Clues for Dr. Coffee, page 11
Helen Wyman, before her marriage five years earlier, had been a photographer’s model and had posed for many a Wyman & Prentiss calendar. Since her marriage, she had become a good bourgeois housewife in a good bourgeois neighborhood of Northbank.
She made a very pretty widow, although not a particularly sorrowful one, Dr. Coffee reflected, as she opened the door for him. She was a small, buxom, blueeyed blonde, and black was quite becoming to her. She ushered the pathologist into a darkened living room, where a small, plump, red-faced young man in a shiny blue-serge suit sat drinking beer. “I’ve come on a very personal matter, Mrs. Wyman,” Dr Coffee said, looking pointedly at the plump young man.
“This is Ray Bowes.” Helen Wyman made the presentation with a wave of her hand. “You can talk in front of Ray.”
“Are you Mrs. Wyman’s attorney, Mr. Bowes?”
“Nope,” said Bowes. “I’m a photographer. But I’ve known Helen since she was so high, long before either of us went to work for that two-timing—”
“Stop it, Ray,” Helen Wyman interrupted.
“Sorry.”
Dr. Coffee had barely stated his business when Bowes broke in with: “If you’re from the insurance company, you’re wasting your time. Helen already said No.”
“You realize, of course,” the pathologist said, “that your advice may deprive Mrs. Wyman of fifty thousand dollars.”
“We—Helen doesn’t need his filthy money,” Bowes said. “I can take care of her. Anyhow, it’s not fifty thousand. It’s only about half that. Wyman put his policy in hock about a month ago for twenty-four thousand.”
“I see. Was your husband in financial trouble, Mrs. Wyman?”
“Not that I know of. He didn’t tell me about the loan. I guess it must have been for the firm.”
“What do you get out of this, Doctor?” Bowes demanded.
“My fee for a post-mortem examination is the same, no matter what report I make to the company. And I’m quite ready to turn the fee over to Mrs. Wyman in case I’m unable to establish her claim. Now I’d like you to tell me, Mrs. Wyman, everything that happened on the night you last saw your husband, including what you gave him for dinner.”
Helen Wyman glanced at Bowes, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. “I’ll try,” she said. She spoke in low tones, looking at the floor.
Wyman had come home for dinner at about six-thirty, as usual, she said. They’d had two or three cocktails while the steak was broiling. It was a thick steak, and Wyman liked his well done. After dinner he had listened to the baseball scores on the radio, then said he was going out to get some cigars. He never came back.
Mrs. Wyman had not been alarmed when her husband did not return immediately. He often stopped at a neighborhood bar for a beer. And since he easily lost track of time, she rarely waited up for him. The night before, she had done some mending and gone to bed to read. She must have fallen asleep with the light on; it was still burning when she woke up.
She’d been startled to find that it was daylight and that her husband’s bed had not been slept in. She’d called Joe Prentiss, her husband’s partner, but he was no help. She’d called several bars; they were closed. She’d looked in Wyman’s study, just in case he had come in late and stretched out on the leather couch there. He wasn’t there—and neither was his brief case, which always stood on the floor beside his desk. The disappearance of the brief case had shocked Helen into action. She was dialing the police station when the doorbell rang: a detective with the bad news.
Wyman’s body had been found in an alleyway half a mile from his house. He had an abrasion on the back of his scalp, caused, the coroner said, by his falling and striking his head on the curb after a heart attack. There were no marks on the body except the cut on the head, which was not serious enough to have been fatal.
And there was no sign of the brief case.
“Thanks to your steak,” Dr. Coffee said when Helen Wyman had finished, “I think I can help. Will you sign a permit for an autopsy?”
Helen Wyman glanced at Ray Bowes who had been watching her adoringly as she spoke. His expression did not change. She sighed. “All right, I may as well,” she said.
At 9 that night, Dr. Coffee called the Northbank police station and asked for Max Ritter, lieutenant of detectives. “Can you hop over to my lab right away, Max?” the pathologist asked.
“Have a heart, Doc,” the detective protested. “I was just going home.”
