“I think I could. His appearance is etched on my mind.”
Sellers said, “This may come as a shock to you, Mrs. Troy, but we have a man we’d like to have you look at. Now, this man is — well, frankly, he’s in the morgue. Now that would be something of a shock, but it would be very much in the interests of justice if you’d take a look.”
“Dead people don’t bother me,” she said. “I’ll look.”
Sellers took a photograph from his pocket and said, “Now, I’m going to show you a photograph of a man’s profile. I don’t want you to let this photograph influence you. If you can identify it, all right. If you can’t, I don’t want you to look at the dead man and just because you’ve seen his photograph think that’s the man you saw.”
“I understand.”
Sellers handed her a profile photograph.
She looked at it and said, “Why... why, yes... I think that’s the man. It looks like him.”
Sellers took the picture away from her, put it back in his pocket and said, “I think you’re going to have to accompany us to the morgue, Mrs. Troy, if you don’t mind. It’ll only be a short trip. We’ll take you there and then we’ll have an officer bring you right back home.”
“I don’t mind. When do you want me to go?”
“Right now — that is, just as soon as you can.”
“Well, heavens, I’ve got this chicken in the rotisserie and—”
“Isn’t there some neighbor you could ask to look at it for you?” Sellers asked.
“Oh,” she said, “It isn’t that important. I’ll shut it off. It won’t affect the flavor too much. I’ll just shut off the current and turn it on when I come back. We won’t be long, will we?”
“Not too long,” Sellers said.
She said, “You just give me a minute.”
She bustled into the kitchen and Sellers and Andover exchanged glances.
“I sure as hell would like to button this one up,” Andover said.
Sellers looked at me. “You lucky s.o.b.! If you can squirm out of this one, you sure as hell are ringed with luck.”
“I’m not squirming out of anything,” I told him. “I’m simply giving you the breaks, that’s all.”
“You’re giving me the breaks!” Sellers said. He shook his head. “That’s more typical of you than anything you could have said. You’re giving us the breaks.”
We drove to the morgue. The two officers sat in front. Mrs. Troy sat in back with me.
“What’s your interest in this, Mr. Lam?” she asked.
“Lam’s a detective,” Sellers said over his shoulder, “and while he appreciates everything you’re doing, he doesn’t want to discuss what he has in mind.”
“Oh, I understand, I understand,” Mrs. Troy said. “I was just asking to be polite.”
“Well, you know how it is in this business,” Sellers said. “We have to be pretty closemouthed.”
“Oh, I understand I’m sure. You don’t have to make any explanations to me.”
She didn’t ask any more questions.
We got to the morgue and Sellers said, “You wait out here in the car, Pint Size. We’ll do this without your fine Italian hand gumming up the works.”
They were inside about fifteen minutes. When they came out Sellers was shaking his head.
“Okay,” I said, “what happened?”
“What happened?” Sellers said. “You know what happened. She made an identification — not a one-hundred per cent positive identification, but an identification all right.
“She took a look at the mustache from the side and said she knows that’s the man because of the mustache — and of course you know what some attorney would do on cross-examination. He’d claim she didn’t identify the man, she identified the mustache. But it’s an identification, all right.
“She says the man was drunk and his eyes were sort of what she calls droopy and heavy-lidded and he was sort of slouched over the steering wheel, but she got a look at his face all right and she remembers about the mustache. Of course, Pint Size, between you and me, a damn mustache has accounted for more mistaken identifications than anything the world has ever known. But, nevertheless, she made an identification — a pretty damned positive identification.”
“We’re driving her back?” I asked.
“We are not,” Sellers said. “We’re sending her back home with an officer and by God, if I catch you trying to talk with her and influence her testimony in any way, I’ll slap you in a dungeon where you won’t know whether it’s day or night, and where you’ll be living on bread and water for thirty days. I get so damned fed up with you stepping in and masterminding my cases, that it’s hard for me to keep my hands off you.
“We fool around with a lot of methodical police work and solve our cases by good, hard intensive work and you come along with some hocus-pocus and pull a rabbit out of the hat.”
“And I take it,” I said, “that now we are going to look up Vivian Deshler.”
“What a genius!” Sellers exclaimed sarcastically. “Now, who would ever have thought of that? That’s sheer genius, Lam. Here we have two parties testifying to an automobile accident and you come along with the bright idea that the accident never happened, that it was a cover-up for a hit-and-run, and we get a witness who indicates that you’re right. And then you surmise or deduce that we’re going to talk with the other party involved in the accident.
“Now, isn’t that just too clever?”
“You don’t need to be so damned sarcastic,” I told him. “As Mrs. Troy said, I was just trying to be polite.”
“Well, you don’t need to bother,” Sellers said, biting down on his soggy cigar.
“I notice it doesn’t cramp your style any,” I told him.
“What doesn’t?”
“Trying to be polite.”
“You’re damned right it doesn’t,” Sellers said. “Hang on, Pint Size, we’re going to interview Vivian Deshler before some cooperative s.o.b. gets the word to her and she starts clamming up or consulting an attorney.”
Chapter Eleven
Vivian Deshler came to the door in response to our ring, opened it a crack, looked out and saw Frank Sellers. “Oh, how do you do, Sergeant?” she said. “My heavens, I’m dressing and— Well, Donald, too! Is everything straightened out all right?”
“We’d like to come in and talk with you for a minute,” Sellers said.
“Well, I’m sorry. I’m just not presentable, that’s all. I... I’m dressing.”
“Haven’t you got a robe?” Sellers asked.
“I have it on.”
“Well, then, what’s holding you back?” Sellers said. “Open the door. We just want to talk for a minute.”
“I’m hardly presentable.”
“We’re not trying to judge a beauty contest,” Sellers told her. “We’re trying to clean up a murder case.”
She pouted a bit and said, “I like to look my best when good-looking men are calling on me, but... well, come in.”
She opened the door.
We went in and Sellers jerked his cold cigar toward a chair. “Sit down,” he said. “We’ll only be a minute.”
She seated herself, and the robe slid smoothly back along one bare leg. She gave a little kittenish gesture, retrieved the robe and pulled it back over the flesh.
“See what I mean?” she said.
“What?” Sellers asked.
“About not being dressed.”
“I don’t get it,” Sellers said.
She started to say something, then looked at me and smiled. “Donald got it,” she said.
“All right,” Sellers said, “let’s quit beating around the bush. I want to know about that automobile accident.”