Fiddlers

by Ed McBain

  But mention dope…

  Fortified by the La Paglia drug bust yesterday, they were still pursuing the drug-related angle…

  … and immediately the faces went blank.

  Dope was news to all of them.

  Except to Jenny Cho, of course, who had admitted that Alicia did ‘Some li’l pot, you know?’

  But that was earlier today, and this was now, and the word had gone out, and the party line had changed.

  Drug use?

  Alicia?

  No, no. Smiling. Bowing. Ladies all over the place looking up when the detectives mentioned drugs. This couldn’t be too good for business, all these nice city-slick ladies with their smooth sleek legs and their skirts pulled up over their thighs, hearing the word ‘drugs’ bandied about as if this was some street corner near a playground someplace instead of a civilized establishment where you could even get a bikini wax. What was the world coming to?

  The world was coming to a dead end.

  Until they visited a place called Cherry Blossom Nails.

  * * * *

  They knew the minute they stepped through the doorway that they weren’t supposed to be here to witness whatever was going down. There was that silent electric buzz that indicated something illegal was happening here. Eyes flashing. People caught in the act, though all that seemed to be happening was innocent manicures and pedicures. They flashed tin simultaneously, and marched straight to the back of the shop, the manager rushing along behind them, waving her hands in the air, yelling that a waxing was in progress, and then turning abruptly and running for the front of the shop when she saw they were about to open one of two closed doors in a narrow passageway.

  Genero ran after her.

  Parker threw open the door.

  A small Asian man was sitting behind a small table upon which rested what appeared to be a one-kilo brick of cocaine.

  The detectives had just stepped in shit, as the saying goes.

  * * * *

  On the drive back to the city, he told her what the options for this evening were.

  ‘I have an errand to run,’ he said. ‘We can either have dinner before or after, take your choice.’

  ‘What kind of errand?’

  ‘Someone I have to see.’

  ‘I’m not hungry yet, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So why don’t we make it a late dinner?’

  ‘Good. You can wait for me at the hotel.’

  ‘What time will you be leaving?’

  ‘Around seven.’

  ‘I’ll take a little nap.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said.

  ‘What time will you be back?’

  ‘Eight, eight thirty.’

  ‘Will we be going out?’

  ‘Absolutely. Celebrate.’

  ‘Oh? What?’

  ‘Us,’ he said.

  * * * *

  Jenny Cho told them Alicia was nothing but a mew.

  They didn’t know what she meant at first.

  She was trying to say that no one would have killed her for her minor role in what amounted to a penny-ante drug operation.

  ‘She on’y a mew,’ Jenny insisted.

  They finally realized she was telling them Alicia was ‘only a mule.’ No, not a so-called swallower, who ingested drugs packed into latex gloves in order to transport the contraband through customs, not that kind of mule. Nor even a so-called stuffer, who inserted similarly packed drugs into vagina or anus with the same end in mind, you should pardon the pun. Just your everyday, garden-variety mule, a mere delivery boy, or girl in this case, woman actually, because she’d been fifty-five years old, even though Jenny Cho called her a delivery boy, a mew, a mule.

  Jenny would not tell them the source of the cocaine Alicia delivered to her Blossom salons on her regularly scheduled visits. Jenny knew that in the business of drug trafficking or distribution, there were worse things than arrest and imprisonment. A garrulous person could oftimes meet with a sudden and untimely demise. But she did not think Alicia’s death had anything to do with her activities as a courier. She was ‘ony smaw potatoes,’ she said. ‘A deli’ry boy. A mew.’

  The bust itself was small potatoes.

  This wasn’t the French Connection, or even the Pizza Connection. This wasn’t billions of dollars of heroin or cocaine being smuggled into the United States with the illegal proceeds being laundered via many different methods and through many different countries. This was merely a Korean immigrant, a self-made woman in a land of opportunity, an enterprising woman who’d seen a way to earn a few extra bucks by funneling dope through her shops, which was safer and more convenient, after all, than having to buy it ‘all over the street, anyplace.’

