First Deadly Sin

by Lawrence Sanders

  “My pleasure, Captain. Tell me the truth, what do you think about this new man, this Dorfman?”

  “Good man,” Delaney said promptly.

  “With these three murders we’ve had in the last few months and the dingaling still running around free? What’s this Dorfman doing about that?”

  “Well, it’s out of his hands, Mr. Goldenberg. The investigation is being handled personally by Deputy Commissioner Broughton.”

  “I read, I read. But it’s Dorfman’s precinct—right?”

  “Right,” Delaney said sadly.

  So the day went. It was a disaster. Of the nine ice ax purchasers, three had moved out of the precinct, one had died, one was hospitalized, and one had been on a climbing tour in Europe for the past six months.

  That left three possibles. Delaney made a hurried visit to Barbara, then spent the evening checking out the three, this time questioning them personally, giving his name and showing his shield and identification. He didn’t tell them the reason for his questions, and they didn’t ask. The efforts of Delaney, New York Police Department, were no more productive than those of Barrett, Acme Insurance.

  One purchaser was an octogenarian who had bought the ax as a birthday present for a 12-year-old great-grandson.

  One was a sprightly, almost maniacal young man who assured Delaney he had given up mountain climbing for skydiving. “Much more machismo, man!” At Delaney’s urging, he dug his ax out of a back closet. It was dusty, stained, pitted with rust, and the Captain wondered if it had ever been used, for anything.

  The third was a young man who, when he answered Delaney’s ring, seemed at first sight to fit the profile: tall, slender, quick, strong. But behind him, eyeing the unexpected visitor nervously and curiously, was his obviously pregnant wife. Their apartment was a shambles of barrels and cartons; Delaney had interrupted their packing; they were moving in two days since, with the expected new arrival, they would need more room. When the Captain brought up the subject of the ice ax, they both laughed. Apparently, one of the conditions she had insisted on, before marrying him, was that he give up mountain climbing. So he had, and quite voluntarily he showed Delaney his ice ax. They had been using it as a general purpose hammer; the head was scarred and nicked. Also, they had tried to use the spike to pry open a painted-shut window and suddenly, without warning, the pick of the ice ax had just snapped off. And it was supposed to be steel. Wasn’t that the damndest thing? they asked. Delaney agreed despondently it was the damndest thing he ever heard.

  He walked home slowly, thinking he had been a fool to believe it would be easy. Still, it was the obvious thing to trace weapon to source to buyer. It had to be done, and he had done it. Nothing. He knew how many other paths he could now take, but it was a disappointment; he admitted it. He had hoped—just hoped—that one of those cards with the green plastic tab would be the one.

  His big worry was time. All this checking of sales receipts and list making and setting up of card files and questioning innocents—time! It all took days and weeks, and meanwhile this nut was wandering the streets and, as past histories of similar crimes indicated, the intervals between murders became shorter and shorter.

  When he got home he found a package Mary had signed for. He recognized it as coming from Thorsen by commercial, messenger. He tore it open and when he saw what it was, he didn’t look any further. It was a report from the Records Division, New York Police Department, including the Special Services Branch. That completed the check on criminal records of the original 116 names.

  He had been doing a curious thing. As reports came in from federal, state, and local authorities, he had been tearing off a carbon for his files, then delivering the other copies to Monica Gilbert for notation and tabbing in her master file. He didn’t read the reports himself; he didn’t even glance at them. He told himself the reason for this was that he couldn’t move on individuals with criminal records until all the reports were in and recorded on Monica’s file cards. Then he’d be able to see at a glance how many men had committed how many offenses. That’s what he told himself.

  He also told himself he was lying—to himself.

  The real reason he was following this procedure was very involved, and he wasn’t quite sure he understood it. First of all, being a superstitious cop, he had the feeling that Monica Gilbert had brought him and would bring him luck. Somehow, through her efforts, solely or in part, he’d find the lead he needed. The second thing was that he hoped these computer printouts of criminal records would lead to the killer and thus prove to Monica he had merely been logical and professional when he had requested them. He had seen it in her eyes when he told her what he was about to do; she had thought him a brutal, callous—well, a cop, who had no feeling or sympathy for human frailty. That was, he assured himself, simply not true.

