A Right To Die (4 page)

There was no hint anywhere of any covering up. The three eyewitnesses had been interviewed, and there were no discrepancies or contradictions. The porch was in plain view from the sidewalk; the two women had seen him with the gun in his hand before he had raised it, and one of them had yelled at him. The man had run across the street and had got to the porch as Mrs. Brooke and Susan emerged from the house. Susan had refused to be interviewed that evening, but had told her story to a reporter Saturday morning and had answered his questions freely.

Even if I had been hell-bent on getting something on her I would have had to cross that off and look elsewhere. I put the papers back where they belonged, told the guardian I had done no clipping or tearing, returned to the hotel, treated myself to a glass of milk in the coffee shop, and went up to bed.

I don’t know whether I would have looked any further in Racine or not if there had been no interruption. Probably not, since I had learned what was in her mind when she said “then something happened,” and that was what had sent me. The interruption woke me up Tuesday morning. I had left a call for eight o’clock, and when the phone rang I didn’t believe it and looked at my watch. Ten after seven. I thought, Damn hotels anyway, reached for the phone, and was told I was being called from New York. I said here I am, and was figuring that in New York it was ten after eight, when Wolfe’s voice came.

“Archie?”

“Right. Good morning.”

“It isn’t. Where are you?”

“In bed.”

“I do not apologize for disturbing you. Get up and come home. Miss Brooke is dead. Her body was found last evening with the skull battered. She was murdered. Come home.”

I swallowed with nothing to swallow. I started, “Where was-” and stopped. I swallowed again. “I’ll leave-“

“When will you get here?”

“How do I know'Noon, one o’clock.”

“Very well.” He hung up.

I permitted myself to sit on the edge of the bed for ten seconds. Then I got erect, dressed, packed the bag, took the elevator down and checked out, walked to the parking lot and got the car, and headed for Chicago. I would get breakfast at the airport.

It wasn’t noon, and it wasn’t one o’clock, when I used my key on the door of the old brownstone on West 35th Street. It was five minutes to two. The plane had floated around above a fog bank for half an hour before landing at Idlewild-A mean Kennedy International Airport. I put my bag down and was taking my coat off when Fritz appeared at the end of the hall, from the kitchen, and came.

“_Grace a Dieu_,” he said. “He called the airport. You know how he is about machines. I’ve kept it hot. Shad roe _fines herbes_, no parsley.”

“I can use it. But I-“

A roar came. “Archie!”

I went to the open door to the dining room, which is across the hall from the office. At the table, Wolfe was putting cheese on a wafer. “Nice day,” I said. “You don’t want to smell the herbs again so I’ll eat in the kitchen with the Times. The one on the plane was the early edition.”

We get two copies of the Times, one for Wolfe, who has a tray breakfast in his room, and one for me. I proceeded to the kitchen, and there was my Times, propped on the rack, on the little table where I always eat breakfast. Even when I’m away for a week on some errand Fritz probably puts it there every morning. He would. I sat and got it and looked for the headline, but in a moment was interrupted by Fritz with the platter and a hot plate. I helped myself and took a bite of the roe and a piece of crusty roll dabbed in the sauce, which is one of Fritz’s best when he leaves the parsley out.

The details were about as scanty as in the early edition. Susan Brooke’s corpse had been found shortly before nine o’clock Monday evening in a room on the third floor of a building on 128th Street, a walk-up of course, by a man named Dunbar Whipple, who was on the staff of the Rights of Citizens Committee. Her skull had been crushed by repeated blows. I already knew that much. Also I already knew what the late city edition added: that Susan Brooke had been a volunteer worker for the ROCC, and she had lived with her widowed mother in a Park Avenue apartment; and that Dunbar Whipple was twenty-three years old and was the son of Paul Whipple, an assistant professor of anthropology at Columbia University. One thing I had not actually known but could have guessed if I had put my mind on it: the police and the district attorney’s office had started an investigation.

When the roe and sauce and rolls were where they belonged, and some salad, I refilled my coffee cup and took it to the office. Wolfe was at his desk, tapping his nose with a pencil, scowling at a crossword puzzle. I went to my desk, sat, and sipped coffee. After a while he switched the scowl to me, realized I hadn’t earned it, and erased it.

“Confound it,” he said, “it’s preposterous and insulting that I might lose your services and talents merely through the whim of a mechanism. How high up were you at noon?”

“Oh, four miles. I know. You regard anything and everything beyond your control as an insult. You-“

“No. Not in nature. Only in what men contrive.”

I nodded. “And what they do. For instance, committing murder. Have you any news besides what’s in the Times?”

“No.”

“Any callers'Whipple?”

“No.”

“Do you want a report on Racine?”

“No. To what purpose?”

