Murder She Encountered Read online

  Had she been strangled or had she drowned?

  Chapter 2

  “What do we have here?” Kaminsky said, reaching into his back pocket for his notepad and pencil.

  “Deceased female,” the one cop said, cracking his gum loudly.

  Kaminsky sighed. “I get that. Was she strangled?” He pointed to the stocking tied around the woman’s neck. “Or did she drown in the pool?” He inclined his head toward the water.

  The cop shrugged. His face was red and he was sweating—Elizabeth saw it glistening on the back of his thick neck and running down his collar.

  “That’s up to the medical examiner. Either way she’s dead, isn’t she? Not going to do her any good.” He cracked his gum again.

  Kaminsky sighed, louder this time.

  “Any idea how long she’d been in the water?”

  The cop shrugged again. He pointed at her hands. “Looks like it might have been awhile. Her skin is all wrinkled—like when you sit in the bath for too long.”

  “Who found her?”

  “The guy that’s in charge of cleaning this place. Called himself the supervisor.”

  “You mean he cleans the pool?” Kaminsky said.

  “I suppose that, too. But the whole amphitheater as well. This place is packed when a show is on. I brought the wife to the fair two weeks ago, and she insisted we see Billy Rose’s Aquacade. She’d been talking about it for weeks. Ever since our neighbor Alice came with her husband.” He looked at Kaminsky from under the brim of his hat. “You married?”

  “No.” Kaminsky shook his head.

  “Lucky.” He scratched the back of his neck. “The guy’s sitting over there if you want to talk to him.” He pointed toward the banked rows of the amphitheater where a lone man sat in one of the front-row seats, his head in his hands.

  Kaminsky looked in that direction. “Any chance he did it?”

  “Nah. He said he caught that young man—the one they’ve already taken away—leaning over the woman’s body. He said he went right to the telephone inside and called us.”

  “Any idea who she is? Or why that young man would have wanted to kill her?”

  “How should I know? You’d be better off talking to that fellow over there. He works here. He’s bound to know something.”

  “I’ll do that. But we’d like to get some pictures first.”

  “I suppose it’s okay.” The cop looked around nervously.

  Biz took her camera from its case. She snapped a roll of film—not just the dead woman but also the surroundings. She had the feeling this was going to be a big story.

  Kaminsky seemed to agree.

  “How about this headline?” he said as they walked toward the man who had called the police. “Murder at the New York World’s Fair.”

  He stopped momentarily, pulled out his cigarettes and lit one. He narrowed his eyes as the smoke wreathed his head.

  The supervisor who had found the woman’s body was still slumped in his seat, his elbows on his knees and his face still buried in his hands. He looked up when he heard Elizabeth and Kaminsky approach. His eyes had a blank look, and his skin was pale and shiny with sweat.

  Elizabeth was surprised to see that he looked quite young—not much more than twenty, she thought.

  Kaminsky flashed his press card. “Daily Trumpet,” he said.

  The man’s eyes barely flickered.

  “What’s your name, sonny?”

  “Mike. Mike Palumbo. P-a-l—”

  “I got it,” Kaminsky said, his pencil scratching across the paper. “So you’re the cleaning supervisor the cop said.”

  Palumbo nodded, looked briefly at Kaminsky and then back down at his hands.

  “Want to tell me what happened? You found the body, right?”

  “Yeah. And that kid was standing over it. The one the cops took away. He was crying.”

  “So you assumed he killed the woman?” Kaminsky looked up from his notebook. “By the way, do you know the kid’s name?”

  “No. But I’ve seen him around. I think he works at one of the concession stands.”

  “How about the gal?”

  Mike shrugged. “She works at the fair, too. I recognized her. But I don’t know her name or anything.”

  “Did she work here at the Aquacade?”

  “No. I would have known her then. She works…worked somewhere else.”

  “What made you think that kid was the one who killed the gal?”

