by Ed McBain
But why go to the office?
Why not back to his own apartment, and his loving wife, Gail? Or why not over to Lydia’s place? Why the office, and what the hell was he doing at the safe when he got it?
And how did the murderer know he’d be at the office, unless the murderer followed him all the way from Connecticut? Or unless Del came into the office and surprised the murderer there? But Di Luca said the shots had been fired from the door. It didn’t sound likely that the murderer had been there before Del arrived.
I tried a mental picture for size.
Murderer at safe. Desk lamp on. Hears someone outside putting key into lock. Gets up, ducks into reception room, leaving safe open. Del comes in, goes into his office, sees open safe. Murderer comes to door, shoots him, takes agreement he was looking for.
Except: 1) Would a murderer, or thief, or both, run out towards the newcomer? Chances are, he’d have ducked behind the desk or the couch, and taken his pot shots from there. He certainly would not go out to the reception room. 2) Wouldn’t a murderer snap off the desk lamp when he heard someone coming?
Del was shot from the door. The desk lamp was on. The shots were fired hastily. I couldn’t buy the murderer being there already. Del was followed, straight up to the office; and he was shot while looking for something in the safe, or while putting something back into the safe.
So who?
That was the big question. Who followed Del back from Connecticut? And why did Del go to the office?
I chewed it over a bit more, and I came up with a fat zero. I wondered what luck Di Luca was having, and I looked at the phone like a teenager on Saturday afternoon, praying for it to ring.
Suppose Gail had been done away with, too? What did that leave? A wanton murderer, someone killing for kicks? I couldn’t buy that, either. Both copies of the Cam Stewart agreement were missing.
I looked at the phone again, and I thought of Gail once more, and my hands began to tremble. I wanted to get the hell out of the apartment and over to her place, but I’d told Di Luca I’d wait, and considering his temper, that would be the best plan to follow.
I mixed another Tom Collins, but it didn’t taste as good as the first one I’d had. I swallowed it quickly, then poured a hooker of gin over the remaining ice, and downed that, too. The phone still had not rung.
I walked to the window, parted the limp curtains, and looked out over the sweltering city. A hell of a time for murder. A time for fun, the summer, a time for beach parties and short-lived romances. Not a time for Death.
Where the hell was Di Luca’s call?
I began to think the worst. If everything had been all right, he’d have called by now. I formed a mental picture of Gail lying on the floor with a bullet in her head, twisted and crooked, the way Del had been. The picture got clearer, and I couldn’t take it any longer. I went to the closet and was taking out a clean sports shirt when the phone rang. I dropped the hanger and the shirt and ran across the room. I lifted the receiver before the instrument had completed its first ring.
“Hello,” I said anxiously.
“Josh?” the voice asked. I recognized the voice, and a flood or relief swept over me.
“Yes, Gail?”
“Josh, what on earth? I went to the door to get my groceries, and then went over the list with the boy. The next thing I know, there are policemen banging on the door. For goodness sake…”
“Give me that phone,” I heard another voice say.
I waited, and then the voice said, “What the hell are you trying to pull, Blake?” It was Di Luca.
“Nothing. I thought…”
“You thought nuts! What’s the grand idea? You think the police have nothing to do but chase around the city after dames taking in their groceries?”
“Look, Di Luca…”
“No, you look, Blake. Get the hell out of my hair! I’m trying to get a little work done on a homicide case, Every time you call or drop around, it sets me back another week. I’m tired of it, do you understand?”
“Look, I had no idea the grocery boy…”
“You’re not paid to have ideas,” Di Luca snapped. “I’m running that end of the show. That’s my job. That’s why I’m here. You just take care of your goddamned agency, and leave the murders to me.”
“You finished, Di Luca?”
“I’m finished, yes!”
“Then listen to me. If you’d have found Gail Gilbert with her brains leaking out on the floor, you’d have been stamped into the sidewalk by every newspaper in town. You’re damned lucky she’s alive, and you’re just sore because I was the one who told you something you should have known all along, that anyone connected with Del in any way is in possible danger.”