“I just stumbled on a magnificent bit of homicide, Max,” Dr. Coffee said, “and I wanted you to be the first to know.”
“Okay, Doc. Right over.”
Twenty minutes later, the slim, dark, sad-eyed police detective walked through the pathology laboratory of Pasteur Hospital to Dr. Coffee’s private office in the rear.
When the pathologist had finished telling him about his interview with Helen Wyman, Ritter asked, “And did you find out when the guy died?”
“I did. He died before midnight, all right. The digestive process had barely started. He must have been dead within an hour of leaving home.”
“And he didn’t die of a bad ticker?” Max Ritter asked.
“His heart was in perfect condition,” Dr. Coffee said. “He was kicked to death.”
Ritter opened his mouth, then closed it again without speaking. His prominent Adam’s apple bobbled twice as he swallowed. Then he asked, “Doc, did you say kicked?”
“Kicked,” the pathologist repeated, “or jumped on. I found thirteen perforations of the mesentery and small intestine. He died of hemorrhage and shock. There were three quarts of blood in the peritoneal cavity.”
“I’ll say he was kicked.” The detective whistled. “What fooled the coroner? Didn’t he even take the guy’s clothes off?”
“He may have. There were no external bruises. Black-and-blue marks are microscopic hemorrhages into the tissue from the rupture of tiny blood vessels. When death occurs instantaneously or nearly so, the blood stops circulating and there is no discoloration.”
“I get the impression,” Ritter said, “that in some quarters Kenneth Wyman wasn’t well liked. Does his wife know he was murdered?”
“I haven’t told her,” Dr. Coffee said, “but she may have private sources. After all, she did oppose the autopsy at first, although I think that most of the objection came from Ray Bowes.”
“Should I stop the funeral, Doc? We don’t want to dig this guy up again next week, do we?”
“It’s not necessary, Max. I’ve got all of Mr. Wyman’s essential organs here in the lab, and Dr. Mookerji will go to work on them tomorrow. I talked to the coroner tonight, and he’ll take my word for everything, as long as he doesn’t have to leave his pinochle game. Where do we go from here, Max? Do we tell Mrs. Wyman now? Or wait until after the funeral tomorrow?”
“Let’s wait till after the funeral. That’ll give me time to—Hello, swami. What are you doing around here this time of night? I ought to report you to the union.”
Dr. Motilal Mookerji, Pasteur Hospital’s resident pathologist, had waddled into Dr. Coffee’s office. Dr. Mookerji was a brilliant Hindu biochemist who constantly amazed his colleagues by his mastery of histology and bacteriology, his spheroidal contours, and his struggle with the American idiom.
“Salaam, Doctor Sahib,” he said. “Five times greetings, leftenant. Somewhat skinny gentleman of asthenic type, just now arriving in laboratory, is requesting urgent interview with Dr. Coffee. Name of Prentiss.”
Dr. Coffee started. “Prentiss? Send him in, Doctor.”
The partner of Wyman & Prentiss seemed even taller and thinner than Dr. Mookerji’s description as he towered above the pink turban of the squat, rotund Hindu. His thin lips were grim, his sallow cheeks sunken, and his gray eyes worried.
“I’m Joseph Prentiss. Glad I caught you in, Dr. Coffee,” he said. “I called your home, and your wife said I’d probably find you here. So I—pardon me, I seem to be intruding. I didn’t know you had someone with you.”
“This is Lieutenant Ritter of the Northbank police.”
“Then my premonition was right. My partner’s death is a police matter,” Prentiss said.
“Lieutenant Ritter came over to discuss another case,” the pathologist said. “What made you think Mr. Wyman’s death was a police matter?”
“Mrs. Wyman told me you were performing an autopsy. So naturally I wondered—”
“The autopsy was an insurance matter.” Dr. Coffee looked steadfastly at Max Ritter, who looked steadfastly at the wall. “The coroner says Mr. Wyman died of heart failure. Have you any reason to think otherwise?”
“No,” said Prentiss with a wry smile, “except that I’ve heard that a fat insurance policy is sometimes almost as dangerous as a fatty heart.”
