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Authors: Dorothy Gilman
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Over the demitasse Madame Karitska inserted a cigarette into a long gray holder and looked at him frankly. “You have told me many things about this city and your work, Lieutenant, but always there lurks the faint shadow behind your eyes. It has to do with your job?”
“Unfortunately not any longer,” he said.
She was at once sympathetic. “You have perhaps been taken off a case?”
He sighed. “In a way, yes, but not by anyone in the department. I learned late this afternoon—it’ll be in the newspapers tomorrow, undoubtedly on a back page—that a woman named Mazda Lorvale died in a mental hospital today, apparently a suicide.”
“This is very sad,” said Madame Karitska. “You knew her?”
“I handled the case three years ago. It was never solved and now I don’t suppose it ever will be, and I’ll wonder for the rest of my life if she was guilty orinnocent.” He lifted his gaze from the coffee and added, “One does, you know.”
“Why don’t you tell me about it?” suggested Madame Karitska.
He said impulsively, “I’ll do more than that if you’ll allow me. It’s a hell of a way to thank you for a delicious goulash-and-spaetzl dinner, but knowing I was coming here I smuggled her suicide note out of headquarters. I’d give a great deal to know whether she really killed three people. If you can tell such a thing by examining the note.”
“Three people,” mused Madame Karitska. “I think perhaps you must first tell me her story.”
“All right. You know the Dell section of Trafton? It’s on the outskirts of the city, a very modest suburb: frame houses, tiny immaculate lawns, vegetable gardens and clotheslines in the rear. Basically it’s a Ukrainian neighborhood, with a Russian Orthodox church in its center, like the hub of a wheel.”
“I know,” said Madame Karitska, nodding. “I have seen the church.”
“Well, three years ago a man from the Dell section was rushed to the hospital here in Trafton. His name was Charles Windham, he was sixty-seven, retired, a widower, and he lived alone at 52½ Arbor Street. He was dead on arrival, and the lab established that he’d died of cyanide poisoning.
“Two days later a forty-one-year-old woman was found dead in her home at 48½ Arbor Street, two houses removed from Windham’s home. Her name, if I remember correctly, was Polly Biggs and it was discovered that she too had died of cyanide poisoning.”
“Ah,” said Madame Karitska, nodding.
“Swope was assigned to the investigation at that time. Myself, I was busy investigating the disappearance of a professor from Trafton University named Dr. Ulanov Bugov. This man lived across town near the university campus and he’d not returned to his Russian history classes. Much to my surprise, in investigating his disappearance, I discovered that he’d been a fairly regular visitor on Arbor Street. He’d sent Christmas cards to both of the deceased, and he’d been very friendly with the woman who lived alone at number 50, whose house was between Polly Biggs’s and Windham’s. This was Mazda Lorvale.
“Swope had been checking out Mazda Lorvale, as he had all the neighbors. Now we discovered that someone in that neighborhood had pawned Dr. Bugov’s gold watch. The pawnbroker gave us a very precise description of the woman who had pawned it, and it exactly matched that of Mazda Lorvale. Next the bank produced several checks made out to Mazda and signed by Dr. Bugov several days
after his disappearance.
These checks proved to be forgeries, and Mazda had forged them.”
“So she was arrested,” said Madame Karitska.
“Not then. We first had a warrant issued and searched her house. We hit pay dirt all right. We found Dr. Bugov’s attaché case under her bed, his checkbook in her bureau drawer, and a quantity of cyanide hidden away in her pantry. That’s when she was arrested on suspicion of murdering Charles Windham and Polly Biggs, but of course we felt pretty
Over the demitasse Madame Karitska inserted a cigarette into a long gray holder and looked at him frankly. “You have told me many things about this city and your work, Lieutenant, but always there lurks the faint shadow behind your eyes. It has to do with your job?”
“Unfortunately not any longer,” he said.
She was at once sympathetic. “You have perhaps been taken off a case?”
He sighed. “In a way, yes, but not by anyone in the department. I learned late this afternoon—it’ll be in the newspapers tomorrow, undoubtedly on a back page—that a woman named Mazda Lorvale died in a mental hospital today, apparently a suicide.”
“This is very sad,” said Madame Karitska. “You knew her?”
“I handled the case three years ago. It was never solved and now I don’t suppose it ever will be, and I’ll wonder for the rest of my life if she was guilty orinnocent.” He lifted his gaze from the coffee and added, “One does, you know.”
“Why don’t you tell me about it?” suggested Madame Karitska.
He said impulsively, “I’ll do more than that if you’ll allow me. It’s a hell of a way to thank you for a delicious goulash-and-spaetzl dinner, but knowing I was coming here I smuggled her suicide note out of headquarters. I’d give a great deal to know whether she really killed three people. If you can tell such a thing by examining the note.”
“Three people,” mused Madame Karitska. “I think perhaps you must first tell me her story.”
“All right. You know the Dell section of Trafton? It’s on the outskirts of the city, a very modest suburb: frame houses, tiny immaculate lawns, vegetable gardens and clotheslines in the rear. Basically it’s a Ukrainian neighborhood, with a Russian Orthodox church in its center, like the hub of a wheel.”
“I know,” said Madame Karitska, nodding. “I have seen the church.”
“Well, three years ago a man from the Dell section was rushed to the hospital here in Trafton. His name was Charles Windham, he was sixty-seven, retired, a widower, and he lived alone at 52½ Arbor Street. He was dead on arrival, and the lab established that he’d died of cyanide poisoning.
“Two days later a forty-one-year-old woman was found dead in her home at 48½ Arbor Street, two houses removed from Windham’s home. Her name, if I remember correctly, was Polly Biggs and it was discovered that she too had died of cyanide poisoning.”
“Ah,” said Madame Karitska, nodding.
“Swope was assigned to the investigation at that time. Myself, I was busy investigating the disappearance of a professor from Trafton University named Dr. Ulanov Bugov. This man lived across town near the university campus and he’d not returned to his Russian history classes. Much to my surprise, in investigating his disappearance, I discovered that he’d been a fairly regular visitor on Arbor Street. He’d sent Christmas cards to both of the deceased, and he’d been very friendly with the woman who lived alone at number 50, whose house was between Polly Biggs’s and Windham’s. This was Mazda Lorvale.
“Swope had been checking out Mazda Lorvale, as he had all the neighbors. Now we discovered that someone in that neighborhood had pawned Dr. Bugov’s gold watch. The pawnbroker gave us a very precise description of the woman who had pawned it, and it exactly matched that of Mazda Lorvale. Next the bank produced several checks made out to Mazda and signed by Dr. Bugov several days
after his disappearance.
These checks proved to be forgeries, and Mazda had forged them.”
“So she was arrested,” said Madame Karitska.
“Not then. We first had a warrant issued and searched her house. We hit pay dirt all right. We found Dr. Bugov’s attaché case under her bed, his checkbook in her bureau drawer, and a quantity of cyanide hidden away in her pantry. That’s when she was arrested on suspicion of murdering Charles Windham and Polly Biggs, but of course we felt pretty
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