Meet Me at the Morgue (9 page)

“You shouldn’t do these things to me,” he said in an unsuccessful attempt at lightness. “That room. That face. I’m a tenderly nurtured boy, I can’t take death in the afternoon.”

“Do you know the man?”

“I believe I do. I think I can say I’m virtually certain I’ve seen him. But lawyers make poor witnesses, you know—”

I interrupted his nervous wordiness: “Sit down and tell me about it.”

“Yes, of course.” His glance moved unsteadily around the dingy walls and rested in the sweet peas on Ann’s desk. They were beginning to fade. “Say, old man, could I have a drink of some kind? My throat is parched.”

I pointed to the cooler. “All we stock is water.”

“Water will be fine. Adam’s ale, my mother calls it.” He filled and drained a paper cup, three times. “How in the world did you know I’d seen that chap?” he said with his back to me.

“That’s beside the point.…”

“Was it dear little Annie?”

“We’re wasting time. Now come in here and sit down and talk.” I opened the door of the inner office and motioned him in.

He looked me sharp in the eye as he went by. His mouth still wet from his drink, his short hair bristling, he gave a sly and dangerous impression, like an animal caught in an alien corner of the woods. His short lip curled. “Do I detect a faintly peremptory note? Was that a sneer of cold command, Mr. Ozymandias?”

“Cut the comedy, Seifel. You could be in a jam.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said uneasily. “What has Annie been saying to you anyway? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

Disregarding the question, I sat down behind my desk and put a fresh tape on the recording-machine.

He leaned across the desk, protesting. “What’s that you’re doing? You have no right to record what I say. You have no police powers.”

“My office has investigative functions. I interpret them pretty broadly, and nobody seems to object. Do you object?”

“Naturally I object.”

“Why?”

“I’m not prepared to make a formal statement. I’ve had an upsetting day, the sight of that body—”

“And you won’t talk without advice of counsel. Why don’t you widen that split in your personality and be your own counsel?”

He stiffened and grew pale. “I didn’t come here to be insulted. As a matter of fact, I didn’t like the way you asked me in the first place.”

“Go back to your office and we’ll start over. I’ll send you a
billet-doux
pinned to an orchid.”

He leaned close, supporting his weight on outspread palms: “I suspect you don’t know who you’re talking to, old man. I was light-heavy champion at Stanford before the war. And if you weren’t a friend of Annie’s, I’d bat your ears off here and now. Just needle me a little more and I will anyway.”

“If you’re a friend of hers, speak of her with a little more respect. Her friends call her Ann, by the way.”

He clenched his right fist. “You’re asking for it, Cross.”

“And you talk a good fight.” I stood up, staring at him hard and level. I suspected that he was hollow or soft inside. Even his anger was a little actorish. His face and mouth made the motions and the sounds, but they didn’t ring quite male. “Come down to the gym next week and I’ll take you up on it. Right now I have other things on my mind.”

I flicked the switch of the recorder. The twin spools began to revolve.

“Stop that thing,” he said in a high-pitched voice. “I refuse to talk for the record.”

“So you can change your story later on, when you’ve had more time to think? What’s the matter, Seifel? You’ve got me half convinced that you’re involved—”

“I could sue you for that!” He glared at the whirling
spools. “If you play that tape with the accusation on it to one or more persons, you’re actionable under the libel laws. I advise you to wipe it off.”

“It’s not recording yet. You have to press this button.” I pressed it, and set the microphone on the desk between us. “Mr. Lawrence Seifel, interviewed by Cross, May 10th, four p.m. Sit down please, Mr. Seifel.”

“I wish to state my objections to the recording of my statement at the present time.” But he sat down. The machine between us enforced an impersonal atmosphere.

“What did you tell Lieutenant Cleat, Mr. Seifel?”

“Nothing. I told him, that is, that you had asked me to look at the corpse. Nothing more. He seemed to be busy conferring with the sheriff’s men, and you had emphasized the desirability of haste.”

“You recognized the corpse?”

He answered without hesitation: “I did.”

“Who is he? Do you know his name?”

“Unfortunately I don’t. He may have mentioned it to me, in fact I’m quite sure he did. My memory isn’t too good for names, and I only met him the once.”