“Mr. Wyman s insurance was heavily mortgaged,” the pathologist said. “I understand he borrowed in order to prop up the firm.”
Prentiss tightened his lips. “Ken Wyman hasn’t put a dime into the partnership in eight years,” he said. “We started Wyman & Prentiss with my capital, Ken’s knowhow, and the little photoengraving equipment that Ken owned. He was the master artisan, and I say that without reservation, while I was the capitalist and promoter. No, Ken didn’t put much cash into the business. But as for taking it out—” Prentiss coughed into a green plaid handkerchief.
“You and he ever fight about money?” Ritter asked.
“Well—I guess all partners do. Nothing serious, though. Last year, when the firm was in the red, we had a hassle over his drawing account.” Prentiss coughed again.
“Mr. Wyman didn’t impress me as living extravagantly,” Dr. Coffee said. “His home is modest enough.”
“Which home?” Prentiss said. Then, apologetically, he said, “There I go again, slandering the dead. But I thought everybody knew. After all, when a man gets into big-money trouble, it’s usually either gambling or women. Ken Wyman didn’t gamble.”
“Did Mrs. Wyman know?” Ritter asked.
Prentiss pursed his lips. “I don’t think Helen was particularly happy at home,” he said. “But you talked to her, Doctor. What’s your impression? Did she tell you about the plane tickets?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Well, there’s no reason why she should, really. But she phoned me the other day—Monday, I think it was—to ask me to do her a favor when I went to New York with her husband. Well, Ken hadn’t tipped me off, so I put my foot in it. I said I didn’t know Ken was going to New York. So she started crying a little on the phone, and asked me not to say anything to Ken about her calling. Seems like the night before, while her husband was undressing for bed, he dropped his wallet and two airline tickets fell out. She asked him where he was going, and he said he was flying to New York with me on business. After I messed up the deal, she knew he was lying, and I guess she thought he might be running out on her.”
“Do you know a man named Ray Bowes?” Dr. Coffee asked.
“Ray? Sure. He’s sort of staff photographer for the firm.”
“He seems quite friendly with Mrs. Wyman,” the pathologist said.
“Oh, Ray’s been carrying the torch for Helen for years, ever since they were in school together. He gets sore when you kid him about it. Purely platonic, he says.” Prentiss raised his handkerchief to hide a smirk.
There was a chilly silence.
“Well,” Prentiss said, “if there’s anything I can do to help—”
“Thank you for dropping in, Mr. Prentiss,” Dr. Coffee said. “But I’ve only completed the gross autopsy. I’ll let you know if the microscopic turns up anything. Good night.”
Dr. Coffee listened to the footsteps retreating down the corridor of the surgical wing. When he heard the elevator doors open and close, he called, “Dr Mookerji!”
The round, brown face of the Hindu appeared in the doorway.
“Doctor, what the devil did we do with the late Mr. Wyman’s worldly belongings?”
Dr. Mookerji wagged his turban twice to the left. “Double-breasted imported tweed suit, plus silk shirt, underwear, and Cordovan footwear now reposing in mothproof bag on workbench in rear. Personal effects are contained in Manila envelope in lower right-handed drawer.”
“Yes, of course.” Dr. Coffee pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk and withdrew a large envelope, which he emptied on the desk.
From the tangle of watch chain, watch, small change, comb, handkerchief, fountain pen, lighter, and nail file, Ritter and Dr. Coffee reached for the wallet in unison. Ritter won.
“Guess we both got the same idea,” the detective said. He checked through the wallet and drew out a green strip of paper. “Flight X-One hundred and eighty-eight to San Francisco, eleven P.M., Wednesday. Why is there only one ticket?”
“That’s not a question for a pathologist, Max.”
“Okay, it’s mine. And there’s something else funny.” Ritter was sifting the articles on the desk. “Notice anything, Doc?”
“What, Max?”
“No keys. Wouldn’t a guy like Wyman carry a key ring?”
“I’d say so. Shall we call on Mrs. Wyman tonight?”
“Let’s wait and break the news after they finish planting Wyman tomorrow. I love to go to burials when the mourners don’t know I’m watching.”
