Part 26 (2/2)
”No.” The bottles arranged to his satisfaction, Odessa turned. ”Never heard of him.”
”And you don't have any drugged young girls in your closet?”
The man actually laughed at that. ”No, Officer, I do not.”
”Mind if I check?”
”Jimmy...,” Walter said with a note of warning.
”Not at all.” Odessa gestured toward the closet door with a gracious sweep of his hand. ”Though if you continue to make a habit of this, I will make a report of hara.s.sment to your superiors.”
Now Walter bristled. ”Go right ahead, mister. Our superior has a daughter about Irene Smith's age.”
James didn't bother to correct the girl's last name in light of Walter's sudden support. He pulled the door open and entered the storage room, flicking a switch to illuminate the bare bulb that hung from the ceiling. He didn't really expect to find a girl. What he wanted to look for was blood.
The room appeared much as he had last seen it, bottles of pills and herbs with handwritten labels, a short stack of towels, and a supply of writing paper. No dark spots stained the rough wooden walls or floor. Two spots appeared on the edge of the cot frame, and James could only pray they did not belong to some poor girl with less luck than Irene. But he saw no signs of Flo Polillo's body having been brutally dismembered in that small s.p.a.ce.
And yet he swore he could smell it, that damp and rotting odor of blood. Murder, war, it all smelled the same.
”Satisfied, Officer?” Odessa asked when he emerged.
”Detective.”
The man came close to rolling his eyes. ”Detective. Then I will bid you good day. I have a client due to arrive in a few minutes. Take a look at her, and you will see why I would not waste time with the Flo Polillos of the city.”
”You know our victim's name,” James pointed out.
”The papers have written of nothing else. Everyone in Cleveland knows her name.”
They emerged into the hallway as he said this, and a woman unlocking the door across the hallway said, ”Whose name? Mine?”
”Sorry, Auralina. The detectives were speaking of that woman found so brutally murdered.”
The gla.s.s in the door read AURALINA DE MORELLI-MEDIUM and the woman dressed the part in an outlandish getup of flowing purple and crimson that did not even resemble a dress, per se, and yet still managed to hint at a perfectly feminine figure. Her face, while coated in too many colored powders, had a similarly pleasant shape. ”I read all about it. You need my help, gentlemen. I can contact the dead woman and ask her who tore her limb from limb.”
”Really,” Walter said with a less-than-convinced air. James didn't bother to respond but surveyed the rest of the hallway. A burst of laughter sounded from the architect's firm. The door to the railroad man's office remained closed, with no light behind the gla.s.s.
But de Morelli knew her business and qualified her statement. ”That is, if she wants to tell us, if she even knows. But you can't be sure until you ask. It could solve the whole case for you.”
Walter's gaze did not budge from her bosom. ”Just like that.”
She braced her back against her open doorjamb, the better to display herself. Auralina de Morelli had become schooled in the finer arts of salesmans.h.i.+p, James could see. ”As I said, you can't know until you try. The spirit of this troubled woman will be straining to find expression in this world.”
”Thank you anyway, ma'am,” James said. ”Let's go, Detective McKenna.”
”Sure.” Walter did not move, however, still captivated by the straining b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the de Morelli woman, and meanwhile the front door opened to allow in a burst of arctic air.
The medium smiled at Odessa in a way that made James think the man did not have to drug all his partners. ”A client comes for you, Louis, or perhaps for me.”
But only Arthur Corliss entered. He carried a paper parcel that smelled good. ”Hullo. Are we having a meeting in the hallway?”
Odessa introduced the two cops, as if they were his guests at a party. Corliss's gaze rested with more recognition on James, but he said only, ”I've been out getting provisions. Would you gentlemen be needing some lunch? It's the best corned beef in the city.”
”From where?” Walter asked, of course. Only food could get his attention from a female body.
”Mike's.”
”Oh, yeah. Good stuff.”
”No, th-” James began to say. Then he stopped himself. ”Actually, that would be great.”
Walter stared. ”You don't even like-”
”Always thinking of you, partner. Let me help you with that, Mr.-Corliss, isn't it?”
”Yes.”
James left the other three people in the hallway and followed Arthur Corliss back to his office. In the time since James had seen it last, the man had acc.u.mulated more items: more papers, more books, more newspapers in separate stacks (apparently he read all three: the News, the Press, and the Plain Dealer), a good supply of Mission Orange soda pop in their signature black bottles, a large table now crowding the desk and scattered with reports and diagrams. Unlike his fellow tenant, Arthur Corliss did more with his office than rape young girls and sell pills to society ladies.
The dog remained. He opened one eye at James's entrance but chose not to leave his spot in front of the radiator.
”Well, Detective, what brings you by?” Corliss asked as he unwrapped his parcel.
”Just keeping an eye on your neighbor, that's all, making sure the good doctor's lady friends are all of legal age.”
”The ones I see are well above that, I can a.s.sure you. Louis never lacks for lady friends.”
James did not press this. ”I had a question for you as well. If a man wanted to work for the railroad, would he come here to talk to you or go to the station?”
Corliss straightened from his task as if both astounded and delighted by the prospect. ”Are you considering the railroad police? Excellent! We can always use experienced men. I used to be one, you know, a detective like you are.”
”With the railroad?”
”In my younger years. I wasn't much good at it. I felt too sorry for the unfortunates in this country who couldn't afford a ticket-and there's so many more now.” Corliss found a knife in a drawer and sliced one of the sandwiches with an agitated whack! ”Of course too many of them can afford it; they simply don't want to part with the cash, and the railroads have to protect themselves. Once I grew into a man I learned that it takes a great deal of money to establish a railroad and even more to run it, and I can't let that all fly away because criminals think a depression is an excuse to appropriate my property for their own uses. It's a battle out there every day, you know. Practically a war. Sandwich?”
”No, thank you, but I'll take a slice for my partner.” The man's face fell, so James explained, ”I've never cared for cured beef. My father cured everything when I was a boy. He considered it the only trustworthy way to preserve food.”
”Your partner doesn't understand, does he?”
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