  Her arrest put an end to her success story.

  But it left open the question of who had murdered Alicia Hendricks and Max Sobolov.

  * * * *

  The campus lights were spaced some twenty feet apart. This meant that there were pools of illumination under each lamppost, and then stretches of utter darkness, and then another splash of light as the path meandered its way between buildings and benches toward the sidewalk and the nighttime city beyond.

  Christine Langston had packed the papers for the spot test she’d administered during her three o’clock class on the Romantic Poets, and was heading off campus, matching her stride to the areas of darkness and light, making a game of it, bulging briefcase swinging in her right hand. She was a woman in her late sixties, but spry as a goat, as she was fond of saying, and alert to every nuance of campus sound. This was the middle of June, and the cicadas were at it hot and heavy, as were the students, she suspected, mating behind and on top of every errant blade of grass.

  In the far distance, she could see the beckoning street lamps on Hall Avenue. She would catch an express bus there, and be whisked downtown to her apartment in sixteen minutes flat. Mortimer would be waiting there for her, mixed drink ready, dinner heating in the kitchen. She would report to him on her day, and listen to his publishing-industry atrocity stories, and then they would have their dinner and perhaps go down for a stroll later on, walking hand in hand in the quiet streets outside the apartment they shared. And yet later, they would…

  ‘Professor Langston?’ the voice said.

  She had just stepped into the circle of light under one of the lampposts. Peering into the darkness beyond, she asked, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Me,’ he said. ‘Chuck.’

  And shot her twice in the face.

  5.

  MORTIMER SHEA WAS wearing a bulky cardigan sweater with a shawl collar. He was smoking a pipe. He was bald except for a halo of hair above and around his ears and the back of his head. A manuscript sat on the desk before him in his corner office at Armitage Books. The place seemed Dickensian to Kling and Brown, but they’d never been inside a publishing house before. Shea’s title here was Publisher.

  There were also two framed photographs on his desk. One showed a rather horse-faced young woman, the other showed a similarly horse-faced older woman. It took the detectives a moment to realize they were not mother and daughter, but instead the same unattractive woman at different stages of her life.

  ‘Christine,’ Shea informed them. ‘The one on the left was taken while she was still in college. The other only last summer. But there’s the same vibrant love of life in each photo.’

  ‘Got any idea who might’ve wished her harm?’ Brown asked. Standing there big and black and scowling, he sounded and looked as if he might be accusing Shea of the crime; actually, he simply wanted to know if Christine Langston had any enemies that Shea knew of.

  ‘At any university, there are interdepartmental jealousies, rivalries. But I sincerely doubt any of Christine’s colleagues could have done something like this.’

  How about you? Kling wondered.

  Shea was a man in his early seventies, still robust, clear-eyed. The super of his building had told them the lady - meaning Christine - had moved in with him around Chris
tmas time. The super said they seemed like a nice couple.

  ‘How long did you know her?’ Kling asked.

  ‘I met her four years ago. We published a book of hers. I edited it.’

  ‘What sort of book?’

  ‘An appreciation of Byron.’ Shea paused. “Do you know who I mean?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kling said.

  ‘You’d be surprised how many people don’t know who Byron was. Or Shakespeare, for that matter. In one of her classes last week, Christine asked her students if they were familiar with the words “To be or not to be.” Christine asked them to identify the source, and extend the quotation if they could. Eight students in the class. What would you guess their answers were?’

  The detectives waited.

  ‘Four of the eight couldn’t identify the source at all. Three of them said the source was Hamlet. The eighth said Romeo and Juliet. Six people couldn’t extend the quotation at all. Two people could add only, “That is the question.” One student told her after class that it would have been a lot easier if Christine had given them a quote from a movie. “To be or not to be,” can you imagine? Only the greatest soliloquy ever written for the English-speaking stage!’ Shea shook his head in despair. ‘Sometimes, she would come home weeping.’

