Killing the Goose (5 page)

“Well,” Pam said, “obscure, then. Because there isn't, really, anything less subtle than a baked apple. Is there?”

“A boiled potato,” Jerry suggested. “Or anything with whipped cream on it.”

Pam said not on a boiled potato. She said Jerry had the oddest ideas. She looked at him with reproach. Nobody, he said, ever put whipped cream on boiled potatoes.

“Listen, Pam,” Jerry said.

“Even tea shops,” Pam said. “I don't think, anyway. Do they?”

“Probably,” Jerry told her. “They put it on carrots.”

“Jerry!” Pam said. “You're making it up.”

“Salads,” Jerry told her. “With shredded carrots
and
whipped cream. In tea shops. And women eat it.”

“Really, Jerry,” Dorian said. “Really. And how did we get here?”

Pam answered for her husband. She said because Jerry insisted on talking about whipped cream on boiled potatoes.

“Instead of Mullins,” she said. “He's just trying to change the subject, of course.”

Jerry tugged at his hair and looked around wildly. He looked at Pam, and, beseechingly, at Dorian.

“As a matter of fact, Jerry,” Dorian told him. “You did.”

“I—” Jerry said, a little desperately. “I—whipped cream on boiled
potatoes?
”

Both Dorian and Pam nodded contentedly.

“Because I wanted to help Sergeant Mullins,” Pam said. “Because baked apples are subtle. And Mr. Mullins isn't.”

“Never,” Jerry said. “Never did I say anything about whipped cream on boiled potatoes. I couldn't have.” He looked at them. “What
did
I say?” he demanded, urgently.

“That we shouldn't help Mr. Mullins,” Pam told him. “But you didn't mean it. Because you're just as fond of him as I am. And he'll never solve the baked apple. Come on.”

“Dorian!” Jerry said. “Do something!” It was evident that he was obscurely shaken. “Tell her Bill wouldn't want us to.”

“I don't suppose he'd mind, really,” Dorian said. “And it
is
sort of interesting. And it will confuse the sergeant, I'm afraid.”

“I—” Jerry said. Pam smiled at him.

“Just this one point, Jerry,” she said. “Bill didn't have time to explain, really. And if he has to leave it to Mr. Mullins, and gets all interested in this other one, everybody might forget all about it. And that nice boy would go to the chair.”

“Listen,” Jerry said. “I haven't the faintest idea whether he's a nice boy or not. Neither have you.”

“Of course I have,” Pam said. “He didn't commit the murder.”

“Therefore,” Jerry said, “he's a nice boy. Really, Pam.” He thought of more to say, but did not say it because Pam had suddenly gone into the bedroom and from it was calling to Dorian to come on. Then, apparently, she looked out the window, because next she called:

“Darling. You'll have to wear rubbers.”

Jerry went to the living room windows and looked out. Lights from windows on the floor below fell across snow in the backyard. It looked like deep snow. It was fine-looking snow and it was coming down heavily. He would have to wear rubbers, he decided, and only then remembered that his foot was down and he wasn't going anywhere. Abstractedly, he looked at his foot. It would be fun to go out in the snow, and probably they wouldn't be able to find Mullins anyway. It would be fun to go out in the snow and perhaps walk in it, and turn in to some warm bright place and steam a little and have a drink. That was probably what it would come to, when they couldn't find Mullins.

And it was fun in the snow, when they got into it, slipping and clutching at each other and laughing and seeing the snow plaster on their coats. For a while, too, it appeared that they would never find Mullins, because they could not even find a taxicab. But then one skidded up to them, its windshield wipers churning madly, and they got in and at once began to drip. And Pam appeared to know precisely where Mullins would be, because she gave the address of the Homicide Squad offices.

“You see,” she said, “he would have been at the precinct. But after Bill called him, he'd go back to the office to think about the baked apple. So that's where he is. That's where I'd be, anyway.”

It startled Jerry, somewhat, to discover that Pam's thought processes had, in fact, coincided with those of Sergeant Mullins. For some reason this made him reel internally; it suggested that the whole world was about to come apart. It suggested that the human mind was, not only as exemplified in the mind of his wife but universally, more strange and wonderful than he had ever thought. Mullins was sitting in Bill Weigand's office, at Bill Weigand's desk. He looked at them.

