Night Extra

“I heard one of the doctors talking the night she was brought in. I didn’t know it was to be kept quiet. You won’t say I told you, will you?”

“Of course not, Martha. So long now.”

Terrell walked back down the corridor, covering ground with long strides. In the coroner’s reception room, Terrell told the secretary he wanted to see Dr. Graham, who was the city’s chief coroner. She smiled mechanically at him, spoke into an intercom telephone, and then nodded at the door behind her. “Go right in, Mr. Terrell.”

Dr. Graham, a tall man with a long, thin nose, came around his desk and extended a big, but seemingly boneless hand. “We don’t see you around much these days, Sam,” he said. “Too busy being an important columnist, eh?” Dr. Graham’s tone was calm and good-humored; he was a man past middle-age, competent in small affairs, a cousin of Mayor Ticknor’s wife. He had no ambitions and no worries.

Terrell smiled. “It’s a nuisance keeping the space filled every day. It’s like an extra mouth to feed.”

“What can we do for you?”

“I’d like to look at the report on Eden Myles.”

“That’s all been in the papers, Sam.”

“I know, but I’m running down an angle. I’d like to see the report.”

“I read the autopsy report to the press,” Dr. Graham said, rather irritably. “You think I’ve left out something?”

“You left out the fact that she was pregnant,” Terrell said. “I’m wondering if you left out anything else.”

Dr. Graham fumbled through his pockets and finally brought out cigarettes. His face had become white and damp. “What kind of a bluff do you think you’re running?”

“Now, now,” Terrell said patiently. “I know she was pregnant, Doctor. I want to know how far gone she was.”

“You’re wrong, dead, flat wrong,” Dr. Graham said.

“I apologize if I am. But I want to see the report.”

“No, that’s impossible.” Dr. Graham rubbed his big limp hands together in a gesture that was meant to suggest decision and finality. “Don’t jump to conclusions now. We don’t pass out autopsy reports any more. It involves too much clerical help. Questions must be submitted in writing now. Then we answer them as fast as we can. But let me know what points you want checked and I’ll put a girl on it right away. For auld lang syne.”

“That document is a matter of public record,” Terrell said. “I carry a press card that entitles me to examine it. Are you telling me different?”

“I’m simply explaining a new procedure here, Sam.”

Terrell swore in disgust. Then he said, “I’m going over to the Hall and get a court order to pry that autopsy out of you. And I’ll bring back a photographer with me. And the character on our front page with the rosy, embarrassed look won’t be me, Doc.”

“Are you trying to start trouble?”

“Do you think I just got out of the Flash Gordon school of journalism? If you’re worried about the records, burn ’em. But don’t try to sit on them. You’ll get a hot foot in a most curious spot.”

“Sam, wait a second.”

“Why?”

Dr. Graham sighed heavily and sat down behind his desk. “I don’t want trouble. I don’t want to be in the middle. As God is my judge I’ve done nothing wrong. The girl’s condition had no bearing on her death or Caldwell’s guilt.”

“She was pregnant then. How many months?”

Dr. Graham sighed again. “Almost three months.”

“Why didn’t you give it to the papers?”

“Captain Stanko said—” Pr. Graham took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the damp hollows under his eyes. “Well, he said there was no point in blackening the girl’s name.”

“The old softie,” Terrell said. “Mother Stanko. Friend of the working whore. This girl has been travelling with hoodlums since she was twelve. She probably learned the difference between sodomy and rape at her mother’s knee. But Stanko doesn’t want her reputation besmirched. Come on, Doc, try again.”

“The case is open and shut,” Dr. Graham said in a hurried, pleading voice. “Why introduce something irrelevant? She met Caldwell just five weeks ago. But she’s three months pregnant. That might cause gossip, speculation. She’s a martyr now. Sweet kid, innocent victim, that sort of thing. Why not leave it that way? Why worry about messy details? Caldwell killed her — that’s what counts.”

Was that why they had covered it up, Terrell wondered. Possibly. It was a detail, but why not take care of it? That’s the way they would reason.

“Well, maybe Stanko’s got a point,” he said. “Don’t worry about me broadcasting any family secrets.”

“We’ll just forget it, then?” Dr. Graham said, smiling nervously at him.

“Sure. Why bother the public with details? So long and thanks, Doc.”

In the tiled lobby Terrell looked into the reception room and saw that Connie Blacker was collecting her gloves and purse from the counter, smiling a thank you at the clerk. He didn’t know how to use the information about Eden Myles; he couldn’t fit it into the rest of his theory.

Connie pulled open the glass door of the reception room and Terrell walked toward her. “Hello there. All through in there?”