The third Deadly Sin exd-3

by Lawrence Sanders

  "Nice," Delaney said. "Very nice. Any stains on the tiles in the bathroom?"

  "Nothing usable," Gorki said, "but we took some shots just in case. Nothing in the sink, tub, or toilet drains."

  The four men were still kneeling on the rug, their heads raised to talk to each other, when they became conscious of someone looming over them.

  "What the fuck's going on here?" an angry voice demanded.

  The four men lumbered to their feet. They brushed off their knees. The Chief stared at the man glowering at him. Lieutenant Martin Slavin looked like a bookkeeper who had flunked the CPA exam.

  "Delaney!" he said explosively. "What the hell are you doing here? You got no right to be here."

  "That's right," Delaney said levelly. He started for the door. "So I'll be on my way."

  "Wait a sec," Slavin said, putting out a hand. His voice was high-pitched, strained, almost whiny. "Wait just one goddamned sec. Now that you're here… What did you find out?"

  Delaney stared at him.

  Slavin was a cramped little man with nervous eyes and a profile as sharp as a hatchet. Bony shoulders pushed out his ill-fitting uniform jacket. His cap was too big for his narrow skull; it practically rested on his ears.

  Appearances are deceiving? Bullshit, Edward X. Delaney thought. In Slavin's case, appearances were an accurate tipoff to the man's character and personality.

  "I didn't find out anything," Delaney said. "Nothing these men can't tell you."

  "You'll have our report tomorrow, lieutenant," Lou Gorki said sweetly.

  "Maybe later than that," Tommy Callahan put in. "Lab Services have a lot of tests to run."

  Slavin glared at them, back and forth. Then he turned his wrath on Delaney again.

  "You got no right to be here," he repeated furiously. "This is my case. You're no better than a fucking civilian."

  "Deputy Commissioner Thorsen gave his okay," Sergeant Boone said quietly.

  The four men looked at the lieutenant with expressionless eyes.

  "We'll see about that!" Slavin almost screamed. "We'll goddamned well see about that!"

  He turned, rushed from the room.

  "He'll never have hemorrhoids," Lou Gorki remarked. "He's such a perfect asshole."

  Sergeant Boone walked Delaney slowly back to the elevators.

  "I'll let you know what the lab men come up with," he said. "If you think of anything we've missed, please let me know. I'd appreciate it."

  "Of course," Delaney said, wondering if he should tell Boone about the phoned tip to the Times and deciding against it. Handry had admitted that in confidence. "Sergeant, I hope I didn't get you in any trouble with Slavin."

  "With a rabbi like Thorsen?" Boone said, grinning. "I'll survive."

  "Sure you will," Edward X. Delaney said.

  He decided to walk home. Over to Sixth Avenue, through Central Park, out at 72nd Street, and up Fifth Avenue. A nice stroll. He stopped in the hotel lobby to buy a Montecristo.

  A soft morning in early April. A warming sun burning through a pearly haze. In the park, a few patches of dirty snow melting in the shadows. The smell of green earth thawing, ready to burst. Everything was coming alive.

  He strode along sturdily, topcoat open and flapping against his legs. Hard homburg set squarely. Cigar clenched in his teeth. Joggers passed him. Cyclists whizzed by. Traffic whirled around the winding roads. He savored it all-and thought of Jerome Ashley and his giant mouth.

  It was smart, Delaney figured, for a detective to go by the percentages. Every cop in the world did it, whether he was aware of it or not. If you had three suspects in a burglary, and one of them was an ex-con, you leaned on the lag, even if you knew shit-all about recidivist percentages.

  "It just makes common fucking sense," an old cop had remarked to Delaney.

  So it did, so it did. But the percentages, the numbers, the patterns, experience-all were useful up to a point. Then you caught something new, something different, and you were flying blind; no instruments to guide you. What was it the early pilots had said? You fly by the seat of your pants.

  Edward X. Delaney wasn't ready yet to jettison percentages. If he was handling the Hotel Ripper case, he'd probably be doing exactly what Slavin was doing right now: looking for a male killer and rounding up every homosexual with a rap sheet.

