Mom Doth Murder Sleep Read online

  “They didn’t tell her much when they arrested her this morning,” Bernie said. “Something about witnesses.”

  “That couldn’t be you, could it?” Ann turned to Roger. “Did you tell them anything that might lead them to think the person who grabbed you was Mrs. Michaels?”

  I could see the kid gulping a little. Stronger types than him have been forced to back down under Ann’s cross-examination. “I certainly don’t think I did—”

  Ann turned back to the rest of us. “All right, if the DA has witnesses, they must be the other two actors who were onstage when the murder took place. Who are they?”

  “Jeff Greenwald and Danny Imperio,” Roger said. “They play the first two murderers. Jeff’s a senior at General Wagner High. Danny’s a waiter at the Richelieu Hotel.”

  General William Henry Harrison Wagner, a hero of the Indian Wars, founded Mesa Grande about a hundred and twenty years ago; lots of things in town are named after him. And the Richelieu Hotel is the big posh resort on the outskirts of town, an object of awe and reverence to local merchants because of the tourist trade it brings in.

  “Talk to them this morning,” Ann said to me. “Also anybody else who was backstage at the time. Maybe the DA’s got hold of somebody who got a good look at the murderer when he—or she—was running off the stage. And while you’re at it, how about checking what they were all doing while Osborn was getting killed. Some of them ought to be able to give each other alibis.”

  “I’ll get started on that,” Roger said. “I know Jeff and Danny pretty well. I’ll get in touch with them.”

  He left the room, while I turned back to Bernie, keeping my voice friendly. “What were you doing while Osborn was onstage being killed?”

  “I’m King Duncan. Macbeth and his wife murder me early in the play. I wasn’t even in the theatre when it happened.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “I went to the movies. The Mesa Grande Triplex, just a couple of blocks from the theatre. I had two hours to kill, and I get restless if I just sit around backstage.”

  “Didn’t you want to see how the play was going over?” Ann asked.

  “Not particularly. All this theatre stuff, this acting and all, doesn’t mean much to me. My father was a plumber. Back east, in Newark, New Jersey, that’s where I was raised. While I was growing up, I hardly even knew there were such people as actors.”

  “How did you happen to get into acting then?”

  He grinned a little. For a second there was something in his expression, under the gray beard and the royal dignity, that almost reminded me of a little boy. “When I married Sally, how else? She was crazy about it, you know, and I thought a husband ought to share his wife’s interests. So they’d have things in common that they could talk about together. So I went down with her that first year when Lloyd Cunningham started the Players, and I tried out with her. She got to be the girl’s mother in Our Town, and I got to be this college professor that gives all the statistics at the beginning. It’s a pretty small part, so you probably don’t remember it.”

  “But you and Mrs. Michaels broke up six or seven years ago,” Ann said. “How come you’re still acting?”

  He spread his hands. “You know how it is. You get into the habit of something. They keep asking me to be in things. Whenever there’s an old-man part, and it’s so dull nobody else wants it—”

  “Go on with what you did last night,” I broke in, “at the time of the murder.”

  “Like I told you, I went to the movies. I expected to get back to the theatre in time for the curtain calls. I’ve been timing it at rehearsals, so I knew exactly how long I had.”

  “You weren’t afraid the play might finish up earlier than usual?”

  “Oh, no. Once we get set, we perform it at pretty much the same speed every time. I was planning to give it ten minutes leeway or so, in case somebody forgot their lines and skipped a page or two. I was sure I wouldn’t need more than that. But of course—” a troubled look came over his face—“it didn’t work out that way last night. I mean, I got out of the movies at ten o’clock, which should’ve been plenty of time, but when I got to the theatre the place was surrounded by police cars.”

  “So what did you do then?”

  “My first thought was that somebody had an accident, somebody got hurt. Sally, maybe. I tried to get into the theatre; the police told me I couldn’t. I’m afraid I got pretty excited. It took me a while to convince them I belonged there. Well, finally they let me through, and I looked all over for Sally. She was being questioned by one of the district attorney’s people, and after he finished he told her she’d have to wait around until the assistant DA gave orders they were through with her. So I waited with her. And actually they let her go about half an hour later.”

