“That place smelled of cats,” the Sergeant said. “I don’t care how often you change the litter box; you got cats, your apartment is going to smell of cats.”
They discussed how they were going to check the buses and cab Joan Yesell claimed to have taken on the murder night. Probably an impossible task, involving bus schedules, drivers’ time cards, and taxi trip-sheets, but it had to be done.
“You men write up reports on tonight’s questioning,” Delaney ordered. “I’ll do the same. Between the three of us, we should be able to recall everything.”
They pulled up in front of Delaney’s brownstone, but he made no movement to get out.
“All right,” he said, “let’s take a vote. Jason, was she telling the truth?”
“I think she’s clean, sir,” the officer said. “Mostly because I can’t see her having the muscle or the guts to pound in the skull of a guy she loved.”
“Sergeant?”
“I think she was telling the truth. The second go-around was a replay of the first. Either she’s one hell of an actress or she’s telling it like it was.”
“Yes,” Delaney said morosely, “I’m afraid both of you are right.”
“And besides,” Boone added, “when we were up in Brewster, Samuelson said he doubted if a suicidal type would go for a homicide.”
Delaney slowly stiffened. He turned to stare at the Sergeant.
“Lordy, lordy,” he said with a wobbly smile. “I do believe you just uttered the magic words.”
He got out of the car without further comment and trudged up the steps to the front door. He put his homburg and overcoat in the hall closet, then went into the living room. The girls were at the theater with Peter and Jeffrey, but Monica was home, simultaneously watching television and meticulously checking her Christmas card list against those they had received in return. He stooped to kiss her cheek.
“How did it go?” she asked him.
“Okay,” he said. “Tell you about it later. I’ve got a call to make and then some things to look up. I never get to see you anymore,” he complained.
“And whose fault is that?” she demanded.
It took him almost thirty minutes to locate Dr. Murray Walden, including a call to Deputy Thorsen to get the police psychiatrist’s unlisted number. He finally tracked down Walden at a big dinner-dance at the Americana. The doctor had to be paged.
“This better be important, Delaney,” the psychiatrist said. “You dragged me away from the best tango New York has seen since Valentino.”
“It is important. One question, but it’s crucial. And I’d like a yes or no answer.”
“That I can’t guarantee. I told you, in my business nothing is definite.”
“You guys are as bad as lawyers. All right. I’ll try anyway. We’ve got a subject with a history of suicide attempts. Four, to be exact. Is such a person capable of homicide?”
Silence.
“Hello?” Delaney said. “Walden? Are you there?”
“Yes, but let me get this straight. Is a suicidal type capable of homicide? Is that your question? The answer is yes. Under certain circumstances, anyone is capable of murder. But if you’re asking me if it’s probable, the answer is no. In fact, I’ve never heard of a suicidal type turning to homicide. That’s not to say it’s not possible.”
“Thank you very much, doctor,” Delaney said. “Go back to your tango.”
He spent another half-hour pulling certain reports and notes from the file cabinet. He laid all the documents on his desk, edges aligned and touching. He stared down at them with grim satisfaction, noting how they resembled pieces of that jigsaw puzzle, finally coming together and fitting.
He opened the door to the living room.
“Monica,” he called, “could you come in for a while?”
She looked up. “Oh-ho. Feeling guilty for neglecting me, are you?”
“Sure I am,” he said, smiling. “Also, I want your take on something.”
She came into the study and took the club chair facing his desk.
“My,” she said, “you look solemn.”
“Do I? Serious maybe, not solemn. Listen, this may take some time.” He hunched forward, forearms on his desk and told Monica of the night’s events.
“What do you think?” he asked after he had related Joan Yesell’s story.
“The poor girl,” Monica said slowly. “Were you hard on her, Edward?”
“As hard as I had to be. Does it sound to you like she’s telling the truth?”
“I can believe it. A vulnerable woman like that. Not getting any younger. A good-looking man telling her that he loves her. Edward, it was a romance, like she’s watched on TV. Maybe her last chance to have a close relationship with a man. And sex. If he didn’t offer to divorce his wife and marry her, I don’t think she would have insisted or even objected. Just being with him was so important to her.”