  But there were things that didn't fit and couldn't be ignored just because they belonged to no known pattern.

  Delaney stopped at a Third Avenue deli, bought a few things, carried his purchases home. Monica was absent at one of her meetings or lectures or symposiums or colloquies. He was happy she was active in something that interested her. He was just as happy he had the house to himself.

  He had bought black bread, the square kind from the frozen food section. A quarter-pound of smoked sable, because sturgeon was too expensive. A bunch of scallions. He made two sandwiches carefully: sable plus scallion greens plus a few drops of fresh lemon juice.

  He carried the sandwiches and a cold bottle of Heineken into the study. He sat down behind his desk, put on his reading glasses. As he ate and drank, he made out a dossier on the third victim, Jerome Ashley, trying to remember everything Sergeant Boone had told him and everything he himself had observed.

  Finished with sandwiches and beer, he read over the completed dossier, checking to see if he had omitted anything. Then he looked up the number of the Hotel Coolidge and called.

  He told the operator that he was trying to locate Sergeant Abner Boone, who was in the hotel investigating the crime on the 14th floor. He asked her to try to find Boone and have him call back. He left his name and number.

  He started comparing the dossiers of the three victims, still hoping to spot a common denominator, a connection. They were men from out of town, staying in Manhattan hotels: that was all he could find.

  The phone rang about fifteen minutes later.

  "Chief, it's Boone. You called me?"

  "On the backs of the stiff's hands," Delaney said. "Scars."

  "I saw them, Chief. The assistant ME said they looked like burn scars. Maybe a month or so old. Mean anything?"

  "Probably not, but you can never tell. Was he married?"

  "Yes. No children."

  "His wife should know how he got those scars. Can you check it out?"

  "Will do."

  After Boone hung up, Edward X. Delaney started a fresh sheet of paper, listing the things that bothered him, that just didn't fit:

  1. A short-bladed knife, probably a jackknife.

  2. No signs of struggles.

  3. Two victims with no records of homosexuality found naked in bed.

  4. Hairs from a wig.

  5. Estimated height from five-five to five-seven.

  6. Phoned tip that could have been made by a man or woman. He reread this list again and again, making up his mind. He thought he was probably wrong. He hoped he was wrong. He called Thomas Handry at the Times.

  "Edward X. Delaney here."

  "There's been another one, Chief."

  "So I heard. When I spoke to you a few weeks ago, you said you'd be interested in doing some research for me. Still feel that way?"

  Handry was silent a moment. Then…

  "Has this got anything to do with the Hotel Ripper?" he asked.

  "Sort of," Delaney said.

  "Okay," Handry said. "I'm your man."

  Chapter 5

  Zoe Kohler returned home after her adventure with Jerry. She slid gratefully into a hot tub, putting her head back. She thought she could feel her entrails warm, unkink, become lax and flaccid. All of her thawed; she floated defenseless in amniotic fluid.

  When the tub cooled, she sat up, prepared to lather herself with her imported soap. She saw with shock that the water about her knees and ankles was stained, tinged a light pink. Thinking her period had started, she touched herself tenderly, examined her fingers. There was no soil.

  She lifted one ankle to the other knee, bent forward to inspect her foot. Betwe
en her toes she found clots of dried blood, now dissolving away. There were spots of blood beneath the toes of the other foot as well.

  She sat motionless, trying to understand. Her feet were not wounded, nor her ankles cut. Then she knew. It was Jerry's blood. She had stepped into it after he-after he was gone. The blood between her toes was his stigmata, the taint of his guilt.

  She scrubbed furiously with brush and washcloth. Then she rinsed again and again under the shower, making certain no stain remained on her skin. Later, she sat on the toilet lid and sprayed cologne on her ankles, feet, between her toes. "Out, damned spot!" She remembered that.

  She dried, powdered, inserted a tampon, clenching her teeth. Not against the pain; there was no pain. But the act itself was abhorrent to her: a vile penetration that destroyed her dignity. That little string hanging outside: the fuse of a bomb.

