“Yeah? Why?”
“I can’t quite put my finger on it. He’s got a hard-guy front, but that may be just his way. But I smell something phony. I wasn’t too sure of it till I asked him if either he or his wife had dropped over here, to see about the children. He’s sharp, and he knew right away what I was getting at. He got his feathers up a little, and so I told him I’d asked about it only because I thought he or his wife might have seen someone hanging around here.”
“And?”
“And that’s what got me to thinking pretty hard about him. He knew damn well I was just covering up, Walt, and yet he pretended to go along with it.”
Walt nodded thoughtfully. “I see what you mean.”
“That party’s probably still going on,” I said. “Suppose you drop over there and talk to people. See if either Boardman or his wife was absent at any time.”
“You really think a woman could have done that much damage? It takes a hell of a lot of strength to choke someone to death, Steve. Almost all choke jobs are done by men.”
“I know. But that’s no reason to chalk Mrs. Boardman off completely She’s a big, sturdy woman and she outweighs Doris by a good fifty pounds. If she had enough motive she’d probably find enough strength.”
“You see a motive?”
“I saw Doris Linder. That’s a very desirable girl, Walt. She’d be enough to start trouble anywhere.”
“You think Boardman might have got too interested in her?”
“He’s human, isn’t he? You put a man near a pretty girl often enough — especially a very young one with a habit of wearing nothing beneath her dress — and almost anything can happen. If it did happen, and Mrs. Boardman found out about it — then you’ve got the makings for just what happened tonight.”
“I’ll get over there right away,” Walt said. “What’s that address again?”
“It’s right down the street. Four-twenty-seven.”
“Pretty handy, isn’t it?”
“Either of them could have left the party, killed Doris, and been back inside of fifteen minutes.”
“What’s Boardman’s full name, Steve? I missed it.”
“William C. And listen, Walt. Be diplomatic over there. Make sure those people at the party understand this is just a routine check.”
“Sure. You want me to come back here when I finish?”
“You might look in for a minute, to see if the techs have come up with anything, and then I think you’d better start talking to the people around the neighborhood. Hit the bars and drug stores and so on. Maybe someone saw something. It happens. Me, I’m going over to see a man named Charles Steward. He’s the one who introduced Doris to the Boardmans. Doris used to sit for the Stewards, too, and maybe she opened up more around them than she did the Boardmans. They might be able to give us a lead.”
After Walt left I called BCI and asked for run-throughs on William Boardman and Doris Linder. I held the wire while the search was made, and by the time I’d lit a cigarette and smoked it halfway down, the clerk at BCI came back on to say that there was no record on either Boardman or Doris. I thanked him, had him switch me to Communications, and asked them to contact the Los Angeles police for the purpose of determining whether or not Doris had ever been in trouble there and, if so, whether it was anything that might have followed her to New York. Next I called a teen-age stool with a wide acquaintanceship among the younger neighborhood gangs and their feminine counterparts, and asked him if he’d known Doris or heard anything about her. He told me he had not and offered to start tapping his sources immediately. I agreed, told him to leave a message for me at the squad room if he learned anything, and hung up.
Then I went out to the Plymouth Walt and I had come in, and headed uptown to see Mr. Charles Steward.
The man who opened the door to my ring was somewhere in his early fifties, very tall, with thinning brown hair, eyes that seemed fixed in a permanent squint, and shoulders far too stooped for a man his age. The skin beneath his chin hung in loose folds, as if he had recently been sick and lost weight, and the skin itself was sallow and unhealthy looking. But his voice, when he asked me what I wanted, was unusually deep and strong.
“Are you Mr. Charles Steward?”
“Yes.”
I showed him my badge. “I’m Detective Manning, Mr. Steward. I’d like to talk to you.”
His eyes widened a little. “What’s happened? Is it Eileen?”
“Eileen?”
“My wife. Has something happened to her?”
“No, Mr. Steward. This is something else. May I come in?”
He opened the door wide and stood back to let me step inside.
We took chairs in the living room and I said, “This is about Doris Linder, Mr. Steward.”
He nodded. “She’s in trouble?”
“Let’s just say the police have an interest in her.”
“I’m supposed to let you ask the questions, is that it?”
“It usually goes much better that way, Mr. Steward. Have you known Doris long?”
He eyed me narrowly, as if he didn’t much care for my manner. “About six months,” he said at last. “She started sitting for us in February, I think... Yes, February.”
“What’s your impression of her?”
He shrugged. “She’s a very nice person, so far as I know. She’s always gone out of her way to help Eileen and me, and she seems to think as much of the baby as we do. She’s the best sitter we ever had. I’ve recommended her to my friends, and they all say the same.”
“Such as Mr. Boardman?”
“Yes. And Willie — that is, Mr. Boardman — will speak just as highly of her, I’m sure. He’s a lifelong friend of mine, and I wouldn’t have recommended her to him if I hadn’t been entirely sure of her.” He paused. “If she’s in trouble, and there’s anything I can do to help her, I wish you’d let me know.”
“I will,” I said. “Right now, we’ll have to go along pretty much the way we have been. Does Mrs. Steward share your opinion of Doris?”
“Of course. Otherwise she’d never permit her in the house. Neither of us would trust our youngster to just anyone, Mr. Manning.”
“Is your wife here now?”
“No. Her mother took ill this afternoon and Eileen went over to take care of her. She’ll probably spend the night. That’s why we had to call on Doris this afternoon. It was an emergency, and I couldn’t get away from the office to take care of the baby myself. When Eileen found I couldn’t leave, she called Doris. Luckily Doris was able to come right over. She couldn’t stay later than eight-thirty, though, because the Boardmans were going to a party and Doris had promised she’d sit for them.”
“I see. Has she ever told you much about herself, Mr. Steward? She ever mention being in trouble of any kind, or having any enemies?”
“No, she never has. She’s really not very talkative. We’re on friendly terms with her, of course, but I doubt whether she would have confided anything like that.”
“She ever mention her boy friends?”
“I think she must stick pretty much to one guy. At least I’ve never heard her speak of any others. A boy named Les... Les Ogden, I believe.”
“You know where I can reach him?”
He frowned. “I’m not positive, but I think he works for a florist. Down in the Village. I’m not sure where I got the idea it’s a florist, but the name of the place is Marland’s.”
“She and this Les getting along all right?”
Steward smiled a little. “Well, you know how it is with kids that age. Everything’s a crisis and the end of the world’s always just around the corner. He called her this afternoon, just after I got home. From her end of the conversation, I’d say the road for Les was beginning to get a little rocky.”