“And you most of all, Blake. Unless you stop annoying me. So help me, I’ll slam you into the can on a charge of obstructing justice! Now get the hell out of my hair, Blake!”
I was ready to shout back at him when Gail came on the phone again. “Josh?”
“Yes. Look, Gail, I’m sorry about all this. I got worried when you didn’t come back to the phone, and I thought…well, I guess I’m a little jumpy after what happened.”
“I understand, Josh.”
“Just forgive me for this, and for the way I acted earlier, will you?”
Her voice brightened. “Sure, Josh.”
“And give Sherlock a fat kick in the keister for me.”
Gail giggled, and then said, “He’ll hear you.”
“The hell with him. I’ll be seeing you, Gail.”
“All right.”
“So long.”
I hung up, still fuming over the brush with Di Luca. I mixed another Tom Collins, and this time I enjoyed it, and when I bit into the cherry at the end of the drink, I pretended it was Di Luca’s head. You leave a murder case in the hands of an orangutan, and the results were likely to be astonishing. He’d probably be out chasing the janitor of the office building soon, simply because a janitor had once figured largely in a case he’d had. Simple motives! My foot! With two important agreements missing, and with one partner dead, and the other slugged to get those agreements. Simple motives! What the hell could be simpler than that?
But why did Del go to the office?
The goddamn question kept hounding me, and I wondered if someone else might have the answer to it. Gail?
Hardly. Del told her practically nothing, and I doubted if she knew anything at all about the Cam Stewart deal
Lydia? Now that was a horse of a different color. I went to the closet again, pulled out the fresh shirt and a pressed pair of trousers, and dressed hastily. Perhaps she’d be home by now, and perhaps she knew.
I locked up and walked down to the street, deciding against using the car. Lydia’s place was about five minutes from mine, and with all the heat, I preferred walking rather than going through the routine of getting the car from the garage and driving.
The German High Command had wilted slightly from the heat when I reached the building. I headed for the switchboard. The Army there had fared better, aided by the air-conditioning system.
“Miss Rafney,” I said. “Has she returned yet?”
“Yes, sir,” the man said.
“Ring her, will you? Tell her Mr. Blake is here again.”
The switchboard operator rang, and then took the earphones from his head. “There’s no answer, sir,” he said.
“Mmm. All right if I go up anyway?”
“Well…”
“I was here before. You remember me.”
“Well, it’s not really permissible, sir, but I suppose…”
“Thank you.”
I took the elevator up to Lydia’s floor and rang the bell outside her apartment, listening to the four chimes sound inside. I rang again. There was no answer.
I tried the knob, figuring her to be taking a nap or something, or perhaps lounging in the bathtub, which was as good a place to be as any in this weather. I kicked around the idea of joining her. The door opened
when I twisted the knob.
“Lydia?” I called.
When I got no answer, I shrugged and headed through the living room, and toward the bathroom, guessing at the closed doors. I knocked on one and said, “Lydia?”
No answer.
I knocked on another, and it opened under the force of my knuckles, swinging wide, slowly, slowly.
The room was a bedroom. It was a very nice bedroom, with satin sheets, all monogrammed with the letter L in a large diamond. The diaphanous curtains at the window hung limply. The window was open, but there wasn’t the faintest hint of a breeze. There was a dresser arrangement flanking both sides of the window, with mirrors that looked like extensions of the window itself. A box of powder was open on the dresser top. A brush and a comb lay near the powder puff.
Lydia Rafney lay on the floor near the dresser, two bullet holes in her head.
I looked at the blood on her face, and then my eyes traveled the length of her body. She was still in street clothes, a seersucker suit that she wore with the perfection of a mannequin. The jacket was still buttoned. She wore high-heeled shoes, no stockings. Her skirt had hiked up over her thighs when she fell. She wore no slip.
Her body looked alive and warm. The holes punched in her face told me she was very dead.
