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As far as I could see, no obvious stone had been left undisturbed during the police investigation into the death of Earl Gray. I stood the few folders on edge and jarred them into submission before returning them to the young -- awfully young -- uniformed clerk and thanked him. "You're welcome, ma'am." Oh, God, there's that ma'am business again! Somehow I just do not believe I'll ever become acclimated to that crippling word, at least not from some dimpled darling half my age with all his own teeth. After trotting up the stairs to Whitey's floor . . . well, I trotted only until I knew myself to be out of sight of the twenty-odd-year-old uniform below, and then settled on walking in my usual manner. I was embarrassed to realize I'd just threatened myself with a coronary merely to impress the flaming youth, he of the ma'am nonsense. Whitey was obviously frazzled around the edges, his usual highly polished veneer showing cracks and wrinkles. I considered leaving him alone until my curiosity imp shrieked "Don't you dare!" in my inner ear, and I marched myself into his office, pretending complete blindness regarding his state. "What now?" he barked over his shoulder. "Jeez, Whitey, I thought you told me to stick my head in before I left the building! If I'm wrong about that, I'll leave right now." Whitey threw me one of those looks before hurling down the handful of papers on his already cluttered desk, wagging a hand at me in apology, then pointing to one of those rigid oak chairs he keeps by his desk to discourage people from overstaying their welcome. It always worked, too, but I sat anyway. "I'll give you just one guess who has just been volunteered to conduct a seminar in the fine art of preserving evidence at the scene of a crime," he growled, his black eyes red-rimmed, his mouth a tight, white slit in his closely-shaved kisser. I considered. "How about Lee Garfield Blecker?" I suggested, all innocence and completely guileless. "Oh, that's funny, Sheila -- that's very funny. Old Lee has been known to use a vital piece of evidence to scrape dog doo-doo off his wingtips. That was a lovely guess. Now try it again -- I'll give you two guesses since you're obviously feeling the effects of your advancing years." I was wounded by that remark, and said so. Whitey went back to scrabbling around in the hodgepodge on his desk. I quit trying to be amusing since it wasn't working anyway. "I thought you always wanted to teach a course at the Academy? And who better to shape these kids up about how important it is to preserve the crime scene than Lieutenant Morales?" Whitey was having none of it. "You realize, I trust, that this in not in lieu of my regular duties, but in addition to them! I am expected to teach this bunch of children six hours a week, two hours each on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for the next eight weeks. And on those days I'm expected to return to headquarters for 'an hour or two,' just to 'keep up with things.'" I thought Whitey before my very eyes was going to fly into pieces and plaster himself all over me and the walls. "And whose great idea was this, anyhow?" "The august personage you mentioned when you thought you were being cute is the very one." Oh, no wonder Whitey was really steamed. The only person who loathed Captain Blecker nearly as much as I was my friend here who was still under Blecker's splayed thumb. I, on the other hand, had enough sense to retire as soon as my twenty was up, and could emulate Dorothy Parker's witticism when unfortunate enough to be forced to remain in Blecker's presence: "Inseparable my nose and thumb." Whitey threw himself down in his padded chair, breathing easier now that he'd vented a little steam in my direction. Glad to be of service. After a few deep breaths, he spoke. "Did you find anything in the files on the Earl Gray case you hadn't known before?" "Not really. I told Verna earlier that she simply wasn't right, believing as she did the department dropped the ball and made little if any effort to find a murderer here. After looking through the folders, it's obvious I was right in saying that. They looked at everything they could scrape up and didn't just throw in the towel simply because all the facts seemed to point at suicide. "But, there is just so much that can be done, and I wish I could have explained that to her satisfaction. There was no reason why Verna should have known that, but I was sure of it, and what you have downstairs proves it." But it still nagged, truth be told, and I wasn't through chewing on that particular bone -- not by a long shot. "Still --" "Isn't there always a 'still' with you?" Whitey muttered. "Yeah, and sometimes that still helped you, too, you know," I retorted. He flapped a hand at me again, and I continued. "What your file doesn't show, of course -- what would not be evidence by all laws of -- is that these two people