“You're wet,” he said. “It must be raining.”

This, obscurely, made Jerry feel better. Here was simple, straightforward reasoning, ending up solidly at the wrong conclusion. He smiled at Mullins and felt much better.

“We've come to help,” Pam told Mullins. Sergeant Mullins looked at her with doubt. He looked at Dorian Weigand and said “Hullo, Mrs. Weigand. The lieutenant ain't here.”

“Of course not, Mr. Mullins,” Pam said. “We know he isn't. That's why we are.”

Mullins looked at Jerry North. Jerry disengaged himself with a shrug.

“Because,” Pam North said, “of the baked apple. I mean—do you understand it?”

“Yes,” Mullins said. “Sure. She didn't get a baked apple at first. Then she got a baked apple and it—showed up. So maybe she got the apple after this kid left. And maybe, just as easy, she didn't. Maybe she got it while he was still there, or he got it for her, and then maybe he stuck the knife in her after she ate it. Is that what you mean, Mrs. North?”

“Well,” Pam said, “it's more complex than that.”

“How?” Mullins said, with simplicity.

“Well,” Pam said, “it just is. Are those her things?”

She was looking at things spread out on a table against one of the walls of the small, ancient office. There was a' dress and other articles of clothing; there was a purse, and, beside it, all the little, odd things which had apparently come out of the purse. A small compact with an enameled cover, two keys and a worn coin purse, an unused kleenex, an envelope with something written on it—pathetic things.

“Yeh,” Mullins said. “Those are her things. I was just—looking at them.” He looked at them again. “She was a little kid, sort of,” he said.

Pam North walked over and, without touching any of them, looked down at the things Frances McCalley had worn or carried when someone had thrust a knife in her throat, leaving her small and crumpled in a cafeteria booth. She had been a little kid, Pam noticed. It was a little dress. Then she looked again. It was a smaller dress than it had been once; the seams along the side had been taken up. There were small, neat stitches which still had not come from a professional workshop.

“Can I look at it?” Pam said. Mullins nodded. She picked it up. It was a black silk dress and on the front—on a great deal of the front—there was something which had dried. It did not show red now, against the black; it showed only a different, duller black. Pam turned the dress in her slim hands and saw that her hands were trembling. But there was still something curious about the dress. Forcing herself not to drop the stained dress, Pam turned back the collar and nodded at what she saw. Then, still holding it, she shook her head.

“Look,” she said. “This isn't her dress. It couldn't be. It's Bergdorf's.”

Mullins looked at her, uncomprehending.

“McCalley,” he said. “Frances McCalley. She was a filing clerk. Sure it's her dress. Who's Bergdorf?”

Pam looked at Dorian Weigand, who crossed and looked at the dress with her.

“She couldn't,” Pam said. “Not if it came from Bergdorf. It might as well be Carnegie.”

Mullins looked at them, and then anxiously at Jerry North.

“Bergdorf-Goodman's,” Jerry said. “Hattie Carnegie.” It was, he decided, wrong. He went over to look at the dress too. There was no doubt about what the label said.

“Look,” he said, and now he was getting interested. This worried him a little, but the interest remained. “Maybe she just got the label somewhere—found it or something—and sewed it in. It seems to me I've heard—”

“So have I,” Pam agreed. “But that isn't it. Is it, Dorian? You know about things like that.”

“No,” Dorian said, holding the dress away from her and looking at it. “It isn't that. This is the real thing—see the line, Pam?”

Pamela North nodded. Jerry looked at the dress. He thought he could see what they were talking about.

“And,” Dorian said, “it cost plenty. About what—she was a filing clerk, wasn't she, Sergeant?”

“Yeh,” Mullins said. He crossed to join in the examination, looking puzzled.

“Then,” Dorian said, “this dress cost what she'd make in two months. Maybe three, depending on the mark-up.”

