The Storm Killer Page 6

  I spent the next two hours going through Helen’s apartment. I found no clues to Hank’s identity. I did however discover many things that made me miss my sister. Before I left I plopped down on the sofa and thought about the last time I’d spent the night there.

  I’d gone with Charles to catch a new show Helen was playing in. Afterward, we’d headed out to a restaurant and I’d gotten blotto. Helen had insisted I spend the night on the sofa, and the next morning she made me bacon and eggs.

  Helen wanted to sit and talk, but I was in a hurry to get to the paper that morning. In hindsight, I think the reason I didn’t stay was because I’d felt guilty. I was working on the story about Charles and I knew it was going to cause some problems with our relationship. I had no idea it would blow up on me like it did.

  Exhausted, I pushed myself to my feet and made my way over to the door. I should never have visited the apartment. The only thing I’d learned for certain was that Ila Quinn had not seen me hanging around on the night Helen died. Now I needed to find out why Boyle was so damn eager to hang a murder rap on me.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The next morning I got up early and called Detective Joe Slater in Boston. He had a deep, gravelly voice, and his thick Bostonian accent made him sound detached, maybe even apathetic. “Why’s a New York reporter interested in a two-year old Boston murder?” he asked, after I identified myself as a reporter with the New York Post.

  I hesitated. I already had one cop who didn’t seem interested in working hard enough to find the truth, did I really want another. In the end, I decided I didn’t have a choice. There was only so much information I could gather on the Bloomberg girl without Slater’s help. I decided the best way to get his help was to approach things from a professional aspect, at least until we met face to face and I could feel him out.

  “I’ve been working on a story about a woman who was murdered here in New York. I think there might be a connection between the two women.”

  “What kind of connection?”

  “I’d rather talk to you in person,” I said.

  “When?”

  “This afternoon?”

  “Why would I want to share information with you?” he asked. “It’s been my experience that reporters take more than they give.”

  “I’ll give you everything I’ve got.”

  I heard the snapping of chewing gum over the line, then, “Don’t be too late; I’ve got dinner plans tonight. I work out of headquarters on Berkeley. I’ll leave word at the desk that I’m expecting you.” He hung up the phone before I could thank him.

  I hurried to pack an overnight bag, and then took the subway to Grand Central Terminal. Even though it was a Saturday morning, the terminal was crowded with travelers, shoppers and businessmen.

  Sunlight filtered in through the massive windows of the terminal, accentuating the grandeur of the concourse. The din of people laughing, talking, and shuffling across the marble floors, along with the echo of metal wheels on track and steam engines coming and going left me feeling insignificant, like a broken cog in the grand scheme of life.

  I wondered if I had what it took to track down a killer. I didn’t have the backing of police. Hell, even the resources of the Post were out of reach since Otis had forced a vacation on me. If I didn’t felt so guilty about my relationship with Helen, I’d have gone looking for the nearest bar.

  Instead, I headed over to the ticket windows and bought a ticket on the next train to Boston, breaking one of the hundreds Mary had given me. It left in a half hour, so I ran across the concourse to the track platforms. A porter in his red cap came scurrying up to me, took my bag, and with a glance at my ticket led the way to my train.

  The trip to Boston was five hours and I found myself wishing the train had some of the new air-conditioned cars that were beginning to appear. I slid into an empty window seat in the middle of the half-full car, shook off my jacket, and rolled up my shirtsleeves. Once I caught my breath, I pulled Helen’s copy of The Sun Also Rises from my pocket and settled in for the monotonous trip.

  I had barely begun reading when I heard a woman in the isle clear her throat. Shifting my attention from the book, I was pleased to find Mary Rutledge standing there. She wore a lavender print dress, a black beret, and a teasing smile. Her presence in the train car wasn’t a total surprise. She was from Boston and I assumed her parents were still living there.

  The coach was arranged with double seats facing each other and Mary pointed to the empty space next me. “Is this seat taken?”

  Without waiting for an answer she slipped into the aisle seat and set her purse down between us.

  “You alone?” I asked.

  “Who would be with me?”

  “Your fiancé.”

  Her cheeks reddened and she looked away from me.

  “I may have misled you about that.”

  “Are you telling me there is no fiancé?”

  “Actually, I broke it off with him about a month ago.”

  I leaned against the window and turned my body so that I was seated facing her. “Any chance of the two of you getting back together?”

  “No.”

  “So why lie to me?”

  “I’m not quite sure,” she said. “Residual anger. Fear. ”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Mary moved into the seat across from me. She rested her elbows on her knees and locked her eyes on mine. “You broke my heart, Jim. I guess when we sat down to lunch and you were your old charming self, all those terrible memories went flashing through my mind. Maybe I was feeling a little vulnerable. I didn’t want you coming on to me. Lying was the easiest way to handle it.”

  I pulled out my cigarettes and offered her one. When she shook her head no I slid one out for myself and lit it. “You were the one who broke it off,” I reminded her.

  “You left me no choice. I couldn’t compete with your other love.”

  “I never cheated on you.”

