Die, Little Goose: A Bret Hardin Mystery. David Alexander
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these sweet-faced old pappy guys do funny things,” Grierson put in. “Especially when they get as old as this Lennox and there’s a young chick around.”
“Keep your goddamn mouth out of this, copper,” Hardin said furiously. “I’m talking to the lieutenant.”
Romano held up a restraining hand. “Don’t flip your wig, editor,” he said. “Not until the votes are counted, anyway. I know old Lennox. I’ve known him ever since I’ve had the Broadway beat, and that’s been an awful lot of years. I like him. But don’t blame the precinct men too much. Two people hear a shot. They find a woman dead with blood all over her. They see a man standing outside her window and there’s a gun at his feet that’s just been fired. You can’t just overlook a thing like that.” He turned to Grierson, who was glaring at Bart. “Put your shirt on,” he said. “We’re gonna have to go uptown and the new commissioner don’t like for Homicide dicks to go out on squeals in their underwear.”
Hardin said, “I’m going up there with you. I’ve got a police pass that the department issues to newspapermen. It should entitle me to that. If you let these chowderheads take Jim Lennox in I’m going to get him a lawyer. I just won enough in the floater to afford a retainer for Marty Land.”
“That pass don’t entitle you to much of anything except to go through police and fire lines if the policemen and firemen want to let you through,” Romano answered. “But I’ve got no objection to you going along. After all, the old guy works for you. Only I want to talk to this Adrian Temple some more first. Tell Farber to send him in.”
Grierson had donned his shirt. He walked from the room, stuffing shirttails into trousers. He returned with Adrian Temple. Farber stood behind them in the doorway.
Romano regarded Adrian for a moment before he spoke. “I’ve got bad news for you, Temple,” he said. “Your wife is dead.”
Adrian dropped his head. For a moment his body shook with silent sobbing. Then he said, “It’s true, then. I knew it was true this time. But I still hoped it would be like the last time, that I only dreamed it.”
“You still think you killed her?” Romano asked. “Tell me again. When did you kill her? How?”
“I stabbed her to death about twenty-four hours ago,” Adrian answered. “I’ve told you that. I confess. For God’s sake do whatever you’ve got to do. Lock me up and get it over with. I’ll sign anything you want. Only don’t let them beat me.”
Romano said, “Nobody’s going to beat you. Where were you at about five minutes to eleven tonight?”
“Tonight?” Adrian looked at Romano in perplexity. Then he looked at his watch. “Why, I guess I must have been with Hardin here.”
Hardin nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “We were in a bar called Mike’s at the corner of Ninth and Fiftieth.”
Romano said, “Take him out, Farber, and keep him on ice. If you go off duty, leave him with somebody. I may want to talk to him later on. Then we’re going to send him to the psycho ward and see if the bug doctors can figure out why he’s always coming down here and confessing to murders.”
Adrian stared at the lieutenant. “But you said she’s dead!” he protested. “I killed her!”
“Yeah,” Romano answered. “Your wife is dead. And I’m kind of sorry you’ve got an alibi from a solid citizen like Hardin here. It’s going to make a lot of work for me in this hot weather.”
Farber led the protesting Adrian out again. Romano, Grierson and Hardin went to the street and got into a police car. Grierson drove them to the rooming house on Fifty-third Street near Sixth Avenue. It was one of the last brown-stones in the neighborhood. The darkened basement was occupied by a theatrical costumer who displayed suits of armor and a collection of antique feathered hats in his window. The house was in relatively good condition, although the sandstone had weathered and the gargoyles that decorated its posts and lintels were chipping away, giving the grotesque faces a mutilated look.
The three men climbed out of the police car and mounted a high stoop, where a uniformed policeman stood guard. The window in the oak door was covered by a lace curtain. The policeman recognized Romano. He saluted and opened the door.
The dusky hallway was lighted by a small bulb that glinted through a stained-glass shade. It was darkly carpeted and decorated with potted ferns and yellowing photographs of theatrical personalities. A grandfather clock and carved wooden chairs were in the hallway. Aside from air-conditioned bars and theatres, it was the coolest place Hardin had found during the thirteen days of the heat wave. The house had been constructed in the days when builders made walls thick as protection from the cold and pitched the ceilings high to minimize the summer heat.
A folding door opened into the first-floor parlor, where several persons were gathered. Cora Mattingly sat in a high-backed chair, answering the questions of a white-haired detective who stood beside her with a notebook in his hand. She was a plump woman in her sixties with an apple-round and apple-rosy face and an abundance of lavender-washed white hair that had been set into mathematically precise ridges and curlicues by her hairdresser. She dabbed at moist eyes with a wispy handkerchief and the motion of her tiny, pudgy hand was graceful. Hardin remembered that she had once been an actress in a Shakespearean repertory company.
A tall, slender girl stood behind Mrs. Mattingly, clasping the landlady’s shoulder with a bony hand. Her blood-red nails gleamed like jewels against the soft gray of Cora Mattingly’s dress. Hardin recognized the girl as Elsa Travers, Adrian Temple’s latest dancing partner. She had a gaunt, peculiar beauty. She affected an Italian bob and spikes of her black hair spilled down on a high white forehead. Dead-white make-up emphasized the triangulated bone structure of her face, whose pallor was relieved only by the crimsoned mouth that was over-large and by the dark, unswept penciling of her brows and eyes. She wore a dark jersey dress that fit her as tightly as a dancer’s leotards and her sharp breasts thrust nakedly against the material. Her only jewelry was a heavy silver chain that circled her waist. The buckle was set with an enormous imitation topaz.
Jim Lennox sprawled upon a Victorian love seat near the baroque marble mantelpiece. He was a tiny man, barely five and a half feet tall, and he seemed as fragile and delicate as a Sèvres figurine. His thick white hair hung down his neck and curled over the opened collar of his shirt in an antiquated theatrical fashion that had only lately been revived by young hoodlums and television actors and was called a ducktail haircut. Even in his most poverty-stricken days the old man had always been neat and chipper. Now he was rumpled and frightened and he seemed utterly defeated. His usually keen old eyes were dimmed by bewilderment and shock.
A fat detective who was sweating profusely stood beside the little man, apparently guarding him. The contrast between the prisoner and his keeper was almost ludicrous. The tableau made Hardin think of a lumbering St. Bernard mothering an undersized Chihuahua.
Recognition swam into Lennox’s eyes as Bart entered. “Bart!” he cried, rising from the small sofa. “For God’s sake, Bart! These policemen think I’m a murderer!”
Bart tried to think of something reassuring to say. Before he could speak, the white-haired detective was addressing Romano. “Hello, Lieutenant,” he said. “You’re just in time. We’re about to take the statement of the ladies who discovered the body and heard the shot. This is the landlady, Mrs. Mattingly, and Miss Travers.” He turned to the woman on the chair and said, “Now just try to compose yourself, ma’am, and let’s go over it again. This is an officer from Homicide and he’ll want to hear what you have to say.”
Mrs. Mattingly choked back a sob, dabbed at her eyes.
“I’ve told it so many times already,” she said.
“Tell us about the house and the roomers first,” the precinct detective prompted.
“There are five rooms in the house that I rent out,” Mrs. Mattingly said, pressing her fingers to her temple as if she were trying to squeeze the story from her mind in proper sequence. “I occupy an apartment