“I don’t think a woman would stab him so many times.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know … It just seems so—so awful.”
“Man or woman, it was just awful. All those stabs indicate hot blood, fury, or just an absolute need to make certain the man was dead. The strange thing is that whoever did it didn’t kill him after all. Not right then. After a dozen stab wounds, he was still alive. He finally bled to death.”
“Oh Edward …”
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly, reaching out to touch her. “It upsets you. I shouldn’t have started talking about it. I won’t discuss it with you again.”
“Oh no,” she protested. “I want to hear about it. It’s interesting. Fascinating, in a horrible kind of way. No, talk to me about it, Edward. Maybe I can help.”
“You can, just by listening.”
The doorbell chimed, and she rose to answer it.
“I still don’t think it was a woman,” she said firmly.
He smiled after her. He didn’t think it was a woman either, but not for her reasons. He didn’t think so because the PM had mentioned that several of the knife blows had been delivered with such force that the blade had penetrated completely, and the killer’s knuckles had bruised the surrounding flesh. That indicated powerful thrusts, masculine power. Still, it might have been an extremely strong woman. Or an extremely enraged woman …
Chief Delaney’s memory had been accurate: Detective Sergeant Abner Boone was a tall, thin, shambling man, with floppy gestures, and a way of tilting his head to one side when he spoke. His hair was more gingery than sandy. His skin was pale and freckled. He was, Delaney guessed, somewhere between thirty and thirty-five; it was difficult to judge. He had the kind of face that would change very little in sixty years. Then, suddenly, he would be an old man.
There was an awkward, farmerish quality in his manner, in the way he bowed slightly over Monica’s hand and murmured shyly, “Pleased, ma’am.” His grip was firm enough and dry enough when he shook Delaney’s hand, but when he was seated in one of the cracked-leather club chairs in the study, he didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands—or feet either, for that matter. He kept crossing and recrossing his ankles, and he finally thrust his hands into the pockets of his worn tweed jacket. To hide a tremor, Delaney guessed.
“Would you like something?” the Chief asked. “We have some rare roast beef. How about a sandwich?”
“No, thank you, sir,” Boone said faintly. “Nothing to eat. But I’d appreciate coffee. Black, please.”
“I’ll get a thermos,” Delaney said.
When he went into the kitchen, Monica was emptying the dishwasher, putting things away on the shelves.
“What do you think?” he asked her in a low voice.
“I like him,” she said promptly. “He seems so innocent.”
“Innocent!”
“Well, kind of boyish. Very polite. Is he married?”
He stared at her.
“I’ll find out,” he said. “If not, you can alert Rebecca. Matchmaker!”
“Why not?” she giggled. “Don’t you want the whole world to be as happy as we are?”
“They couldn’t endure it,” he assured her.
Back in the study, he poured steaming coffee for both of them. Boone picked up his cup from the tray with both hands. Now the tremor was obvious.
“I suppose Deputy Commissioner Thorsen told you what the deal is?” Delaney started.
“Just that I’ll be working under you on a continuing investigation of the Maitland thing. He said it’s okay to use my own car; he’ll cover me on expenses.”
“Right,” Delaney nodded. “What kind of car?”
“Four-door black Pontiac.”
“Good. As long as it isn’t one of those little sporty jobs. I like to stretch my legs.”
“It’s not very sporty,” Boone smiled wanly. “Six years old. But pretty good condition.”
“Fine. Now—” Delaney paused. “What do I call you? Boone? Abner? Ab? What did the men call you?”
“Mostly they called me Daniel.”
Delaney laughed.
“Should have known,” he said. “Well, I prefer sergeant, if it’s all right with you?”
Boone nodded gratefully.
“I’ll try to work regular hours,” Delaney said. “But you may have to put in weekends. Better warn your wife.”
“I’m not married,” the sergeant said.
“Oh?”
“Divorced.”
“Ah. Live alone?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’ll want your address and phone number before you leave. How much time did you put in on the Maitland case?”
“My squad was in on it from the start,” Boone said. “I got there right after the body was found. Then we were in on questioning the family, friends, acquaintances, and so forth.”
“What was your take? Someone he knew?”
“Had to be. He was a big, hefty guy. And mean. He could have put up a fight. But he turned his back on someone he knew.”
“No signs of a struggle?”
“None. The studio was a mess. I mean all cluttered. But the agent said it was always like that. It was the way Maitland lived. But no signs of a fight. No chairs knocked over or anything broken. Nothing like that. He turned his back, bought it, and went down. That simple.”
“Woman?” Delaney asked.
“Don’t think so, sir. But possible.”
Delaney thought a moment.
“Your squad check the snappers?”
Boone was confused, twisting his fingers.
“Uh—ah—I really don’t know about the snappers, Chief. I got taken off the case. Thorsen tell you? About my trouble?”