  Unlacing his high shoes, peeling off his sweated socks, he paused a moment, sock in hand, and wondered why her good opinion of him was so important to him. He thought of her, of her heavy muscular haunches moving slowly under the thin black dress, and he realized to his shame that he was beginning to get an erection. He had had no sex since Barbara became ill, and his “sacrifice” seemed so much less than her pain that he couldn’t believe what he was dreaming: the recent widow of a murder victim … while Barbara … and he … He snorted with disgust at himself, took a tepid shower, donned fresh pajamas, and got out of bed an hour later, wide-eyed and frantic, to gulp two sleeping pills.

  He delivered the new report to her the next morning and refused her offer to stay for coffee and Danish. Did she seem hurt? He thought so. Then, sighing, he spent a whole day—time! time!—doing what he had to do and what he knew would be of no value whatsoever: he checked those purchasers of ice axes who had moved, died, were abroad, or hospitalized. The results, as he knew they would, added up to zero. They really had moved, died, were abroad, or hospitalized.

  Mary had left a note that Mrs. Gilbert had called, and would the Captain please call her back. So he did, immediately, and there was no coolness in her voice he could detect. She told him she had completed noting all the reported criminal records in her master file, and had attached appropriately colored plastic tabs. He asked her if she’d care to have lunch with him at 1:00 p.m. the following day, and she accepted promptly.

  They ate at a local seafood restaurant and had identical luncheons: crabmeat salads with a glass of white wine. They spent a pleasant hour and half together, talking of the pains and pleasures of life in the city. She told him of her frustrated efforts to grow geraniums in window boxes; he told her of how, for years, Barbara and he had tried to grow flowers and flowering shrubs in their shaded backyard, had finally surrendered to the soot and sour soil, and let the ivy take over. Now it was a jungle of ivy and, surprisingly, rather pretty.

  He told her about Barbara while they sipped coffee. She listened intently and finally asked:

  “Do you think you should change doctors?”

  “I don’t know what to do,” he confessed. “He’s always been her physician, and she has great faith in him. I couldn’t bring someone else in without her permission. He’s trying everything he can, I’m sure. And there are consultants in on this. But she shows no improvement. In fact, it seems to me she’s just wasting away, just fading. My son was up to visit a few weeks ago and was shocked at how she looked. So thin and flushed and drawn. And occasionally now she’s irrational. Just for short periods of time.”

  “That could be the fever, or even the antibiotics she’s getting.”

  “I suppose so,” he nodded miserably. “But it frightens me. She was always so—so sharp and perceptive. Still is, when she isn’t floating off in never-never land. Well … I didn’t invite you to lunch to cry on your shoulder. Tell me about your girls. How are they getting along in school?”

  She brightened, and told him about their goodness and deviltry, things they had said and how different their personalities were, one from the other. He listened with interest, smiling, remembering
the days when Eddie and Liza were growing up, and wondering if he was now paying for that happiness.

  “Well,” he said, after she finished her coffee, “can we go back to your place? I’d like to take a look at that card file. All the reports finished?”

  “Yes,” she nodded, “everything’s entered. I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed.”

  “I usually am,” he said wryly.

  “Oh well,” she smiled, “these are only the unsuccessful criminals.”

  “Pardon?” he asked, not realizing at first that she was teasing him.

  “Well, when a man has a record, it proves he was, an inefficient criminal, doesn’t it? He got caught. If he was good at his job, he wouldn’t have a record.”

  “Yes,” he laughed. “You’re right.”

  They stood and moved to the cashier’s desk, Delaney had his wallet out, but the manager, who had apparently been waiting for this moment, moved in close, smiling, and said to the cashier, “No check for Captain Delaney.”