  “You went home after that?”

  “Well, I took Sally home first. She was exhausted, poor girl, so I didn’t go into the house with her. Then I went home. I slept for a few hours, and then, just an hour ago, Sally called me from the jail. You will handle her case, won’t you? She can’t afford a lawyer, she hasn’t got a dime. You know what grade-school teachers get paid, and Sally never saves any of her money.” He lifted his chin. “If I had the money, I’d gladly—I mean, what else have I got to spend it on? But if you want to know, I’m pretty close to dead broke myself. You know what the economy is in this town these days. My practice is just about breaking even.”

  “You don’t have any savings?” I asked. “The economy was pretty good a few years ago.”

  “Oh yes, I did pretty well for a while, I built up a pretty good bank account. But—well, that’s all gone now. In the last few years there’ve been expenses.”

  He didn’t say any more, but he didn’t have to. I was sure his ex-wife had never hesitated to put the bite on him whenever she ran out of funds.

  “Bernie,” I went on, “what was the movie you saw last night?”

  “It was one of those—oh my God, it was one of those mad slasher things! Blood spurting all over the place—” He broke off, his face slightly yellow. “I came in at the middle and didn’t leave till it got around to the part where I’d come in.”

  “Didn’t it bother you that you’d see the second half first and first half second?”

  “What’s the difference? I’m not much of a moviegoer, television is so much easier and cheaper. I went to the movies a lot when I was a kid, but I lost interest after I grew up. I’ll bet this is the first one I’ve been to in ten years. All I really cared about was passing the time and getting back to the theatre before the curtain call.”

  We had no more questions for Bernie, so Ann told him he could leave it to us from now on. We’d try to arrange bail for Sally, and we’d be in touch with him on our progress. Meanwhile he should do as little worrying as possible.

  * * *

  Roger came back after Bernie was gone, saying he had appointments with the two murderers. Till then, I told him, he was to go down to the Ramon Novarro Theatre, find the stage manager, and get a list of everybody in the cast and crew who was backstage at the time of the murder. Then he was to find out what as many of them as possible had been doing, whom they had been with, and if any of them could alibi others.

  Meanwhile, Ann and I started our working day by going down to the second floor, where we had an appointment with the assistant DA who was handling the murder.

  His name was Leland Grantley III, and he had replaced George Wolkowicz, who had been offered a higher-paying assistantship in San Diego, with a classier, more affluent criminal element. Already, though Wolkowicz had left less than a month ago, the feel of the office was completely different. Wolkowicz’s desk had always been a disaster area, but now it was incredibly neat: empty new blotter, a row of sharpened pencils, a blank notepad, an empty In tray and a full Out tray.

  And the pictures on the walls were different. Wolkowicz had gone in mostly for photographs, showing himself sitting at banquet tables, shaking hands with local cele
brities, or grinning servilely at our esteemed district attorney, Marvin McBride. In each case McBride was wearing his friendliest, dumbest grin, which showed the pictures had been taken in the late afternoon, after he had lubricated himself with his usual quota of daylight martinis; pictures taken of him in the morning always showed him looking angry, not at the rise of the crime rate but at the effect of this morning’s hangover on his digestion.

  But Wolkowicz had evidently taken his photographs with him to San Diego, and the new assistant DA had put up reproductions of famous paintings by Impressionists. The word was that he was an intellectual, right out of Harvard Law School, and had turned down two or three offers from Wall Street firms because he preferred a career of public service.

  He stood up when Ann and I entered. Another radical break with tradition: Wolkowicz had never gone further than a nod and a grunt. Then he actually came around his desk so he could shake our hands. He was a thin, tan, old-young man, with stooping shoulders, thick black-rimmed glasses, and a two-piece gray pin-striped suit with a subdued blue-gray tie to match. The uniform of big-city Eastern yuppiedom, not usually seen in our parts. We have our own yuppies, of course—Mesa Grande is a growing community, not to be left out of present-day social progress—but their uniform involves open sports shirts with little alligators over the pocket.