I passed my hand over my eyes. Finding corpses didn’t appeal to me. They hit me in the gut with the force of sledge hammers. I shook my head blankly and walked out of the bedroom. I walked through the living room and out of the apartment, and over to the elevators. I buzzed for a car, and when it came, I stepped in, and it took me down to the lobby. I walked through the lobby and then out of the building. It was like walking into the mouth of a blast furnace.
I walked past the front of the building, around the corner. I stopped, waited for a car to pass, and then crossed the street. The sun beat down on my head and shoulders, and I kept seeing Lydia with the holes in her head, and the skirt pulled up over her thighs.
I’d have to call the police. Yes, I’d have to do that. Yes.
I turned and headed back for the building. I’d ask one of the men in the lobby if I could use their switchboard. I blinked my eyes, but the picture of Lydia persisted.
I heard the sirens, and I blinked against the sun, and wondered who had found the body and called the police. I stopped in front of the building as the white-topped car pulled to the curb. A patrolman opened the door nearest the curb and stepped out. I watched as he went into the lobby. I debated going after him, decided to stay out of it until I was needed. I hailed a cab and went back to my own apartment.
Another prowl car was waiting for me when I arrived. I paid the cabbie and started for the lobby, and a cop walked up to me swiftly.
“Mr. Blake?”
“Yes.”
“Want to come along with us?”
“All right,” I said dully.
He led me to the car, held the door open while I squeezed in beside the driver. He got in, closed the door behind him, and we started off, heading west.
Go West, young man, I thought. Into the arms of Hopalong Di Luca.
I wasn’t wrong. They brought me to the precinct house, and Di Luca was waiting. He tapped a pencil on his desk, eyed me carefully, and said, “Lydia Rafney is dead.”
“I know,” I said.
“The elevator men said they took you up to her apartment.”
“I was there,” I said. “She was dead when I got there.”
“That’s your story. Why’d you go there?”
“I thought she might know why Del went straight to the office on his return to the city.”
“Did she?”
“I didn’t get a chance to ask her. She was dead when I arrived.”
“You’re always mighty handy when a corpse turns up, aren’t you?”
“If we had a good cop on the case, maybe there wouldn’t be as many corpses.”
“Maybe you should join the force.”
“Maybe I should.”
“What time did you allegedly find her, Blake?”
“I didn’t look at my watch.”
“Were you around when the prowl car arrived?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you report the murder immediately?”
“I was dazed.”
“Oh, come off it!”
“I was! I walked around for a few minutes, and then realized I should report it. I headed back for the building, and that’s when the cops pulled up.”
“Why didn’t you tell them your story?”
“I figured you’d get around to me soon enough. I don’t like telling the same story ten times over.”
“And she was dead when you arrived, huh?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the way you tell it. Would you like to hear my version?”
“Sure.”
“All right, read it and weep. You called Gail Gilbert. She left the phone to get her groceries, and you suddenly got an idea. You hung up, called me, and sent me scooting over there while you told me you’d be waiting by your phone for my call. It’s about five minutes from your place to Lydia Rafney’s. All right, Blake, suppose you didn’t wait by the phone for my call? Suppose you figured that would be a very nice little alibi? Suppose you slipped out, put two slugs in your sweetheart’s face…”
“She wasn’t my sweetheart!”
“…two slugs in your sweetheart’s face, and then ran back to your own apartment, getting there in time to take my call. As far as I could tell, you were sitting by that phone every minute of the time.”
“That’s just where I was.”
“That’s where you say you were. I say you may have been with Lydia, and I say you may have shot her to death, and I say I’m booking you on suspicion of murder!”
“What? You’re nuts, Di Luca, Even if your crazy theory were right, why the hell would I go back to Lydia’s place? You’re being downright ridiculous!”
Di Luca smiled. “Haven’t you read enough mysteries to know, Blake? The murderer always returns to the scene of his crime.”