  He looked up in surprise. “Oh … hello, Mr. Varro. How are you?”

  “Bless God, okay, Captain. And you?”

  “Fine. Thanks for the offer, but I’m afraid I can’t accept it, I’m not on active duty, you know. Leave of absence. And besides—” He gestured toward Monica Gilbert who was watching this scene closely, “—this young lady is a witness, and I wouldn’t want her to think I was accepting a bribe.”

  They all laughed—an easy laugh.

  “Tell you what,” Delaney said, paying his bill, “next time I’ll come in alone, order the biggest lobster in the house, and let you pick up the tab. Okay?”

  “Sure, okay,” Varro smiled. “You know me. Anytime, Captain.”

  They walked toward Monica’s apartment, and she looked up at him curiously. “Will you?” she asked. “Stop in for a free meal, I mean?”

  “Sure,” he said cheerfully. “He’d be hurt if I didn’t. Varro is all right. The best men stop in for coffee almost every day. The squad car men do, too. Not all of them take, but I’d guess most of them do. It doesn’t mean a thing. Happens in a hundred restaurants and bars and hotdog stands and pizza parlors in the Precinct. Are you going to say, ‘Petty graft’? You’re right, but most cops are struggling to get their kids to college on a cop’s pay, and a free lunch now and then is more important than you think. When I said it doesn’t mean a thing, I meant that if any of these generous owners and managers get out of line, they’ll be leaned on like anyone else. A free cup of coffee doesn’t entitle them to anything but a friendly hello. Besides, Varro owes me a favor. About two years ago he discovered he was losing stuff from his storeroom. It wasn’t the usual pilferage—a can or package now and then. This stuff was disappearing in cases. So he came to me, and I called in Jeri Fernandez who was lieutenant of our precinct detective squad at that time. Jeri put a two-man stakeout watching the back alley. The first night they were there—the first night!—this guy pulls up to the back door in a station wagon, unlocks the door cool as you please, and starts bringing up cases and cartons and bags from the basement and loading his wagon. They waited until he had the wagon full and was locking the back door. Then they moved in.”

  “What did they do?” she asked breathlessly.

  Delaney laughed. “They made him unload his station wagon and carry all that stuff back down to the basement again and store it neatly away. They said he was puffing like a whale by the time he got through. He was one of the assistant chefs there and had keys to the back door and storeroom. It really wasn’t important enough to bring charges. It would have meant impounding evidence, a lot of paperwork for everyone, time lost in court, and the guy probably would have been fined and put on probation if it was his first offense. So after he finished putting everything back the way it was, Jeri’s boys worked him over. Nothing serious. I mean he didn’t have to go to the hospital or anything like that, but I suppose they marked him up some—a few aches and pains. And of course he was fired. The word got around, and Varro hasn’t lost a can of salad oil since. That’s why he wanted to buy our lunch.”

  He looked at her, smiling, and saw her shiver suddenly.

  “It’s a whole different world,” she said in a low voice.

  “What is?”

  But she didn’t answer.

  She was right; the criminal records were a disappointment. What he had been hoping was that when the computer printouts were collated and entered on the file cards, there would be a few or several cards with a perfect forest of multicolored plastic tabs clipped to their upper edges, indicating significant criminal records that might show a pattern of psychopathic and uncontrollable violence.

  Instead, the card file was distressingly bare. There was one card with three tabs, two with two tabs, and 43 with one tab. None of the nine purchasers of ice axes, who Delaney had already checked out, had a criminal record.

  While he went through the tabbed cards, slowly, working at Monica’s kitchen table, she had brought in mending, donned a pair of rimless spectacles, and began making a hem on one of the girl’s dresses, working swiftly, making small stitches, a thimble and scissors handy. When he had finished the cards, he pushed the file box away from him, and the sound made her look up. He gave her a bleak smile.

  “You’re right,” he said. “A disappointment. One rape, one robbery, one assault with a deadly weapon. And my God, have you ever seen so many income tax frauds in your life!”

