The third Deadly Sin exd-3

by Lawrence Sanders

  "Yes, I knew him well."

  "Mr. Braun doesn't have many visitors," she said sadly. "None, in fact. He doesn't have any family. Oh, neighbors stop by occasionally, but it's really to visit with me, not him. I think a visit from an old friend would do him the world of good. Would you be willing to…?"

  "Of course," Delaney said promptly. "I'll be glad to. I'm in Manhattan. I could be there in half an hour or so."

  "Good," she said happily. "Let me ask him, Mr. Laney."

  "Delaney," he said. "Edward X. Delaney."

  "Hang on just a minute, please," she said.

  He hung on for several minutes. Then Mrs. Kaslove came back on the phone.

  "He wants to see you," she reported. "He's all excited. He's even putting clothes on and he wants me to shave him."

  "Wonderful," the Chief said, smiling at the phone. "Tell him I'm on my way."

  He made sure he had his reading glasses, notebook, two ballpoint pens, and a sharpened pencil. He pulled on his heavy, navy-blue melton overcoat, double-breasted. He set his hard black homburg squarely atop his big head. Then he went lumbering over to a liquor store on Second Avenue where he bought a bottle of Glenlivet Scotch. He had it gift-wrapped and put in a brown paper bag.

  He stopped an empty northbound cab, got in, closed the door. He gave Albert Braun's address in Elmhurst.

  The driver turned around to stare at him. "I don't go to Queens," he said.

  "Sure you do," Edward X. Delaney said genially. "Or we can go to the Two-five-one Precinct House, just a block away. Or, if you prefer, you can take me downtown to the Hack Bureau and I'll swear out a complaint there."

  "Jesus Christ!" the driver said disgustedly and slammed the cab into gear.

  They made the trip in silence, which was all right with Delaney. He was rehearsing in his mind the questions he wanted to ask Albert Braun.

  It was a pleasant house on a street of lawns and trees. In spring and summer, Delaney thought, it would look like a residential street in a small town, with people mowing the grass, trimming hedges, poking at flower borders. He had almost forgotten there were streets like that in New York.

  She must have been watching for him through the front window, for the door opened as he came up the stoop. She filled the doorway: a big, motherly woman with twinkling eyes and flawless complexion.

  "Mr. Delaney?" she said in a warm, pleasing voice.

  "Yes. You must be Mrs. Kaslove. Happy to meet you."

  He took off his homburg. They shook hands. She ushered him into a small entrance hall, took his hat and coat, hung them away in a closet.

  "I can't tell you how he's looking forward to your visit," she said. "I haven't seen him so alive and chirpy in months."

  "If I had known…"

  "Now you must realize he's been a very sick man," she rattled on, "and not be shocked at the way he looks. He's not bedridden, but when he gets up, he uses a wheelchair. He's lost a lot of weight and the left side of his face-you know-from the stroke…"

  Delaney nodded.

  "An hour," she said definitely. "The doctor said he can sit up an hour at a time. And try not to upset him."

  "I won't upset him," the Chief said. He held up his brown paper bag. "Can he have a drink?"

  "One weak highball a day," she said firmly. "You'll find glasses in his bathroom. Now I'm going to run out and do some shopping. But I'll be back long before your hour is up."

  "Take your time," Delaney said, smiling. "I won't leave until you get back."

  "His bedroom is at the head of the stairs," she said, pointing. "On your right. He's waiting for you."

  The Chief took a deep breath and climbed the stairs slowly, looking about. It was a cheerful, informal home. Patterned wallpaper. Lots of chintz. Bright curtains. Some good rugs. Everything looked clean and shining.

  The man in the bedroom was a bleached skeleton propped up in a motorized wheelchair parked in the middle of the floor. A crocheted Afghan covered his lap and legs and was tucked in at the sides. A fringed paisley shawl was draped about his bony shoulders. He wore a starched white shirt, open at the neck to reveal slack, crepey skin.

  His twisted face wrenched in a grimace. Delaney realized that Albert Braun was trying to grin at him. He stepped forward and picked up the man's frail white hand and pressed it gently. It felt like a bunch of grapes, as soft and tender.

  "How are you?" he asked, smiling.