  “He was standing over her. His fists were clenched like he was angry—like they’d had a fight or something. And his clothes were wet. There were damp patches all up and down the legs of his pants.”

  * * *

  —

  By the time they finished interviewing Palumbo, and Elizabeth had persuaded him to pose for some photographs, more policemen had arrived along with Detective Sal Marino.

  Marino and Elizabeth had met the previous year on a case involving a debutante. The attraction had been immediate and mutual although not without complications—their worlds were miles apart—Elizabeth’s centered around New York society and Marino was the son of immigrants who lived on the Lower East Side.

  Elizabeth and Kaminsky began to walk toward Marino, who was circling the body, his hands behind his back, his head nodding every once in a while. The policemen stood off to one side, chatting with one another. Suddenly one of them shouted, “Hey!” and rushed over to a man who was walking toward them, a notebook in his hand.

  “Wait a sec,” Kaminsky said, grabbing Elizabeth’s arm. He swore under his breath. “That’s Bobby Markowitz from the New York Herald Tribune.” He pointed at the man who was now talking earnestly with the policeman. “I wonder how he got wind of this? Looks like our scoop has gone bust. Pretty soon every paper in town will have the story.”

  “Are we still going to run with it?” Elizabeth said.

  “Sure. Otherwise we’d be the only paper in town without the story.” Kaminsky ran a finger around the collar of his shirt. “The good news is we have your photographs. You’re really good, Biz. You manage to capture elements that other photographers miss.”

  Elizabeth felt a warm glow at the compliment.

  A thought came to her. “I think I have an idea how we can still scoop the other papers,” she said.

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Markowitz is going to have to file his story soon. And so will any other reporters who show up. Meanwhile, they’ll be busy getting the preliminary details and interviewing Palumbo.”

  “And?”

  “We concentrate on finding out who the victim is. Then when we go to print, the other papers will be referring to the unknown victim while we have her name, bio, and anything else we can dig up.”

  A smile slowly spread across Kaminsky’s face. “You’re a genius, Biz.” His face darkened suddenly. “But how are we going to find out who she is? She could be anybody.” He waved his arm in a circle. “And come from anywhere.”

  “She had a stocking tied around her neck,” Elizabeth said. “It wasn’t silk. I could tell.”

  Kaminsky shook his head. “You dames.”

  “Mildred—she’s one of the switchboard operators—came to the fair last week with her boyfriend and told us about this exhibit she saw—where they make hosiery out of this new material. I think it’s called nylon. They say it will last longer than silk and cost less. It’s tough, too. She said they had girls demonstrating how strong the fabric was by having a tug-of-war with a pair of the stockings. Maybe the victim worked there.”

  “What exhibit was it?” Kaminsky said, his face lighting up.

  “The DuPont exhibit.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to ask someone.”

  “Let’s get away from here first. I don’t
trust that Markowitz. You know that saying about how some people have eyes in back of their head? Well, I swear Markowitz has ears back there, too.”

  They began walking away from the amphitheater where a crowd had now gathered, drawn by the police cars and the mortuary van, which had finally arrived.

  They passed a young man sweeping up cigarette butts from the pavement. Kaminsky grabbed him.

  “Say, buddy, can you tell us where the DuPont exhibit is?”

  The young man turned around and pointed in back of him. “Go across World’s Fair Boulevard over there, then keep going onto Commerce Boulevard. Just before you come to the Avenue of Labor, you’ll see the DuPont building on the right.”

  “Much obliged.” Kaminsky touched the brim of his hat. “Looks like we need to go that way,” he said to Elizabeth, pointing in the direction the young man had indicated.

  They took the pedestrian bridge over World’s Fair Boulevard, turned onto Commerce Boulevard, went past the United States Steel exhibit on their left and the Carrier exhibit on their right until they came to the DuPont building. It was a futuristic-looking structure with a curved front and a giant replica of a test tube in the middle that was over one hundred feet tall. Elizabeth stopped for a moment and stared up at it.

