explodes, "we don't know. If we knew we wouldn't be asking. What goddammit kind of favor?"
"I got men buyers too. Sometimes they come to town on a business trip they're lonely."
"Just like you get lonely out in those hotel and motel rooms?" O'Shea says, breaking the pattern, moving in on Scanlan with the hammer.
"That's right. They ask me can I arrange for them to have a companion. Some nice girl they can take to dinner. Talk to."
"About the wife and kiddies?"
"Yeah, like that."
"So you do these favors for these buyers even when you ain't in town. Lombardi does these favors for you because you're neighbors?"
"Well, she gets something out of the dates. She's a young woman on her own. How much money can she make being a model? This ain't New York. She's no headliner."
"Just a pretty girl," Pescaro says. "So what does she get out of these dates?"
"Well, she gets a good meal and a night out."
"And maybe these lonely buyers are grateful and give her some money for the rent?"
"She works them for the rent I don't know anything about it. That's up to her and whoever she's out with."
"Suppose this buyer or that buyer don't give her a little something toward the rent," O'Shea says, his voice going soft, working the pedals, playing the music to go with the words.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean do you give her a little something for her time and trouble?"
"Well, I could do. Just to help her out."
"So now we know, don't we?"
"Know what?"
"You're a pimp, Mr. Scanlan," O'Shea says.
Scanlan's face crumples up like he's about to cry. "For God's sake, it wasn't like that. All I was trying to do was help her out with her expenses. And do some favors for some business acquaintances."
"You buy any favors for yourself?" O'Shea said, putting a nasty twist on it.
"I took Joyce out for dinner a few times, but it wasn't nothing like that."
"Like what?" Rourke says.
"She wasn't a hooker and I wasn't a john."
"But you slept together."
"No, we never did."
"You telling me you didn't hit on a beautiful girl like that?"
"I wanted to, but she didn't want to."
Pescaro stands up like he needs to stretch his legs. "So, maybe you're not a pimp, Mr. Scanlan, maybe you're only a procurer."
After that sinks in Rourke bends forward in his chair a little. "Tell us, Mr. Scanlan," he says, and Scanlan leans forward too, toward the quiet, sweet-spoken cop. He's ready to fall into Rourke's arms and cooperate. "Tell us, did you call Miss Lombardi this trip—like the day before yesterday—and ask her would she like to go out on a date with one of your acquaintances?"