  "Getting along," Braun said in a wispy voice. "Getting along. How are you, Captain? I thought you'd be in uniform. How are things at the precinct? The usual hysteria, eh?"

  Delaney hesitated just a brief instant, then said, "You're right. The usual hysteria. It's good to see you again, Professor."

  "Professor," Braun repeated, his face wrenching again. "You're the only cop I ever knew who called me 'Professor.'"

  "You are a professor," Delaney said.

  "I was," Braun said, "I was. But not really. It was just a courtesy, an honorary title. It meant nothing. Detective Sergeant Albert Braun. That's who I was. That meant something."

  The Chief nodded understandingly. He held out the brown paper bag. "A little something to keep you warm."

  Braun made a feeble gesture. "You didn't have to do that," he protested. "You better open it for me, Captain. I don't have much strength in my hands these days."

  Delaney tore the wrappings away and held the bottle close to the man in the wheelchair.

  "Scotch," Braun said, touching the bottle with trembling fingers. "What makes the heart grow fonder. Let's have one now for old times' sake."

  "I thought you'd never ask," Delaney said, and left the old man cackling while he went into the bathroom to mix drinks. He poured himself a heavy shot, tossed it down, and stood there, gripping the sink as he felt it hit. He thought he had been prepared, but the sight of Albert Braun had been a shock.

  Then he mixed two Scotch highballs in water tumblers, a weak one for the Professor, a dark one for himself. He brought the drinks back into the bedroom. He made certain Braun's thin fingers encircled the glass before he released it.

  "Sit down, Captain, sit down," the old man said. "Take that armchair there. I've got the cushions all broke in for you."

  Edward X. Delaney sat down gingerly in what seemed to him to be a fragile piece of furniture. He hoisted his glass.

  "Good health and a long life," he toasted. "I'll drink to good health," Braun said, "but a long life is for the birds. All your friends die off. I feel like the Last of the Mohicans. Say, whatever happened to Ernie Silverman? Remember him? He was with the…"

  Then they were off and running-twenty minutes of reminiscences, mostly gossip about old friends and old enemies. Braun did most of the talking, becoming more garrulous as he touched the watery highball to his pale lips. Delaney didn't see him swallowing, but noted the level of liquid was going down.

  Then the old man's glass was empty. He held it out in a hand that had steadied.

  "That was just flavored water," he said. "Let's have another with more kick to it."

  Delaney hesitated. Braun stared at him, face mangled into a gargoyle's mask.

  All his bones seemed to be knobby, pressing out through parchment skin. Feathers of grayish hair skirted his waxen skull. Even his eyes were filmed and distant, gaze dulled and turned inward. Black veins popped in his sunken temples.

  "I know what Martha told you," Braun said. "One weak drink a day. Right?"

  "Right," Delaney said. Still he hesitated.

  "She keeps the booze downstairs," the skeleton complained. "I can't get at it. I'm eighty-four," he added in a querulous tone. "The game is up. You think I should be denied?"

  Edward X. Delaney made up his mind. He didn't care to analyze his motives.

  "No," he said, "I don't think you should be denied."

  He took Braun's glass, went back to the bathroom. He mixed two more Scotch-and-waters, middling strong. He brought them into the bedroom, and Braun's starfish hand plucked the glass from his hand. The ol
d man sampled it.

  "That's more like it," he said, leaning back in his wheelchair. He observed Delaney closely. The cast over his eyes had faded. He had the shrewd, calculating look of a smart lawyer.

  "You didn't come all the way out here to hold a dying man's hand," he said.

  "No. I didn't."

  "Old 'Iron Balls,' " Braun said affectionately. "You always did have the rep of using anyone you could to break a case."

  "That's right," Delaney agreed. "Anyone, anytime. There is something I wanted to ask you about. A case. It's not mine; a friend's ass is on the line and I promised I'd talk to you."

  "What's his name?"

  "Abner Boone. Detective Sergeant. You know him?"

  "Boone? Boone? I think I had him in one of my classes. Was his father a street cop? Shot down?"

  "That's the man."

  "Sure, I remember. Nice boy. What's his problem?"

  "It looks like a repeat killer. Two so far. Same MO, but no connection between the victims. Stranger homicides. No leads."