“Well,” Mullins said, “some girls are crazy about clothes. Some of these poor kids—”

Pam and Dorian both shook their heads. They looked at each other, and Pam told Mullins how it was. A girl might spend two or three times what she made in a month on something to wear. She might go hungry for something to wear. But that would be for a fur coat at so much a week. Or for a dress to wear to parties, perhaps. But most likely a fur coat. But not for a black dress, however artfully cut, however good in material, to wear to an office.

“This can't be her dress,” Pam said. “Or else she can't be who we think she is—a little filing clerk. Dorian will tell you that too, Mr. Mullins.”

Mullins looked at Dorian Weigand. He looked at her hopefully. She shook her head.

“She's right, Sergeant,” she said. “No little filing clerk ever bought this dress.”

Jerry watched the hope die out of Sergeant Aloysius Mullins's face; he watched with sympathy and understanding. He watched another expression take its place and waited, with anticipation, for the certainly to be anticipated remark.

“Jeeze,” said Sergeant Mullins, and he spoke in sorrow. “Jeeze. It's going to be another screwy one.”

He looked at Pam North and shook his head slowly. His tone was not accusing, but it was resigned.

“Another screwy one, Mrs. North,” he said.

Pamela North looked at Sergeant Mullins, and there was only one thing for her to say.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Mullins,” she said. “Really I am.”

“O.K.,” Mullins said. “O.K., Mrs. North. It ain't your fault.”

But Sergeant Mullins, Mr. North was interested to note, did not make this last remark with any real assurance.

But, Pam North thought, dropping the dress back on the table, it has really been a screwy one since the baked apple and I didn't have anything to do with that. She thought of saying as much and then noticed something about the dress, now sprawled on the table, which she had not noticed before. Clipped to a seam near the bottom of the dress was a cleaner's tag. It had not shown when the dress was worn; Frances McCalley, if the girl had been Frances McCalley, had never noticed it.

“Look,” Pam said, pointing. “Can't we find out from that who she really is?”

“Listen, Mrs. North,” Sergeant Mullins said. “It ain't that screwy. We know who she is—was. That we
do
know.”

But he looked at the tag and, after a second, detached it. He leaned out of the door and called, and when a detective came, gave him the tag with instructions. Then he turned back.

“Just to make sure, Mrs. North,” he said, “I'm having them check up. They'll tell us who cleaned it. But she was Frances McCalley, anyway.” He looked firmly at all of them. “Anyway,” he repeated. “People looked at her. Who knew her.”

There was, he told them while they waited, nothing else in the small pile of the murdered girl's possessions which seemed to mean much. The envelope was addressed to Frances McCalley and Mullins pointed this out with modified triumph to Mrs. North. She had had two dollars and twelve cents in her purse when she was killed; she had bought the compact for a dollar at a glorified five and ten cent store on Fifth Avenue. The purse had come from Fourteenth Street; her stockings had been rayon and so had her few underclothes. She had worn no girdle. She—

The detective came back and handed Mullins the cleaner's tag with a slip of paper clipped to it. “Clinton Cleaners,” someone had written on the paper, and added a Madison Avenue address. Mullins looked pleased.

“Quick, those boys are,” he said. “Put a description on the teletype and it comes right back at you.” He nodded, approving the Police Department. “Laundry marks just the same,” he said. He sat down at the desk and picked up a Manhattan telephone book. “Not that it's any use,” he said. “It won't be open. Still—” He laid down the telephone book, asked for an outside line, and dialed a number. He waited and nothing happened. He was just about to hang up when someone answered.

The Clinton Cleaners was not, it appeared, closed, although it was closing and, evidently, glad of it. Mullins identified himself and read letters and numbers from the tag. He said, “Now, brother. When'd you think” and waited. He said. “Yeh” and Wrote something on the pad in front of him. He said “Thanks” and re-cradled the telephone. He sat for a moment looking at what he had written, a puzzled expression on his face.

“Seems to me I just—” he said, thoughtfully. Then he said, in a different tone, “Jeeze.” He turned to the others, and surprise now was in control of his features.

“You know who they cleaned that dress for?” he demanded. The others looked at him. “Ann Lawrence, who lives on Gramercy Park. And she—”

He stopped because all three were nodding at him.

“Yes, Mullins,” Jerry North said. “We know. She got killed tonight—too.”