The Storm Killer Page 4

  “I also know Helen hated me. There’s no way she left me anything.” As I spoke a light went off in my head. “Wait. Let me guess. You were Helen’s best friend and she left everything to you. You want to know if I’m going to contest the will.”

  Mary’s face darkened.

  “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” I added.

  “How did you mean it?”

  “Helen hated me. You were her friend. I understand.”

  “You can be such an ass at times, Jim. I was Helen’s lawyer for Christ’s sake. She left everything to you. She didn’t hate you.”

  I drained the rest of my beer and leaned across the table. “Helen stopped speaking to me after Charles killed himself. She made it pretty clear how she felt about me.”

  “She was upset with you, but she never stopped caring. She couldn’t handle what happened so she focused on the story you wrote. In the end, she only blamed herself.”

  “I never should have written the article.”

  “It ruined Charles.”

  I leaped to my own defense. “His firm cheated the city out of nearly two-hundred thousand dollars. If I hadn’t written the article someone else would have. Charles would still have killed himself.”

  “But then she wouldn’t have been angry with you,” Mary said.

  I hung my head. “Believe me, if I could change things I would. I can’t believe she left me anything.”

  “Everything goes to you. Her apartment was bought and paid for, her car too. There’s a little over seventy thousand dollars in the bank.”

  I raised an eyebrow at the amount. So many people had lost their life savings in 1929 that I found it hard to believe Helen had managed to hold on to so much of her own money. She was either more savvy than I’d thought, or damn lucky. A wave of guilt washed over me.

  “Do you know why Helen blamed herself for Charles’ death?” I asked.

  Mary touched the tip of her cigarette against the edge of the ashtray, rolled it gently, and watched the thin tendril of smoke drift toward the sky.

  “What are you hiding, Mary?”

  “Isn’t it enough for you to know she forgave you? To know she left everything to you?”

  “Mary, I’ve spent the last year thinking Helen hated me because Charles killed himself. Now you tell me she thought she was to blame. I think I deserve to know why.”

  She looked off toward the river. While she was trying to figure out what she was going to tell me, I decided I needed another drink. I scanned the room for our waiter. When I spotted him I raised my empty glass above my head and kept it there until he waved at me. As he headed off toward the bar, I turned my attention back to Mary.

  “Please Mary. I need to know.”

  I saw the tension drain from her face. “A month ago, Helen came to me and told me she wanted to have a will drawn up. She wanted to leave everything to you. We talked a little bit about what happened and…”

  I held up my hands. “Wait a minute. Slow down. Let’s start with why she blamed herself for Charles’s death.”

  Mary drew an envelope from her purse and laid it on the table between us. “Here’s a copy of the will.” The waiter picked that moment to bring my beer over and Mary clammed up until he moved off.

  “The day Helen asked me to write up this will she told me she felt bad about the way she’d been treating you. I asked why. She insisted that she was the reason Charles killed himself. She’d had an affair with another man. Somehow, Charles found out. The day after he confronted her, your article appeared in the paper. Sort of a one-two punch.”

  “And after Charles killed himself it was easier for her to take it out on me.”

  “I guess. But by the time she came to see me about her will she seemed to regret what she’d put you through.”

  “She never said anything to me.”

  “She told me she didn’t think you would accept her apology.”

  Mary’s words hit me like a straight shot of bathtub gin. I hadn’t even tried to call Helen after the night I ran into her at Schrafft’s. I’d been too stubborn—too proud. I should have made an effort to patch things up. Now it was too late.

  What bothered me the most was that Helen had been murdered on my birthday at about the time I was drinking myself senseless. I should have been there to help her the night she died. Prior to Charles’s suicide, we’d always spent birthdays together. If only I’d made more of an effort.

  “I’m sorry Jim.”

  I pushed aside the beer and picked up the envelope, turning it in my hands. I was not quite ready to open it.

  “Who was the other man?”

  “She never told me. I think she was afraid of him and didn’t want to get me involved.”

  “But she loved him?”

  Mary shook her head. “After Charles killed himself she stopped seeing him. I suppose she could have blamed him too. He pursued her. Sent flowers. Pressed her to see him again. He wore her down. They started seeing each other again a couple of months ago.”

  “What was she afraid of?”

  Mary shrugged. “I got the feeling from our conversation that the guy was getting a little too serious too fast. She said he was acting weird. She never explained what she meant. In hindsight, I should have pushed her for details.”

  “So did she love him or not?”

  Mary appeared to choose her words. “I think she thought she did. At least before Charles killed himself. Helen was racked with guilt. About Charles. About you. About this guy. I think he sensed she was vulnerable and he went after her.”

  “Could he have killed her?”

  “I don’t know.” Mary looked like she was ready to cry. “I don’t really know anything about him. Remember, Helen kept him a secret from Charles for six months. You didn’t know anything about him. Hell, I was her best friend, and I didn’t have a clue she was seeing someone until she told me.”

  Mary glanced at her watch. “Look, I’ve got to go, Jim.” She pointed at the envelope and stood. “Take the will home and read it. If you have any questions call me. I left my card with the will.”