  “How are you, how are you, nice to see you again,” he murmured at Ann and me; the Leland Grantley IIIs manage to express their emotions without ever raising their voices. “Please sit down. Is that chair comfortable enough for you, Mrs. Swenson? Well, I’m certainly glad you could see me this morning.” He was behind his desk again, hands clasped in front of him. “When the public defender is handling a case I’m concerned in, I believe we should get together and talk out all the problems, bring our differences into the open. Cooperation, not competition, that’s my policy.”

  “Have you discussed your policy with the DA?” Ann asked.

  “Oh, yes. Mr. McBride is solidly behind me. ‘A hundred and ten percent’ is how he puts it. He’s got a very colorful way of speaking, don’t you agree? A salty character in every respect.”

  He smiled, then his smile gave way to an earnest expression. “Now I hear you’ll be handling the defense for the Michaels woman. Sally Michaels, I believe, is the full name.” From his desk drawer he pulled out a folder and contaminated the purity of his desk blotter as he ruffled through it.

  “What we were hoping you’d explain to us,” Ann said, “is why you’re charging Mrs. Michaels with this crime. A dozen or more people were backstage at the time of the murder. Not to mention a few hundred more in the audience, almost any one of whom could have slipped out of the auditorium and gone backstage when the lights were out.”

  “Yes, that’s true. It’s seldom a murder is committed in such public circumstances. Makes this case terrifically fascinating.” Grantley’s face had taken on a gleam of boyish excitement. He forced himself to look earnest again. “As to your question, though. You know, my predecessor in this office might have refused to answer it. Even though the law says we have to provide the defense with all the results of our investigations. Well, I don’t operate the way he did. Frankly, I don’t want to get convictions through trickery and unfairness. So I’ll put my cards on the table right now. We’ve got two pieces of evidence against Mrs. Michaels. Either one might be the basis for a case, taken together they’re conclusive. First of all, we’ve got eyewitnesses who are ready to swear it was Mrs. Michaels who dressed up as the Third Murderer and stabbed Mr. Osborn.”

  “What eyewitnesses?” Ann gave a gentle snort. “Only three people, besides the victim, got close to the killer. One of them happens to work in my office, and I know he can’t identify Mrs. Michaels.”

  “Yes, young Meyer. I know what he says, of course. There may be some who might point out that he has a certain vested interest in Mrs. Michaels’s being acquitted. But I won’t make such a suggestion; I’m happy to assume he’s telling the truth. The fact is, he never saw the killer from the front, did he? She was behind him all the time, until he left the stage.”

  “In other words,” I said, “your eyewitnesses are that high school student, Greenwald, and that waiter, Imperio. The actors who played the other two murderers. They weren’t naming any names last night. How come they didn’t accuse Mrs. Michaels right after they saw the murder?”

  “They were in a state of shock last night,” Grantley said. “They weren’t sure what they’d seen, they hadn’t thought it all through yet. But this morning, when they were calmer and steadier and had a chance to refresh their recollections—”

  “With a battery of police officers doing the refreshing,” Ann said.

  “I assure you, Mrs. Swenson,” Grantley said, with an injured look on his face, “nobody intimidated them in any way. We didn’t bring up Mrs. Michaels to those two witnesses. It was what they told us—about the brief scene they played with the Third Murderer, before Roger Meyer and the victim came onstage—that suggested Mrs. Michaels to us. You remember no doubt that Harold Hapgood—is that his name? Yes, it’s right here—who was supposed to be the Third Murderer, is unusually short, at least a head shorter than Greenwald and Imperio, who are fairly short themselves; they’re both exactly five feet eight. Ordinarily, when they played their scene with Hapgood, they had to look down at him. But last night—so they tell us, and they’re prepared to testify to this under oath—they played the scene with him at eye level. Do you see the significance of that? Last night the Third Murderer, the murderer, was exactly the same height as the other two.”