were apparently completely happy right up to and including the day he died." Whitey started to interrupt and, knowing where he was heading, I cut him off. "Sure, I know all about the cancer diagnosis and the statement of his doctor that he had already told Gray he had a relatively short time to live. But the very fact that Verna had not the slightest hint of that fact just strengthens my conviction that she was right: He wouldn't have killed himself." "I don't follow that at all." "Well, if he worked so hard at keeping her happy and content, would that same man then throw himself off a viaduct in front of a train? That doesn't make a lick of sense, Whitey!" He still scowled, not ready to concede. "Let's say you are happily married, money never a problem, not an obvious care in the world. You adore your wife and do everything in the world to make her delighted she ever found you and married you. "Then along comes a crepe-hanger who hands you your death warrant. Everything is changed for you -- well, almost everything. The one constant is the truth that your new wife loves you, is happy with you, and works at it all the time. "Now, what are you going to do? Are you going to wait until she's had more of the things that have gladdened her -- the trips, the little hideaways she so enjoys, and the rest; and then when you can't put it off any longer, when you have carefully planned the time and place to break her heart, are you going to break it to her as gently as you can? "Or, are you just going to say, 'To hell with her -- I'm going to throw myself in front of a train'?" Whitey still scowled, but it was clear it was eating him -- this death under such circumstances. But I wasn't through. "Now, let's move ahead in time. The widow insists from the beginning that her beloved husband would not have done such a thing -- not to her and not to himself. Verna told me he was the strongest, kindest, most honest person she had ever been privileged to know. She said he 'wore dignity like a pair of familiar old slippers,' and such people just don't kill themselves in that manner. It's grisly, it's messy, and it devastates those left behind -- the woman he loved more than anything else. But nobody would listen to her because the facts, as they knew them, said otherwise. "Time marches blindly on. She never believes the suicide verdict, but there is little she can do beyond what she already did to change that official position. She won't ever change her mind about it, but she finally stops her campaign because she's run out of hope of closure. "That was true until earlier in the week, and the coals of her anger against whoever it was who killed her husband burst into flame again when she almost by accident spotted my advertisement in the Yellow Pages. Here was an old friend who might -- just might be able to find some infinitesimal speck of proof overlooked by the authorities to open the case again and bring the destroyer of her happiness to justice. "So she comes to see me, and three short days later she, too, is found dead. Not in front of a train, or course; that would be too obvious. But there is no attempt this time to make it look like suicide. It's damned hard to stab yourself a half-a-dozen times and then slit your throat to make certain you've done the job right." Whitey scowled even harder, but said nothing, allowing a friend to finish it her way. And I was finished, save for one more question. "Does the timing of this strike you as just a trifle suspect?" Whitey scrubbed at his face with the palms of hands grown tough by years of near-par golf -- a neat thing for someone who can only play on the weekends as a rule. From behind the paws he mumbled something I didn't get the first time. When he looked over his fingertips to get my answer, I said so, and he repeated himself, intelligibly this time. "What do you expect me to do, other than go ahead with my investigation regarding Verna's murder?" "Just keep in mind the 'suicide' of her husband, for I'm sure as God made kumquats that the two deaths are connected -- jammed right up against one another, in fact." Whitey stood and stretched, and I got to my feet as well. "I'll do that, chica, and I promise let you know anything I find which seems to fit your theory." "Thanks, Whitey. You and Rosa care to come to dinner one night next week?" "Have to let you know, Sheila. Have to talk to Rosa first." That was a tad peculiar. He said it in an offhand manner, but I'd known him forever, and I knew when he was -- what's the word? "Dissembling" is the word. Something was eating him, but I decided now was not the time to poke around in whatever it was. Whitey wasn't looking at me, but was busy jabbing away again at the papers scattered on his desk. Only when I said "See you," did he look up, then smiled brightly and went right back to work. Everything had been dandy until I'd mentioned dinner with George and me -- dinner with Rosa, George and me. Rosa? |