A Stab in the Dark

by Lawrence Block

Page 14

 

  The drugstore had a lunch counter. I sat on a stool and ate a grilled cheese sandwich and a too-sweet piece of cherry pie and drank two cups of black coffee. The coffee wasnt bad, but it couldnt compare with the stuff Jan had brewed in her Chemex filter pot.

  I thought about her. Then I went to the phone again and almost dialed her number, but tried Havermeyer again instead. This time he answered.

  I said, "Burton Havermeyer? My names Matthew Scudder. I wondered if I could come around and see you this afternoon. "

  "What about?"

  "Its a police matter. Some questions Id like to ask you. I wont take up much of your time. "

  "Youre a police officer?"

  Hell. "I used to be one. "

  "So did I. Could you tell me what you want with me, Mr. -?"

  "Scudder," I supplied. "Its ancient history, actually. Im a detective now and Im working on a case you were involved with when you were with the Six-One. "

  "That was years ago. "

  "I know. "

  "Cant we do this over the phone? I cant imagine what information I could possibly have that would be useful to you. I was a beat patrolman, I didnt work on cases. I-"

  "Id like to drop by if its all right. "

  "Well, I-"

  "I wont take up much of your time. "

  There was a pause. "Its my day off," he said, in what was not quite a whine. "I just figured to sit around, have a couple of beers, watch a ball game. "

  "We can talk during the commercials. "

  He laughed. "Okay, you win. You know the address? The names on the bell. When should I expect you?"

  "An hour, hour and a half. "

  "Good enough. "

  * * *

  THE Upper West Side is another neighborhood on the upswing, but the local renaissance hasnt crossed Ninety-sixth Street yet. Havermeyer lived on 103rd between Columbus and Amsterdam in one of the rundown brownstones that lined both sides of the street. The neighborhood was mostly Spanish. There were a lot of people sitting on the stoops, listening to enormous portable radios and drinking Miller High Life out of brown paper bags. Every third woman was pregnant.

  I found the right building and rang the right bell and climbed four flights of stairs. He was waiting for me in the doorway of one of the back apartments. He said, "Scudder?" and I nodded. "Burt Havermeyer," he said. "Come on in. "

  I followed him into a fair-sized studio with a Pullman kitchen. The overhead light fixture was a bare bulb in one of those Japanese paper shades. The walls were due for paint. I took a seat on the couch and accepted the can of beer he handed me. He popped one for himself, then moved to turn off the television set, a black and white portable perched on top of an orange crate that held paperback books on its lower two shelves.

  He pulled up a chair for himself, crossed his legs. He looked to be in his early thirties, five-eight or -nine, pale complected, with narrow shoulders and a beer gut. He wore brown gabardine slacks and a brown and beige patterned sportshirt. He had deep-set brown eyes, heavy jowls and slicked-down dark brown hair, and he hadnt shaved that morning. Neither, come to think of it, had I.

  "About nine years ago," I said. "A woman named Susan Potowski. "

  "I knew it. "

  "Oh?"

  "I hung up and I thought, whys anybody want to talk with me about some case nine or ten years old? Then I figured it had to be the icepick thing. I read the papers. They got the guy, right? They made a lap and he fell in it. "

  "Thats about it. " I explained how Louis Pinell had denied a role in the death of Barbara Ettinger and how the facts appeared to bear him out.

  "I dont get it," he said. "That still leaves something like eight killings, doesnt it? Isnt that enough to put him away?"

  "Its not enough for the Ettinger womans father. He wants to know who killed his daughter. "

  "And thats your job. " He whistled softly. "Lucky you. "

  "Thats about it. " I drank a little beer from the can. "I dont suppose theres any connection between the Potowski killing and the one Im investigating, but theyre both in Brooklyn and maybe Pinell didnt do either of them. You were the first police officer on the scene. You remember that day pretty well?"

  "Jesus," he said. "I ought to. "

  "Oh?"

  "I left the force because of it. But I suppose they told you that out in Sheepshead Bay. "

  "All they said was unspecified personal reasons. "

  "That right?" He held his beer can in both hands and sat with his head bowed, looking down at it. "I remember how her kids screamed," he said. "I remember knowing I was going to walk in on something really bad, and then the next memory I have is Im in her kitchen looking down at the body. One of the kids is hanging onto my pants leg the way kids do, you know how they do, and Im looking down at her and I close my eyes and open em again and the picture doesnt change. She was in a whatchacallit, a housecoat. It had like Japanese writing on it and a picture of a bird, Japanese-style art. A kimono? I guess you call it a kimono. I remember the color. Orange, with black trim.