  “I couldn’t compete with the whiskey, Jim. I can’t count the number of times you stood me up because you were out drinking, or had a hangover and couldn’t climb out of bed. It’s why you’re still single, isn’t it? The drinking I mean.”

  Maybe she was right. For years, when someone asked me why I wasn’t married my standard reply was that my job was my mistress. The truth was that although the newspaper might have been my surrogate wife, whiskey had always been my greatest love.

  An elderly gentleman started to sit down next to Mary and she shot a quick glance in his direction. Startled, he backed out into the aisle. “Pardon me,” he said before moving along to the next empty seat.

  “I quit drinking. Right after Helen was killed.” I didn’t mention the slip-up I’d made the night I looked at Helen’s police file. I didn’t figure that counted.

  “You had a couple of drinks at lunch, yesterday,” she said.

  “Just beer. I’m off the hard stuff.”

  She scrutinized my face, as if she was trying to read my thoughts. When the train started to move she let out a sigh, leaned back, and broke eye contact.

  I tried to go back to my book, but Mary’s presence across from me and the ambient noise caused by the other passengers distracted me. When I looked up, I found Mary staring at me.

  “Going to see your parents?” I asked.

  “I try to visit them at least once a month. What takes you to Boston?”

  I hesitated. I suspected she’d be upset to learn I was conducting my own investigation. For some reason, after all these years, I was worried about what she thought and I realized I needed to be honest with her.

  “I think the person who killed Helen also murdered another actress in Boston two years ago.”

  “Why kill two different actresses in two different towns?” she asked.

  I took a deep breath, and then filled her in on what I’d learned since leaving her the previous afternoon.

  “Couldn’t this just be a coincidence?”

  “It�
�s possible,” I said. “That’s why I need to talk to the detective who investigated Ethel Bloomberg’s murder. I’m convinced that Boyle’s got me pegged for Helen’s murder.”

  “It doesn’t sound like he’s got enough evidence to get a warrant,” Mary said. “Besides, you’ve got a reliable witness. Ila Quinn should be able to clear you if they do come after you.”

  “You didn’t hear the way the cop talked to her when he responded to her call of a break in. I could tell by the tone of his voice he thought she was a flake.”

  “Her testimony will establish reasonable doubt. I don’t think you have anything to worry about, Jim.”

  “I’m telling you, Boyle wants me put away for this.”

  “Look, I know Mike Boyle. I’ve heard some things about him. He might even be corrupt, but why would he come after you? Have you got a history with him?”

  “We’ve knocked heads a few times when I was working on a story. I never liked the guy, but nothing serious has ever happened between us.”

  “Why are you so sure Mike’s out to get you?”

  I shook my head. “His partner, Frank Belcher, told me Boyle is positive I killed Helen. The couple of times I’ve talked to Boyle he’s as good as told me that’s what he thinks.”

  “You should be okay as long as Ila Quinn swears you weren’t the man she saw leaving Helen’s apartment that night.”

  “I’m not taking any chances. If I can prove the same person who killed Helen killed this girl in Boston, it should take the heat off me. I didn’t know the girl, and I had no motive to kill her.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” Mary said.

  I picked up the book and held it up so Mary could see the title. “By the way, I found this book mixed in with some of Helen’s things. It has a dedication to her from someone named Hank. Did Helen ever mention him?”

  Mary took the book from my hand and opened it. “Sorry, Jim. Like I told you, Helen refused to talk about him. She didn’t want me to know who he was.” She gave me back the book and added, “I’ll take a cigarette now if you don’t mind.”

  I reached for my Luckies and my lighter, shook two out of the pack, and lit them both at the same time before handing one to Mary.

  She smiled at me. “I thought you were so swanky the first time you did that for me. Like a movie star.”

  “We had some magic between us back then,” I said.

  “First love’s always that way,” Mary said. “It’s only as we get older that we discover the truth.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Love, like magic, is nothing but illusion.”

  “Ouch,” I said. “You know it wasn’t the whiskey that kept me from getting married. Or my job. I just never found that magic after you.”

  Mary sucked on her cigarette, blew smoke in my direction, and watched it rise to the ceiling of the car and swirl away. “I’m not sure I ever found it again either. Maybe love’s like that smoke. It seems solid from a distance, but you can’t touch it or hold on to it.”

  “You have become a cynic, haven’t you?” I said.

  “It’s required training if you want to work as a lawyer.” She stubbed out her cigarette and turned her smile back on. “Enough of the metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, how long are you going to be in Boston?”

  “One, maybe two nights. I’ll have to see how things go with the copper.”

  “Where you staying?” Mary asked.

  “I made a couple of calls before I left town and there didn’t seem to be a shortage of rooms this weekend,” I said. “Figured I’d get a room somewhere near the police station.”

  “Why don’t you plan on staying at my parents’ house? They’ve got plenty of room and we could both head back Monday morning. That way I can make some calls and find out if you’re a suspect or not. Maybe you’re imagining the whole Boyle thing.”