  “Come on, Biz,” Kaminsky said. “We’re not here to play tourist.”

  Chastened, Elizabeth hastened after him and into the building.

  The interior of the building was as striking as the exterior with curved hallways and enormous circular lights overhead.

  A large crowd was gathered in the exhibit hall where the incredible properties of the new fabric—nylon—were on display. A young man in a white coverall sat at a knitting machine where the new material was being turned into ladies’ stockings.

  He handed a finished pair to a very curvaceous woman with black hair set in elaborate waves. She held them up and waved them in the air so the gathered crowd could see them.

  “Stronger than silk,” she told them, “but as fine as a spider’s web.”

  Another woman—a bored and somewhat weary-looking brunette—joined her onstage. They each took hold of one end of the nylon stocking and began a playful tug-of-war.

  When the material didn’t rip, no matter how hard the women tugged, an ooooh of appreciation went up from the crowd, and they burst into applause.

  The women smiled and bowed.

  “Hey,” a man in the audience yelled out. He was wearing a short-sleeved white shirt and a straw hat. “Are you going to make anything else out of that stuff besides stockings for dames?”

  The audience laughed, and Kaminsky looked at his watch impatiently.

  “We need to talk to those women and we’re running out of time. I wish they’d hurry up and end the show already.”

  Fortunately no one asked any further questions and Elizabeth and Kaminsky made their way through the now dispersing crowd. By the time they reached the front of the room, the brunette had disappeared and the dark-haired girl was turning to leave.

  “Excuse me,” Kaminsky tapped her shoulder.

  She turned around. “Yeah? What do you want? The show’s over, and if you’ve got any questions, that’s tough luck because I don’t have any answers.”

  The girl was wearing a slim-fitting skirt that hugged her generous curves and cupped her slightly rounded belly.

  Elizabeth noticed her white Cuban-heeled pumps were worn around the toes and rundown at the heels.

  Kaminsky fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his press card. “Daily Trumpet,” he said. “Ralph Kaminsky and this,” he pointed at Elizabeth, “is Biz Adams.”

  The girl’s eyes widened then narrowed again. “Say, what’s this about?”

  “They’ve fished the body of a young woman out of the pool at Rose’s Aquacade and she had a nylon stocking tied around her neck.”

  The girl took a step backward. “I don’t know anything about it.”

  “I didn’t say you did,” Kaminsky said smoothly. “By the way—you have a name?”

  “Yeah. It’s Dotty. Dotty Howard.”

  Dotty’s face had gone white, making the rouge on her cheeks look almost clownish.

  “We were wondering if you might know who the girl is. Maybe she worked here?” Kaminsky said. “Seeing as how she had one of these pairs of hose wrapped around her neck.”

  Dotty’s hand flew to her mouth. “Flo,” she gasped.

  “Who’s Flo?” Kaminsky pulled his pencil from behind his ear.

  “Flo. Florence actually. Florence Grimm.”

  Kaminsky looked around. “She worked here?”

  “Yes.” Dotty’s voice had dropped to nearly a whisper.

  “What makes you think the body belongs to this Flo?”

  “She—she didn’t show up for work this morning,” Dotty stammered.

  “Was that unusual?”

  “Yeah. Flo needed this job. Well, we all do. It’s not like any of us has a sugar daddy, although that sure would be nice.”

  “When was the last time you saw Flo?”

  “Last night at quitting time. We walked to the subway together.” Dotty twisted a small diamond solitaire around and around on her finger. “But that doesn’t mean it’s Flo. Who would want to hurt her? She’d give you the shirt off her back if you needed it.”

  “You don’t happen to have a picture of Flo, do you?”

  Dotty started to shake her head then stopped. “Wait. One of the other gals is dating a fellow who’s working at the Kodak exhibit. We all went over there one day after our shift was finished and he took a picture of us. He took it with that new color film. We got a good laugh out of it. It’s pinned to the bulletin board in the breakroom.”

