“We found the Chrysler abandoned near Midland Park,” the inspector said. “The owner didn’t even know it was stolen until we gave him a ring. Seems he’s been on a toot the last few days and thought he just couldn’t remember where he parked it. We also ran down the owner of that river cottage.”
“Get anything from him?”
“Nothing important. He’s a guy named Robert Baxter. Thomaso rented the cottage from him last summer, but it hasn’t had a tenant this summer. Apparently Thomaso just decided to appropriate it for a couple of weeks, because Baxter claims he didn’t have authorization from him to use it.”
“Get anything on the Woodsman?”
Day’s voice turned pleased. “Yeah. Ballistics tied it to an unsolved gang killing of nearly a year ago. This kid is even dumber than most hoods. Imagine a guy dumb enough to hang onto a gun after he’s used it for murder.”
“I can’t,” I said. “Even Alberto isn’t that dumb. I hate to spoil your dreams, but I’ll bet my little playmate is clear of that one. Five gets you ten he bought it in a pawnshop subsequent to your year-old murder.”
“I suppose,” Day said glumly. “I thought of that too. If a ready-made solution to a killing ever fell in my lap, I wouldn’t believe it.”
“Making any progress in locating that kid messenger?”
“Naw. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. Hannegan came up with a bright idea we’re going to try in the morning. On the off-chance that the kid may be enrolled in summer school, we’re asking all the high schools to question all male students fitting the description. Not one kid in ten goes to summer school, but it’s a chance.”
I told the inspector I’d check with him again the next day and rang off.
Since my date with Fausta was at nine and I wanted to see Bubbles Duval first, I showered and dressed before dinner. At seven I was at Bubbles’s apartment and was waiting in front of her door when she came in from work.
“Manny!” she squealed enthusiastically when she saw me. “We going out again tonight?”
“No,” I said. “I just want to talk with you a few minutes.”
Looking mildly disappointed, she handed me her key. As I slipped it into the lock, she managed to stand so close our shoulders brushed, making it difficult for me to manipulate the key.
When, after a bit of fumbling because of the crowded work quarters, I managed to get the door open, she squeezed past in such a manner that her breasts momentarily rubbed across my biceps. Inside she tossed her purse onto a chair, seated herself in the center of the sofa and patted the place next to her.
Shaking my head, I came to a stop directly before her and stood looking down at her.
“I’m going to show you something, Bubbles, and I’m afraid it’s going to upset you a little.”
Taking the photograph of Bubbles and the broad-shouldered man from my pocket, I held it in front of her.
Her eyes grew wide and slowly her face turned crimson. “Where did you get that?” she yelled, making a wild grab for it.
Jerking it out of her reach, I put the picture back in my pocket. “Sorry, Bubbles. If it was mine, I’d let you tear it up, but it’s police evidence and I have to return it.”
“What do you want?” she asked finally.
“I want to know about this picture.”
“Isn’t it self-evident? Walter Ford took it. You must know that. It’s one of the pictures you were talking about last night. Only this one was supposed to be destroyed. I watched Walter burn it myself.”
“You can make an unlimited number of prints from a negative,”
I said dryly. “How about telling me the whole story? I’ll guarantee there won’t be any publicity. The cops do everything possible to protect the reputations of blackmail victims. If you’re ever called to testify against this guy in the picture, you’ll appear in the public records as Jane Doe. And you may never even be called. The cops have a whole series of similar pictures involving other women which they may decide to use instead of yours.”
“They couldn’t use me,” Bubbles said. “I wasn’t a blackmail victim.”
Chapter Nineteen
I blinked at her. “How was that again?”
“It was all a mistake,” Bubbles said. “I thought he was rich and he thought I was rich. When they found out I was just a working girl, they dropped the blackmail attempt.”
I decided to unscramble this array of personal pronouns one at a time. “Who did you think was rich? Walter Ford?”
She shook her head. “Daniel Cumberland. He’s the man in the picture.”
“And when you say ‘they’ dropped the blackmail attempt, do you mean Ford and this Cumberland?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s start over at the beginning,” I suggested. “Just tell me the whole story.”
So she started at the beginning and told me the whole story.
Daniel Cumberland was an extremely good-looking man of about thirty, Bubbles told me. He was also extremely well-dressed and managed to exude the affluent air of a successful businessman. His front was posing as junior vice-president of one of the local manufacturing plants.
Bubbles met him casually at the bar of one of the more exclusive cocktail lounges, and in a misguided attempt to impress him had colored her own background as fantastically as Cumberland was coloring his. She let him know that she was executive manager of Saxon and Harder’s, where her father was president of the board of directors.
Properly impressed, Cumberland went all out in pursuit of Bubbles. From the cocktail lounge he took her to dinner, then to a show, and afterward suggested they have a drink at his apartment. Bubbles admitted she was as charmed by Cumberland as he seemed to be by her; and not possessing any great degree of maidenly restraint, she welcomed the suggestion with enthusiasm.
This eventually led to the results indicated in the photograph.
It was two nights later that Walter Ford dropped by her apartment, showed her the photograph and offered to sell it to her for a thousand dollars.
At first she was enraged, Bubbles said, and threatened to call the police. Ford, apparently an old hand in such dealings, merely told her to go ahead. He would simply walk out the moment she picked up the phone, he told her, and she could report her head off. Since up to that time he hadn’t told her his name and she hadn’t the faintest idea who he was, Bubbles realized she might have some difficulty making her complaint stick. When Ford also assured her a copy of the photograph would be mailed to every member of the board of directors at Saxon and Harder’s the next day unless she came to terms, she further realized she probably would lose her job unless she talked him out of this action.
So quite calmly she told him she was merely a dress model instead of executive manager of Saxon and Harder’s, had less than a hundred dollars in the bank and couldn’t afford to pay him a nickel.
Once he became convinced she was telling the truth, Ford’s first reaction was anger at having wasted his time. Then the humor of the situation struck him and he suddenly seemed to decide it was outrageously funny.
Why, after such an introduction, Bubbles didn’t kick the man out of her apartment and refuse to have anything more to do with him, I will never understand. But after Ford ceremoniously burned the photograph in an ash tray, she actually forgave him. The only explanation I can think of is that the girl’s moral and ethical standards must have been as flexible as the blackmailers’, because she didn’t even seem to harbor resentment over the use Cumberland and Ford had attempted to make of her. She seemed more resentful over the discovery that Ford had retained another copy of the picture than she did over the attempted blackmail.