Chapter II
It was a gray chill day late in November, and by 4:30 that afternoon theceiling lights were on. Chenowich, the young plain-clothes man recentlytransferred to Homicide from Robbery Detail, stopped at Martin Kirk'scubbyhole and slid an evening paper across the battered brown linoleumtop of the Lieutenant's desk.
"This oughta interest you," he said, jabbing a chewed thumbnail at anitem under a two-column head half-way down the left side of page one.
CORDELL DRAWS DEATH NOD
Killer of Wife and Atom Wizard To Face Chair in January
Paul Cordell, 29, was today doomed by Criminal Court Justice Edwin P. Reed to death by electrocution the morning of January 11, for the murders of his wife, Juanita, 29, and her employer, world-famous nuclear scientist Gregory Gilmore.
A jury last week found Cordell guilty of the brutal slayings despite his testimony that it was a mysterious blonde woman, floating in a "ball of blue fire," who had blasted the victims with a "ray gun" on that October afternoon.
Ignoring the "girl from Mars" angle, alienists for the prosecution pronounced the handsome defendant sane, and his attorneys were powerless to offset the damage.
The final blow to Cordell's hopes for acquittal, however, was administered by the State's key witness, Alma Dakin, Gilmore's former secretary. For more than three hours she underwent one of the most grilling cross-examinations in local courtroom....
Kirk shoved the paper aside, "What could he expect when he wouldn't evenlisten to his own lawyers? They'll appeal--they have to--but it'll be awaste of time."
He leaned back in the creaking swivel chair and began to unwrap thecellophane from a cigar. "In a way," he said thoughtfully, "I hate tosee that kid end up in the fireless cooker. In this business you get soyou can recognize an act when you see one, and I'd swear Cordell wasn'tlying about that blonde and her blue fire. At least he thought hewasn't."
Chenowich yawned. "I say he was nuts then and he's nuts now. What dothem bug doctors know? I never seen one yet could count his ownfingers."
The telephone on Martin Kirk's desk rang while he was lighting hiscigar. He tossed the match on the floor to join a dozen others, andpicked up the receiver. "Homicide; Lieutenant Kirk speaking."
It was the patrolman in the outer office. "Woman out here wants to seeyou, Lieutenant. Asked for you personally."
"What about?"
"She won't say. All I get is it's important and she talks to you ornobody."
"What's her name?"
"No, sir. Not even that. Want me to get rid of her?"
Kirk eyed the mound of paper work on his desk and sighed. "Probably ataxpayer. All right; send her back here."
A moment later the patrolman loomed up outside the cubbyhole door, thewoman in tow. Lieutenant Kirk remained seated, nodded briskly toward theempty chair alongside his desk. "Please sit down, madam. You wanted tosee me?"
"You are Mr. Kirk?" A warm voice, almost on the husky side.
"Lieutenant Kirk."
"Of course. I _am_ sorry."
* * * * *
While she was being graceful about getting into the chair, Kirk staredat her openly. She was worth staring at. She was tall for a woman andmissed being voluptuous by exactly the right margin. Her face was morelovely than beautiful, chiefly because of large eyes so blue they werealmost purple. Her skin was flawless, her blonde hair worn in a mediumbob fluffed out, and her smooth fitting tobacco brown suit must havebeen bought by appointment. She looked to be in her mid-twenties and wasprobably thirty.
Her expression was solemn and her smile fleeting, as was becoming toanyone calling on a Homicide Bureau. She placed on a corner of Kirk'sdesk an alligator bag that matched her shoes and tucked pale yellowgloves the color of her blouse under the bag's strap. Her slim fingers,ringless, moved competently and without haste.
"I am Naia North, Lieutenant Kirk."
"What's on your mind, Miss North?"
She regarded him gravely, seeing gray-blue eyes that never quite losttheir chill, a thin nose bent slightly to the left from an encounterwith a drunken longshoreman years before, the lean lines of a solid jaw,the dark hair that was beginning to thin out above the temples afterthirty-five years. Even those who love him, she thought, must fear thisman a little.
Martin Kirk felt his cheeks flush under the frank appraisal of thosepurple eyes. "You asked for me by name, Miss North. Why?"
"Aren't you the officer who arrested the young man who today wassentenced to die?"
Only years of practise at letting nothing openly surprise him keptKirk's jaw from dropping. "... You mean Cordell?"
"Yes."
"I'm the one. What about it? What've you got to do with Paul Cordell?"
Naia North said quietly, "A great deal, I'm afraid. You see, I'm thewoman who doesn't exist; the one the newspapers call 'the girl fromMars.'"
It was what he had expected from her first question about the case. Anymurder hitting the headlines brought at least one psycho out of thewoodwork, driven by some deep-seated sense of guilt into making a phonyconfession. Those who were harmless were eased aside; the violent gotdetained for observation.