  All her life, as long as she could remember, she had beer daunted by the thought of blood. As a child, with a cut finger or skinned knee, it had been incomprehensible that her body was a bag, a sack, filled with a crimson viscid fluid that leaked, poured, or spurted when the bag was punctured.

  Later, at that dreadful birthday party when her menses began, she was convinced she was going to die.

  "Nonsense," her mother had said irritably. "It just means you're not a girl anymore; you're a woman. And you must bear the cross of being a woman."

  "The cross." That called up images of the crucified Christ, bleeding from hands and feet. To Him, loss of blood meant loss of life. For her, loss of blood meant loss of innocence, punishment for being a woman.

  The cramps began with her early periods and increased in severity as she grew older. In a strange way, she welcomed the pain. It was expiation for her guilt. That dark, greasy monthly flow was her atonement.

  She donned her flannel nightgown, went into the kitchen for her vitamins and minerals, capsules and pills. She took a Tuinal and went to bed. An hour later, she was still wide-eyed. She rose, took another sleeping pill, and tried again.

  This time she slept.

  Harry Kurnitz was having a cocktail party and dinner for employees of his textile company. Maddie called to invite Zoe.

  "Harry does this once a year," she said. "He claims it's cheaper than giving raises. Anyway, it's always a big, noisy bash, lots to eat, and people falling-down drunk. All the executives make passes at their secretaries. That's why Harry has it on a Friday night. So everyone can forget what asses they made of themselves by Monday morning. Ernest Mittle will be there, so I thought you'd like to come."

  "Thank you, Maddie," Zoe Kohler said.

  Ernest had been calling twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday nights at 9:00 p.m. They talked a long time, sometimes for a half-hour. They nattered about their health, what they had been doing, odd items in the news, movie reviews…

  Nothing important, but the calls had assumed a growing significance for Zoe. She looked forward to them. They were a lifeline. Someone was out there. Someone who cared.

  Once he said:

  "Isn't it awful about the Hotel Ripper?"

  "Yes," she said. "Awful."

  Zoe went to the party directly from work. Harry Kurnitz had taken over the entire second floor of the Chez Ronald on East 48th Street, and Zoe walked, fearing she would be too early.

  But when she arrived, the big room was already crowded with a noisy throng. Most of them were clustered about the two bars, but several were already seated at the tables. At the far end of the room, a trio was playing disco, but there was no one on the minuscule dance floor.

  Madeline and Harry Kurnitz stood at the doorway, greeting arriving guests. They both embraced Zoe and kissed her cheek.

  "Jesus Christ, kiddo," Maddie said, inspecting her, "you dress like a matron at the House of Detention."

  "Come on, Maddie," her husband protested. "She looks fine."

  "I didn't have time to go home and change," Zoe said faintly.

  "That's just the point," Maddie said. "You go to work looking like that? You and I have to go shopping together; I'll tart you up. I told Mister Meek you'd be here tonight. He lit up like a Christmas tree." She gave Zoe a gentle shove. "Now go find him, luv."

  But Ernest Mittle found her. He must have been waiting, for he came forward carrying two glasses of white wine. "Good evening, Zoe," he said, beaming. "Mrs. Kurnitz told me you'd be here. She said, 'Your love goddess is coming.'"

  "Yes," Zoe said, smiling briefly, "that sounds like Maddie. How are you, Ernie?"

  "I've got the sniffles," he said. "Nothing serious, but it's annoying. Would you like to move around and meet people, or should we grab a table?"

  "Let's sit down," she said. "I'm not very good at meeting people."

  They took a table for four near the wall. Ernest seated her where she could observe the noisy activity at the bars. He took the chair next to her.

  "I don't want to get too close," he said. "I don't want you catching my cold. It was really bad for a couple of days, but it's better now."

  "You should take care of yourself," she chided. "Do you take vitamin pills?"

  "No, I don't."

  "I'm going to make out a list for you," she said, "and I want you to buy them and take them regularly."

  "All right," he said happily, "I will. Well… here's to us."

  They hoisted their glasses, sipped their wine.

  "I thought it was going to be the flu," he said. "But it was just a bad cold. That's why I haven't asked you out. But I'm getting better now. Maybe we can have dinner next week."