“I merely ask. I need a shave. Since there’s nothing urgent, apparently, I’ll go up and use a mechanism. If I did report I wouldn’t have to speak ill of the dead.” I left the chair. “At least I won’t-“

The doorbell rang. I went to the hall for a look through the one-way glass, saw two men on the stoop, and stepped back in. “Two Whipples, father and son. I have never seen the son, but of course it is. Have they an appointment?”

He glared. I stood, but evidently he thought the glare needed no help, so I went down the hail to the front and opened the door. Paul Whipple said, “We have to see Mr. Wolfe. This is my son Dunbar.”

“He’s expecting you,” I said, which was probably true, and sidestepped to give them room.

A day or two earlier I would have been glad to meet the Negro specimen that Susan Brooke intended to marry, just to size him up. All right, I was meeting him, and he looked like Sugar Ray Robinson after a hard ten rounds, except that he was a little darker. A day or two earlier he would probably have been handsome and jaunty; now he was a wreck. So was his father. When I started a hand for his hat he let go before I reached it, and it dropped to the floor.

In the office I nodded the father to the red leather chair and moved up one of the yellow ones for the son. Dunbar sat, but Whipple stood and looked at Wolfe, bleary-eyed. Wolfe spoke. “Sit down, Mr. Whipple. You’re crushed. Have you eaten?”

That wasn’t flip. Wolfe is convinced that when real trouble comes the first thing to do is eat.

Dunbar blurted at Wolfe, “What did you do'What did you do?”

Whipple shook his head at him. “Take it easy, son.” He twisted around to look at the chair, saw it there, and sat. He looked at Wolfe. “You know what happened.”

Wolfe nodded. “I have read the paper. Mr. Whipple. Many people in distress have sat in that chair. Sometimes I cannot supply advice or services, but I can always supply food. I doubt if you have eaten. Have you?”

“We’re not here to eat!” Dunbar blurted. “What did you do?”

“I’ll talk, son,” Whipple told him. To Wolfe: “I know what you mean. I made him eat a little just now, on the way here. I felt I had to tell him what I asked you to do, and he wants to know what you said. You understand that he’s-uh-overwrought. As you said, in distress. Of course I would like to know too, what you did. You understand that.”

“Yes. I myself have done nothing.” Wolfe leaned back, drew in air through his nose, all there was room for, which was plenty, and let it out through his mouth. “Archie. Tell them.”

Dunbar blurted at me, “You’re Archie Goodwin.”

“Right.” I moved my eyes to Whipple. “Did you tell him exactly what you asked Mr. Wolfe to do?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Okay. A friend of mine named Lily Rowan invited Miss Brooke to lunch, and I was there. At lunch nothing was discussed but the ROCC. After lunch Miss Rowan gave Miss Brooke a check for a thousand dollars for the ROOC and asked her some questions about herself. Nothing cheeky, just the usual line. Miss Brooke mentioned that she had worked for the Parthenon Press and at the UN, and I spent three days checking that, mostly at the UN. I found nothing that you could use, and yesterday I took a plane to Chicago and drove to Racine, Wisconsin. At Racine I talked with two men who had known Miss Brooke and her family, a newspaperman and a private detective, and got no hint of anything you could use. You wanted to find out what was wrong with her. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“I decided that there was nothing worth mentioning wrong with her and never had been. When I turned in at the hotel last night I intended to leave this morning, and at seven a.m. Mr. Wolfe phoned and told me what had happened, and I left right away and returned to New York. Any questions?”

Dunbar moved. On his feet, peering down at me, his shoulders hunched, he looked like Sugar Ray starting the tenth round, not ending it. “You’re lying,” he said, not blurting. “You’re covering up, I don’t know what, but I’m going to. You know who killed her.” He wheeled to Wolfe. “So do you, you fat ape.”

“Sit down,” Wolfe said.

Dunbar put his fists on Wolfe’s desk and leaned over at him. “And you’re going to tell me,” he said through his teeth.

Wolfe shook his head. “You’re driveling, Mr. Whipple. I don’t know what you’re like when you are in command of your faculties, but I know what you’re like now. You’re an ass. Neither Mr. Goodwin nor I had ever heard of you or Miss Brooke. I don’t suppose you suspect your father of hiring me to arrange for her death, and I doubt if-“

“That’s not-“

“I’m talking. I doubt if even in your present condition you suspect Mr. Goodwin or me of doing it unbidden. But you may-“

“I didn’t-“

“I’m talking! You may understandably surmise that in his contacts with various persons Mr. Goodwin unwittingly said or did something which led to a situation that resulted in the death of Miss Brooke. You may even surmise that he was aware of it, or is. In that case, I suggest that you sit down and ask him, civilly. He is fairly headstrong and can’t be bullied. I stopped trying years ago. As for me, I know nothing. Mr. Goodwin’s plane was late, he arrived only an hour ago, and we haven’t discussed it.”

Dunbar backed away, came in contact with the rim of the chair seat, bent his knees, and sat. His head went down and his hands came up to cover his face.

Whipple said, “Take it easy, son.”