  ‘When did you start living together?’ Kling asked.

  ‘Well, almost immediately. That is to say, we kept our own apartments, but de facto we were living together. She didn’t give up her place and move in with me until last Christmas.’

  ‘When’s the last time you saw her alive, Mr. Shea?’ Brown asked.

  ‘Yesterday morning. When she left for work. We had breakfast together and then… she was gone.’

  ‘What were you doing last night around eight o’clock?’ Kling asked.

  Shea said nothing for a moment. Then he said, ‘Is this the scene where I ask if I’m a suspect?’

  ‘This isn’t a scene, sir,’ Kling said.

  ‘I was here in the office. Working on this very manuscript,’ Shea said, and lightly tapped the pages on his desk. ‘Dreadful, I might add.’

  ‘Anyone here with you?’

  ‘Any number of people. We work late in publishing.’

  ‘What my partner means…”

  ‘Did anyone see me here? I believe Freddie Anders stopped in at one point. You might ask him to corroborate. His office is just down the hall.’

  ‘What time was that? When he stopped in?’

  ‘I believe it was around six thirty, seven.’

  ‘Anyone see you here at eight, Mr. Shea?’

  ‘Oh dear. Now we have the scene where I ask if I need a lawyer, isn’t that right?’

  ‘You don’t need any lawyer,’ Brown said. ‘We have to ask these questions.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Shea said. ‘But to set the record straight, I didn’t leave here until ten last night. When I got to the apartment, the police were already there, informing me that Christine had been shot and killed. For your information, I loved her enormously. In fact, we planned to be married in the fall. I had no reason to kill her, and I did not kill her. And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to leave.’

  ‘Thanks for your time,’ Kling said.

  Shea turned back to the manuscript on his desk.

  * * * *

  ‘Everybody’s always innocent,’ Brown said. ‘Nobody ever did anything. Catch ‘em with the bloody hatchet in their hands, they say, “This ain’t my hatchet, this is my uncle’s hatchet.” Wonder anybody’s in jail at all, so many innocent people around.’

  ‘You think he was lying?’ Kling asked.

  ‘Actually, I think he was telling the truth. But he had no reason to get all huffy that way. We do have to ask the goddamn questions.’

  The car’s air conditioner wasn’t working, and the windows, front and back, were wide open. The noonday traffic sounds were deafening, discouraging conversation. They rode in silence, in stifling heat.

  ‘Artie,’ Kling said at last, ‘I got a problem.’

  Brown turned from the wheel to look at him. Kling kept staring straight ahead through the windshield.

  ‘I think Sharyn and I may be breaking up,’ he said.

  His last words were almost lost in the baffle of city traffic. Brown always looked as if he were scowling, but this time he really was. He turned to Kling again, briefly, scowling in reprimand, or disbelief, or merely because he wasn’t sure he had heard him correctly.

  ‘I thought she was cheating on me,’ Kling said. ‘I followed her.’

  ‘She’d never cheat on you in a million years, man.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘So what the hell’s wrong with you? You go tailin the woman you love?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Playin cops and robbers, the woman you love.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Where’s this at now? Where’d you leave it?’

  ‘She doesn’t want to talk yet. She says I hurt her too much.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you did! I ever go followin Caroline, she’d put me in the hospital.’

  ‘I know.’

  Brown was shaking his head now. ‘Big detective, what’s wrong with you, man?’

  ‘She thinks… Artie, can I say this?’

  ‘How do I know what you’re gonna say before you say it?’

  He sounded suddenly angry. As if, by betraying Sharyn’s trust, Kling had somehow betrayed his trust as well. Something was sounding a warning note. Kling almost backed off. He took a deep breath.

  ‘She thinks I didn’t trust her because…”

  Brown turned from the wheel.

  ‘Because she’s black,’ Kling said.

  ‘Well?’ Brown said. ‘Is that the reason?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Then why does she think so?’