But Naia North showed none of the signs of the twisted mind. She wascoherent, attractive and obviously there was money somewhere in hervicinity. While the last two items could have been true of a ravingmaniac, Kirk was human enough to be swayed by them.
"I'm afraid," he said, "you've come to the wrong man about this, MissNorth." His smile was frank and winning enough to startle her. "The caseis out of my hands; has been since the District Attorney's office tookover. Why don't you take it up with them?"
* * * * *
Her short laugh was openly cynical. "I tried to, the day the trialended. I got as far as a fourth assistant, who told me the case wasclosed, that new and conclusive evidence would be necessary to reopenit, and would I excuse him as he had a golf date. When I said I couldgive him new evidence, he looked at his watch and wanted me to write aletter. So I wrote one and his secretary promised to hand it to himpersonally. I'm still waiting for an answer."
"These things take time, Miss North. If I were you I'd--"
"I even tried to see Judge Reed. I got as far as his bailiff. If I'dstate my business in writing.... I did; that's the last I've heard fromJudge Reed _or_ bailiff."
Kirk picked up his cigar from the edge of the desk and tapped the ashonto the floor. "Shall I," he said, his lips quirking, "ask you to write_me_ a letter?"
Naia North failed to respond to the light touch. "I'm through fillingwastebaskets," she said flatly. "Either you do something about this orthe newspapers get the entire story. Not that I'll enjoy being a publicspectacle, but at least they'll give me some action."
"What do you want done?"
She put both elbows on the desk top and bent toward him. He caught thefaint odor of bath salts rising from under the rounded neckline of herblouse. "That man must go free, Lieutenant. He didn't kill hiswife--_or_ Gregory Gilmore."
"Who did?"
She looked straight into his eyes. "I did."
"Why?"
Slowly she straightened and leaned back in the chair, her gaze shiftingto a point beyond his left shoulder. "Nothing you haven't heard before,"she said tonelessly.
"We met several months ago and fell in love. I let him make therules ... and after a while he got tired of playing. I didn't--and Iwanted him back. For weeks he avoided me."
"So you decided to kill him."
She seemed genuinely astonished at the remark. "Certainly not! But whenI saw him take this woman--this assistant of his, or whatever shewas--into his arms ... I suppose I went a little crazy."
"Now," Kirk said, "we're getting down to cases. You know the evidencegiven at the trial--particularly that given by Gilmore's secretary?"
"Of course."
"Then you know this Dakin woman was i
n the laboratory until a fewminutes before Cordell showed up. You know that nobody could have goneinto that laboratory without her seeing them. You know that Alma Dakintestified that there were only two people in there: Gilmore and JuanitaCordell. So, Miss North, how did you get in there after Alma Dakin leftand before Paul Cordell arrived?"
"But I didn't."
The Lieutenant's air of triumph sagged under a sudden frown. "What doyou mean you didn't?"
"I didn't enter the laboratory after Greg's secretary left it. _I wasthere all along._"
* * * * *
Kirk's head came up sharply. "You _what_?"
"I was there all the time," the girl repeated. "Since noon, to be exact.I planned it that way. I knew everybody would be out to lunch betweentwelve and one, so I went to the laboratory with the intention of facingGreg there on his return. When I heard him and Mrs. Cordell coming alongthe corridor, I sort of lost my nerve and hid in a coat closet."
Martin Kirk had completely dropped his air of good-humored patience bythis time, "You telling me you were hiding in there for almost fivehours without them knowing it?"
Naia North shrugged her shoulders. "They had no reason to look in thecloset. I'll admit I hadn't intended to--to spy on Greg. But I keptwaiting for him to say or do something that would prove or disprove hewas in love with Juanita Cordell, and not until his secretary left andhe was alone with her did I discover what was between them. I must havecome out of that dark hole like a tiger, Lieutenant. They jumped apartand two people never looked guiltier. He said something particularlynasty to me and I grabbed up a short length of shiny metal from theworkbench and hit him across the side of the head before he knew whatwas happening. He fell down and the Cordell woman opened her mouth toscream and--and I hit her too."
She paused as though to permit Kirk to comment. "Go on," he saidhoarsely.
"There's not much left," the girl said. "I was standing there stillholding that piece of metal when the door crashed open and the deadwoman's husband ran in. He started to lunge across the room at me and Ithrew the thing I was holding at him. It struck him and he fell down. Myonly thought was to hide, for I realized I couldn't go out through theouter office, and the only window was barred. So I hid in that closetagain.
