Garbo Towers

Chapter 11

Of all the people in the room, only Stanley, Regina and Emily had ever been in Millicent's apartment. Now the entire complement of guests were crowded uncomfortably into the ancient parlour. All except for Wally Spade who was lying across the kitchen entryway of his apartment with his head smashed in on one side and a small sea of blood soaking into the top of his Brooks Brothers shirt. Policemen clomped up and down the stairs noisily, moving back and forth between their cars with the annoyingly flashing lights.

Two detectives stood in the entry lobby conferring in muted tones as the coroner's people carted their bags upstairs to do their examination. Haggis began a non-stop barking spree and finally Stanley was given permission, under guard, to fetch the dog and take it back to Millicent's apartment. Her face crinkled almost audibly as the dog sat wriggling and squirming on its owners lap on her antique sofa.

"Okay, I'd like to start with some information from you folks so when I call your names, just come out into the kitchen there, okay?" The detective, who introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Peter White, stood but a few millimeters short of Millicent's crystal chandelier and with each movement, she closed her eyes and murmured a prayer. "Right then. Millicent Degrew."

The questioning and taking of statements took about three hours, finishing at two in the morning. That was when the body was finally released to the morgue and the police had searched, photographed and dusted everything in Wally's apartment and with permission, the apartments of the other residents.

The detectives patiently listened to the growing complaints of the witnesses, particularly Gary Dasher, whose phone never stopped ringing and subsequently had it confiscated until the questioning terminated.

They were all allowed to return to their apartments with admonitions about staying available and not disturbing anything behind the police tape. Darlene waited in Brenda's apartment with she and Alec, allowing him to see her down to the cab when it arrived and promising to stay in close touch. Cheryl accepted the offer of Stanley's spare bed for the night, somewhat traumatized by Wally's murder and afraid to go home by herself.

Haggis and Millicent both frowned on the arrangement. Emily and Regina retired without speaking after her tryst in the bushes with the young bartender became known when they both needed alibis for their whereabouts.

Emily torn between fear, exhilaration and regret, locked herself in her room and brought her diary up to date. Sophia and Sebastian returned noisily to their apartment, slamming doors and arguing loudly. Aside from them, the top floor was eerily silent.

Gary spent the rest of the night trying to apologize between viewing and discarding e-mails on his laptop, while Geena took her pillow to the sofa an curled up, staring vacantly at the night sky.

*****

White rocked back in his chair and studied the large blackboard on the office wall. He liked to have everything in picture or chart form when he was working a case; it was faster than pouring through notes and bits of paper and easier to see connections.

"Got it solved yet?" Detective Arthur Washington, his partner, dropped a box of doughnuts on the table and handed White a large coffee.

"Hey, Art. Thanks. I was just thinking, this is like one of those old forties movies where the whole case takes place in a big house full of guests and one of them is the killer. Kinda, Agatha Christie, don't you think?"

"So you haven't solved it then?" Art bit into a sugar doughnut, leaving a ring of white powder around his mouth.

"Not yet, and you should check the mirror, you look like Al Jolson." His partner grabbed a napkin and wiped his face, giving White a 'smart ass' shake of his big head.

"I'm liking the old guy, Whitehouse," Art said. "Lots of opportunity, strong enough to pull it off. You see the hands on that guy? Like leather gloves."

"And his motive would be?" White poked through the doughnuts, feeling for the freshest one.

"The vic dissed him in front of his pals and he had a hard-on for the old guy's dog."

"Pretty skimpy motive don't you think? I mean a guy doesn't kill someone because he insults him or his dog... well maybe your kind do" White baited his partner with an intimate familiarity.

"Age rage." Art said, philosophically, ignoring the racist remark.

"Age rage. Please. I kinda like the wop, Morano, myself. Talk about rage, that guy's got a helluva temper."

"Yeah but it's not new. From what they all said, he's like that over anything so what's different here?"

"The vic hit on his wife, more than once." White sipped at his coffee and glanced at the board again. "He is on the same floor too. Maybe they ran into one another inside, no one else around, they get into it again and, wham."

Art finished his doughnut and strolled over to the board, pointing with his coffee cup. "Okay, break's over. Time to work with the facts. What we don't have here, Pete, is a solid time line. All we really know is when the party started and when the coroner guesses death occurred."

"It's important to get the opinions of experts," White jeered.

"I know. It's like sayin' it happened sometime between when he was alive and when he wasn't."

White got up and went to the board. "Look, we know more than we think. According to the majority of the statements, the vic was the first person to go into the building following the row. Your old guy was next, ostensibly to check on his dog. Then the Dasher guy went in through the fire escape entrance and the Morano guy was next, through the front door. None of the three... correction, four, came back out."

Art nodded and wandered back to his own desk, flopping down carelessly and rubbing a meaty hand over his bald, black head. He studied the doughnut box and reluctantly pushed it away. "Everybody else, including the catering staff were at the tribute—"

"Until—"

"—until first, the Hasslet woman goes in to look for her daughter-in-law, who turns up a few minutes later from her tumble with the kid bartender. Then when the Woznoski dame wanders out of the night, Dasher's wife goes in to check on the old man." Art laced his fingers behind his head. "Okay, so now we have the vic, Morano, both the Dashers, Stanley and Regina Hasslet all in the building at the same time. Or at least, not in the garden."

"Right."

"We also have the Cheryl broad unaccounted for, in her own words, ten or fifteen minutes while she waited for Stanley." Art groaned and consulted his notes, comparing them to the blackboard. "Well you can scrub the Hasslet dame, she's seventy or so for Christ's sake."

"A woman scorned, Art." White sagely pointed out.

"By a thirty-two year old? Get real."

"She doesn't qualify for age rage? The point is... none of them came back out before the murder was discovered. All those people were in the building at the same time."

"Or not."

"Yeah, "White sighed grandly. "Or not. So, who do you like most?"