  I held my hands out in front of me, palms up, and let out a little laugh. “I’m not imagining it. And as much as I’d love to spend some time with you, I’m not sure it would be a good idea for me to stay with your parents. I’m willing to bet your dad hasn’t forgiven me for what I did to his little girl. The last time I saw him he said something about a shotgun and blowing buckshot up my ass.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I never could say no to Mary. Against my better judgment, I let her talk me into staying at her parents’ house. When we arrived at North Station a porter carried our bags outside and flagged down a taxi. While the porter loaded our bags into the trunk, I helped Mary into the cab and slipped the driver two bucks to cover the tab.

  “Are you sure your parents are going to be okay with this?”

  “I don’t think they’ll hold what happened fifteen years ago against you. Besides, you’re my client now. I’ll explain it to them.”

  “I’m warning you right now. I’m not sticking around if your father starts cleaning his shotgun.”

  Mary laughed and patted my hand as I closed the door. When her cab pulled away I shucked my jacket, slung it over my shoulder, rolled up my sleeves, and began walking the two miles from the train station to police headquarters on Berkeley Street.

  It was a typical hot and muggy August day. As I approached the station I rolled the sleeves back into place, adjusted my tie, and pulled on my suit coat.

  The lobby was in desperate need of a makeover. Dark carpet, dark woodwork, dark furniture. Hell, even the copper who greeted me when I entered seemed to have a dark aura surrounding him.

  He was a big brawny man with dead eyes and a burn scar on his left cheek. His eyes locked on to me, and he followed my every movement as I walked past several wooden benches set along the wall. When I stopped in front of his desk he asked, “What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve got an appointment to see Detective Joe Slater,” I said.

  Scarface pawed through a pile of papers in front of him. “I don’t see anything here.”

  “Could you call back and tell him Jim Locke is here?” I asked.

  He looked at the phone on the corner of the desk as if he was surprised to find it there. When he picked up the receiver he turned away from me and spoke so that I could only catch an occasional word. As he put the phone down he stood. “Follow me.”

  He led me down a hall, through a door and up two flights of stairs to a small windowless room. “Slater will be with you in a bit,” he said, and then he left.

  The room smelled of stale tobacco and dead vermin and was sparsely furnished. It reminded me of a jail cell more than an office. I walked past a battered green file cabinet to the gunflint metal table and pulled out the steel chair facing the door. A chipped coffee cup someone had used for an ashtray sat on the table and I moved it away from the edge before sitting down.

  Fifteen minutes later the door swung open and a short, slight man with the face of a preacher and eyes that made me want to confess to something, anything, walked in. He tossed a thick folder onto the table in front of the empty chair and reached out to shake my hand.

  His grip felt as if he’d spent a lifetime milking cows and he didn’t release me until I grimaced. “Want a cup a joe?”

  I shook my head no and we sat down across from each other.

  “I’m not quite sure why you’re here, Mister Locke.”

  “Like I told you, I’m a reporter for the New York Daily Post. I have some questions about a murder you investigated a couple of years ago.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I got all that. What I don’t understand is why a New York reporter would be interested in a two year old Boston murder.”

  “My sister was murdered last week,” I said.

  “Sorry for your loss. What’s that got to do with my case?”

  I’d given a lot of thought to what I would tell Slater. I was prepared to tell him about Helen, but I didn’t want him to know Boyle seemed to be looking at me for her murder.

  “I think there’s a connection between the two murders. I was hoping you’d show me Ethel Bloomberg’s file.”

  He gav
e me a careful look, leaned forward, and rested his open hands on the file.

  “I don’t make a habit of showing my case files to reporters. You realize that the chances of two women murdered two years apart in two different cities being connected are pretty slim?” Slater picked up the file and stood. “I think you’re trying to bullshit me.”

  Desperate to keep him from walking away I blurted out, “Someone butchered my sister. Took a blade to her and used her as a pincushion. Then he had the gall to move her body to her bedroom and lay her out like a sleeping princess.”

  Slater laid the file down and slid back into his chair. “The Bloomberg girl was stabbed between seventy and eighty times. Got anything else?”

  “They were both actresses,” I said. “And they both worked in the same theater in New York.”

  Slater got up from his chair again. This time he left the file on the table. Moving over to the file cabinet he opened the bottom drawer and brought out a half empty bottle of Four Roses Whisky. He held it up and gave it a shake. “I need a drink. How about you?”

  “Sure.” I thought about the promise I’d made Mary and shook it from my mind as Slater removed two shot glasses from the drawer and carried them over to the table. He blew into the glasses and a thin cloud of dust rose up. Tipping the glasses upside down he gave them a shake before setting them on the table. He filled each glass so close to the brim I thought they’d spill, picked one up, and downed his drink while I reached for the other.

  He refilled the glasses and when we finished off those he capped the bottle and pushed it aside. “All right. Give me everything you’ve got. You’ve almost convinced me to let you look at this file.”

  I rattled off what I’d heard about Ethel Bloomberg, about the reference in my sister’s book to Hank, and about Ila Quinn, leaving out only the fact that Boyle seemed to have me pegged for Helen’s murder.