“When? On what occasion?”

“Just a minute. I could remember better, and express myself more freely, if you’d turn that instrument off.”

“Is that a threat to withhold information, Mr. Seifel?”

“Certainly not,” he said emphatically, to the machine. “It’s a simple psychological fact, and I resent your attempt to ask tendentious and misleading questions of that nature.”

“Sorry, Mr. Seifel. You asked for it.”

“Will you turn it off?”

“I will not. You’ve just admitted that your memory is faulty, and I don’t trust mine.…”

“I’ve admitted nothing of the sort. What is this, a cross-examination?
I object to the whole procedure, on constitutional grounds.”

“Save it, this isn’t a courtroom. I have to record your statement, it’s too important not to. So far as we know, you’re the only person in town who knows the deceased.”

“I don’t know him. I only met him once.”

“This is where we came in. On what occasion did you meet him?”

“It was the day of Frederick Miner’s trial, February the 20th, I believe it was. This man—the deceased—was present. I noticed him among the spectators. He was the only one I didn’t know. There weren’t many spectators—just the Johnsons, and Miner’s wife, and one or two others—since it wasn’t really a trial. All it amounted to was the guilty plea and the business of setting a date for Miner’s probation hearing.”

“Mrs. Johnson was there?”

“Certainly.”

“She said she’d never seen the man.”

“Probably she didn’t. He was sitting at the back of the well, apart from the others. I only noticed him on account of his bald head, you know how a bald head stands out. After court adjourned, I stayed behind for a few minutes. There were a few corrections I wanted the court reporter to make in the transcript. The bald-headed man waited for me at the back of the room. He buttonholed me on my way out.

“He was a pretty sordid-looking customer, as you know, and I tried to give him a quick brush-off. But he seemed to be very interested in the case. I gathered that he had followed it in the paper; he knew the names of the principals, my name, and Miner’s, and the Johnsons’. I got the idea after a while. He came around to it rather circuitously. He wanted me to employ him.”

“To do what?”

“That was never entirely clear. He claimed to be a detective, a private investigator of some sort, but I had my doubts about that. When I asked to see his credentials he ignored the request. I think he gave me some kind of card, though. Something with a Los Angeles address or telephone number.”

“Do you still have it?”

“Perhaps I have. I haven’t made a search.”

“Where would it be?”

“In my office, if it’s anywhere. I may have stuck it in among the papers in the Miner case. In fact, I probably did. I had them in my hand.”

“If you did, it would certainly help. We could use a lead. About his name, the name he gave you—was it Kerry Smith?”

Seifel looked up at the ceiling, as if there might be a written clue on the plaster. The only clues there were the watermarks where the roof had leaked through two rainy seasons, before the Supervisors became officially aware of it.

“It wasn’t Kerry Smith. I think it was a one-syllable surname, but not so common as Smith. Lint, or Kemp, something along those lines. And the first name definitely wasn’t Kerry.”

“He wanted you to hire him to do something, but you don’t know exactly what?”

“That’s right. He wasn’t too easy to follow. He talked a great deal without saying much, praising his own discretion and general aptitude. In addition to which, he had a breath that kept me off. The stink of corruption. I was dodging his breath half the time, and only half-listening.”

“He’s not the only one who says very little at length.”

He bridled. “If you mean me, the remark is definitely uncalled
for. I’ve done my best to co-operate. I didn’t expect my efforts to be appreciated.”

“I’ll write you a letter when I have the time. Surely you remember something of what he said?”

“I remember I didn’t like it. If you want my subjective opinion, it crossed my mind at the time that he was trying to find an angle, a blackmailing angle.”

“To blackmail you?”

“Certainly not.” He laughed, faintly and hollowly. “As near as I can recall, he wanted me, as Helen Johnson’s lawyer, to persuade her to employ him as an investigator. He said he was sure he could discover the identity of Miner’s hit-run victim, and that Mrs. Johnson might be interested.”

“Was she?”

“I didn’t discuss it with her. She had enough on her mind. One thing a lawyer can do is try to protect his clients against unsavory characters.”

I switched off the tape recorder. As its whirring died, an uneasy silence filled the room. “This protection service you give, could it include the use of an icepick, Seifel?”