A chilling drizzle clouded the windshield when Dr. Coffee climbed into the police car the next morning.
“I got a few choice nuggets of information,” Ritter said, as he put the car in gear. “I been busy. While everybody was paying next-to-last respects to the corpse down at the mortician’s, I took a quiet look around the Wyman hacienda. The Widow Wyman was lying to you when she said her husband went out for cigars Wednesday night. I found a box of perfectos in his desk drawer, half full.”
“Maybe Wyman was lying, Max.”
“Maybe. Anyhow, I also went out to the airport to check on the no-shows on Flight X-One hundred and eighty-eight to San Francisco Wednesday night. Seems there were two—a Mr. and Mrs. Charles Farmer. Only Mrs. Farmer really checked in. She gave up the business end of her ticket for a gate pass and went aboard. Just before they closed the doors, she got off again, carrying her overnight bag. The stewardess on that flight ain’t due back for a day or two, so I’m sort of marking time.”
“That would explain the discrepancy between the two tickets Mrs. Wyman saw, and the one we found in Wyman’s wallet.”
“Maybe,” the detective said. “I also called on a few of my financial connections this morning. Wyman didn’t bank that twenty-four thousand dollars from the policy loan. His balance is sixty-two dollars and fifty cents. And he didn’t put it in the business, either. No big deposits like that to the firm’s account for the last two months. So where is it?”
“I don’t know, Max,” Dr. Coffee said, “but here we are.
Gray rain veiled the cemetery, blurring the outlines of tombstones and the dark silhouettes of gaunt cypresses. Dr. Coffee studied the faces of the mourners huddled at the graveside. Helen Wyman still appeared more winsome than wet-eyed. She stood between granite-faced Joe Prentiss and pink-cheeked Ray Bowes. She was looking neither at the pastor nor at the grave. Whatever she was staring at seemed to upset her more than the funeral service. Her face was tense; her mouth was set in a tight, hostile line.
Dr. Coffee followed the direction of her stare to a group of typographers, engravers, and office girls. Only one of the group seemed conspicuous enough to be the object of Helen Wyman’s attention: a violet-eyed little brunette who might have just stepped from a Wyman & Prentiss calendar. She had been crying, and she dabbed at her eyes with a square of fine linen.
Dr. Coffee turned for another look at Helen Wyman, trying to analyze her taut expression. Could it be hate?
The minister droned, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in certain hope of the Resurrection.…”
At last Helen Wyman sobbed. Prentiss gave her a comforting pat on the arm. She turned her back to him and buried her face against the ample shoulder of Ray Bowes. The photographer flushed and made an embarrassed gesture which tried to be protective without seeming too affectionate.
Prentiss came over to Dr. Coffee. “Any developments, Doctor?”
“I may know something this afternoon,” the pathologist answered.
“Who’s the good-looking brunette?” Ritter asked.
“You mean Gladys Charming?” Prentiss peered into the mist. “Yes, that’s Gladys. She was Ken Wyman’s secretary.”
“Looks to me like a calendar girl,” the detective said.
“Gladys used to pose for us,” Prentiss said. “Very attractive model, in fact.”
Ritter took Dr. Coffee’s arm and walked him away rapidly. “I got a hunch we can crack the extra ticket mystery without the stewardess of X-One hundred and eighty-eight. Did you catch that babe’s little feet, Doc?”
As Dr. Coffee entered his laboratory and shook out his raincoat, Dr. Mookerji looked up from his microscope and beamed.
“Salaam, Doctor Sahib,” the Hindu said.
“Good morning, Dr. Mookerji. How’s your analysis coming?”
Dr. Mookerji’s pink turban quivered as he wagged his big head. “Regretfully report only retrograde progress,” he said. “Foreign substances present in scalp wound in such minute quantities that cannot devise analytical technique without exhausting suspected material.”
Dan Coffee scratched his long chin. He said, “I’ll send the specimen over to Northbank University this afternoon and let their spectrologists have a whirl at it.”
“Am somewhat nonplused by seeming importance of scalp wound,” Dr. Mookerji said, “inasmuch as late deceased did not expire from same.”