  "Another Son of Sam?" Braun said excitedly, leaning forward. "What a case that was! Did you work that one, Captain?"

  "No," Delaney said shortly, "I never did."

  "I was retired then, of course, but I followed it in the papers and on TV every day. Made notes. Collected clippings. I had a crazy idea of writing a book on it some day."

  "Not so crazy," Delaney said. "Now this thing that Boone caught is-"

  "Fascinating case," Albert Braun said slowly. His head was beginning to droop forward on the skinny stem of his neck. "Fascinating. I remember the last lecture I gave at John Jay was on that case. Multiple random homicides. The motives…" His loose dentures clacked.

  "Yes, yes," Delaney said hurriedly, wondering if he was losing the man. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about-the motives. And also, has there ever been a female killer like Son of Sam? A woman who commits several random homicides?"

  "A woman?" the old man said, raising his head with an effort. "It's all in my lecture."

  "Yes," Delaney said, "but could you tell me now? Do you remember if there was ever a case like Son of Sam when a woman was the perp?"

  "Martha Beck," Braun said, trying to recall. "A woman in Pennsylvania-what was her name? I forget. But she was a babysitter and knew the victims. All kids. A woman at a Chicago fair, around the turn of the century, I think. I'd have to look it up. She ran a boardinghouse. Killed her boarders. Greed, again." His face tried to make a grin. "Ground them up into sausages."

  "But stranger homicides," Delaney insisted. "Any woman involved in a series of killings of strangers?"

  "It's all in my last lecture," Albert Braun said sadly. "Two days later I fell. The steps weren't even slippery. I just tripped. That's how it ends, Captain; you trip."

  He held out his empty glass. Delaney took it to the bathroom, mixed fresh highballs. When he brought the drinks back to the bedroom, he heard the outside door slam downstairs.

  Braun's head had fallen forward, sharp chin on shrunken chest.

  "Professor?" the Chief said.

  The head came up slowly.

  "Yes?"

  "Here's your drink."

  The boiled fingers clamped around.

  "That lecture of yours," Delaney said. "Your last lecture. Was it written out? Typed?"

  The head bobbed.

  "Would you have a copy of it? I'd like to read it."

  Albert Braun roused, looking at the Chief with eyes that had a spark, burning.

  "Lots of copies," he said. "In the study. Watch this…"

  He pushed the controls in a metal box fixed to the arm of his wheelchair. He began to move slowly toward the doorway. Delaney stood hastily, hovered close. But Braun maneuvered his chair skillfully through the doorway, turned down the hallway. The Chief moved nearby, ready to grab the old man if he toppled.

  But he didn't. He steered expertly into the doorway of a darkened room and stopped his chair.

  "Switch on your right," he said in a faint voice.

  Delaney fumbled, found the wall plate. Light blazed. It was a long cavern of a room, a study-den-library. Rough, unpainted pine bookshelves rose to the ceiling. Bound volumes, some in ancient leather covers. Paperbacks. Magazines. Stapled and photocopied academic papers. One shelf of photographs in folders.

  There was a ramshackle desk, swivel chair, file cabinet, type-writer on a separate table. A desk lamp. A wilted philodendron.

  The room had been dusted; it was not squalid. But it had the deserted look of a chamber long unused. The desktop was blank; the air had a stale odor. It was a deserted room, dying.

  Albert Braun looked around.

  "I'm leaving all my books and files to the John Jay library," he said. "It's in my will."

  "Good," Delaney said.

  "The lectures are over there in the lefthand corner. Third shelf up. In manila folders."

  Delaney went searching. He found the most recent folder, opened it. At least a dozen copies of a lecture entitled: "Multiple Random Homicides; History and Motives."

  "May I take a copy?" he asked.

  No answer.

  "Professor," he said sharply.

  Braun's spurt of energy seemed to have depleted him. He raised his head with difficulty.

  "May I take a copy?" Delaney repeated.

  "Take all you want," Braun said in a peevish voice. "Take everything. What difference does it make?"

  The Chief took one copy of Detective Sergeant Albert Braun's last lecture. He folded it lengthwise, tucked it into his inside jacket pocket.

  "We'll get you back to your bedroom now," he said.