  "I'd like that."

  "Listen," he said, "would you like to come to my place for dinner? I'm not the world's greatest cook, but we can have, say hamburgers and a baked potato. Something like that."

  "That would be nice," she said, nodding. "I'll bring the wine."

  "Oh no," he said. "I'm inviting you; I'll have wine."

  "Then I'll bring dessert," she said. "Please, Ernie, let me."

  "All right," he said, with his little boy's smile, "you bring the dessert. A small one."

  "A small one," she agreed. She looked around. "Who are all these people?"

  He began to point out and name some of the men and women moving about the room. It was soon apparent that he had a taste for gossip and the wit to relate scandalous stories in an amusing manner. Once he used the word "screwing," stopped abruptly, looked at her anxiously.

  "I hope you're not offended, Zoe?"

  "No, I'm not offended."

  Ernest told her about office affairs, the personal peccadilloes of some of his co-workers, rumors about others. He pointed out the office lothario and the office seductress-quite ordinary looking people. Then he hitched his chair a little closer, leaned toward Zoe.

  "I'll tell you something," he said in a low voice, "but you must promise not to repeat it to a soul. Promise?"

  She nodded.

  "See that tall man at the end of the bar in front of us? At the right end?"

  She searched. "Wearing glasses? In the gray suit?"

  "That's the one. He's Vince Delgado, Mr. Kurnitz's assistant. Can you see the woman he's talking to? She's blond, wearing a blue sweater."

  Zoe craned her neck to get a better look.

  "She's sort of, uh, flashy, isn't she?" she said. "And very young."

  "Not so young," he said. "Her name is Susan Weiner. Everyone calls her Suzy. She's a secretary on the third floor. That's our Sales Department."

  Zoe watched Vince Delgado put his arm about Susan Weiner's waist and pull her close. They were both laughing.

  "Are they having an affair?" she asked Ernest Mittle.

  "She is," he said, eyes bright with malice, "but not with Vince. Mr. Kurnitz."

  She looked at him. "You're joking?"

  He held up a hand, palm outward.

  "I swear. But Zoe," he added nervously, "you've got to promise not to repeat this. Especially to Mrs. Kurnitz. Please. It could mean my job."

  "I won't say a word." She turned aga
in to stare at the blonde in the blue sweater. "Ernie, are you sure?"

  "It's all over the office," he said, nodding. "They think no one knows. Everyone knows."

  Zoe finished her wine. Mittle rose immediately, took their glasses, headed for the bar.

  "Refill time," he said gaily.

  While he was gone, Zoe watched the woman at the bar. She seemed very intimate with Vince Delgado, putting a hand on his arm, smiling at something he said, touching his face lightly, affectionately. They acted like lovers.

  Zoe saw them take their drinks, walk over to one of the vacant tables. Susan Weiner was short but full-bodied. Almost chubby. She had a heavy bosom for a woman of her size. Her hair was worn in frizzy curls. Zoe Kohler thought she looked cheap. She looked available. Soft and complaisant.

  Ernest came back with two more glasses of wine.

  "I still can't believe it," Zoe said. "She looks so involved with the man she's with."

  "Vince?" he said. "He's the 'beard.' That's what they call the other man who pretends to be the lover. He and Suzy and Mr. Kurnitz go out to lunch together, or dinner, or work late. If they're seen, everyone's supposed to think she's with Vince. She's not married, and he's divorced. But she's really with Mr. Kurnitz. Everyone in the office knows it."

  "That's so-so sordid," she burst out.

  He shrugged.

  "What does he see in her?" she demanded.

  "Suzy? She's really a very nice person. Pleasant and cheerful. Always ready to do someone a favor."

  "Apparently."

  "No, you know what I mean. I think if you met her, you'd like her. Zoe, I hope you won't breathe a word of this to Mrs. Kurnitz."

  "I won't say anything. I wouldn't hurt her like that. But she'll probably find out, eventually."

  "Probably. He just doesn't seem to care. Mr. Kurnitz, that is."

  "Ernie, why do men do things like that?"