He jumped in his chair. “Are you insane?”

“I’m asking the questions. Did you follow up the matter and find out that he knew something dangerous about Mrs. Johnson?”

“You are insane,” he said. “I saw the man once, just once. I’ve volunteered my information—”

“Under considerable pressure.”

He pulled at the button-down collar of his shirt. “You’ve got me all wrong. You’ve got Mrs. Johnson all wrong. I tell you, Helen Johnson could no more have any connection with a man like that—” Seifel ran out of words. He stood up, his straightening legs pushing back the chair. “You can go to hell.”

I got up, too. “Relax. You know as well as I do that questions have to be asked, if you want answers.” I felt the faint beginnings of liking for Seifel. When he forgot himself, he had moderately decent instincts. I spoke to them: “If we don’t solve this, Helen stands to lose most.”

He pulled his hand down one side of his face in a weary gesture. “Ask me anything you like. I have nothing to hide. Neither has she. You don’t know Helen Johnson.”

“I have nothing against her.” It was an understatement. “If you suspected attempted blackmail, why did you shake hands with the man? Tell him you’d look him up if you needed his help?”

“Annie’s got you well primed, eh?”

“Leave Ann out of it. Answer the question.”

“You’re a darned unpleasant character to talk to, but I will. It’s a way I have of dealing with people, I don’t say it’s a good way, but it’s sort of a professional necessity with me. When I was a kid, and I hated a guy, I bopped him. Just like that. It got me into a lot of trouble. Nowadays I lean over backwards to be nice to them. The more I hate them, the nicer I treat them. I don’t know why, it’s just the way I operate. I hated that man.”

“Why?”

“He represented pure evil to me.” Seifel was speaking candidly at last, or acting much more expertly. The name of Helen Johnson had acted as a moral catalyst, or a stimulus to greater histrionic effort.

“I have a nose for evil,” he continued. “I saw a lot of it when I was a kid in Chicago in the twenties, and later when I was doing court-martial work for the Navy.”

“We have something in common after all.”

He smiled rather tightly. “I’m willing to bet you’ve never been kidnapped. I was.”

“You were kidnapped?”

“By my own father, when I was three years old. My mother had divorced him, and got custody of me. He came to our apartment one afternoon when my mother was out, and talked the maid into letting him take me for a walk. He was the sort of man who could talk the devil out of hell. He dropped out of sight with me for several days, before the police caught up with him. Of course I don’t remember the incident, or my father either, but Mother’s often told me about it.”

“It wasn’t a kidnapping for ransom?”

“No, of course not. All he wanted was me. The guy got a pretty rough deal when they caught him. Mother’s family had a lot of pull in Illinois, and they had him committed to a mental hospital. She took back her maiden name, and changed my name to hers.” He spoke rapidly, almost lightly, but he was pale with emotion. His tan was like a jaundice over the pallor. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, Cross. I’ve never told it to anyone before.”

“It’s the room,” I said. “It’s heard a thousand confessions. I honestly think it induces them.”

“Or you do,” he said, smiling uneasily. “I wouldn’t want that story to get around town, naturally.”

“It won’t. What was your father’s name?”

“I have no idea. My mother’s suppressed him completely, you understand. It’s as if I had never had a father. All I know about him is that he was a young criminal-lawyer when they were married. Apparently he did something unethical, because he was disbarred. My mother divorced him on account of that, at least that’s the reason she’s always given me.”

“Your mother must have very high ethical standards.”

“She has. You might say my own career has been a reaction
against his. Mother always steered me away from criminal law. I never touched it, except of course when I had to, in the Navy.”

“Not all criminal lawyers are shysters.”

“I know that. Clarence Darrow was my great hero when I was in law school. How did we get on all this? I started to explain about my nose for evil. Anyway, I have one. I could smell the odor of hellfire on that fellow in the courtroom.”

I moved around him to the door. “Let’s get over to your office and see if we can find his card.”

“Whatever you say. Tom Swift and his jet-propelled pogo-stick are at your disposal.”

Seifel’s personality leaped back and forth among its multiple poles with the speed and dazzle of an electric arc. He was a hard man to keep track of.