  I tapped the corner of the envelope on the table. “This might cause me some problems.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The lead detective on Helen’s case is a guy by the name of Michael Boyle.”

  “I know Mike,” Mary said.

  “He thinks I killed Helen.”

  “Why you?”

  “I’m not sure, but I saw the file, Mary. I’m his only suspect.”

  “I don’t believe it. Still, you better not talk to the police without a lawyer. Call me if they take you in for questioning, or arrest you.”

  “I can’t afford a lawyer,” I said.

  “You can afford me.” She began to fidget and I could tell she wanted to get going. “Or someone else if you prefer. Take a peek inside the envelope.”

  I pushed the flap aside. To my surprise there were five one-hundred dollar bills resting next to the copy of the will.

  “What’s this?”

  “Helen’s ‘just in case money’. Charles lost a lot of money on Black Tuesday when the stock market took the big hit. She asked me to hold onto this for her in case something like that happened again and she needed to start over. As her sole heir, the money belongs to you.”

  I looked around to make sure no one was watching me before sliding the bills out of the envelope. I folded them in half and tucked them into my front pocket.

  “If they convict me of her murder, I’m not entitled to anything.”

  “Then you’ll just have to convince Boyle you didn’t do it.” She laid three dollars on the table. “Lunch is on me, Jim.”

  “I almost forgot,” she added. “The day I heard about Helen, I called the playhouse where she worked to let them know what happened. A Mr. Bowen, the stage manager, said Helen left some things in her dressing room. I told him I’d have someone pick them up. Do you want me to take care of it?”

  “I’ll do it,�
� I said.

  She picked up her purse, opened it and took out a slip of paper, and a key.

  “Here’s the address, and here’s a key to Helen’s apartment. It doesn’t sound like the police have enough to charge you, but let me make a call and see what I can find out.”

  “Thanks for everything.” I picked up her cigarette case. When I handed it to her she leaned in and kissed my cheek. I wanted to throw my arms around her, give her a real kiss. I didn’t have the nerve. When she stepped away I thought there was a twinkle in her eyes, as if she was enjoying my angst.

  “We’ll talk after I check things out with the police,” Mary said. Before I could thank her she started walking across the terrace and I had to hurry to catch up.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Mary and I shared a cab to her office. I climbed out behind her, paid off the driver, and kissed her on the cheek. She smiled before running off. When she entered the building I started hoofing it toward Times Square. The area had changed a lot since I began working for the Post ten years earlier.

  Although the Depression had accelerated the demise of many of the theaters in the area, motion pictures turned out to be the real bane of the theater district. The Capitol Theater on Broadway at Fifty-First was now a first-run house for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. All the way down to Forty-Second Street west of Broadway the city’s most famous theaters had been converted into movie houses specializing in double features and burlesque shows. Even the Palace, at Broadway and Forty-Seventh Street, once the nation’s leading vaudeville house, now showed motion pictures.

  The Weingold Theater, where Helen played her last show, was located on East Forty-Fifth Street, a block from Loews State Theater. The lobby entrance was locked and I went around to the stage door, which stood ajar.

  I stepped into a long, dark, hallway. My footsteps echoed behind me like a string of muted firecrackers as I walked along the empty corridor. The building smelled of mold mixed with old perfume.

  “Anybody here?” I called out.

  “Down the hall, to your right,” a brusque voice replied. “Tryouts are tomorrow, if that’s what you’re here for.”

  I smelled his cigar before I found the guy behind the voice. The short, rotund man, with a bald spot in the back of his head and large ears was bent over a desk digging through a pile of papers. When I knocked, he looked up and frowned.

  “What do you want?” he asked. “If you’re selling something, I ain’t buying.”

  I took the slip of paper Mary had given me from my pocket and glanced at it. “I’m looking for a Richard Bowen.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you want him?” he asked. “You the fuzz?” He took the cigar from his mouth, tapped the ash on the floor, and stuck it back between his teeth.

  I shook my head and entered the room. “My sister, Helen, worked here. I’m supposed to pick up some things she left behind.”

  The man raised his eyebrows as he reached out to shake my hand. “I’m Richard. Sorry I couldn’t make the funeral.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I don’t want to be a bother. Helen’s lawyer said you were holding some of her things.”

  He turned back to the desk, picked up several piles of paper, and added them to other piles of paper. Once he’d cleared a small space, he reached behind the desk and lifted up a cardboard box that was sitting on a wooden chair. I stared at it and wondered if the contents would offer me any insight into the Helen I no longer knew.

  Bowen placed the box on the desk and sank down into the chair. “This is it.”

  Leaning forward I tried to look into the box. It was covered. Just as well. I wasn’t about to paw through my sister’s belongings while a stranger looked on.

  “I understand the police were here questioning everyone,” I said.

  The little man nodded. “It’s why I thought you was a copper. You got the look, you know.”

  I didn’t know. I nodded anyway. It was a technique I’d learned over the years. I’ve found most people open up more when I’m agreeable. “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt my sister?” I asked.

  “Helen? Nah. It’s like I told that mick, Boyle. Everyone liked Helen, even her understudy, Jane. Helen and her was good friends. Course there’s always customers come in chasing after the girls. Mostly they’re nut cases. They see the girls on stage and fall in love with ‘em.”