  He looked up at me, then dropped his eyes again. "The housecoat was open. The kimono. Partially open. There were these dots all over her body, like punctuation marks. Where he got her with the icepick. Mostly the torso. She had very nice breasts. Thats a terrible thing to remember but how do you quit remembering? Standing there noticing all the wounds in her breasts, and shes dead, and still noticing that shes got a first-rate pair of tits. And hating yourself for thinking it. "

  "It happens. "

  "I know, I know, but it sticks in your mind like a bone caught in your throat. And the kids wailing, and noises outside. At first I dont hear any of the noise because the sight of her just blocks everything else. Like it deafens you, knocks out the other senses. Do you know what I mean?"

  "Yes. "

  "Then the sound comes up, and the kids still hanging on my pants leg, and if he lives to be a hundred thats how hes gonna remember his mother. Myself, I never saw her before in my life, and I couldnt get that picture out of my head. It repeated on me night and day. When I slept it got in my nightmares and during the day it would come into my mind at odd moments. I didnt want to go in anyplace. I didnt want to risk coming up on another dead body. And it dawned on me finally that I didnt want to stay in a line of work where when people get killed its up to you to deal with it. Unspecified personal reasons. Well, I just specified. I gave it a little time and it didnt wear off and I quit. "

  "What do you do now?"

  "Security guard. " He named a midtown store. "I tried a couple of other things but Ive had this job for seven years now. I wear a uniform and I even have a gun on my hip. Job I had before this, you wore a gun but it wasnt loaded. That drove me nuts. I said Id carry a gun or not carry a gun, it didnt matter to me, but dont give me an unloaded gun because then the bad guys think youre armed but you cant defend yourself. Now I got a loaded gun and it hasnt been out of the holster in seven years and thats the way I like it. Im a deterrent to robbery and shoplifting. Not as much of a deterrent to shoplifting as wed like. Boosters can be pretty slick. "

  "I can imagine. "

  "Its dull work. I like that. I like knowing I dont have to walk into somebodys kitchen and theres death on the floor. I joke with other people on the job, I hook a shoplifter now and then, and the whole things nice and steady. I got a simple life, you know what I mean? I like it that way. "

  "A question about the murder scene. "

  "Sure. "

  "The womans eyes. "

  "Oh, Christ," he said. "You had to remind me. "

  "Tell me. "

  "Her eyes were open. He stabbed all the victims in the eyes. I didnt know that. It was kept out of the papers, the way theyll hold something back, you know? But when the detectives got there they saw it right away and that cinched it, you know, that it wasnt our case and we could buck it on up to some other precinct. I forget which one. "

  "Midtown South. "

  "If
you say so. " He closed his eyes for a moment. "Did I say her eyes were open? Staring up at the ceiling. But they were like ovals of blood. "

  "Both eyes?"

  "Pardon?"

  "Were both of her eyes the same?"

  He nodded. "Why?"

  "Barbara Ettinger was only stabbed in one eye. "

  "It make a difference?"

  "I dont know. "

  "If somebody was going to copy the killer, theyd copy him completely, wouldnt they?"

  "Youd think so. "

  "Unless it was him and he was rushed for a change. Who knows with a crazy person, anyway? Maybe this time God told him only stab one eye. Who knows?"

  He went for another beer and offered me one but I passed. I didnt want to hang around long enough to drink it. I had really only had one question to ask him and his answer had done nothing but confirm the medical report. I suppose I could have asked it over the phone, but then I wouldnt have had the same chance to probe his memory and get a real sense of what hed found in that kitchen. No question now that hed gone back in time and seen Susan Potowskis body all over again. He wasnt guessing that shed been stabbed in both eyes. He had closed his own eyes and seen the wounds.

  He said, "Sometimes I wonder. Well, when I read about them arresting this Pinell, and now with you coming over here. Suppose I wasnt the one walked in on the Potowski woman? Or suppose it happened three years later when I had that much more experience? I can see how my whole life might have been different. "

  "You might have stayed on the force. "

  "Its possible, right? I dont know if I really liked being a cop or if I was any good at it. I liked the classes at the Academy. I liked wearing the uniform. I liked walking the beat and saying hello to people and having them say hello back. Actual police work, I dont know how much I liked it. Maybe if I was really cut out for it I wouldnt have been thrown for a loop by what I saw in that kitchen. Or I would have toughed it out and gotten over it eventually. You were a cop yourself and you quit, right?"

  "For unspecified personal reasons. "

  "Yeah, I guess theres a lot of that going around. "

  "There was a death involved," I said. "A child. What happened, I lost my taste for the work. "

  "Exactly what happened with me, Matt. I lost my taste for it. You know what I think? If it wasnt that one particular thing it would have been something else. "

  Could I say the same thing? It was not a thought that had occurred to me previously. If Estrellita Rivera had been home in bed where she belonged, would I still be living in Syosset and carrying a badge? Or would some other incident have given me an inevitable nudge in a direction I had to walk?"

  I said, "You and your wife separated. "

  "Thats right. "

  "Same time you put in your papers?"

  "Not too long after that. "

  "You move here right away?"

  "I was in an S. R. O. hotel a couple blocks down on Broadway. I stayed there for maybe ten weeks until I found this place. Been here ever since. "