“Stop mouthing platitudes at me, Di Luca. You know damn well I had nothing to do with Lydia’s death.”
“I’m booking you, Blake.”
“Why? Because you don’t like me? Because your cop’s ego is hurt? Because you should have taken better care of Lydia in the first place? Is that why?”
“Don’t be a kid, Blake. I’m booking you because you’re a suspect and I’m a cop. If you’re clean, we’ll find out soon enough. We’ll let you go then. But only if you’re clean.”
“Sure, go ahead. Book me. You’ve got a murderer running around loose somewhere out there, but you book me. You’re a smart cop, Di Luca. They should have you handing out license plates, or collecting tolls on the Whitestone Bridge.”
“Watch it, Blake.”
“You know what false arrest is, Di Luca?”
“I know.”
“So does my lawyer. Lock me up, smart guy. We’ll see how long you stay in plainclothes.”
“We’ll see,” Di Luca said.
“Where’s your phone?”
“In the hallway, if you want privacy. Or you can use the one on my desk Make it fast, Blake.”
“Why? What’s the big rush?”
Di Luca’s smile broadened. “You’re right, Blake. No rush at all. You’ll be here all night, anyway.”
7.
It was going to be another lulu, and Di Luca’s jail had at least been cool.
He’d had to let me go, of course, and he did so reluctantly and only after the facts began piling up against him. The facts added up like this:
a) A paraffin test (which Di Luca claimed was notoriously unreliable) showed no trace of powder dots on either of my palms.
b) In spite of the weather (and in spite of the coroner’s reluctance to go out on a limb in a gun-wound case), rigor mortis had already set in when the police found Lydia’s body. If I had killed her while Di Luca was out chasing after Gail, the body
would still have been warm. The coroner indicated that the shooting had taken place from within one to two hours before the discovery of the body, and death was instantaneous.
c) This still did not clear me in Di Luca’s eyes. I could very well have killed Lydia the first time I visited her, except for a few other facts. Chief among these was the fact that Lydia had left her building before I did, the first time I went there. The German High Command corroborated this. They had seen her leave. She was, at least, still alive when I finally picked myself off the carpet and left the building.
d) The German High Command also reported that they had seen Lydia returning, about twenty minutes after I’d left. This placed me in Di Luca’s office at about that time, so I could not have killed her then.
The switchboard operator told Di Luca that Lydia’s apartment had not answered his ring when I’d gone there the second time. They had seen her return, and knew she was home. They allowed me to go up because they recognized me from my previous visit. Her failure to answer the phone seemed to substantiate the fact that she was already dead when I arrived. And even Di Luca realized I’d have used the service entrance and elevators (as the murderer had undoubtedly done) if I’d been bent on murder.
* * *
So, I hadn’t killed Lydia.
I’d known that all along, of course. It was with relief that I greeted the police acknowledgment of the fact, but that still didn’t tell anyone who did kill her. Or why.
I went down to my garage and picked up the Buick. The sun hadn’t turned on all its wattage yet, and I figured driving wouldn’t be too bad. And it would be best to make any visits I wanted to make right now, while the pavements were still comparatively cool. Del lived—or had lived—in Yonkers, and I could never figure why he’d set up house for Lydia in Manhattan, unless he worked on the theory that it was best not to romp in your own back yard.
Del’s home was not a pretentious affair. It was a simple shingle and brick job, ranch style, with a batch of mountain laurel and rhododendron on either side of the low, brick front stoop. White bamboo drapes were closed over the long picture window of the living room, fronting half of the house. An ivy-covered and shrub-hidden fence extended from the right side of the house, and a red plastic hose was unwound in the yard, trailing over the slightly browned grass like a long snake. A lawn mower rested against the fence, and I wondered if Gail Gilbert had been out gardening before I’d arrived. I climbed the brick steps and pressed my finger against the square panel in the door jamb. I heard a buzzer sounding behind the closed door, but no one answered it. I opened the screen door and tried the big brass knob on the wooden door. It was locked.
