“Okay, okay,” Terrell said. “Where did you get this story? Eden Myles?”
“No. A clerk in the Property Tax Office came to us with the lead.”
“Did you get anything significant from Eden Myles?”
Sarnac shook his head. “No, just a few rather small odds and ends. We hoped she would do better but—” He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “But she didn’t.”
Terrell was silent for a few seconds. He said finally, “That’s the most interesting thing you’ve told me.”
“I don’t understand.” Sarnac seemed nervous and unsure of himself now, like a student being led out of his depths by an artful tutor.
Terrell got to his feet. “Well, it doesn’t matter.” It had occurred to him that Eden Myles had probably been framed, too; she hadn’t been killed for informing, she had been killed to incriminate Caldwell. It was a chilling and terrible thought — as ghastly as the whole concept of human sacrifice. But they couldn’t have told her she was being readied for the slaughter. Her loyalty wouldn’t stretch that far.
“What can we do?” Sarnac said, in a desperate rising voice. His poise had deserted him again; the moment of professorial confidence had vanished. “What can we do?”
“If I find out, I’ll let you know,” Terrell said. “That’s a promise.”
10
After leaving Sarnac, Terrell phoned Gray Gates and asked for Connie Blacker, but learned that she had left Eden Myles’ apartment the day before. She had given the Beverly Hotel as a forwarding address, but the desk clerk there told him she wasn’t in.
“Do you know when she’ll be back?”
“Is this by any chance—” The clerk’s small laugh telegraphed the joke. “Is this by any chance Mr. Chance?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Terrell said. “Why? Is there a message?”
“She’ll be in around two o’clock, Mr. Chance. She’s at the city morgue now, I believe — she asked me for directions, you see.”
“Thanks very much.”
Terrell took a cab to the morgue at Thirteenth and State. It was one o’clock and the early winter sunlight fell like bars of gold across the city. A wind was rushing excitedly through the streets. Men leaned against it, gripping their hats, and girls caught at their skirts and laughed as cross-currents swirled about them at intersections.
Terrell smoked and paid little attention to the city scenes that flashed past him. He was trying to fit what Sarnac had told him into a clear picture. Caldwell had been framed. Start there. Because his election was a threat to Ike Cellars, the Mayor and sundry other thieves. Any cab driver or housewife in the city might have drawn the same inference. But the rest wasn’t guesswork. Eden Myles had been murdered by a hired hoodlum to incriminate Caldwell. Except for Paddy Coglan there had been no slips. And now Paddy was dead. But proof, Terrell thought. Proof... a lever to start things rolling. They had nothing. And Sarnac talked wistfully of indictment by bookkeeper...
In the lobby of the morgue Terrell glanced into the general offices, which were separated from the waiting rooms by a high, wooden counter. Clerks were busy at typewriters and filing cabinets, and two young men in beige cotton jackets stood behind the counters to assist the public in making out forms and affidavits. One of them was talking to Connie Blacker now, pointing to a line on the blank she was studying. She was nodding her blond head slowly. The clerk seemed eager to help, and it was obvious why, Terrell thought. She wore a simple black suit and a short tweed coat, but with her figure and legs she might as well have been wearing a bikini.
Terrell wondered if Frankie Chance had moved inter her life. It figured; his girl was downstairs with the iceboxes and running water and he would need a replacement. Connie might just fit. She was young, lovely and manageable. Everything required for the job, including a strong stomach. He sighed, wondering why in hell he felt so bitter about it.
She would be busy for a while, he knew, completing the arrangements to send Eden’s body home. He drifted down the wide corridor looking for someone to pass the time with. The inquest rooms were empty and the slanting sun gleamed on the blackboards used by medical experts in explaining their conclusions to the inquest juries. Terrell had covered a thousand postmortems and had seen every conceivable kind of damage that could be done to a human body by bullets, knives, brass knuckles and blackjacks. He hadn’t been sorry to leave this beat. Downstairs were the iceboxes, the sliding trays on which the bodies were rolled out for identification, and the peculiar smell, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, but not of the living world, which drifted up through the corridors and offices, and was as much a part of the place as its joists and beams and bricks. Terrell had covered this beat for a year, before Karsh had sent him to the state capital for some political seasoning.
As Terrell turned back toward the general offices he ran into a cleaning woman he had known, a big and cheerful colored woman who had worked in the morgue for the past years. He was pleased to see her. Martha was a kind and gentle person, Terrell knew, happily free from the macabre humor and affectations that were the usual trademarks of people who worked at the morgue. The bodies that were brought in from fires and accidents touched her deeply; she spoke of them with respect, and suffered for those who must come in later to make the identifications. They talked for a few minutes and then Martha said, “You coming back to work here, Mr. Terrell?”
“No, Martha. I’m waiting to talk to a person who’s signing the forms on Eden Myles.”
“Wasn’t that a shame? That poor thing, so pretty and all. What do you suppose is the matter with that Mr. Caldwell? You think he went crazy or something? A man must be crazy to kill a girl so pretty and young. What good did it do him to have her dead?”
“I don’t know, Martha.”
“But why did he have to do it? She’s so pretty. And expecting a little baby. That made it worse, if you ask me.”
Terrell’s expression didn’t change. He lit a cigarette, and said, “It’s a damn shame. But how did you know she was pregnant? That’s supposed to be a secret.”
“Oh, oh.” Martha put a hand over her mouth. “I’ve done it again, Mr. Terrell.”
“It’s nothing serious.”
“I heard one of the doctors talking the night she was brought in. I didn’t know it was to be kept quiet. You won’t say I told you, will you?”
“Of course not, Martha. So long now.”
Terrell walked back down the corridor, covering ground with long strides. In the coroner’s reception room, Terrell told the secretary he wanted to see Dr. Graham, who was the city’s chief coroner. She smiled mechanically at him, spoke into an intercom telephone, and then nodded at the door behind her. “Go right in, Mr. Terrell.”
Dr. Graham, a tall man with a long, thin nose, came around his desk and extended a big, but seemingly boneless hand. “We don’t see you around much these days, Sam,” he said. “Too busy being an important columnist, eh?” Dr. Graham’s tone was calm and good-humored; he was a man past middle-age, competent in small affairs, a cousin of Mayor Ticknor’s wife. He had no ambitions and no worries.
Terrell smiled. “It’s a nuisance keeping the space filled every day. It’s like an extra mouth to feed.”
“What can we do for you?”
“I’d like to look at the report on Eden Myles.”
“That’s all been in the papers, Sam.”
“I know, but I’m running down an angle. I’d like to see the report.”
“I read the autopsy report to the press,” Dr. Graham said, rather irritably. “You think I’ve left out something?”
“You left out the fact that she was pregnant,” Terrell said. “I’m wondering if you left out anything else.”