Kisses of Death. Henry Kane
handled it perfectly. She took a long time reading, but when she was finished she passed it to Marla without comment or change in facial expression, and then she lifted her hand to me for the brandy. I gave her what was left of it and this time I knew her fingers caressed mine. The lady had a yen or the lady had a purpose: either way, I had nothing to lose and a lot to gain because, very obviously, the lady was a hell of a lot of woman. Suddenly I lost all interest in Marla Trent. Temporarily, of course.
NINE
AFTER THAT it went smoothly. Wagner offered the pictures to Valerie but she shook them off. Marla said, “Please,” and Wagner gave them to her. Marla went through them fast and returned them. “There are sixty-six photos,” she said. Marla was a pro. She did not want some wise-guy cop clipping a few for private pinups. Wagner understood. His smile was small but it was all admiration. Wagner was as much a pro in his field as Marla was in hers. “Yes ma’am,” he said. “Sixty-six.” He took his time packing up the maroon folder and once I saw his glance flick out, wistfully, at the brandy bottle. I knew Wagner and I knew he was troubled and I knew what he was troubled about. Somebody was going to have to identify the mess that was being scraped together downstairs: that was the law. He was now a splattered pulp and it was going to be identification by fragment and it was not going to be pretty and a woman could fall apart and Wagner was hoping that it would not have to be the woman, but it was a tough subject to get around to.
I opened it up roundabout, and Wagner took it from there. I said, “Do you know if your husband left a will, Mrs. Kiss?”
“No will,” she said. “No need.”
“Why not?”
“No next of kin, nobody, except me.”
“No family?” I said.
“No one. His father and mother are dead, and there were no brothers or sisters. No need for a will. He had nobody except . . . except me.”
“Somebody’s going to have to identify him,” Wagner said.
“Yes,” she said faintly.
Wagner swallowed, coughed. “It’s going to be rough, Mrs. Kiss. When you go down twenty-four flights you’re smashed up bad, real bad.”
She turned her face into the pillows.
Wagner said, “He went head first.”
She made no sound.
Wagner said, “There’ll be lots of time yet before we take you downtown. It’s only a formality, Mrs. Kiss, but it’s the law and it’s got to be done. I suggest you try to get some sleep. We’ll be back later.”
He motioned with his thumb and Marla and Willie went out. I was at the door with him when she turned and said, “Sergeant.”
“Yes ma’am?”
“I want Mr. Chambers to come back with you.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“I . . . I’ll need somebody.”
“Yes ma’am, he’ll come back with me. Now do you need anything, want anything?”
“No, thank you.”
“I can leave one of my men here if you want.”
“No, thank you. I’ll manage.”
“Try to get some sleep, Mrs. Kiss.”
“Thank you.”
In the living room Wagner said, “Okay, we’re finished here. Petrie, you’ll drive these people over to the house in the squad car. They’re going to swear out statements. The rest of you downstairs and help out.”
Outside he put a key in the lock and turned it.
I said, “Where’d you get a key?”
“The super. Once we knew who it was from the papers in his clothes—”
“He was fully dressed?”
“Yeah. Full street wear. According to the doorman he went out at about nine, came back at about eleven, normal street clothes. He must of then wrote them notes, and then, just as he was, took the dive. Anyway once we knew who he was, we come up here, but the door was locked. We got a key from the superintendent and that’s how we got in.”
Downstairs Wagner went back to his work and Petrie drove us to the station house and there we were badgered by a pipsqueak cop who liked the sound of his voice and thought he was a district attorney. He took us one at a time, Marla first, and Willie and I sat around alone and jabbered. “One hell of a day,” I said.
“Yeah,” Willie said.
“What do you think, Willie?”
“What in hell’s to think?”
“The guy was a weirdo, all right.”
“All the way down the line to death.”
“That suicide note, the personal one, that was something, huh?”
“Diabolical.”
“Sleeping with the bartender is going to grow progressively more distasteful, I think.”
“I couldn’t agree more, Peter. That note will stay inside of her like a knife. Every move she makes, it will cut. The bastard left her the guilt of her adultery and now the guilt of his death, and that note made it sharp and clean. As the Bard put it, he left her ‘a plague of sighing and grief.’ ”
“He also, it seems, left her all his dough.”
“Which makes it even more diabolical. If he had cut her off with only dower rights, she could have something in the way of hate, which might give her a hinge for escape. But the weirdo left her no out. Guilt, guilt, guilt, and his money. How long can you go on that? The human mechanism is delicate, and the weirdo had the feel of it.”
“Meaning?”
“On the surface, who can complain? She was cheating, so he left her free to cheat. She stayed along with him for his money, so he left her his money. On the surface, it sounds great. Inside, it all eats like acid. Cheating is guilt, and that eats. His death was her work and he made it plain, and that will eat. He bequeathed no weapon to her to lash out against him, and no balm as salve for her conscience. He gave her no cause for wrath, for hate, for revenge, any of which might have saved her. He left her his money, and any time she spends a nickel of that on the bartender, or even on herself, it will be with the knowledge that it is money which came to her because of her cheating and his death. Unless she’s strong, very strong—unless he misjudged her and I doubt that, shrewd as he has shown himself to be—then in my opinion it will be a downward spiral of guilt, self-hate, self-disgust and, in the end, destruction.”
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