Installment 7

3

The steam fogged Lionel Barry’s glasses as he washed his bony hands over the porcelain sink. When the water stopped, he heard a single rap on the diamond-shaped window in the door.

Barry stepped out of the autopsy room, wiping his glasses on his white lab coat. “Whaddya got for me, doctor,” said Tom Powell, offering a cigarette from his tin case to the slight man.

“Thanks,” said Barry, leaning close to the open case, his face speckled with reflected light. He picked a cigarette from the case. “Well, the head wound, obviously, was the most severe,” he wheezed. “The top of the skull was crushed most of the way back,” he said, finally putting his wire-rimmed glasses back on, “and the spine was broken in a few places...the neck was totally severed, just the skin holding it together. Some small items, a kitchen knife, a fork, a tin can lid...trash really...were embedded in the skin. Those occurred at the time of death, all bled some, but all seem incidental. Broken left forearm. She’s been dead at least 24 hours, I suppose.”

Powell looked up from his notebook. “No gunshot wounds, strangulation marks, deep knife wounds? Nothing like that?”

“No,” said Barry, reaching under his lab coat to pull out a lighter. “My theory is that she fell from a great height, directly into the back of a garbage truck, either striking the edge of the truck or some heavy object in the truck. Cause of death was a combination of the blow to the head and broken neck. I’ll get you the report in a few hours.”

“Pretty girl, huh? A shame,” said Powell, looking up from his notebook.

“Well, none of us will look too pretty a hundred years from now, detective,” said Barry, his thin lips in a slanted, sardonic smile.

Powell gave an amused snort in response.

Barry raised an eyebrow, thrust his hands in his pockets and began to walk down the well-lit subterranean corridor. The clicking of his heels stopped and he turned back to Powell, who was raising a lit match to the cigarette in his mouth. “Oh and she was recently impregnated.” Powell’s lips drew back and he held the unlit cigarette between his teeth.

4

“Paramount doesn’t want to know about her. I talked to the head of publicity. He said she hasn’t been under contract for a year her last movie was poison. As far as he was concerned, she died in 1935.” Powell sat down heavily in the padded green chair across the desk from the police chief, Benson Donleavy.

“Feet down,” said Donleavy as he twirled the cigar on the desk before him. “I guess all bets are off, then. What do we know about her?”

“She was a wild one. Dope, booze, sex--of all kinds, plus any other vice you want.” Powell set his hat on the desk and ran his hand over his slick auburn hair. “She was last seen with Paul Waverly, the musician, at a club and a restaurant last Thursday, the day before he opened at the Raven’s nest.” Powell’s gray eyes looked up briefly from his hat at Donleavy.

Donleavy sat up straight and somewhat self-consciously squared his shoulders. “That’s Russ Treacher’s place, isn’t it? Do you think Treacher is mixed up in this?”

“Hell if I know. I’m checking on it.”

“Well get a move on, we’re going public with this. There doesn’t seem to be any reason not to.”

Powell stood up, put on his hat and buttoned his jacket. “You do what you think you gotta. Look, I’m not sure what happened to her. It looks like she fell out a window. Maybe she got pushed; maybe she was so drunk she thought it was the door. I’m gonna see Waverly at the Raven’s nest tonight. Hopefully, I’ll get a feel for the case from him.”

“Call me after you talk to him.” Donleavy stood up and turned to the window behind him.