“A week ago,” Mrs. Connors said, “Boyd enlisted in the air force. He asked to be flight crew. They examined him for two days. He was in perfect shape, they accepted him for flight training. He was to leave in a month.”
Could I tell her that doctors make mistakes? Which doctors? The air force doctors, or the medical examiner’s doctors? Could I refuse even to look?
“I’ll see what I can find,” I said. “But the M.E. and the police know their work, Mrs. Connors.”
“This time, they’re wrong,” she said, opening her purse.
It took most of the afternoon before I cornered Sergeant Hamm in the precinct squad room. He swore at crazy old ladies, at his work load, and at me, but he took me over to see the M.E. who worked on Boyd Connors.
“Boyd Connors died of a natural heart attack,” the M.E. said. “I’m sorry for the mother, but the autopsy proved it.”
“At twenty? Any signs of previous heart attacks? Any congenital weakness, hidden disease?”
“No. There sometimes isn’t any, and more people die young of heart attacks than most know. It was his first, and his last, coronary.”
“He passed an air force physical for flight training a week ago,” I said.
“A week ago?” The M.E. frowned. “Well, that makes it even more unusual, yes, but unusual or not, he died of a natural coronary attack, period. And in case you’re wondering, I’ve certified more heart attack deaths than most doctors do common colds. All right?”
As we walked to Sergeant Hamm’s car outside the East Side Morgue, Hamm said, “If you still have any crazy ideas about it being murder, like the mother says, I’ll tell you that Boyd Connors was alone in his own room when he died. No way into that room except through the living room, no fire escape, and only Mrs. Connors herself in the living room. Okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Swell.”
Hamm said, “Don’t take the old woman for too much cash, Danny. Just humor her a little.”
After leaving Hamm, I went to the Connorses’ apartment, a fifth-floor walkup. It was cheap and worn, but it was neat — a home. A pot of tea stood on the table as Mrs. Connors let me in. She poured me a cup. There was no one else there, Mr. Patrick Connors having gone to distant parts long ago.
I sat, drank my tea. “Tell me, just what happened?”
“Last night Boyd came home about eight o’clock,” the mother said. “He looked angry, went into his room. Perhaps five minutes later I heard him cry out, a choked kind of cry. I heard him fall. I ran in, found him on the floor near his bureau. I called the police.”
“He was alone in his room?”
“Yes, but they killed him somehow. His friends!”
“What friends?”
“A street gang — the Night Angels. Thieves and bums!”
“Where did he work, Mrs. Connors?”
“He didn’t have a job. Just the air force, soon.”
“All right.” I finished my tea. “Where’s his room?”
It was a small room at the rear, with a narrow bed, a closet full of gaudy clothes, a set of barbells, and the usual litter of brushes, cologne, hair tonic, and after-shave on the bureau. There was no outside way into the room, and no way to reach it without passing through the living room; no signs of violence, nothing that looked to me like a possible weapon.
All that my searching and crawling got me was an empty box and wrapping paper from some drugstore, in the wastebasket, and an empty men’s cologne bottle under the bureau. That and three matchbooks were under the same bureau, a tube of toothpaste under the bed, and some dirty underwear. Boyd Connors hadn’t been neat.
I went back out to Mrs. Connors. “Where had Boyd been last night?” I asked.
“How do I know?” she said bitterly. “With that gang, probably. In some bars. Perhaps with his girlfriend, Anna Kazco. Maybe they had a fight, that’s why he was angry.”
“When did Boyd decide to join the air force?”
“About two weeks ago. I was surprised.”
“All right,” I said. “Where does this Anna Kazco live?”
She told me.
I left and went to the address Mrs. Connors had given me. An older woman opened the door. A bleached blonde, she eyed me until I told her what I wanted. Then she looked unhappy, but she let me in.
“I’m Grace Kazco,” the blonde said, “Anna’s mother. I’m sorry about Boyd Connors. I wanted better than him for my daughter, but I didn’t know he was sick. Poor Anna feels terrible about it.”
“How do you feel about it?” I asked.
Her eyes flashed at me. “Sorry, like I said, but I’m not at all busted up; Boyd Connors wasn’t going to amount to a hill of beans. Now maybe Anne can—”
The girl came from an inner room. “What can Anne do?”
She was small and dark, a delicate girl whose eyes were puffed with crying.
“You can pay attention to Roger, that’s what!” the mother snapped. “He’ll make something of himself.”
“There wasn’t anything wrong with Boyd!”
“Except he was all talk and dream and do-nothing. A street-corner big shot! Roger works instead of dreaming.”
“Who’s this Roger?” I asked.
“Roger Tatum,” the mother said. “A solid, hard working boy who likes Anna. He won’t run off to any air force.”
“After last night,” Anna said, “maybe he won’t be running here again, either.”
“What happened last night?” I queried.
Anna sat down. “Boyd had a date with me, but Roger had dropped around first. He was here when Boyd came. They got mad at each other, Mother told Boyd to leave. She always sides with Roger. I was Boyd’s date, Roger had no right to break in, but Mother got me so mad I told them both to get out. I was wrong. It made Boyd angry. Maybe that made the heart attack happen. Maybe I—”
“Stop that!” the mother said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Under the bleached hair and the dictatorial manner, she was just a slum mother trying to do the best for her daughter.
“Did they get out when you told them?” I asked.
Anna nodded. “They left together. That was the last time I ever saw poor Boyd.”
“What time was that?”
“About seven o’clock, I think.”
“Where do I find this Roger Tatum? What does he do for a living?”
“He lives over on Greenwich Avenue, Number 110,” Anna told me. “He works for Johnson’s Pharmacy on Fifth Avenue. Cleans up, delivers, like that.”
“It’s only a temporary job,” the mother said. “Roger has good offers he’s considering.”
The name of Johnson’s Pharmacy struck a chord in my mind. Where had I heard the name? Or seen it?
Roger Tatum let me into his room. He was a small, thin youth who wore rimless glasses and had nice manners; the kind of boy mothers like — polite, nose to the grindstone. His single room was bare, except for books everywhere.
“I heard about Boyd,” Tatum said. “Awful thing.”
“You didn’t like him too much, though, did you?”
“I had nothing against him. We just liked the same girl.”
“Which one of you did Anna like?”
“Ask her,” Tatum snapped.
“Not that it matters now, does it?” I said. “Boyd Connors is dead, the mother likes you, an inside track all the way.”
“I suppose so,” he said, watching me.
“What happened after you left the Kazco apartment with Boyd? You left together? Did you fight, maybe?”
“Nothing happened. We argued some on the sidewalk. He went off, I finished my deliveries. I’m not supposed to stop anywhere when I deliver, and I was late, so I had to hurry. When I finished delivering, I went back to the shop, then I came home. I was here all night after that.”