“He told me,” Delaney said grimly. “He also told me that if you fuck up once more, you’re out.”
Boone nodded miserably.
“When did it start?” Delaney asked. “The divorce?”
“No,” Boone said. “Before that. The divorce was one of the results, not the cause.”
“A lot of cops crawl into a bottle,” Delaney said. “Pressures. The filth.”
“The pressures I could take,” Boone said, raising his head. “I took them for almost ten years. The filth got to me. What people do. To each other. To themselves. I was handling it—the disgust, I mean—then I caught a sex case. Two beautiful little girls. Sisters. Cut. Burned. Everything. It pushed me over the edge. No excuse. Just an explanation. The only choice was to get hard or to get drunk. I had to sleep.”
“You’re not a religious man?”
“No,” Boone said. “I was a Baptist originally, but I don’t work at it.”
“Well, sergeant,” Edward X. Delaney said coldly, “don’t expect any sympathy from me. Or advice. You’re a grown man; it’s your choice. If you can’t hack it, I’ll have to tell Thorsen to give me someone else.”
“I know that, sir.”
“As long as you know it. Let’s get back to the case … I’ve read the file, but I’ll have some questions on your personal reactions as we go along. For instance, what’s your take on Maitland?”
“Everyone says he was the greatest painter in the country, but an A-Number-One shit. Some evidence he beat his wife. His son hated him. Still does, I guess. Humiliated his agent in public. Always getting into brawls. I mean breaking up bars and restaurants. A mean drunk. Got beaten up himself several times. Things like insulting a woman who was with a guy bigger than Maitland. Crazy things. Like he wanted to be kicked to hell and gone. A hard guy to figure. I guess he had talent to burn, but he was one miserable human being.”
“Miserable?” Delaney picked up on that. “You mean he himself was miserable, like sad, or he was a poor excuse for a human being?”
Boone pondered a moment.
“Both ways, I’d guess,” he said finally. “A very complex guy. Before I got taken off the case, I bought a book of his paintings and went to see the ones in the Ge
ltman Galleries and in the museums. I figured if I could get a handle on the guy, maybe it would help me find who offed him, and why.”
Delaney looked at him with surprised admiration.
“Good idea,” he said. “Learn anything?”
“No, sir. Nothing. Maybe it was me. I don’t know much about painting.”
“You still have that book? Of Maitland’s paintings?”
“Sure. It’s around somewhere.”
“Can I borrow it?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you. Tomorrow’s Friday. The PM says he was knocked on Friday, between ten and three in the afternoon. Can you pick me up tomorrow morning around nine? I want to go down to that Mott Street studio and look around. And the neighborhood. We’ll be there from ten to three, when it happened.”
Abner Boone looked at him intently.
“Anything special, Chief?” he asked.
Delaney shook his head.
“Not a whisper,” he said. “Just noodling. But we got to start somewhere.”
He saw the sergeant brighten and straighten when he said “we.”
Both men stood up. Then Boone hesitated.
“Chief, did they send you the inventory of Maitland’s personal effects from the ME’s office?”
“Yes, I got it.”
“Spot anything unusual?”
“Nooo,” Delaney said. “Did I miss something?”
“Not something that was on the list,” Boone said. “Something that wasn’t.” Suddenly, unexpectedly, he blushed. His pale face reddened; the freckles disappeared. “The guy wasn’t wearing any underwear.”
Delaney looked at him, startled.
“You’re sure?”
Boone nodded. “I checked it out with the guys who stripped the corpse at the morgue. No underwear.”
“Odd. What do you make of it?”
“Nothing,” Boone said. “I had a session with a Department shrink—I guess Thorsen told you about that—and just for the hell of it I asked him what about a guy who didn’t wear underwear. He gave me the usual bullshit answer: it might be significant, and it might not.”
Delaney nodded and said, “That’s the trouble. In a case like this, it’s a temptation to see all facts as of equal significance. They’re not. But crossing off the meaningless stuff takes just as much time as tracking down what’s important. Well, we’ve got plenty of time. The Department really doesn’t expect a break on this. See you in the morning, sergeant.”
Boone nodded, and they shook hands again. The sergeant seemed a little more cheerful, or a little less beaten. He left his address and phone number. Delaney saw him out, locked and chained the door behind him.
Monica was motionless in bed, but stirred when Delaney began undressing.
“Well?” she asked.
“Divorced,” he reported.
“That’s nice,” she said drowsily. “I’ll call Rebecca in the morning.”
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt on page 357 from Honey Bunch: Her First Days in Camp. Copyright © 1925 by Grosset and Dunlap, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1953 by Helen Louise Thorndyke. Excerpt on page 498 from Honey Bunch: Her First Little Garden. Copyright © 1924 by Grosset and Dunlap, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1952 by Helen Louise Thorndyke.
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THE EDWARD X. DELANEY SERIES
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First Deadly Sin Page 76
