Ellen’s mother said, “So I had to hear the news from the perfessor. Are you sure you’re all right? Why didn’t you call me?”
“I haven’t had time, they’ve been questioning me. I’m fine, Mother.” Ellen shifted the receiver to the other ear, picturing her mother in the customary pink robe, sitting amid the orange and yellow floral pillows of her sofa, platinum hair in curlers as it always was until early afternoon; soon she would comb out the hair, don culottes and a jersey top, and venture out of her Valley apartment with the Times under her arm to pass the afternoon with her poolside neighbors.
“You’re incredible,” her mother said, “you and the perfessor.” She had always called Stephanie that, always pronouncing the word sarcastically. “So what was it like, darling?” Her voice lowered dramatically. “Tell me all about it.”
“I found a man with a knife in his chest.”
“Dear, oh dear. Why ever are you still there?”
“Mother, murder isn’t a normal part of their daily routine here.”
“Don’t be disrespectful. There’s a murderer on the loose, maybe right there with you. That wonderful intelligent perfessor told me she’s leaving town tonight anyway. I know I don’t understand the life you lead, but how she can leave you alone at a time like this—”
“Dammit, Mother—”
“Well, they haven’t arrested anybody yet, have they?”
“I’m sure they will soon. The detective in charge, she seems very good at her work, very tough and capable—”
“A woman detective? In charge? A tough and capable woman? What’s happening to this world? Where have all the men gone? Why couldn’t you find yourself a tough and capable man instead of this other craziness in your head? Or even a tough and capable woman, if it has to be that. Anybody who wouldn’t drape herself all over you, drain you dry—”
Ellen sighed, cradled the receiver between her shoulder and ear, began to sort the mail. Her mother had managed to accept her lesbianism only by taking refuge in the belief that some day Ellen would recover from it.
“Two years of college, you’re educated—a bright girl, darling. But one part of your head—it’s that marijuana, you can’t tell me you don’t smoke it, all people your age do. Why can’t you drink gin? Or even scotch? Like a normal person? First it’s Lydia the bum and seven years to come to your senses, then this perfessor—”
Out of patience, Ellen said firmly, “Mother, take it to the cleaners.”
“I don’t like it, a murder where you work and you all alone in that apartment, I’m worried about you, darling. And I was going out tonight but instead I think I’ll—”
“You go right ahead and go out, Mother. I mean it. This isn’t an episode of The A Team. I’m hardly an eyewitness anyone needs to knock off. I didn’t see a thing. So there’s no reason to—”
“Even so, it’s a crazy world we live in, full of John Hinckleys and Pope killers—”
Ellen changed the subject. “Who are you going out with? The one with the wrist watch that plays The Yellow Rose of Texas?”
“Yes. Sam, who wants to marry me. And be nice to your poor mother who only loves you and wants you to be married.”
“A diabetic recommending sugar,” Ellen twitted. Her mother had been married five times; Ellen’s Irish father had been husband number two.
“I’m still right. You and that perfessor, you’re so far off base—”
“Mother, would you really be happier if I were miserably married to some man?”
“I was brought up in a generation that believed we take on responsibilities in life, and—”
Ellen sighed again. “Mother, I’m a child of a freer generation. You’re a child of yours.”
“Bullcrap,” said her mother.
Ellen glimpsed baggy leg warmers, a fuzzy aqua sweater; Billie Sullivan loped by, sandwich in hand. “Mother, I have to go to lunch now.”
Coming out of the kitchen with a cellophaned ham salad sandwich, she saw Kate Delafield down the hallway just outside Guy Adams’ office. She also had a sandwich, and stood talking to the detective who had questioned Ellen earlier—Ed Taylor, she remembered.
Kate Delafield was very trim, about five-eight, she judged, younger than Taylor—perhaps late thirties—and more conservative in bearing and dress. Her solid body was straight, and she wore a simple open-throat white blouse with her green corduroy jacket and gray slacks. Taylor, beefy shoulders slouched, wore a suit of brown checks, a blue shirt, a wide tie of blues and yellows. Kate Delafield gestured impatiently with a compact, kinetic motion of her arm; Taylor listened, head bent, shifting his bulk from one foot to the other. Kate Delafield walked off, around the corner, Taylor following.
