A Stab in the Dark

by Lawrence Block

Page 8

  "Did you mention that to the police?"

  "I dont think so. " He lowered his eyes, lit another cigarette. "Im sure I didnt. I thought at the time that it was part of being pregnant. Like craving odd foods, that sort of thing. Pregnant women get fixated on strange things. " His eyes rose to meet mine. "Besides, I didnt want to think about it. Just a day or two before the murder she was talking about how she wanted me to get a police lock for the door. You know those locks with a steel bar braced against the door so it cant be forced?"

  I nodded.

  "Well, we didnt get a lock like that. Not that it would have made any difference because the door wasnt forced. I wondered why she would let anyone in, as nervous as she was, but it was daytime, after all, and people arent as suspicious in the daytime. A man could pretend to be a plumber or from the gas company or something. Isnt that how the Boston Strangler operated?"

  "I think it was something like that. "

  "But if it was actually someone she knew-"

  "There are some questions I have to ask. "

  "Sure. "

  "Is it possible your wife was involved with anyone?"

  "Involved with-you mean having an affair?"

  "That sort of thing. "

  "She was pregnant," he said, as if that answered the question. When I didnt say anything he said, "We were very happy together. Im sure she wasnt seeing anyone. "

  "Did she often have visitors when you were out?"

  "She might have had a friend over. I didnt check up on her. We trusted each other. "

  "She left her job early that day. "

  "She did that sometimes. She had an easygoing relationship with the woman she worked for. "

  "You said you trusted each other. Did she trust you?"

  "What are you driving at?"

  "Did she ever accuse you of having affairs with other women?"

  "Jesus, whove you been talking to? Oh, I bet I know where this is coming from. Sure. We had a couple of arguments that somebody must have heard. "

  "Oh?"

  "I told you women get odd ideas when theyre pregnant. Like food cravings. Barbie got it into her head that I was making it with some of my cases. I was dragging my ass through tenements in Harlem and the South Bronx, filling out forms and trying not to gag on the smell and dodging the crap they throw off the roof at you, and she was accusing me of getting it on with all of those damsels in distress. I came to think of it as a pregnancy neurosis. Im not Mr. Irresistible in the first place, and I was so turned off by what I saw in those hovels that I had trouble performing at home some of the time, let alone being turned on while I was on the job. The hell, you were a cop, I dont have to tell you the kind of thing I saw every day. "

  "So you werent having an affair?"

  "Didnt I just tell you that?"

  "And you werent romancing anybody else? A woman in the neighborhood, for example?"

  "Certainly not. Did somebody say I was?"

  I ignored the question. "You remarried about three years after your wife died, Mr. Ettinger. Is that right?"

  "A little less than three years. "

  "When did you meet your present wife?"

  "About a year before I married her. Maybe more than that, maybe fourteen months. It was in the spring, and we had a June wedding. "

  "How did you meet?"

  "Mutual friends. We were at a party, although we didnt pay any attention to each other at the time, and then a friend of mine had both of us over for dinner, and-" He broke off abruptly. "She wasnt one of my ADC cases in the South Bronx, if thats what youre getting at. And she never lived in Brooklyn, either. Jesus, Im stupid!"

  "Mr. Ettinger-"

  "Im a suspect, arent I? Jesus, how could I sit here and not have it occur to me? Im a suspect, for Christs sake. "

  "Theres a routine I have to follow in order to pursue an investigation, Mr. Ettinger. "

  "Does he think I did it? London? Is that what this whole thing is about?"

  "Mr. London hasnt told me who he does or doesnt suspect. If hes got any specific suspicions, hes keeping them to himself. "

  "Well, isnt that decent of him. " He ran a hand over his forehead. "Are we about through now, Scudder? I told you were busy on Saturdays. We get a lot of people who work hard all week and Saturdays when they want to think about sports. So if Ive answered all your questions-"

  "You arrived home about six thirty the day your wife was murdered. "

  "That sounds about right. Im sure its in a police report somewhere. "

  "Can you account for your time that afternoon?"

  He stared at me. "Were talking about something that happened nine years ago," he said. "I cant distinguish one day of knocking on doors from another. Do you remember what you did that afternoon?"

  "No, but it was a less significant day in my life. Youd remember if you took any time away from your work. "

  "I didnt. I spent the whole day working on my cases. And it was whatever time I said it was when I got back to Brooklyn. Six thirty sounds about right. " He wiped his forehead again. "But you cant ask me to prove any of this, can you? I probably filed a report but they only keep those things for a few years. I forget whether its three years or five years, but its certainly not nine years. Those files get cleaned out on a regular basis. "

  "Im not asking for proof. "

  "I didnt kill her, for Gods sake. Look at me. Do I look like a killer?"

  "I dont know what killers look like. I was just reading the other day about a thirteen-year-old boy who shot two women behind the ear. I dont know what he looks like, and I dont imagine he looks like a killer. " I took a blank memo slip from his desk, wrote a number on it. "This is my hotel," I said. "You might think of something. You never know what you might remember. "

  "I dont want to remember anything. "

  I got to my feet. So did he.