"It was only a few minutes before Paul Cordell regained consciousness.He staggered out of the room and down the hall and I could hear a lot ofexcited talk and Greg's secretary calling the police. Then I didn't hearanything at all for a moment, so I came out of the closet and lookeddown the hall. The office door was closed, but it seemed so quiet inthere that I tiptoed quickly to the inner door, opened it a crack andpeered through. The office was deserted; evidently Cordell and MissDakin had gone out to direct the police when they showed up.
"When I saw there was no one in the main hall of the building itself, Isimply walked out and left by another exit. No one I passed even noticedme."
* * * * *
For a long time after Naia North had finished speaking, Martin Kirk satas though carved from stone, staring blindly into space. She knew he wasthinking furiously, weighing the plausibility of what he had heard,trying to arrive at some method of corroborating it in a way that wouldstand up in a court of law.
"Miss North."
She came out of a reverie with a start, to find the Lieutenant's eyesboring into hers. "This shiny hunk of metal you used: where is it now?"
"I'm sure I wouldn't know. Probably some place in the laboratory, unlesssomebody took it away. I do seem to remember picking it up and tossingit back with several others like it on the bench."
"Then it's still there," he said slowly. "Judge Reed ordered the roomsealed up until after the trial. And then there's the closet.... Wereyou wearing gloves that afternoon, Miss North?"
She said, "No. You're thinking of fingerprints?"
"If you're telling the truth," he said, "there's almost certain to besome of your prints on the inside of that closet door--maybe even onthat length of metal, if we can find it."
She said almost carelessly: "That's all you'd need to clear PaulCordell, isn't it?"
"It would certainly help." He swung around in the chair, scooped up thetelephone and gave a series of rapid-fire orders, then dropped theinstrument on its cradle and turned back to where she sat watching himcuriously.
He said, "A few things I still don't get. Like this business of yourstanding two feet off the floor in a ball of blue light. And the flashesof light just before Cordell heard his wife and Gilmore fall to thefloor. Even the snatches of conversation he caught while still in thehall. He couldn't have dreamed all that stuff up--at least not without_some_ basis."
She had opened her bag and taken out a cigarette. Kirk ignited one ofhis kitchen matches and she bent her head for a light. He could see theflawless curve of one cheek and the smooth cap of blonde hair, and heresisted the urge to pass a hand lightly across both. Something wasstirring inside the Lieutenant--something that had long been absent.And, he reflected wryly, all because of a girl who had just finishedconfessing to two particularly unpleasant murders.
Naia North raised her head and their eyes met--met and held. Her lipsparted slightly as she caught the unmistakable message in thosegray-blue depths....
The moment passed, the spell was broken and she leaned back in the chairand laughed a little shakily. "I read about those statements of his inthe papers, Lieutenant. I think perhaps I can at least partially explainthem. As I remember it, there were several Bunsen burners lighted on thelaboratory bench near that window. They give off a blue flame, you know,and I must have been standing near them when Paul Cordell came chargingin. In his confused frame of mind, he may have pictured me as being in aball of flame."
"Sounds possible," the man admitted, frowning. "What about those flashesof light?"
"You've got me there. Unless they were reflections of sunlight throughthe window--from the windshield of a passing car, perhaps."
"And the things he heard you and Gilmore saying?"
She shook her head regretfully.
"There I'm simply in the dark, I don't see how he could have twistedwhat little we said into the utterly fantastic nonsense he claims tohave heard."
* * * * *
Kirk rubbed a hand slowly along the side of his neck, still frowning."He _could_ have confused that length of metal in your hand as a gun....Well--" his shoulders lifted in the ghost of a shrug--"it all seems toadd up. Except one thing: Cordell had been tried and convicted, leavingyou in the clear. Why come down here voluntarily and stick your lovelyhead in a noose?"
The girl smiled faintly. "'Lovely head', Lieutenant?"
Kirk flushed to the eyebrows. "That slipped out.... Why the confession?"
She said soberly: "I was so sure they'd let him off. When you _know_someone's innocent you can't realize that others won't know it too, Isuppose. But when I learned he'd been found guilty and actuallycondemned to die ... well, I know it sounds noble and all that but Icouldn't let him go to his death for something I'd done. Surely such athing has happened before in your experience, Lieutenant."
He watched as she drew smoke from the cigarette deeply into her lungsand let it flow out in twin streamers from her nostrils. Only rich men,he thought, could afford a woman like this, and somehow it made himresentful. What right did she have to walk in here and flaunt a bodylike that in his face? She went with mink stoles and cabin cruisers andcocktails at the Sherry-Netherland, and her shoe bill would exceed hisyearly salary. She would be competent and more than a little cynical andnot too concerned with morals or the lack of them. That kind of womancould kill--and would kill, on the spur of the moment and if theprovocation was strong enough.
"Well, Lieutenant?" She said it lightly, almost with disinterest.
Then Kirk was all right again, and he was looking at a woman who hadjust confessed to murder.
