David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and '50s (Library of America) by David Goodis

graduation.
    There was something at the bottom of the drawer peeping out from the edge of a textbook. It was from a newspaper. It became a clipping as Parry took it out. He saw the picture of a man who looked something like Irene. The picture was captioned “Dies in Prison.” Underneath the picture was the name Calvin Janney. Alongside the picture was an article headed “Road Ends for Janney.”
    Calvin Janney, sentenced four years ago to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife, died last night in San Quentin prison. He had been ill for the past several months. Officials said Janney made a death-bed statement claiming his innocence, the same claim he made during the sensational trial in San Francisco.
    Janney, a wealthy real-estate broker, was accused of killing his bride of a second marriage, less than a week after they had celebrated their first wedding anniversary. Death was attributed to a skull fracture caused by a heavy blow with an ornamental brass jar. The body had been found at the foot of a staircase in the Janney home. Janney stated that his wife had fallen down the stairs, had knocked the brass jar from the base of the banister in her descent, then had struck her head on the jar. This statement was disproved by the prosecution. It was established that Janney had charged his wife with infidelity and had threatened on several occasions to kill her. Janney’s fingerprints on the brass jar was a primary factor in the guilty verdict.
    Efforts to obtain a new trial proved fruitless. In recent months Janney’s attorneys made another plea founded on new developments, the result of continued investigation during the past four years. The plea made no headway due to lack of witnesses.
    Janney was 54. He is survived by a son, Burton, a chemical engineer in Portland. Also a daughter, Irene, a grade-school student in the same city.
    There was a date at the top of the clipping. It said February 9, 1928. Parry kept looking at the date. On the basis of the date and the record-book date, she was nine when her father diedand she was five when the trial took place. He read the clipping again. Then again. He decided she ought to be coming back soon and maybe he ought to get the clipping and the papers and books back in the drawer. He started to handle the clipping and he was getting it back in the textbook when he heard the door opening into the parlor and footsteps coming into the apartment, going through the parlor, coming into the bedroom.
    She looked at him. She looked at the clipping half in his hand and half in the textbook. Her arms were filled with paper boxes and she put these on the bed and kept on looking at Parry, looking at the clipping, then back to Parry.
    “Did you get rid of the clothes?” she said.
    “Yes. I made two bundles and threw them down the incinerator.”
    “How was the razor?”
    “Fine.”
    “That shower and shave did you a world of good. How do you feel?”
    “Fine,” Parry said.
    She pointed to the open drawer. “What’s the big idea?”
    “I didn’t have anything to do.”
    “All right, let’s close the drawer, shall we?”
    Parry got the clipping into the textbook, got the textbook back in the drawer along with the other books and papers. He closed the drawer.
    She pointed to the closed drawer. “Anything happen while I was away—outside of that?”
    “You had a caller.” He wondered why he was telling her.
    Irene frowned. “I hope you didn’t answer the buzzer.”
    “No, I didn’t answer the buzzer. But she came up and she knocked on the door.”
    “A she?”
    “Yes. She talked to you through the door. I stayed there and let her talk. It would have been all right except I had the phonograph going and she could hear it. She kept asking you to open the door. Finally I told her to go away.”
    The frown went deeper. “That wasn’t such a bright idea.”
    “I know. It got out before I could stop it.”
    “Did she argue with you?”
    “No. She went away. Does that