Sheila came to Jake’s side and he put his arm around her shoulder. “He wants me to wait half an hour before calling the police,” he said.
“I see. Do you have a cigarette?”
They lit cigarettes and Jake glanced at his watch.
“Damn it,” he said.
Fifteen minutes passed. Toni had stopped crying. She stared at Jake now in a beseeching silence, as if begging him to tell her nothing was wrong.
The half hour passed.
Jake picked up the phone and called the police board. He asked for Homicide. The sergeant on duty switched his call to Lieutenant Martin’s office.
“Yes?” Martin said crisply.
“This is Jake. I’ve got some news for you.”
“Fine. What is it?”
Jake heard Toni crying again, and he let out his breath wearily. “I’ve got the man who killed Avery Meed. All wrapped up in a fancy package.”
“Who’ve you got?” Martin said, his voice quickening with interest.
“Dean Niccolo.”
Martin was silent for several seconds. Then he said, in a thoughtful voice, “That’s funny, Jake. Dean Niccolo was murdered in his apartment about fifteen minutes ago. We’re just going out there.”
Chapter Thirteen
Jake left Sheila with Toni and caught a cab for the North Side. He knew the patrolman who was standing inside the lobby of Niccolo’s building. He told him that Martin was expecting him and went up to the third floor landing, where the Lieutenant was talking with a detective from the district.
They nodded to each other and Martin led him into Niccolo’s apartment.
Niccolo’s tweed-clad body lay on a grass rug in the center of the large, high-ceilinged living room. His face was buried in the crook of his arm, and except for the blood on his cheek he might have been asleep. The blood came from a wound in his temple and had stained his thick black hair.
“It was at close range,” Martin said. “Probably a .32. Now what was this about his killing Meed?”
Jake looked away from Dean’s huddled figure. “That was his story,” he said. “He made a slip, you see, talking with me about the diary. He said something that indicated he knew I’d received it. When I called him on it, he gave me a song-and-dance about getting the information from Toni Ryerson, whose office adjoins mine.”
Martin held up a hand irritably. “Let’s go slow, Jake. You seem to be running over with information.”
“Okay,” Jake said. He started again and told Martin every detail of his conversation with Dean Niccolo, and of his interview with Toni Ryerson, and Dean’s original mistake. When he finished Martin scowled and ran a hand abstractedly through his thinning brown hair.
“So he killed Meed, eh? That leaves May and himself for us to figure out, doesn’t it?”
Without waiting for an answer he drifted away and began talking with a detective who was dusting the arms of the light maple chairs for prints.
Jake glanced around the smartly furnished room, noting the monk’s cloth drapes, the modem drawings, the liquor cabinet and shelves of records. Niccolo had enjoyed the good things of life. Several of the pictures had been pulled down from the wall, he noticed, and the drawers of a small desk had been removed and their contents dumped on the floor.
Martin walked back to Jake, massaging the bridge of his nose thoughtfully, and Jake said, “Did your men make the search here?”
“No. This is just the way we found it. Someone made a quick search after letting him have it, I’d say.”
“Any ideas?” Jake said.
“No, I wouldn’t go that far,” Martin said drily. He looked at Jake with an odd expression. “You got any ideas?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Jake said. “Supposing Avery Meed killed May to get the diary? Logical?”
“Reasonably so. We’ve found Meed’s prints on the table where May kept the diary. He had a motive, opportunity, and so forth. Yeah, it’s logical.”
“How about those double crosses drawn on the mirror with lipstick and the clothes of May’s that were strewn about, and so forth? Do you think Meed did all that?”
Martin smiled slowly and touched Jake’s tie with his forefinger. “That’s a nice tie. I wouldn’t have thought green would go with gray that well. But to answer your question: You said Niccolo said he was outside May’s when Meed went in. Well, according to Niccolo, Meed was only inside a minute. That wouldn’t have given him time to talk the deal over with May, murder her, tear up her clothes, draw on the mirror with lipstick, and so forth. That would take ten or fifteen minutes.” Martin lit a cigarette deliberately and blew smoke at the ceiling. “Maybe Niccolo was wrong about the time?”
“I’m betting he wasn’t,” Jake said. “Niccolo had been in radio quite a while before coming with us. He could look at a page of copy and tell how long it would take to read it over the air. I’d say he’d make a good witness.”
“You’re saying that Meed didn’t murder May. That he couldn’t possibly have.”
“No, you’re saying that,” Jake said.
A flicker of annoyance crossed Martin’s face and he said, sardonically, “How long are you going to keep me in suspense, Jake? Do you know anything I can use?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Jake said. “I’ll try though. Do you know that Riordan’s wife, Denise, and young Brian have been two-timing the old man with gay indifference, so to speak?”
“I’ve known that from the start,” Martin said.
Jake shrugged. “Well, you’re ahead of me.”
“I know that Dan Riordan didn’t spend the night of May’s murder in Gary,” Martin said. “I know a helluva lot, Jake. I know that your boss, Gary Noble, has lied to me about what he did the night of the murder. I wonder if anyone is telling the truth.”
“How about Mike Francesca?” Jake said, with a smile.
“I know all about Mike Francesca,” Martin snapped. He dropped his cigarette and put his foot on it heavily; and then he looked at Jake with embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t make things add up in this case. It’s got me edgy.”
A uniformed patrolman who had been going through a shelf of books came over to Martin with an envelope in his hand. “I just found this behind a row of books, Lieutenant.”
Martin took the envelope from him, opened it and removed a sheaf of clippings. He opened them and Jake saw that they were covered with May’s back-slanted script.
“This is damn interesting,” Martin said.
The clippings were obviously those that had been cut from May’s diary and Jake, as he read over Martin’s shoulder, saw why Riordan had been worried.
The clippings contained the story of his wartime jugglings, not in elaborate detail, but in implications, scraps of conversations, and forthright opinions by May of Riordan’s activities. There were facts, figures and dates, all adding up to a pretty clear picture of how Riordan had cheated the government through the substitution of cheap grade steel, and of how he had bribed the inspector, Nickerson, to okay the faulty barrels.
“Looks like this Riordan is quite a bastard,” Martin said, and looked at Jake coldly. “You enjoy working for him?”
“I didn’t, so I quit,” Jake said.
“Well,” Martin said and cleared his throat noisily. “I seem to make an ass out of myself every time I get away from murders.”
“Forget it,” Jake said. “Does this information give you a lead?”
“An obvious one. Who would want this information hushed up? Riordan.”
“Tell me this,” Jake said. “Did you ever find any additional diary of May’s?”