Fourth Deadly Sin

by Lawrence Sanders

  “Very wise,” Delaney said.

  They stepped into the receptionist’s office, and both men noted that Dr. Diane Ellerbee double-locked and chained the door behind them.

  “Ma’am,” Boone said, “is the floor plan of this office the same as—uh, the one upstairs?”

  “You haven’t seen it?” she asked, surprised. “Yes, my husband’s and my office are identical. Not in decorations or furnishings, of course, but the layout of the rooms is the same.”

  She ushered them into her private office, leaving open the connecting door to the receptionist’s office. She got them seated in two cretonne-covered armchairs with low backs.

  “Not too comfortable, are they?” she said—the first time she had smiled: a shadow of a smile. “Deliberately so. I don’t want my young patients nodding off. Those chairs keep them twisting and shifting. I think it’s productive.”

  “Doctor Ellerbee,” Boone said solemnly, leaning forward, “I’d like to express the condolences of Mr. Delaney and myself on the tragic death of your husband. From all accounts he was a remarkable man. We sympathize with you on your loss.”

  “Thank you,” she said, sitting behind her desk like a queen. “I appreciate your sympathy. I would appreciate even more your finding the person who killed my husband.”

  During this exchange, Delaney had been examining the office, trying not to make his inspection too obvious.

  The room seemed to him excessively neat, almost to the point of sterility. Walls were painted a cream color, the carpet a light beige. There was one ficus tree (which looked artificial) in a rattan basket. The only wall decorations were two framed enlargements of Rorschach blots that looked as abstract as Japanese calligraphy.

  “Both of us,” Boone continued, “have read your statement to the investigating officers several times: We don’t want to ask you to go over it again. But I would like to say that occasionally, after a shocking event like this, witnesses recall additional details days or even months later. If you are able to add anything to your statement, it would help if you’d contact us immediately.”

  “I certainly hope it’s not going to take months to find my husband’s killer,” she said sharply.

  They looked at her expressionlessly, and she gave a short cough of laughter without mirth.

  “I know I’ve been a pain in the ass to the police,” she said. “And so has Henry—my father-in-law, Henry Ellerbee. But I have not been able to restrain my anger. All my professional life I have been counseling patients on how to cope with the injustices of this world. But now that they have struck me, I find it difficult to endure. Perhaps this experience will make me a better therapist. But I must tell you in all honesty that at the moment I feel nothing but rage and a desire for vengeance—emotions I have never felt before and which I seem unable to control.”

  “That’s very understandable, ma’am,” Boone said. “Believe me, we’re just as anxious as you to identify the killer. That’s why we asked for this meeting, hoping we might learn something from you that will aid our investigation. First of all, would it hurt too much to talk about your husband?”

  “No,” she said decisively. “I’ll be thinking about Simon and talking about Simon for the rest of my life.”

  “What kind of a man was he?”

  “A very superior human being. Kind, gentle, with a marvelous sympathy for other people’s unhappiness. I think everyone in the profession who knew him or met him recognized how gifted he was. In addition to that, he had a first-class mind. He could get to the cause of a psychiatric problem so fast that many of his associates called it instinct.”

  As she spoke, Delaney, while listening, observed her closely. Ivar Thorsen and Monica had been right: Diane Ellerbee was a regal beauty.

  A softly sharp profile suitable for a coin. Sky-blue eyes that seemed to change hue with her temper. A direct, challenging gaze. A porcelain complexion. A generous mouth that promised smiles and kisses.

  She was wearing a severely tailored suit of pin-striped flannel, but a tent couldn’t have concealed her figure. She didn’t move; she flowed.

