A Handy Death

“I’m sure you will, Mr. Ross,” he said, and turned to the waiting correction officer. Ross watched the door close behind the large young man. He opened his attaché case, switched off the recorder, closed the case and turned toward the exit.

There was a lot of work to do.

Chapter 8

Mike Gunnerson was seated behind Hank’s desk when Ross returned from his visit to the Tombs. The big man was tilted back in the swivel chair, carefully tossing paper clips across the room into the wastebasket beside Sharon’s desk. The girl was out of the office. Mike took considered aim with his final clip, flipped it in a long arc, and nodded in satisfaction as the ring of metal on metal confirmed the accuracy of the shot. Ross grinned at him, put his attaché case down on the desk, hung up his topcoat behind the door, pulled up a chair and sat down.

“I see,” he said. “That’s the reason my office expenses are so high. Interlopers making free with the supplies.”

“I’ll send you a box of paper clips, free,” Mike said magnanimously. “For Christmas.” He swung around in the swivel chair, facing Ross. “What’s new at the Tombs?”

“Enough to keep you and your boys busy for quite a while,” Ross said. “You won’t have time for target practice with my office supplies, I’m afraid. But first of all, what’s new with you?”

“Well,” Gunnerson said lightly, “I don’t know where our missing lady named Grace is at the moment, but I’m pretty sure I know where she went when she ducked out of Neeley’s apartment eight years ago.”

Ross stared at him.

“Well! You mean, you actually believe the lady exists?”

“I believe she existed. I don’t know if she still exists. You made it a precondition, practically, of my employment that I believe that, remember? You not only insisted that I believe in her existence, but that I prove that existence.” His voice became serious. “Well, oddly enough, I now honestly believe she existed.”

“And can prove it?”

“To my satisfaction, although I’m not sure anyone else would take my word for it. We’re far from through, though. I’m just getting started. I’ve got a little to work on, now.”

“Such as?”

“Such as where she went when she walked out of Neeley’s place eight years ago.”

“You said that,” Ross said impatiently. “So where did she go?”

“Next door,” Gunnerson said, and grinned at the expression on Ross’s face.

“Next door?”

“That’s right.” Gunnerson’s grin disappeared. “Let’s take it step by step. The transcript is clear that the taxi companies were checked out thoroughly for the night of July 25, 1964, and none of them made a call at that apartment house. Now, Neeley walks in with a suitcase. He was supposed to have been traveling. Either he was or he wasn’t, right? Let’s assume first that he was. Then he came in at either one of the railroad stations, the bus depot, or one of the airports. He couldn’t have caught a gypsy cab at any of those places, because they don’t allow gypsies there; he certainly wouldn’t have walked that far with a suitcase, and no regular cab brought him. Okay so far?”

“More than okay,” Ross said.

“Good. Then the chances are he hadn’t been traveling, which seems to bear out your swindle theory — that the suitcase was purely a stage prop. Still, he had to come from somewhere with that suitcase, even as the woman had to go somewhere with it. And remember, the woman left about the time the police were coming, which would make her an obvious sight, a woman running down the street dragging a suitcase—”

Ross help up his hand, interrupting.

“Did they ever find out who called the police?”

“An unidentified woman’s voice, according to the precinct.”

“She might have called them herself, if she wanted the boy caught.”

“Exactly,” Gunnerson said. “But she’d have to call from pretty close by, if she didn’t want him to have time to get away. So I had two things: she hadn’t been seen, and if she made the call, it had to be from close by. That pointed to another apartment in the same building.”

“Very good, Sherlock,” Ross said with a grin.

“I’m just starting,” Mike said modestly. “Save the applause for the big finish. I figured that while she was in another apartment in that building, she certainly wouldn’t be hanging around very long after the shooting, and definitely not after she found out that Neeley not only was alive, but promised to stay that way. So I had my men go down to the renting office for the building and check the records. And lo and behold, there was a Grace Melisi who rented an apartment across the hall from Neeley’s pad. She left without notice sometime after the shooting—”

Ross frowned. “Sometime?”

“They don’t check on tenants unless they fail to pay their rent on time, and that’s when they checked on her. And the apartment was empty. This was three weeks after the shooting, but she may have been gone the next day. Her things were out. They are furnished apartments, so all she needed was a couple of suitcases and a pocketbook and she was set to travel.”