“Julie... Miss Stevens... something has been bothering me all day. This morning, when I spoke to you in your office...”
“Yes...?”
“I had the feeling you wanted to tell me something. About your boss, Mr. Turner, and his wife.”
She shook her head. She sipped at the coffee so that she could look away from him. “I told you everything, Sergeant Ruderman.”
“Did you?” If he weren’t a policeman, his easy tone of voice could be considered that of a friend, even a lover. He was a nice man, she thought, and he was probably very good at his job. “You know what I think,” he said, smiling faintly over his steaming coffee mug. “I think you’re a very confused girl. Maybe you’ve got a misdirected sense of loyalty. Come to think of it, I like a person who’s loyal.”
She didn’t fall into that trap. “I really can’t think of anything I haven’t told you,” she insisted.
“About the Turners... they weren’t getting along too well. Some of their friends have told us that. Did they have a blowup or a serious argument in the last few days?”
Julie shrugged. She could tell he didn’t believe her, but he wasn’t angry. He was an even-tempered man, and he was calm as he finished his coffee, looking at her all the while. Then suddenly he glanced at his watch and placed some change on the table for the waiter. He handed her a card.
“That’s my number at the station. You can call at any hour.” His grin was a pleasant surprise. “Just in case you find you have something to tell me, I mean. Now, will you kindly write your name and address on this other card?”
“My address...?” she said warily.
“Sure. Have you ever had a date with a detective?”
She thought of his motives, of his job.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You won’t hear from me until after the case is closed. I don’t mix business with pleasure. And I don’t meet girls like you every day.”
She liked him, there was no getting away from that. And the straightforward, almost vulnerable way he looked at her was convincing enough for any girl. She filled in the back of the card and handed it to him.
“You’ll hear from me,” he said. “Or maybe... who can tell?... maybe I’ll hear from you first. Goodnight, Julie...”
After he left, she barely moved. A woman walked past to enter one of the phone booths. Abstractedly, Julie watched the stranger’s lips through the glass door and thought again that she ought to call her mother; but she couldn’t move.
Yes, there was something. The detective was right. It was not only the problem between Mr. Turner and his wife. About that she had lied. It was something else. But what?
She sighed. It occurred to her that Sergeant Ruderman might even believe there had been something between her and Mr. Turner. Well, there hadn’t been. Not really. Mary kept hinting that there was, but Mary was always carrying on... Like yesterday morning at the office... Wednesday... just before Mrs. Turner called...
Mary was Mr. Cassidy’s secretary. He was one of several vice presidents at Empire Investment, married; an outrageous wolf. Sometimes it seemed as though Mary... blond and vivacious, led him on, just a little. On Wednesday morning, there was a lot of flirtatious patter before Mr. Cassidy got past Julie’s and Mary’s adjacent desks to enter his own office.
“Sometimes I’m inclined to forget that he’s married,” Mary remarked, once his door had closed behind him.
“You’re just a lot of big talk,” said Julie.
“Oh, I don’t know. Married men are just men who happen to be married. Don’t be so naive, Julie. All these vice-presidents with their private telephone lines... I’ll bet it isn’t all business they talk about behind those closed doors. And I’ll bet if your Mr. Turner gave you a tumble, you wouldn’t exactly fight him off. I can tell when a girl has a crush... Oops, get to work, here’s your boss now...”
Mr. Turner was as unlike Mr. Cassidy as a man could be. In his middle thirties, the company’s youngest vice-president, he was clean cut, methodical and one hundred percent business. He walked by the girls’ desks quickly, offered a brusque good morning, then disappeared into his office.
“Well, I have to admit he’s good looking,” Mary sighed. “But did you ever see his wife? Ten years older if she’s a day. And she looks like something the cat dragged in.”
“No, she doesn’t...” Julie objected.
“Yes, she does. And everyone here knows he married her strictly for her money. I remember when she was just another rich client... only six months ago... a born old maid if ever I saw one.”
“I remember her very well,” said Julie. “She was just an unhappy, lonely woman...”
“Sure. But then handsome boy took over the account and... wham!... they get married. One of these days, you’ll see, he’ll quit working, retire for life... on her money, of course.”
Julie’s telephone rang. Saved by the bell, she thought, reaching for it. But it was quite a shock... speak of the devil... to learn who was calling.
“Julie, this is Mrs. Turner.”
“Oh, good morning. Just one moment, I’ll tell Mr. Turner you’re calling...”
“No, no, no, Julie. I don’t even want him to know I’ve called. I want to speak to you. Can we meet for lunch? I must have a talk with you...”
“With me?” There was no mistaking the urgency in the woman’s voice, Julie reflected. “Well, yes, of course, Mrs. Turner. What is it you want to speak to me a—?”
A burst of static interrupted the girl as the intercom box on her desk came to life. The signal light was on.
“Julie...” Mr. Turner’s voice crackled.
For one eerie moment, Julie experienced an inexplicable panic. She stared at the intercom box and then at the telephone receiver in her hand, realizing that if Mrs. Turner spoke again, her husband would hear. Quickly, Julie clamped her hand over the telephone mouthpiece. Then just as quickly she realized she had covered the wrong end to shut off Mrs. Turner’s voice, and switched to cover the ear-piece.
“Julie, will you bring me the file on Sloban Company...” Richard Turner’s voice directed.
“Yes, right away,” said the girl. She waited until he turned off the intercom, then spoke hurriedly into the telephone. “I have to go now...”
“Yes, I heard,” said the woman.
“I’ll call you back in a few minutes,” Julie promised. “I’d better use a telephone outside. Are you home, Mrs. Turner?”
“Yes. Please don’t forget. I’ll be waiting...”
Mary’s eyebrows were two question marks, but Julie had no time to explain. She moved to the filing cabinets behind the long line of typists’ desks and quickly located the Sloban file. Feelings strangely conspiratorial, she pictured Mrs. Turner in her Washington Square apartment, an overweight, somehow pitiful woman, waiting for the return call. Her expression revealing none of these thoughts, Julie knocked on Mr. Turner’s door.
As she came into his room, Richard Turner was speaking on his private telephone. His grey eyes barely flicked in his secretary’s direction while he continued to charm his widowed client, Mrs. Sloban.
“...Yes, Vera... I realize you don’t want to take risks with the principal. Empire Investment wouldn’t allow such recklessness. I mean, we’d certainly advise against it...”
Julie gazed at the sharp, handsome profile. As always, it did something to her equilibrium she preferred not to acknowledge. There were two telephones on his desk, one an extension of the phone on her desk, the other for “confidential” contact with clients. Julie could remember when Mrs. Turner was one of those clients, a lonely heiress, who rated long conversations as he was now indulging Mrs. Sloban. Marriage, thought Julie, as she placed the Sloban folder on his desk, can certainly cool a man’s ardor... if there had been any ardor in the first place...