  What was so disconcerting, almost frightening, was the woman’s completeness. She wasn’t a Valkyrie, he decided; she was a Brancusi sculpture—something serene that wooed the eye with its form and soothed with its surface. “Marvelous” was the word that came to his mind—meaning something of wonder. Supernatural.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” she said, fiddling with a ballpoint pen on her desk and looking down at it. “I don’t want to make Simon sound like a perfect man. He wasn’t, of course. He had his moods. Fits of silence. Rare but occasional outbursts of anger. Most of the time he was a sunny, placable man. When he was depressed, it was usually because he felt he was failing a patient. He set for himself very high goals indeed, and when he felt he was falling short of his potential, it bothered him.”

  “Did you notice any change in him in, say, the last six months or a year?” Boone asked.

  “Change?”

  “In his manner, his personality. Did he act like a man with worries or, maybe, like a man who had received serious threats against his life?”

  She pondered that for a moment. “No,” she said finally, “I noticed no change.”

  “Doctor Ellerbee,” Boone said earnestly, “we are currently investigating your husband’s patients, under the terms of an agreement negotiated between Doctor Samuelson and the NYPD. Are you familiar with that compromise?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Julie told me about it.”

  “Do you think it possible that one of the patients may have been the assailant?”

  “Yes, it’s possible.”

  “Have you yourself ever been attacked by one of your patients?”

  “Occasionally.”

  “And how do you handle that?”

  “You must realize,” she said with a wry smile, “that most of my patients are children. Still, my first reaction is to protect myself. And I am a strong woman. I refuse to let myself be bullied or suffer injury.”

  “You fight back?”

  “Exactly. You’d be surprised at how effective that technique can be.”

  “Did you and your husband talk business when you were alone together?”

  “Business?” she said, and the smile became broader and more charming. “Yes, we talked business—if you mean discussing our cases. We did it constantly. He sought my reactions and advice and I sought his. Sergeant, this is not a profession that ends when you lock your office door for the night.”

  “The reason I asked, ma’am, is this: Your husband had a great number of patients, particularly if you include all he’d discharged. It’s going to take a lot of time and a lot of work to investigate them all. We were hoping you might be able to help us speed up the process. If your husband discussed his cases with you—as you say he did—would you be willing to pick out those patients you feel might be violent?”

  She was silent, staring at them both, while her long, tapered fingers played with the pen on the desk top.

  “I don’t know,” she said worriedly. “It’s a troublesome question, involving medical ethics. I’m not sure how far I should go on this. Sergeant, I’m not going to say yes or no at this moment. I think I better get some other opinions. Julie Samuelson’s, for one. If I acted on impulse, I’d say, hell, yes, I’ll do anything I can to help. But I don’t want to do the wrong thing. Can I get back to you? It shouldn’t take more than a day or so.”

  “The sooner the better,” Boone said, then glanced swiftly at Delaney, signaling that he was finished.

  Delaney, who was pleased with the way the Sergeant had conducted the interrogation, hunched forward in his chair, hands clasped between spread knees, and stared at Diane Ellerbee.

  “Doctor,” he said, “I have a question—a very personal question you may find offensive. But it’s got to be asked. Was your husband faithful to you?”

  She threw the ballpoint pen across the desk. It fell to the floor, and she did
n’t bother to retrieve it. They saw her spine stiffen, jaw tighten. Those sky-blue eyes seemed to darken. She glared at Edward X. Delaney.

  “My husband was faithful,” she said loudly. “Faithful from the day we were married. I realize people say that the wife is always the last to know, but I swear to you I know my husband was faithful. We worked at our marriage, and it was a happy one. I was faithful to Simon, and he was faithful to me.”

  “No children?” Delaney said.

  She gave a slight grimace—pain, distaste?

  “You go for the jugular, don’t you?” she said harshly. “No, no children. I’m incapable. Is that going to help you find my husband’s killer?”

  Delaney rose to his feet, and a second later, Sergeant Boone jumped up.

  “Doctor Ellerbee,” Delaney said, “I want to thank you for your cooperation. I can’t promise that what you’ve told us will aid our investigation—but you never know. It would help a great deal if you’d be willing to name those of your husband’s patients you feel might be capable of homicidal violence.”