  "Thats not my life anymore," he said. "I live in the suburbs and I sell skis and sweatsuits. I went to Helens funeral because I couldnt think of a decent way to skip it. I should have skipped it. I-"

  I said, "Take it easy, Ettinger. Youre angry and youre scared but you dont have to be either one. Of course youre a suspect. Who would investigate a womans murder without checking out the husband? Whens the last time you heard of an investigation like that?" I put a hand on his shoulder. "Somebody killed her," I said, "and it may have been somebody she knew. I probably wont be able to find out much of anything but Im giving it my best shot. If you think of anything, call me. Thats all. "

  "Youre right," he said. "I got angry. I-"

  I told him to forget it. I found my own way out.

  Chapter 7

  I read a paper on the train ride back to the city. A feature article discussed the upturn in muggings and suggested ways for the reader to make himself a less attractive target. Walk in pairs and groups, the reporter advised. Stick to well-lighted streets. Walk near the curb, not close to buildings. Move quickly and give an impression of alertness. Avoid confrontations. Muggers want to size you up and see if youll be easy. They ask you the time, ask for directions. Dont let them take advantage of you.

  Its wonderful how the quality of urban life keeps getting better. "Pardon me, sir, but could you tell me how to get to the Empire State Building?" "Fuck off, you creep. " Manners for a modern city.

  The train took forever. It always felt a little strange going out to Long Island. Hicksville was nowhere near where Anita and the boys lived but Long Island is Long Island and I got the vaguely uncomfortable feeling I always get when I go there. I was glad to get to Penn Station.

  By then it was time for a drink, and I had a quick one in a commuters bar right there in the station. Saturday might be a busy day for Douglas Ettinger but it was a slow one for the bartender at the Iron Horse. All his weekday customers must have been out in Hicksville buying pup tents and basketball shoes.

  The sun was out when I hit the street. I walked across Thirty-fourth, then headed up Fifth to the library. Nobody asked
me what time it was, or how to get to the Holland Tunnel.

  BEFORE I went into the library I stopped at a pay phone and called Lynn London. Her father had given me her number and I checked my notebook and dialed it. I got an answering machine with a message that began by repeating the last four digits of the number, announced that no one could come to the phone, and invited me to leave my name. The voice was female, very precise, just the slightest bit nasal, and I supposed it belonged to Barbaras sister. I rang off without leaving a message.

  In the library I got the same Polk directory for Brooklyn that Id used earlier. This time I looked up a different building on Wyckoff Street. It had held four apartments then, and one of them had been rented to a Mr. and Mrs. Edward Corwin.

  That gave me a way to spend the afternoon. In a bar on Forty-first and Madison I ordered a cup of coffee and a shot of bourbon to pour into it and changed a dollar into dimes. I started on the Manhattan book, where I found two Edward Corwins, an E. Corwin, an E. J. Corwin, and an E. V. Corwin. When none of those panned out I used Directory Assistance, getting the Brooklyn listings first, then moving on to Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. Some of the numbers I dialed were busy, and I had to try them four or five times before I got through. Others didnt answer.

  I wound up getting more dimes and trying all the J. Corwins in the five boroughs. Somewhere in the course of this I had a second cup of coffee with a second shot of bourbon in it. I used up quite a few dimes to no discernible purpose, but most investigatory work is like that. If she just roots around enough, even a blind sow gets an acorn now and then. Or so they tell me.

  By the time I left the bar, some two-thirds of my phone numbers had check marks next to them indicating Id reached the party and he or she was not the Corwin I was looking for. Id call the rest of them in due course if I had to, but I didnt feel very hopeful about them. Janice Corwin had closed a business and given up an apartment. She might have moved to Seattle while she was at it. Or she and her husband could be somewhere in Westchester or Jersey or Connecticut, or out in Hicksville pricing tennis rackets. There was a limit to how much walking my fingers could do, in the white or yellow pages.

  I went back to the library. I knew when shed closed up shop at the Happy Hours Child Care Center; Id learned that much from her landlord. Had she and her husband moved out of Boerum Hill at about the same time?

  I worked year by year through the Polk directories and found the year the Corwins dropped out of the brick building on Wyckoff Street. The timing was right. She had probably closed the day-care center as a prelude to moving. Maybe theyd gone to the suburbs, or his company transferred him to Atlanta. Or they split up and went separate ways.

  I put the directory back, then got an intelligent thought for a change and went back to reclaim it. There were three other tenants in the building whod remained there for a few years after the Corwins moved out. I copied their names in my notebook.

  This time I made my calls from a bar on Forty-second Street, and I bypassed the Manhattan book and went straight to Brooklyn information. I got lucky right away with the Gordon Pomerances, who had stayed in Brooklyn when the Wyckoff Street building was sold out from under them. Theyd moved a short mile to Carroll Street.