  “Can we see it?” Kaminsky said.

  “Sure. Wait a minute. I’ll be right back.”

  Elizabeth noticed Kaminsky watching as Dotty walked away from them, her ample hips, emphasized by the tight fit of her skirt, swinging from side to side.

  “Put your eyes back in your head,” Elizabeth teased.

  Kaminsky laughed. “And here I didn’t think you would notice.”

  Dotty returned just then, a photograph in her hand. She held it out toward Kaminsky.

  The photograph showed three women posing against a Kodak photo backdrop with NEW YORK WORLD’S FAIR 1939 in gold letters at the top. They sat huddled together, shoulder-to-shoulder on a bench—Dotty smiling widely at the photographer and leaning forward slightly so that her V-necked blouse fell away from her chest, revealing impressive cleavage along with a nasty bruise that was turning yellow around the edges. In the middle was a rather plain girl with a slightly sour expression and light brown hair that hung limply on either side of her face. The third woman in the picture was a blonde and was obviously the woman they had seen lying dead next to the pool at the Billy Rose Aquacade with the nylon stocking around her neck.

  Dotty leaned over Kaminsky’s shoulder and tapped the photo. “That’s Flo, right there.”

  “That’s the victim,” Elizabeth said. “Don’t you think?” She looked at Kaminsky.

  Kaminsky nodded.

  Dotty let out a little cry, pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of her skirt, pressed it to her eyes and began to sob.

  Kaminsky looked at Elizabeth and raised his eyebrows.

  “What else can you tell us about Flo? She have a beau?”

  Dotty shook her head. “Yes.”

  “Name?” Kaminsky paused with his pencil over his pad.

  “Earl something.” Dotty plucked at the lace on her handkerchief. “Give me a minute—the name’s on the tip of my tongue.”

  Kaminsky exhaled loudly.

  “Miller—that’s it!” Dotty exclaimed. “Earl Miller. She said he worked in a bank or something.”

  “Do you know where?” Kaminsky sa
id.

  Dotty shook her head. “I don’t think Flo ever said.”

  “Anything else you can tell us about Flo?”

  Dotty twisted the handkerchief around her hand.

  “No. We didn’t know each other all that well.”

  “I thought you dames didn’t have any secrets from each other—chattering all the time like a bunch of hens.”

  Dotty shrugged. “We didn’t have all that much time for talking. Lou keeps us pretty busy with the show. Besides, Flo only just started a couple weeks ago.”

  “Who’s Lou?”

  “Lou Vitale. He’s the manager.”

  Kaminsky sighed and turned to Elizabeth. “If we’re going to make the deadline for tonight’s paper, we’ve got to head back to the newsroom now.” He glanced at Dotty who once again had the handkerchief pressed to her face. “It won’t do us any good if we scoop the other papers with this information about the murdered dame but we don’t make tonight’s edition. We can come back tomorrow and do some more interviews.” He tilted his head toward Dotty. “Want to get a picture?”

  Dotty lowered the handkerchief. “What? Now? I must look a complete horror.” She patted her hair and wiped her fingers under her eyes carefully.

  Elizabeth put her camera to her eye.

  “Should I smile?” Dotty asked anxiously. “It doesn’t seem right under the circumstances.”

  “Do whatever feels most natural,” Elizabeth said, pressing the shutter as Dotty settled for a serious expression.

  As soon as Elizabeth lowered the camera, Dotty pressed the handkerchief to her eyes again. They could hear her sobbing softly.

  “It can’t be Flo,” she said. “It can’t be.”

  Kaminsky and Elizabeth exchanged a glance.

  “I’m afraid it is,” Kaminsky said.

  Chapter 3

  Clouds had rolled in by the time they were headed back to the Aquacade, and the air had become heavy and sticky. Elizabeth felt as if they were walking through thick syrup—her dress was sticking to her back and felt damp under the arms, and she was sure that her dark brown hair, which had a slight natural curl, was unraveling in the humidity.