  “I’ll talk to Julie,” she said, nodding. “If he approves, I’ll do it. Either way, I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”

  Boone handed over his card. “I can be reached at this number, Doctor Ellerbee, or you can leave a message. Thank you for your help, ma’am.”

  Outside, they walked west to York Avenue, fists jammed into their pockets, shoulders hunched against the cutting wind.

  “Nice job,” Delaney said. “You handled that just right.”

  “A beautiful, beautiful woman,” Boone said. “But what did we get? Zilch.”

  “I’m not so sure. It was interesting. And yes, she’s a beautiful woman.”

  “You think she was telling the truth, sir? About her husband being faithful?”

  “Why not? You’re faithful to Rebecca, aren’t you? And I know I’m faithful to Monica. Not all husbands sleep around. Sergeant, I think you better make an appointment for us with Doctor Samuelson as soon as possible. Maybe we can convince him to tell her to pick out the crazies from her husband’s patient list.”

  “She sure seems to rely a hell of a lot on his opinion.”

  “Oh, you noticed that too, did you?”

  They parted on York. Boone headed uptown to his apartment; Delaney walked down to his brownstone.

  He had left a note for Monica, telling her that he might be late and to go ahead and have dinner if she was hungry. But she had waited for him, keeping a casserole of veal and onions warm in the oven.

  While they ate, he told her about the interview with Dr. Diane Ellerbee. He wanted to get her reaction.

  “She sounds like a woman under very heavy pressure,” Monica said when Delaney finished describing the interview.

  “Oh, hell, yes. The death of her husband has gotten to her—no doubt of that. That’s why she’s been leaning on the Department; at least it gives her the feeling that she’s doing something. Both Abner and I thought she put unusual reliance on Doctor Samuelson. Granted that he’s the president of an important professional association, still it sounded like she doesn’t want to make a move without consulting him. A curious relationship. Abner is going to set up a meet with Samuelson. Maybe we’ll learn more.”

  “Do you believe her about her husband being faithful?”

  “I have no reason not to believe,” he said cautiously.

  “I’ve never heard even a whisper of gossip about them,” Monica said. “Things like that usually get out—one way or another.”

  “I suppose so. But I think Diane Ellerbee is a very complex woman. She’s going to take a lot of study.”

  “You don’t suspect her, do you, Edward?”

  He sighed. “Oh, hell—I suspect everyone. You know I go by percentages, and most homicides are committed by relatives or close friends. So, sure—the widow has got to be a suspect. But up to now, I admit, there isn’t an iota of evidence to make me doubt her innocence. Well, we’re just beginning.”

  He helped Monica clean up and put the dishes in the washer. Then he went into the study, poured himself a small Rémy, and put on his reading glasses. He wrote out a complete report of the interrogation of Dr. Diane Ellerbee and slid it into the file folder neatly labeled with her name.

  He was interrupted twice. The first phone call came from Boone, who said that he had made an appointment with Samuelson for 7:00 A.M. the following morning.

  “Seven o’clock! I’m just dragging myself out of bed at that hour.”

  “Me, too,” Boone said mournfully. “But these psychiatrists apparently start the day early—to take patients before they go off to work.”

  “Well, all right, we’ll make it at seven. What’s the address?”

  The second call was from Jason, who had just returned to the city from Brewster.

  “No ball peen hammer, sir,” he reported. “The handyman says he doesn’t own one and never has. I think he’s telling the truth.”

  “Probably,” Delaney agreed. “It was just a gamble and had to be checked out.”

  “And the victim wasn’t very mechanical,” Jason went on. “He owned maybe a tack hammer and a screwdriver—five-and-ten tools like that. Whenever any repairs had to be done, even like changing a washer, the caretaker was called in.”

  “You got to see the house?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. Not as big as I thought it would be, but really beautiful. Even with all the trees bare, you can imagine what that place must look like in spring and summer. Plenty of land with a sweet little brook running through. Patio, garden, swimming pool—the whole bit.”

