Twilight at Mac's Place

To keep up his end of the conversation, McCorkle said, “I suppose.”

“Well, the manuscript Mr. Haynes gave me was an awful mess. Some of it was typed—and single-spaced at that. Some of it was written in pencil. Some in ink—or with a ballpoint anyway. And he used all kinds of paper. Legal pads. Hotel stationery. Some cheap yellow stuff. Even pages from school tablets. It wasn’t, well, you know, orderly.”

Because she seemed to expect a response, McCorkle gave her an understanding smile.

“So that’s why I didn’t get it done on time. Because it was so, well, you know, messy.”

“When was it supposed to have been finished?”

“Eight days ago. He wanted it delivered to the Hay-Adams Hotel, but when I went there today, they told me he was dead.”

“He died a week ago Thursday,” McCorkle said.

“That’s what the hotel people said. So when I asked them where I could find Isabelle Gelinet because, you know, she was with him when he delivered the thing—”

“Delivered it where?”

“To my place in Hyattsville. Here.” She reached a gloved hand into the pocket of her raincoat, brought out a business card and handed it to McCorkle. It read: “Reba Skelton, Professional Typist, Word Processor & Calligrapher (Eleven Years Experience!), 4706 40th Ave., Hyattsville, MD, 20781.” There was also a telephone number with a 301 area code and, below that, a last line that boasted: “FAST! ACCURATE! PROMPT!”

McCorkle dropped the card into a desk drawer and asked, “What’d the hotel say when you asked for Miss Gelinet?”

“Well, they went all, you know, funny. And then they told me she was dead and right after they told me that, they went all snotty and said if I wanted to know anything else about her, I’d have to ask the police. So I left and went to a pay phone and called them.”

“The police?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“Well, they pretended they didn’t know anything about any Isabelle Gelinet and kept transferring my call from one person to another until finally they transferred me to a Sergeant Pouncy, who was colored—”

“How could you tell?”

“Well, you can just, you know, tell.”

“I didn’t know that,” McCorkle said. “So what’d the sergeant say?”

He said the Gelinet woman was, let’s see, the subject of an ongoing homicide investigation. And then he wanted to know who I was and why I wanted to talk to her and all that. And I, well, I just hung up on him.”

“Good thinking,” McCorkle said. “But why come here?”

“Because I’m looking for Mr. Haynes’s son.”

“Granville?”

“Yes. At least that’s what he’s called in the manuscript.”

“I still don’t understand why you’d expect to find him here.”

“Well, after I hung up on that Sergeant Pouncy, I started thinking. So I called the Hay-Adams back and told them a fib. I told them I was Miss So-and-So with American Express and that we had some outstanding charges on Mr. Steadfast Haynes’s account and wanted to know who was handling his estate. I was talking to the hotel accounting people this time, and they weren’t nearly so snotty as those stuck-up things on the desk.”

“When did you talk to the accounting people?”

“Today. Just before noon.”

“What’d they tell you?”

“They told me to call his lawyer, Howard Mott. So I called his office right away, even if it is Saturday, but by then it was beginning to snow and nobody answered. So I looked up his home number and called that, but he wasn’t there. I did get to talk to Mrs. Mott and told her I was looking for Granville Haynes and she was very nice. She told me to try the Willard Hotel and, if young Mr. Haynes wasn’t there, maybe somebody at Mac’s Place might know where I could find him.”

McCorkle leaned back in his chair and studied the woman in the red knitted cap. “You’re quite a detective, Miss Skelton.”

“What I am, Mr. McCorkle, is broke.”

“You want me to give Granville a message?”

“No, what I’d like you to give him is this.” She lifted the white package an inch or so off her lap.

“That’s the typed manuscript?”

“Plus all the original stuff. And my bill’s right on top where he can’t miss it. Three hundred and eighty-two pages at a dollar fifty a page comes to five hundred and seventy-three dollars.”

“Granville’s out of town,” McCorkle said. “But he’ll probably be back later today.”

“Will you see him then?”