  “Was there someone in particular bothering her?”

  “Nah. These guys come around and try to date the girls. Sometimes the girls go out with ‘em, but mostly they send ‘em packing.”

  “Thanks for everything.” I grabbed the box and started for the door.

  “No problem,” he said from behind me. “I don’t know what this world is coming to,” he added. “Hell, this is the second actress I’ve worked with who’s been stabbed to death in the last couple years. I hope this ain’t a trend.”

  I spun around. “What do you mean a second actress? I work for the Post and I don’t remember any other actresses getting murdered in the past two years.”

  “Girl by the name of Ethel Bloomberg,” Bowen said. “She worked right in this theater for awhile. Maybe two years ago, she took a role up in Boston. Heard they found her body in her apartment, buck naked and stabbed maybe a hunert times. She was a good little actress, like Helen.”

  “Did you tell Boyle about Ethel?” I asked.

  “I don’t volunteer nothin’ to the fuzz,” Bowen said. “Besides, I got the feeling he didn’t want my opinions. Like nothin’ I said mattered to him.”

  “Sounds like Boyle.” I shifted the box to my left hand, took a card from my vest pocket, and held it out to him. “Will you call me if you hear of anyone who might have been hassling Helen?”

  “Sure.” He took the card without getting to his feet and tossed it onto the pile of papers on his desk. I figured I’d never hear from him again. At that point I didn’t care. He’d already given me something to check out. I figured it was worth looking into the murder of Ethel Bloomberg. What were the chances of two girls who worked in the same theater being butchered in such a similar fashion?

  ***

  The first thing I did when I got back to my apartment was call Tom Roberts, a friend of mine who once worked at the Post. He’d married a girl in Boston a year earlier and now worked at the Globe. I hoped he’d be willing to help.

  When I got him on the line I explained my situation. After expressing his shock and condolences, he agreed to pull any clippings the paper had in its morgue about Ethel Bloomberg’s murder and get back to me. I gave him my home number and hung up.

  Every major newspaper has a morgue, or archive room. The Daily Post kept articles from stories printed in major newspapers throughout the country, including the Boston Globe. The trouble was that Otis had banned me from the paper for two weeks. I wasn’t ready to risk his ire digging for information I could get from other sources.

  While I waited for Tom to call back, I decided to sort through the box of Helen’s things I’d picked up at the theater. I shifted the box from the corner of the bed where I’d set it earlier to the desk and sat down.

  Helen’s dressing room would have been her inner sanctum, her place to sit and think and work out her problems while she waited for her time to go on stage. There might be something in this box she wouldn’t have wanted to share with anyone else.

  Placing the palm of my hand against the side of the carton I wondered who would be around to sort through my personal items. I had no other family, no wife, no girlfriend. Perhaps the job would fall to Ed, if he outlived me. He was my best friend and the closest thing I had to family.

  I reached for the drawer where I kept a spare bottle of scotch, opened it, and stared at the bottle. I wanted a drink so badly my hands began to shake. The bottle was my temptress. I knew one drink would lead to another. Could I really afford to take that familiar spiraling trip into oblivion? Helen’s killer was out there, and if I went to jail for her murder, he’d stay out
there. I couldn’t risk it. Licking my lips, I shoved the drawer closed.

  The first thing I grabbed from the box was an 8x10 headshot of Helen in a gold frame. I was surprised at how much she looked like Greta Garbo in the photo. Maybe it was why she kept it around. To remind her of what she wanted in life. I opened the flap on the back of the frame, placed the picture on the desk alongside my typewriter, and turned my attention back to the box.

  There was a glass vase, discolored along the inside edge where the water had evaporated. A single pearl earring; a lost one found, or the lone survivor? A coffee cup stained with her lipstick. A gray pearl hatpin. A fountain pen. A gold compact with her initials on the cover.

  The final item I pulled from the box was a copy of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. There was a small snapshot tucked between the pages, and it looked like Helen had used it for a bookmark. It was placed about halfway through the book, and I felt tears run down my cheeks when it hit me that she would never finish it. I wiped them away with the back of my hand.

  I’d never read Hemingway, but I’d met him once at the Coaster Club five or six years earlier. Even then he had a growing reputation as a writer and as an adventurer. He was a tall, good-looking guy with dark hair and an attitude. A small posse of people sat at the table with him and seemed to hang on his every word. Ed introduced us and I got the feeling Hemingway had been to the speak more than once.

  I flipped the book open to where Helen had left off, took off my glasses, and squeezed the bridge of my nose. The picture she was using for a bookmark was taken when I was in my twenties. I wore a tuxedo and had my arm draped over her shoulders. I appeared to be sober and it took me a minute to place it. It was taken on opening night of the play, That Harriett Girl, Helen’s first starring role. Helen had forbidden me to drink before the show and it wasn’t until afterward that I’d headed out and gotten drunk.

  I took a deep breath, lifted the photograph from the book, and ran my finger across the two figures standing there. There was so much I wished I could change. Finally, I slipped the picture into the corner of the frame on the outside of the glass and began flipping through the pages.