Page 155 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Jury-rigged

The body showed signs of trauma prior to the fatal blows being
struck: bruises on the cheek and temple, indicating the assailant or
assailants may have knocked her senseless before administering two
forceful jabs directly below the occiput. An ice pick lay near the body,
as did a half-burned kitchen match. Now, where precisely was she
found, Duncan? Is there a floor plan of the apartment?”
“Better than that,” I said calmly. “Photographs. Look in the
envelope.”
Labelle dumped out the eight-by-ten glossies and sorted through
them rapidly. I had made certain the photographer got all the angles.
Quite clear the deceased was on her back, a small pool of blood
beneath her head congealed on the hardwood flooring of the hall
outside her bedroom. Another shot from inside that room showed
her hands laid one on top of the other over her mouth. Maybe the
beat cops didn’t know what all this meant, but I had wasted no time
getting back to headquarters and starting the wheels in motion to
haul the Simulians in for a friendly chat and get warrants to search
their premises.
“What else do we know about Wanda Lustig?” Labelle was
lingering over the photos. “Married? Ex-husband? Boy friends?”
“None we could dig up. She had been married in another state and
divorced there twenty years ago. Then she moved here and began
working on her own, using contacts supplied by her local friend, the
one she was planning to dine with the evening of her death. The ex-
husband had a heart attack and died four years ago.” That was a rare
gaffe on the part of Ms. Perfect. Even I could see the absence of a
wedding band on the ring finger in the photograph taken from the
foot of the bed. Maybe Labelle was faking it, a victim of jet lag trying
to cover it up with a barrage of stupid questions.
“All right. You rounded up the Simulians and grilled them. Is this a
summary of their statements?”
“Yes. The transcripts are available. So are the tapes if you want to
hear them.”
She nodded. I could picture Labelle sitting that night in a straight-
back wooden chair in her kitchen, the usual dinner of bread and
water untouched on the table at her elbow, while she listened intently
to poorly-recorded Simulian croaks and grunts.

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