  “I don’t see how that justifies you in accusing Sally Michaels—”

  “You agree, I’m sure, that the murderer has to be somebody with a close connection to the play, somebody who’s seen the rehearsals, who knew the Third Murderer’s lines and what actions he was supposed to perform. And somebody who’s fairly close to five feet eight inches tall. Well, we’ve questioned everybody who’s connected with the play, the cast and the backstage crew who were in the theatre last night. At the time of the murder, most of them were busy doing their jobs, and in full view of at least two other people. Only a handful have no alibis of that sort. All of them actors, by the way, none of them members of the stage crew. I’ll be happy to supply you with a list of names, though no doubt you’ll want to do your own questioning too. Well, of those five or six people whose whereabouts at the time of the murder can’t be substantiated, all but one are too tall to have taken Hapgood’s place onstage. Your client, Mrs. Michaels, happens to be the only one who’s exactly five feet eight inches tall.”

  “Ridiculous,” Ann said. “You’ve got no proof at all that the murder wasn’t committed by somebody from the audience or by somebody who came in from outside. Doesn’t Osborn have any family, any survivors? He had a lot of money. Who inherits it?”

  “He never seems to have made a will,” Grantley said. “Actors’ Equity has a few facts on file about his background, but it isn’t much. He was born in Los Angeles, not far from the studios. Parents dead, no siblings; late wife had no relatives either. His Equity insurance goes to her, and he never bothered to change it after she died. So I’m afraid the mysterious sinister heir just isn’t in the picture.”

  “Even so, that business about the murderer’s height sounds pretty thin to me. Why couldn’t the murderer be a taller person who was stooping?”

  Grantley gave a little laugh. “Well, I suppose it’s possible, Mrs. Swenson. But I rather believe no jury will find it likely. When you combine the matter of height, however, with our second piece of evidence—”

  “Which is?”

  “The Third Murderer’s costume was supposed to be a black poncho, a bit too large for him, so it concealed most of his body. That costume plus the black mask was what made it hard to see who it was.”

  “Wait a second,” I broke in. “He wasn’t wearing any poncho. He was wearing a raincoat, a dark-colored raincoat, I’ll swear to that.”

  “
Exactly the point.” Grantley turned his pleased smile on me. “Harold Hapgood had that poncho on when he was attacked in the basement, he still had it on when you found him in the broom closet. Evidently the killer didn’t have time to pull it off him and put it on herself. Maybe she heard somebody coming down to the basement and had to stow Hapgood away fast. So she did the next best thing: she went onstage in her own raincoat, which she ordinarily wore to the theatre at night. It’s a common type of cheap raincoat, nondescript dark gray in color, and with the lights dim nobody, not even the actors onstage with her, would be likely to identify it as hers. And nobody would have, except for the one bad break she got. When she came in close to stab Osborn, he must’ve shot his hand out and grabbed hold of one of the buttons on her raincoat. She pulled away from him, but the button came tearing off. We found it in the palm of the victim’s hand.”

  “I didn’t see it when I looked at the body last night,” I said.

  “The victim’s hand was closed over it. And you were being very careful not to touch the body, weren’t you? So it’s no wonder you didn’t notice the button. But the doctor noticed it when he examined the body just before you. He left it where he found it and called it to the attention of the police when they got to the scene.”

  I remembered now, Osborn’s right fist had been clenched when I looked at the body. I saw no point in mentioning this, though.

  “How can you be sure that button came from Mrs. Michaels’s raincoat?” Ann said. “You just told us it’s a common cheap brand.”

  “We searched the theatre, and we found Mrs. Michaels’s raincoat on the floor of her dressing room. As if she’d thrown it down there in a hurry. The middle button was torn from it, and the button Osborn was holding matches the others exactly. So there really isn’t any doubt about it, I’m afraid.”

  “I’ve got plenty of doubts,” Ann said. “The murderer could’ve stolen Mrs. Michaels’s coat from her dressing room, then thrown it back in there afterward. You’ve got nothing to connect her directly with the murder. The weapon, for instance.” Ann narrowed her eyes. “I don’t suppose you can connect her with the weapon?”