  “It sure sounds great,” Delaney said. “I’ve got to get up there and take a look. Jason, we’ve got Parnell working on the financial backgrounds of the two Ellerbees and Doctor Samuelson. What I’d like you to do is dig into their personal backgrounds. Ages, where born, living relatives, education, professional careers, and so forth. You can get most of that stuff from Who’s Who, records of colleges, universities and hospitals, yearbooks of professional societies, and any other sources you can think of. Dig as deep as you think necessary.”

  “Well … sure,” Jason said hesitantly. “But I’ve never done anything like that before, sir.”

  “Then it’s time you learned. Don’t lean on anyone too hard, but don’t let them fluff you off either. It’ll be a good chance to make contacts. You never know when you might be needing them again.”

  “Get started on it in the morning. When do you want this stuff, sir?”

  “Yesterday,” Delaney said. “Get a good night’s sleep.”

  A little after midnight, in the upstairs bedroom, he went in to shower first, leaving Monica brushing her hair at the dressing table. She came into the open bathroom after he finished, catching him sucking in his gut and examining his body in the full-length mirror.

  “Now I know you met Diane Ellerbee today,” she said.

  He gave her a sour grin. “You really know how to hurt a guy, don’t you?”

  She laughed and patted his bare shoulder. “You’ll do for me, pops.”

  “Pops?” he said in mock outrage. “I’ll pop you!”

  They giggled, wrestled a moment, kissed.

  Later, when they were in their beds, he said, “Well, she is a beautiful woman. Incredible. Correct me if I’m wrong, but can’t great physical beauty be a curse?”

  “How so?”

  “It seems to me that a young woman who starts out tremendously lovely would have no incentive to develop her mind or talents or skills. I mean people worship her automatically. Some rich guy grabs her off and buys her everything she wants—so where’s her ambition to be anything? She thinks she deserves her good fortune, and her looks will last forever.”

  “Well, that obviously didn’t happen to Diane Ellerbee. She’s a respected professional and she’s got brains to spare. Maybe some beautiful women go the route you said, but not her. She’s made her own good fortune. I told you I heard her speak, and the woman is brilliant.”


  “You don’t think there’s something cold and detached about her?”

  “Cold and detached? No, I didn’t get that impression at all.”

  “Maybe it was a poor choice of words. Forceful and self-assured. Will you agree to that?”

  “Yes,” Monica said slowly, “I think that’s fair. But of course a psychotherapist has to be self-assured—or at least give that impression. You’re not going to get many patients if you seem as neurotic as they are.”

  “You’re probably right,” he admitted. “But something about her disturbs me. It’s the same feeling I get when I see a great painting or sculpture at the Met. It’s pleasing visually, but there’s something mysterious there. I’ve never been able to figure it out. I can look at a painting and really admire it, but sometimes it saddens me, too. It makes me think of death.”

  “Great beauty makes you think of death?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Did you ever consider seeking professional help?”

  “Never,” he said, laughing. “You’re my therapist.”

  “Do you think Diane Ellerbee is more beautiful than I am?”

  “Absolutely not,” he said immediately. “To me, you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”

  “You really know what’s good for you, don’t you, buster?”

  “You better believe it,” he said, reaching out for her.

  8

  DR. SAMUELSON’S APARTMENT WAS on the 18th floor of the co-op at 79th Street and Madison Avenue. His office was on the ground floor of the same building. It was not unusual for him to descend to work in the automatic elevator, wearing a holey wool cardigan and worn carpet slippers.

  Delaney and Boone huddled under the marquee of the building for a moment, trying to keep out of a sleety rain that had been falling all night.

  “Just for the fun of it,” Delaney said, “let’s both of us go after this guy. Short, punchy questions with no logical sequence. Biff, bang, pow! We’ll come at him from all angles.”

  “So he won’t be able to get set?” Boone asked.

  “Partly that. But mostly because he got me up so early on a miserable morning.”