The Topless Tulip Caper

“Do you know how the condition was induced?”

I shook my head, then realized that wouldn’t work over the telephone. “No,” I said. “He could have done it himself, he could have had help, or it might be God’s will. No way I could tell.”

“Hmmmm.” I waited, and turned to glance through the fly-specked glass door of the phone booth. Several heads were turned in my direction. I turned away from them and Haig said, “I trust you have covered your traces.”

“No. I took my lipstick and wrote Catch me before I kill more on the bathroom mirror.”

“There is no need for sarcasm.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It shook me, I’ll admit it. Do I report this?”

“Yes, and right away. Use a different phone.”

“I know that.”

“You said you were shaken.”

“Not that shaken,” I said. “Hell.”

“Report the discovery and return here directly.”

“Is our friend still with you? Because she’s—”

“Yes,” he cut in. “Don’t waste time.” And he hung up on me, which was probably all to the good because I really was a little rattled and I might have found ways to prolong the conversation indefinitely.

I went back to the bar and ordered another shot, a single this time, and a man came over to me and said, “Oh, let me buy you this one, why don’t you. You seem terribly agitated. Nothing too alarming, I hope?”

I looked at him, and at some of the other customers, and I realized I was in a gay bar. “Oh,” I said.

“I beg your pardon?”

I couldn’t really resent it. You go drinking in a gay bar and people have the right to jump to conclusions. “Never mind,” I said. “I don’t want the drink anyway.” I pocketed my change and left, feeling very foolish.

Two blocks over I found a booth on the street. I dialed 911 and changed my voice and told whoever it was that answered that there was a dead man at 134 Arbor Street and gave the apartment number and hung up before any questions could be asked of me. I walked another block and got in a cab.

I had found Andrew Mallard in the bedroom. The whole apartment had reeked of whiskey and vomit, and I figured he’d passed out. He was lying on his bed with his shoes off but the rest of his clothes on, laying on his back, a trickle of puke running from the corner of his mouth down his cheek.

I very nearly turned around and left at that point, and if I’d done that I’d have been in trouble, because I wouldn’t have bothered wiping my fingerprints off the doorknob and a few other surfaces I’d touched. But something made me put my hand to his forehead. Maybe I sensed unconsciously that he wasn’t breathing. Maybe I was toying with the idea of shaking him awake, though why would I have wanted a wide-awake drunk on my hands? For whatever reason, I did touch him, and he was cold, the kind of cold that you’re not if you’re alive. Then I reached for his hand and it was also cold, and his fingers were stiff, and at that point there was no getting around the fact that Andrew Mallard was a dead duck.

“But I can’t tell you what killed him,” I told Haig. “I counted five empty scotch bottles around the apartment, and that was without a particularly intensive search. If he emptied them all since the police let him go this morning then I know what killed him. Alcohol poisoning.”

“He tended to leave garbage around,” Tulip said. “I went back once for some stuff and there were newspapers three weeks old, and lots of empty bottles.”

“Well, he emptied one of them today. The whole place smelled of booze and he reeked of it. I don’t know if he drank enough to kill him.”

Haig frowned. “You said he had been sick.”

“You mean he threw up? Yes. Not a lot, though. Just a trickle.”

“Hmmmm.”

“He could have been poisoned. He could have had a heart attack or a stroke. I couldn’t tell anything from what I saw, but then I’m not a medical examiner, I don’t know what to look for. If his throat had been cut or if there was a bullet hole in his head I probably would have noticed. Then again, somebody could have strangled him or shot him in the chest and I probably wouldn’t have noticed. I didn’t want to disturb the body or anything.”

“That was wise,” Haig said. “The police will determine cause of death and time of death. They are sound enough in that area. Any efforts you might have made would only have served to render their work more difficult.”

“That’s what I figured.”

“Did anyone see you enter the building?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t trying to avoid being seen. I made sure nobody saw me leave. Anyway it doesn’t really matter if they can prove I was there around 8:30. I don’t know how long he was dead, I don’t know how long it takes a body to lose body heat, but it was awhile.”

Haig nodded absently, then leaned back in his chair. This time he kept his feet on the floor. His hand went to his beard and petted it affectionately.

I turned to Tulip. The expression on her face was like the one I had seen last night when Cherry was killed, a sort of numb look.

“It’s so hard to believe,” she said. “I slept with him, I lived with him. I was in love with him.” She stopped to consider, then amended this. “At least I thought I was in love with him. For a while. And then he got to be a kind of a habit, you know. He was there and he needed me, and it took awhile to break the habit. But it’s horrible that he’s dead. He was a very nice man. He was a loser, you know, but he was a decent sort of a guy. If he could ever have gotten ahold of himself he would have been all right, but he never quite managed to, and now he never will, will he?”

I moved my chair away from the desk and closer to hers. She reached out a hand and I took it. Her hands were large—everything about her was large, for Pete’s sake—but her fingers were very long and thin, and the touch of her hand was cool. She got her hand around mine and squeezed. There was a sad half-smile on her face and her eyes looked to be backed up with tears she had no intention of shedding.

“We shall have to play something of a waiting game,” Haig said thoughtfully. “Three possibilities exist. No, four. Mallard could have been murdered. He could have committed suicide. He could have had a heart attack or something of the sort. Finally, he could have committed a sort of involuntary suicide due to overindulgence in alcohol. I don’t suppose there was an empty bottle of sleeping tablets beside the bed?”

“It’s the sort of thing I probably would have mentioned.”

“Quite.” Haig heaved a sigh. I’d say he heaved it just about halfway across the room. “We’ll act on the supposition that the man was murdered. All deaths in the course of a homicide investigation ought to be regarded as homicides themselves until proven otherwise. It’s by far the best working hypothesis. Miss Wolinski.”

“Yes?”

“You will remain here this evening. There is a reasonably comfortable bed in the guest room. Wong Fat will change the linen for you. There is a murderer on the loose and he has already demonstrated that he can gain access to your apartment. I would be remiss in my duties if I permitted you to spend the night alone. I will brook no argument.”

“I wasn’t going to argue,” Tulip said.

“Oh? Then you are a rational woman, and I am delighted. Mr. Harrison always resists my urgings to spend the night. But he too will stay here.”

“No argument,” I said.

“Oh? Extraordinary.”

I didn’t see what was so extraordinary about it. Anybody who wouldn’t welcome the chance to spend the night under the same roof as Tulip needed hormone shots.

“Wong will make up the couch for you,” he went on. “But first you have some places to go and some people to see.”

Buddy Lippa was wearing a sport jacket that would have kept him safe in the hunting season. It had inch- square checks of bright orange and black, and I had the feeling that it glowed in the dark. He was also wearing