Ellen returned to her office, ate her sandwich at her desk. She thought about the faces she knew at Modern Office, scarcely familiar faces—strangers. Her mother’s melodramatics notwithstanding, a killer knew who she was, that she had been here this morning… She told herself there was no reason for fear. But it would be good if someone was arrested, and soon.
Taylor said, “The people I’m talking to, clerks, service reps, they’re just the peons. I’m trying to get the gossip, get a line on somebody who really had it in for this bird.”
“Good idea, Ed.” Kate had finished the recap of her morning, and she and Taylor were walking toward the conference room.
“But Christ, Kate. Nothing but garbage so far. Betty-somebody lives with a wop, every full moon he beats the living shit out of her. Bill-somebody’s got a wife that bets both their paychecks in the Gardena poker parlors—”
“Why in God’s name do good people stay with rotten people?” Kate said, striding into the conference room.
“Beats me. Marie ever did anything like that, they’d have to scrape up the pieces.”
Kate said drily, “You wouldn’t consider just leaving her?”
“Yeah, that too.” Taylor threw his notebook onto the conference room table. “Mabel-somebody, she guzzles gin out of her thermos all day long, Fred-somebody, he—”
“Wait a minute. Narcotics. Anybody give you anything at all? Coke? Pills? Grass? Anything at all?”
“You mean somebody stoned could’ve…” Taylor rubbed his jaw. “Just that weird Sullivan dame, June-somebody told me Billie Sullivan smokes reefers in the john, that’s all I’ve got.”
“Watch that angle, Ed. Anything’s as possible as anything else till we get a handle.”
“Amateur City,” Taylor said disgustedly.
Kate unwrapped her sandwich, spread a napkin on the table.
“Kate, come out to lunch, you don’t want that machine shit, loaded with all those preservatives. What’s an hour for lunch? Whoever did this isn’t gonna run. Amateur City, they never run. Let’s go eat Chinese, get a beer—”
Taylor’s face showed concern. Some of the men Kate worked with, with whom she had never and would never discuss her private life, had shown similar concern over the past months. Through her coating of numbness she had felt their reaching out to her in a common humanity—awkward expressions of caring from men who had seen every kind of grisly horror and had layered themselves with deep protective coats of cynicism. Kate said quietly, “Thanks Ed, I appreciate it. But I want to look through these files, get some background on a few people, save some time.”
“Okay. See you later.”
She made a swift inspection of the folders Gail Freeman had supplied, pocketed the printout of employees to run a check. Then she propped her feet on a chair, contemplated the soothing greens and yellows of the huge painting covering the opposite wall, picked up half of her sandwich. She reviewed what she had learned so far about the death of Fergus Parker.
The killer was by all odds a Modern Office employee—or a relative of an employee—present or past; entry could not have been gained to the sixteenth floor without possession of a key.
The notation would have been made on the guards’ log if anyone had preceded or accompanied Fergus Parker, and the killer could not have remained on the premises the night before without discovery by the guards or cleaning personnel; therefore he or she had arrived between seven and seven-forty, before or after Ellen O’Neil. In all probability, pending verification of Fergus Parker’s personal habits, he or she was a current employee who had arrived in time to make and drink coffee.
Robbery was not an apparent motive. There was no evident sign of struggle, no blood smears or splatter. The hands were bloody, but it was the usual involuntary reflex of a victim to clutch at a mortal wound. The damage in the office had been caused by Fergus Parker himself, in the final moments of his life. And he had been murdered by someone he knew, someone he did not fear—he had been totally surprised by the act.
She finished the half of her sandwich, threw the other half into the wastebasket, and pulled the stack of folders toward her. She paused, thinking about Ellen O’Neil. In all good conscience she could no longer be anything but rigorously professional. And that meant taking off the gloves.