  She smiled slightly and went back to her sewing. He sat brooding, tapping his pencil eraser lightly on the table top.

  “Of course, this is a good precinct,” he said, thinking aloud as much as he was talking to her. “I mean ‘good’ in the sense of better than East Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant. The per capita income is second highest of all the precincts in the city, and the rates of crimes of violence are in the lower third. I’m speaking of Manhattan, Bronx, and Brooklyn now. Not Queens and Staten Island. So I should have expected a high preponderance of white-collar crime. Did you notice the tax evasions, unscrupulous repair estimates, stock swindles—things like that? But still … What I didn’t really consider is that all these cards, all these individuals—by the way, did you see that there are only four women in the whole file?—these individuals are all presumably mountain climbers or have bought gifts for mountain climbers or are outdoorsmen of one type or another: hunters, fishermen, boat owners, hikers, campers, and so forth. That means people with enough money for a leisure hobby. And lack of money is usually the cause of violent crime. So what we’ve got is a well-to-do precinct and a file of people who can afford to spend money, heavy money, on their leisure-time activities. I guess I was foolish to expect mountain climbers and deep-sea fishermen to have the same percentage of records as people in the ghettos. Still … it is a disappointment.”

  “Discouraged?” she asked quietly, not looking up.

  “Monica,” he said, and at this tone of voice she did look up to find him smiling at her. “I’m never discouraged,” he said. “Well … hardly ever. I’ll check out the rape, the robbery, and the assault. If nothing comes of that, there’s a lot more I can do. I’m just getting started.”

  She nodded, and went back to her mending. He took notes on the three records of violent crimes included on the file cards. For good measure, although he thought the chances were nil, he added the names and addresses of men convicted of vandalism, extortion, and safe-breaking. He glanced at his watch, a thick hunter his grandfather had owned, and saw he had time to check out three or four of the men with records.

  He rose, she put aside her sewing and stood up, and they took off their glasses simultaneously, and laughed together, it seemed like such an odd thing.

  “I hope your wife is feeling better soon,” she said, walking him to the door.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’d—I’d like to meet her,” she said faintly. “That is, if you think it’s all right. I mean, I have time on my hands now that the file is finished, and I could go over and sit w
ith—”

  He turned to her eagerly. “Would you? My God, that would be wonderful! I know you two will get along. She’ll like you, and you’ll like her. I try to get there twice a day, but sometimes I don’t. We have friends who come to see her. At least at first they did. But—you know—they don’t come too often anymore. I’ll go over with you and introduce you, and then if you could just stop by occasionally …”

  “Of course. I’ll be happy to.”

  “Thank you. You’re very kind. And thank you for having lunch with me. I really enjoyed it.”

  She held out her hand. He was surprised, a second, then grasped it, and they shook. Her grip was dry, her flesh firm, the hand unexpectedly strong.

  He went out into the dull winter afternoon, the sky tarnished pewter, and glanced at his list to see who he should hit first. But curiously he was not thinking of the list, nor of Monica Gilbert, nor of Barbara. Something was nibbling at the edge of his mind, something that had to do with the murders. It was something he had heard recently; someone had said something. But what it was he could not identify. It hovered there, tantalizing, teasing, until finally he shook his head, put it away from him, and started tramping the streets.

  He got home a little after ten that evening, his feet aching (he had not worn his “cop shoes”), and so soured with frustration that he whistled and thought of daffodils—anything to keep from brooding on false leads and time wasted. He soaked under a hot shower and washed his hair. That made him feel a little better. He pulled on pajamas, robe, slippers, and went down to the study.

  During the afternoon and evening he had checked out five of the six on his list. The rapist and the robber were still in prison. The man convicted of assault with a deadly weapon had been released a year ago, but was not living at the address given. It would have to be checked with his parole officer in the morning. Of the other three, the safe-breaker was still in prison, the vandal had moved to Florida two months ago and considerately left a forwarding address, and Delaney was just too damned tired to look for the extortionist, but would the next day.