“Fine. I’ll have him brought back here.” Durango left her then and made the necessary arrangements with the guard in charge of the cells. He had a patrolman escort Reggie Ivers from the interrogation mom, and then he was alone with Cora Williams.
“So you’re a junkie,” Durango began.
“How can I deny it? You heard the tapes, and I guess it was mentioned at least once in each group session. Besides, the hypo marks on my arms give me away.”
“Okay. We’re alone now. Before I was taking it easy on you because I figured you might not want to talk in front of the others.”
“Thanks.”
“But now I want you to level with me. I’m not interested in getting leads for the Narcotics Division, but I am interested in solving this matter. So I want straight answers to my question. Understand?”
“I understand.”
“Good. First of all, Cora, you’re pretty calm for a junkie. ‘When did you have your last fix?”
“This afternoon. Just before I was picked up.”
“How strong are you hooked? How often do you need a fix?”
“Every day. I can stretch if for two days if I have to. And sometimes I have to.”
“It figures. Just how do you support the habit?” Durango asked.
“The best I can. It isn’t easy.”
“You’ll have to do better than that, Cora. I know you can’t afford it on your salary. Where do you get the money?”
“I scrounge for it. Sometimes Jeff-—the guy I shack up with—comes up with some bread. I’ve got friends. We help each other out.”
“Were you coked-up last night, when Dr. Golden was murdered?” Durango wanted to know.
“That’s a laugh! You don’t know how funny that is! No, I wasn’t. I couldn’t get the money for the Horse, and I thought I’d go out of my mind.”
“But you got it. You had a shot today. Where did you get it?”
“It was almost morning before I got it,” Cora said evasively.
“And you ran out of your place around two o’c1ock, according to your boy friend. Also, he told Sergeant Connors you were in quite an emotional state.”
“The louse!” Cora said bitterly.
“Where did you go?”
“Around. just around.”
“Not good enough, Cora. Did you go to see Dr. Golden?”
“I was going to. I thought she might help me out with some cash. But I changed my mind. I didn’t go to see her.”
“Why did you change your mind?”
“It was sort of changed for me,” Cora said evasively.
“How? Who changed it?”
She was stubbornly silent, refusing to answer.
“All right. Cora!” Durango’s voice was hard and ugly. “You don’t leave me any choice. I’ll have to book you."
“What do you mean?” She was taken by surprise by the sudden change in his manner.
“I mean if you won’t answer, I’m going to charge you officially with the murder of Dr. Mavis Golden.”
“But I didn’t kill her!”
“Now you hear me, you poor fish. The only clue we have to this murder is that she pointed the finger at the group before she died. Five of them are completely in the clear. The other two, Connery and Ivers, are having their alibis checked out right now,” Durango lied. “So that leaves you. You were in the neighborhood at the time of the murder. You needed money, so you had a motive. And you’ve admitted that you were going to see Dr. Golden. You refuse to answer my questions on top of all that, and you’re a junkie to boot, which means you’re just crazy enough to have killed her for a fix. Yep! You’re the best suspect I’ve got, Cora, and I might as well make the charge official right now.”
“Wait a minute. Please—”
“Are you going to tell me where you were and who you were with and what changed your mind about going up to see Dr. Golden?”
“Yes. I’ll tell you. I don’t want to go to jail. I'd die there.”
“Right you are. It would be cold turkey all the way. You can’t get a fix in the clink – at least not before you sweat your gut out. Come on now. Let’s have it.” Durango sat back to listen.
“It’s simple enough. After I ran out on Jeff I did start for Dr. Golden’s. But as I was going up Broadway through the rain, this man came up to me and started walking alongside me. He took me for a streetwalker, and he kept asking me how much.”
“What did you do?”
“At first I ignored him. Then I told him to get lost. But when he kept it up, I suddenly saw him as the answer to my problems.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was desperate for a fix, remember? I only needed ten dollars more. That’s, what I was going to try to get from Dr. Golden. So I told this guy okay for ten bucks and he surprised me by agreeing.”
“Five is the going rate in that part of town, plus two for the room.”
“I know. That’s why I was surprised. But don’t get the wrong idea. I never did anything like that before. I’m not a prostitute.”
“You stay on junk and you will be. Most of the hookers in this town got started supporting a habit. Anyway, where’d you take this John?”
“I didn’t have any place to take him, not with Jeff on cloud Nine up at my place. So he took me. Up to his place. A furnished room on West Eighty-Eighth street.”
“All right, Cora. We’ll have to check it out. What was his name?”
“I don’t know. But I could find the house again.”
“What time did he pick you up?”
“About two-thirty. Right after I left Jeff.”
“And how long were you with him?”
“Until after four. Then I went down—I went to get my fix.”
“Okay, Cora. Come with me.” Durango led her to the squad room. He called one of the patrolmen over and arranged for him to go with Cora to check out her story. He watched them leave, and then his eye was caught by some activity over on the other side of the long squad room. Durango strode over to see what it was all about.
Sergeant Connors was standing over Kevin Francis Connery and trying to keep him calm while another detective fingerprinted him.
“What the devil’s going on here?” Durango demanded.
“We’re booking him,” Connors explained.
“Booking him for what? What did he do, confess?"
“Don’t get your hopes up. He had nothing to do with the Golden murder. We’re booking him on a morals charge.”
“On a morals charge? Now look here, Connors,” Durango said acidly, “when I told you to get an Irish rapport going with him, I didn’t mean you were supposed to entice him into making a pass at you.”
“He didn’t make a pass at me,” Connors protested hotly.
“Sure an’ he’s a foine broth of an Irish lad,” Kevin Francis Connery interjected, “but all the same he’s not my type.”
“Suppose you tell me quietly what this is all about, Connors,” requested Durango.
“Well, we were settin’ here havin’ a chat about the auld sod, friendly as you please, when-—”
“My God!” Durango interrupted. “You’ve picked up his brogue!”
‘Tm sorry.” Connors actually blushed.
“I hope you haven't picked up any of his other habits.”
“Now, not all Irishmen are queer!” Connors objected angrily. “As a matter of fact, percentage-wise, very few of them—”
“All right. All right.” Durango soothed him. “I’m not casting aspersions on the Irish. Lord, how far do you suppose I’d get in the New York City, Police Department with that kind of prejudice. Besides, you know me well enough to know I’m not anti-Hibernian. Will you please just tell me what happened and why you’re booking your clansman over there.”
“Okay.” Connors took a deep breath. “So we were sittin’ there when all of a sudden this plainclothesman from the Vice Squad comes by, spots Kevin, does a double-take and marches over to us. Seems poor Kevin’s as queer as he comes on, which is somewhat more queer than a three-dollar bill. The dick from the Vice Squad caught him red-handed last night with a couple of under-age pansies. But when he went to arrest him, Kevin belted him and ran. So now he’s charging him with assault and battery and corrupting the morals of a minor to boot.”