Over iced tea on the cottage deck later that morning, while TJ played catch in the parking lot with one of the off-duty busboys, Nita and Fitz speculated on how events might have unfolded on Saturday night.
“Where was Pollock coming from? He was driving back home from somewhere,” said Fitz. “I assume the local police will check his whereabouts, find out if anyone saw him and the women earlier that evening.”
Nita opened up a line of reasoning. “Suppose they were at a party where someone got rough with Metzger, whether it was Pollock or someone else? Maybe she wasn’t dead, just unconscious, and he wanted to get her home to recover. Naturally he’d be in a hurry, even more so than usual. Probably a bit panicky, probably not sober. That would account for the speed, and the direction.”
“If that were the case,” said Fitz, “you’d think someone who was at the party would have come forward. There can’t be a soul in the area who doesn’t know about the accident by now.”
“Weren’t they supposed to be going to Ossorio’s? That’s what he told Dr. Cooper. Evidently they never got there, at least if Ossorio’s telling the truth.”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“If he’s the one who strangled her.”
“Ah. But surely some of the other guests would have seen them.”
“Yes, that’s most likely, unless he headed them off before they could go in.”
“Why would he do that?”
Nita had a suggestion. “You remember he said he’s loyal to Lee. Suppose he had second thoughts about letting Pollock bring not one but two pretty young women to a concert where all his friends, and Lee’s, would see them. How would it look, Pollock parading his girlfriends like that? For all Ossorio knew, he was balling them both!”
Fitz nodded. “I see what you’re getting at. Maybe he tried to call Pollock, tell him not to come, but they’d already left. So he waits outside for them to arrive, tries to persuade them to leave quietly, but Metzger makes a fuss and he’s afraid she’ll disturb the concert, so he grabs her by the throat. But he throttles her too hard. She passes out, and Pollock bundles her into the car and takes off, not realizing that her windpipe is crushed and she’s dying.”
“Ossorio may be a pansy, but he’s a big guy. I’d say he’s strong enough to have done it the way you describe.”
“Yeah, but on the face of it Pollock and Kligman are more likely. Maybe Kligman’s a lot stronger than she looks. Pretty hard to tell when she’s lying in the road semiconscious. If she was mad enough, and jealous enough, maybe she’d be capable. What’s the old saying, ‘Hell hath no fury?’”
“That’s a scorned woman, not a jealous one,” Nita reminded him, “but it could amount to the same thing if Pollock was putting the make on Metzger without her approval. Which brings up another possible angle.” She checked to make sure that TJ was out of hearing range.
“Sexual strangulation. What the medical examiner calls erotic asphyxiation. We had a case once, a few years back. Hector assigned me because the victim was female. Seems she liked her boyfriend to tie her up and tighten a rope around her neck until she almost passed out. For some reason, when the blood supply to the brain is cut off it heightens sexual pleasure.”
Fitz’s eyebrows went up, and Nita hastened to add, “Don’t even think about it. It’s very dangerous. Too much pressure, especially with a ligature, and it’s all over. That’s what happened to our victim, pretty little Puerto Rican girl. The boyfriend tried to cover it up, make it look like suicide, but we arrested him for murder. Fortunately for him she’d told a couple of her girlfriends about being a gasper—that’s what they call people who get off that way—and encouraged them to try it. They testified, the boyfriend changed his story, and the jury believed him.”
Fitz’s imagination was working overtime. “Maybe Metzger was a gasper. Maybe Pollock was doing both women, Kligman the regular way and Metzger with a stranglehold.”
Nita was skeptical. “That seems pretty far-fetched to me. According to Doc Cooper, Pollock was in really bad shape physically. I wonder if he was even capable of doing it the regular way.”
“All the more reason why he might have been willing to experiment with Metzger,” reasoned Fitz. “It could be a real turn-on.”
“Down, boy,” she cautioned. “Let’s not get carried away. I only suggested it as a possibility because she died of asphyxia. Obviously she was strangled, but why? And why were they headed home? Whatever happened must have happened somewhere else, but where?”
As they pondered these questions, a messenger from the inn came to tell them that Fitz was wanted on the phone. “You can take it in Mr. Bayley’s office,” he said.
The innkeeper was cooperation personified. “Please feel free to treat my office as your own, Captain Fitzgerald. The telephone is at your disposal, no extra charge. Harry Steele asked me to give you every assistance. He’s very grateful for your help on this case.”
Bayley left the room as Fitz lifted the receiver, certain that the switchboard operator was listening in.
“Fitzgerald here,” he said. “Who’s calling?”
“Hello, Captain, this is Murphy at the Six. We got information on those two women you wanted us to trace.”
He sat down at the desk and found a pencil and note pad. “Let’s have it.”
“They were roommates, all right. Shared one of the four apartments in that building. The landlady insisted on getting the names and addresses of their families, in case they skipped out on the rent. Said she’d had a couple of bad experiences with single women doing a vanishing act. Anyway, if you’re ready I’ll give you the dope.”
Fitz took down the details, thanked Murphy for the good work, and rang off. Kligman’s mother and sister lived in New Jersey, and Metzger’s mother and brother were in the Bronx. Apparently both fathers were either dead or missing.
He fished Chief Steele’s card out of his shirt pocket, asked for an outside line, and dialed the number. The clerk put him through, and he relayed the information. He also mentioned that he was calling from the Sea Spray office, confident that Steele would realize the call was going through the switchboard.
Steele took the hint and guarded his remarks. “Thank you very much, Captain Fitzgerald. Now comes the hard part. I hate to inform these folks over the phone, but I can’t spare anyone to go in person.”
“If you’re agreeable,” Fitz suggested, “I’ll get one of my men to do it. Or a woman, if you think that would be better. Why don’t I come by the office and we can discuss it in person?” No way was he going to talk about Metzger’s death on an open line.
He agreed to go at once, and returned to the cottage to tell Nita what was happening.
“I won’t be long. If you and TJ want to run into the village with me, you can pick up some lunch at Dreesen’s while I meet with the chief. And I sure wouldn’t mind if you bought a bag of their homemade donuts. We can have them for breakfast tomorrow—if they last that long.”