  But there in the doorway, looming, was big, motherly Mrs. Martha Kaslove. She looked down with horror at the lolling Albert Braun and snatched the glass from his nerveless fingers. Then she looked furiously at Edward X. Delaney.

  "What did you do to him?" she demanded.

  He said nothing.

  "You got him drunk," she accused. "You may have killed him! You get out of here and never, never come back. Don't try to call; I'll hang up on you. And if I see you lurking around, I'll call the cops and have you put away, you disgusting man."

  He waited until she had wheeled Albert Braun back to his bedroom. Then Delaney turned off the lights in the study, went downstairs, and found his hat and coat. He called a taxi from the living room phone.

  He went outside and stood on the sidewalk, waiting for the cab. He looked around at the pleasant, peaceful street, so free of traffic that kids were skateboarding down the middle of the pavement. Nice homes. Private lives.

  He was back in Manhattan shortly after 3:30 p.m. In the kitchen, taped to the refrigerator door-she knew how to communicate with him-was a note from Monica. She had gone to a symposium and would return no later than 5:30. He was to put the chicken and potatoes in the oven at precisely 4:00.

  He welcomed the chore. He didn't want to think of what he had done. He was not ashamed of how he had used a dying man, but he didn't want to dwell on it.

  There were six chicken legs. He cut them into pieces, drumsticks and thighs, rinsed and dried them. Then he rubbed them with olive oil, sprinkled on toasted onion flakes, and dusted them with garlic and parsley salt. He put the twelve pieces (the thighs skin side down) in a disposable aluminum foil baking pan.

  He washed and dried the four Idaho potatoes. He rubbed them with vegetable oil and wrapped them in aluminum foil. Monica and he could never eat four baked potatoes, but the two left over would be kept refrigerated, sliced another day, and fried with butter, chopped onions, and lots of paprika. Good home-fries.

  He set the oven for 350° and put in chicken and potatoes. He searched in the fridge for salad stuff and found a nice head of romaine. He snapped it into single long leaves, washed them, wrapped them in a paper towel. Then he put them back into the refrigerator to chill. He and Monica liked to eat romaine leaf by leaf, dipped into a spicy sauce.

  He made the sauce, a tingly mixture of mayonnaise, ketchup, mu
stard, Tabasco, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and parsley flakes. He whipped up a bowl of the stuff and left it to meld.

  He was not a good cook; he knew that. He smoked too much and drank too much; his palate was dulled. That was why he overspiced everything. Monica complained that when he cooked, sweat broke out on her scalp.

  He had accomplished all his tasks in his heavy, vested sharkskin suit, a canvas kitchen apron knotted about his waist. Finished, he untied the apron, took an opened can of Ballantine ale, and went into his study.

  He settled down, took a sip of the ale, donned his reading glasses. He began to read Detective Sergeant Albert Braun's last lecture. He read it twice. Between readings, he went into the kitchen to turn the chicken, sprinkling on more toasted onion flakes and garlic and parsley salt. And he opened another ale.

  Multiple Random Homicides

  History and Motives by Albert Braun, Det. Sgt., NYPD, Ret.

  "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen…

  "The homicide detective, in establishing the guilt or innocence of a suspect must concern himself-as we have previously discussed-with means, opportunity, and motive. The criminal may choose his weapon and select his opportunity. His motive cannot be manipulated; he is its creature. And it is usually motive by which his crime succeeds or fails.

  "What are we to make of the motive of New York's current multiple murderer-an individual described in headlines as 'The.44 Caliber Killer' or 'Son of Sam'? The former title refers to the handgun used to kill six and wound seven-to date. The latter is a self-awarded nickname used by the killer in taunting notes to the police and press and, by extension, to all of us.

  "The detective's mind at work: He calls himself 'Son of Sam.' Invert to Samson, who lost his potency when his long hair was shorn. Then we learn the victims had long hair. A connection here? A clue? No, I do not believe so. Too tenuous. But it illustrates how every possibility, no matter how farfetched, must be explored in attempting to establish the criminal's motive or plural motives.

  "In researching the murky drives of the wholesale killer, the detective goes to the past history of similar crimes, and finds literature on the topic disturbingly scant. Rape, robbery, even art forgery have been thoroughly studied, analyzed, charted, computerized, dissected, skinned, and hung up to dry.