  ‘That’s what I’m asking you, Artie.’

  ‘What, exactly, are you asking me, Bert? Are you asking me would a black woman think her white partner who followed her was unconsciously harboring the thought that all blacks are devious and deceitful and not to be trusted?’

  ‘Well, no, I…’

  ‘I’m your partner, too, Bert. Do you think I’m devious, deceitful, and not to be trusted?’ ‘

  ‘Come on, Artie.’

  ‘So what are you asking me, Bert?’

  ‘I guess I’m asking… I don’t know what I’m asking.’

  ‘I never dated a white woman in my life,’ Brown said.

  Kling nodded.

  ‘Only white men I really know are on the squad. I trust them like they were my own brothers.’

  Heat ballooned into the car. The traffic sounds were deafening.

  ‘You’re asking me will it work, isn’t that it? You’re asking me will black and white ever work? I’m telling you I don’t know. I’m saying there’s centuries here, Bert. Too damn many centuries. I’m telling you I hope so. I hope you find a way, Bert. There’s more than just you and Sharyn here, man, you know what I’m saying? There’s more.’

  He nodded, looked at Kling one more time, and then turned back to the road and the traffic ahead, hunkering over the wheel, still nodding.

  * * * *

  Professor Duncan Knowles was wearing a purple butterfly bow tie patterned with little white daisies. He looked as if he might be ready to take off into the wind. Lavender button-down shirt to complement the tie. Tan linen suit. Sitting behind his corner-window desk, mid-morning sunshine setting the campus outside ablaze in golden green.

  ‘A terrible thing,’ he told the detectives. ‘Terrible. What happened to Christine, of course, but also terrible for the department and for Baldwin itself.’

  Knowles was the head of Baldwin University’s English Department. Kling hoped he wasn’t equating Christine Langston’s murder with the school’s reputation. Brown was wondering where he’d bought the big bow tie. He was wondering how he’d look in a similar tie. Wondering if his wife, Caroline, would go for him in a tie like that one.

  �
�A big-city campus,’ Knowles said, ‘you might expect unfortunate incidents such as this one

  Unfortunate incidents, Kling thought.

  ‘… but security here at Baldwin is unusually good. We’ve never had anything like this happen before. Never in our history. No one has ever wandered in from outside, intent on mischief.’

  ‘But someone did,’ Brown said. ‘Last night.’

  ‘Exactly my point,’ Knowles said. ‘This is terrible for the school. Well, look at these,’ he said, and slapped the palm of his hand onto the morning newspapers spread over his desktop. ‘Christine was murdered last night, and already the newspapers are in a feeding frenzy. Look at this headline. “Are Our Campuses Safe?” A single incident…”

  Incident, Kling thought.

  ‘… and they’re making it sound like an epidemic’

  ‘What we’re trying to do,’ Brown said, ‘is find some link between Christine’s murder and two other cases we’re investi…”

  ‘Oh, yes, and don’t think the papers aren’t making hay of that as well. “The Glock Killer”! Making him sound like Jack the Ripper. Three murders coincidentally…”

  ‘We don’t think they’re coincidences,’ Brown said.

  ‘There must be thousands of such weapons in this city…’

  ‘No, the same gun was used in each of the murders.’

  ‘Well, that’s beyond me,’ Knowles said, and spread his arms like wings, enforcing the notion that his huge bow tie might indeed be a propeller. Brown still wondered where he’d bought it.

  ‘We have the other victims’ names,’ Kling said, and reached into his inside jacket pocket for his notebook. ‘It’s unlikely any of them were students of hers at any time…”

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Well… their ages, for one thing.’ He had opened the notebook now, and was consulting it. ‘Or did she teach any adult night classes?’

  ‘No. Well, she taught one class at night, yes. But that was a seminar. And these were young students as well. She taught three day classes a week, you see, two hours for each class. One on Modern Poetry, and two on the Romantic Poets. Those would have been Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, and Byron. The course was divided into two sections.’