I cleared my throat. “I have had a lot of practice reporting conversations verbatim. Also tones and looks and reactions. I am better at it than anyone around except a man named Saul Panzer. I don’t believe that anything I have said or done had any thing to do with the death of Susan Brooke, but if Mr. Wolfe tells me to-I was and am working for him-I’ll be glad to report it in full. I think it would be a waste of time. As for my covering up, nuts.”

Whipple’s jaw was working. “I hope you’re right, Mr. Goodwin. God knows I do. If I was responsible-” He couldn’t finish it.

Dunbar’s head came up, his face to me. “I’ll apologize.”

“You don’t have to. Skip it.”

“But maybe you’ll tell me who you saw and what was said. Later. I know I’m not in command of my faculties, I haven’t got any faculties. I’ve had no sleep and I don’t want to sleep. I answered questions all night and all morning. They think I killed her. By God, they think I killed her!”

I nodded. “But you didn’t?”

He stared. His eyes were in no condition for staring. “My God, do you think I did?”

“I don’t think. I don’t know you. I don’t know anything.”

“I know him,” the father said. He was looking at Wolfe. “He wanted to come here because he thought& what he said. I didn’t know what to think, but I was afraid. I was mortally afraid that I was responsible. Now perhaps I wasn’t; I can hope I wasn’t. And I wanted to come for another reason. They are going to arrest him. They think he killed her. They are going to charge him with murder. We need your help.”

Wolfe tightened his lips.

Whipple went on. “I came and asked your help when I shouldn’t have. That was wrong, and I bitterly regret it. I thought at the time I was justified, but I wasn’t. I hated to tell my son about it, but I had to. He had to know. Now I must ask your help. Now it would be right for me to remind you of that speech. ‘But if you shield him because he is your color there is a great deal to say. You are rendering your race a serious disservice. You are helping to perpetuate-’”

“That’s enough,” Wolfe snapped. “It isn’t pertinent. It has no bearing on the present situation.”

“Not directly. But you persuaded me to help you by prescribing adherence to the agreements of human society. I was an ignorant boy, immature, and you tricked me-I don’t complain, it was a legitimate trick. I don’t say this is analogous, but you had a problem and asked me to help, and I have one and I’m asking you to help. My son is going to be charged with murder.”

Wolfe’s eyes were narrowed at him. “They have questioned him for hours and aren’t holding him.”

“They will. When they’re ready.”

“Then he will need a lawyer.”

“He’ll need more than a lawyer. The way it looks. He’ll need you.”

“You may be exaggerating his jeopardy.” Wolfe went to Dunbar. “Are you under control, Mr. Whipple?”

“No, I’m not,” he said.

“I’ll try you anyway. You said they think you killed her. Is that merely your fancy or has it a basis?”

“They think it has a basis, but it hasn’t.”

“That begs the question. I’ll try again. Why do they think it has a basis?”

“Because I was there. Because she and I-we were friends. Because she was white and I’m black. Because of the billy, the club that killed her.”

Wolfe grunted. “You’ll have to elucidate. First the club. Was it yours?”

“I had it. It’s a club that had been used by a policeman in a town in Alabama to beat up two colored boys. I got it-it doesn’t matter how I got it, I had it. I had had it on my desk at the office for several months.”

“Was it on your desk yesterday?”

“No. Susan-” He stopped.

“Yes?”

Dunbar looked at his father and back at Wolfe. “I don’t know why I stopped. I’ve told all this to the police, I knew I had to, because it was known. Miss Brooke had rented and furnished a little apartment on One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Street, and the club was there. She had taken it there.”

“When?”

“About a month ago.”

“Have the police found your fingerprints on it?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think so. I think it had been wiped.”

“Why do you think it had been wiped?”

“Because they didn’t say definitely that it had my fingerprints on it.”

Fair enough. Apparently he had got control. Answering questions will often do that.

“A reasonable assumption,” Wolfe conceded. “So much for the means. As for the opportunity, you were there, but there is the question of your prior movements yesterday, say from noon on. Of course the police went into that thoroughly. Tell me briefly. I am examining the official assumption that you killed her.”

Dunbar was sitting straighter. “At noon I was at my desk in the office. At a quarter to one I met two men at a restaurant for lunch. I was back at the office a little before three. At four o’clock I went to a conference in the office of Mr. Henchy, the executive director. It ended a little after six, and when I went to my room there was a message on my desk. Miss Brooke and I had arranged to meet at the apartment at eight o’clock, and the message was that she had phoned that she couldn’t get there until nine or a little later. That was convenient for me because I had a dinner engagement with one of the men who had been at the conference. It was twenty-five minutes past eight when we parted at the subway entrance on Forty-second Street, and it was five minutes past nine when I got to One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Street and entered.”

“And discovered the body.”

“Yes.”

Wolfe glanced up at the clock. “Will it jar you to tell me what you did?”