"You heard the phone call I made a moment ago, Miss North. Two men fromthe Crime Lab
are already on their way to the University. If they findyour fingerprints inside that closet, if they can turn up _anything_ toprove you've been in Gregory Gilmore's laboratory, then you and thatevidence and your confession get turned over to the D. A. and PaulCordell will be on his way to freedom."
"And if those men don't find anything?"
"Then," he told her rudely, "you're just another crackpot and I'mtossing you _and_ your phony confession out of here."
* * * * *
They found the fingerprints: several perfect ones on the inner door ofthe laboratory coat closet. But even more conclusive was their discoveryof a short length of polished metal pipe among the dismantled parts of aClayton centrifuge. At one end of the pipe were the imprints of fourfingertips--at the other a microscopic trace of human blood.
"We had no business missing it the first time, Lieutenant," the CrimeLaboratory technician told Kirk ruefully. "I'd a sworn we pulled thatplace apart last month. But this time we got the murder weapon and wegot the prints--and those prints match the ones we took off that blonde.Hey, how about that, Lieutenant? I thought this Cordell guy did thatjob?"
Slowly Kirk replaced the receiver and eyed Naia North across the deskfrom him. "Looks like you're elected," he said somberly. "I'm tellingyou straight: the D. A. isn't going to like this at all--not even anypart of it."
Her brow wrinkled. "I'm afraid I don't understand. Doesn't he wantmurder cases solved?"
Kirk smiled crookedly. "You're forgetting this case _was_ solved--over amonth ago. You any idea what it can mean to a politician to have toadmit publicly that he's made a mistake? Especially a mistake that'sgoing to get all the publicity this one's bound to? 'District attorneyrailroads innocent man!' 'Tragic miscarriage of justice averted only bychance!' Stuffy editorials in the opposition press about incompetence inhigh offices and how the voters must keep out anybody who goes aroundexecuting the innocent and helpless. Looks like Arthur Kahler Troy isgoing to be a mighty unpopular man around these parts--and election lessthan five months away!"
He glanced up at the office clock. It was nearly nine o'clock in theevening, and both of them were showing signs of wear. Kirk left hischair and went over to the water cooler, drank two cupfuls and broughtone back to the girl. She thanked him with a wan smile and gulped downthe contents.
He took the empty paper container and crumpled it slowly. "Might as wellget hold of him," he muttered. "It's going to be mighty damned rough,sister. You sure you want to go through with it?"
She lifted an eyebrow at him. "That's a peculiar question for a homicideofficer to ask, isn't it?"
"I suppose so." His eyes shifted to the phone on his desk, stayed therefor a long moment. Then he shrugged hugely and picked up thereceiver....
* * * * *
It was well after two in the morning before Martin Kirk reached hisapartment. He showered and got into a fresh pair of pajamas and wentinto the small, sparsely furnished living room. He moved slowly and withno spring in his step, and the set of his features was harsh andstrained in the soft light from the floor lamp.
Troy had been even more difficult than he'd feared. What had begun asplain irritability at being disturbed, had passed by successive stagesto amused disbelief, open anger and finally reluctant conviction thatPaul Cordell was innocent of the crimes for which he had been sentencedto die.
A male stenographer from his staff was called in and Naia North dictateda complete statement which she signed. Troy questioned her for nearlytwo hours, getting in every possible angle of her private life as wellas minute details of her actions on the day of the murders. Kirk had notbeen present during that part of the night, but he figured it wouldn'tbe much different from what he'd heard many times before.
He mixed himself a drink, and was surprised to discover that his handswere shaking noticeably. Well, why not? A day like the one he'd justbeen through would put the shakes in Grant's Tomb. Even as he made theexcuse, he knew it wasn't the real reason. There had been cases that hadkept him on his feet for as much as forty-eight hours--cases where menhad pointed guns at him and pulled the triggers--and the shakes nevercame.
No, it was the girl. Naia North. Naia--a strange name. But no strangerthan the girl herself. Now how about that? Why should he think herstrange? Because she'd taken a life or two? Hell, lots of people didthat and no one called them strange. Criminal or unmoral or greedy orangry, yes. But not strange. She looked like other women--only a lotbetter. She dressed like them, walked like them, talked like them. Sowhy strange?
Because she _was_ strange. Nothing you could put your finger on made herthat way, but that's the way she was.
He threw his cigar savagely into the fireplace. He went over and madeanother drink and poured it down fast and another one after it, right onits heels. Then he went to bed. Tomorrow--today, rather--was a work dayand work days were tough days and he needed his rest.
He didn't get much of it, though. The phone woke him a few minutes afterseven o'clock. It was Arthur Kahler Troy at the other end and the D. A.was too angry to be coherent.
It seemed Naia North had disappeared from her locked cell during thenight.