“That’s the way I see it,” he said, nodding. “And you’ve got to remember he was her doctor, giving her sympathy and understanding and confidence. A real father figure.”
“Transference,” Monica said. “That’s what they call it.”
“Whatever,” Delaney said. “Anyway, I think she’s innocent of the murder, and so do Boone and Jason. So that puts us back to square one—right? And we’ve still got the problem of the other set of footprints. But then, just before I got out of the car, Boone said something that triggered a memory. He reminded me that when we were up in Brewster, Samuelson had said that he didn’t think a suicidal personality was capable of homicide.”
“I don’t remember him saying that.”
“You were in the kitchen cleaning up when we were talking about it. Boone’s mentioning it reminded me of something. That call I made was to Doctor Murray Walden, the Department’s psychiatrist, a very brainy guy. He substantiated Samuelson’s comment: that it was extremely unlikely a potential suicide would turn to homicide.”
“Edward, why is that so important? It’s added evidence that Joan Yesell is innocent, isn’t it?”
“It’s more than that. Because when the Sergeant mentioned it, I remembered the meeting I had with Diane Ellerbee when she gave me the names of six of her husband’s patients—all presumably capable of murder. She said she was including Joan Yesell because suicide, when tried so often, often develops into homicidal mania. Just to check my memory, I dug out my notes on that conversation. And here it is.” He held up a sheet of paper. “That’s what she said. Now Diane is an experienced psychologist. Why should she say something like that when Samuelson and Walden say it’s a crock of shit?”
He looked at Monica steadily, seeing how her face tightened as she began to understand the full import of what he had just told her.
“Edward, are you suggesting …”
“I’m not suggesting anything; I’m stating it flatly with no doubts whatsoever: Diane Ellerbee knocked off her husband.”
“But you don’t—”
“Wait a minute,” he interrupted, holding up a palm. “Before you tell me I’m nuts, let me give you some background on this. Let’s start with my own stupidity in not seeing it sooner. About seventy-five percent of all murders are committed by the spouse, relatives, or friends of the victim. I’ve known that since the day I got my gold shield. But I forgot the percentages in this case. Why? Probably because Diane Ellerbee was so beautiful, so intelligent. She overwhelmed me. And, like an idiot, it never occurred to me to think of her as a vicious, cold-blooded killer.”
“But she couldn’t—”
“Hold on,” he interrupted again. “Let me finish. Neglecting the percentages wasn’t the worst of my stupidities; I neglected the obvious. Which, in this case, was her statement that she left Manhattan that night about six-thirty and got up to Brewster around eight. Who says so? She says so. Where’s the proof? There is no proof. And like the moron I am, I never even doubted her story, didn’t try to prove it out one way or the other.”
“That doesn’t mean s
he’s guilty.”
“No? Here’s the scenario as I see it:
“Simon Ellerbee really has a thing for this Joan Yesell. And he’s straight; he’s not scamming her. So he tells his wife he wants a divorce. I figure that happened maybe three weeks, a month before he was killed. Or maybe she found out about Yesell herself—who knows? But the idea of divorce really shakes her. He’s dumping the golden goddess for a wimp? She starts plotting.
“So on the murder night, as usual, she tells him she’ll drive up to Brewster early, and he can follow after he gets rid of his late patient who, Diane knows, is probably Yesell. Diane gets her car out of the garage, but she never leaves Manhattan. Maybe she drives around, but I have a feeling she parks somewhere on East Eighty-fourth, where she can see the door of the townhouse, and just sits and waits.
“Yesell is late that night and doesn’t show. But I figure Diane is in such a state that it doesn’t matter. I think she intended to kill the two of them—I really do. She wants to waltz in on them while they’re in each other’s arms. Then she’ll bash in their skulls with her trusty little hammer. Where she got the ball peen, I don’t know yet, but I’ll find out.
“Anyway, she’s got herself psyched up for murder, and when Yesell hasn’t shown up by, say, eight-thirty, Diane says to herself, the hell with it, I’m going to kill the man who betrayed me. Gets out of the car, plods through the rain, goes up to her husband’s office, and kills him. The fatal blows landed high on his head, but from the back. So he had turned away from her, not expecting death. Afterward she rolls him over, hammers out his eyes.
“Monica, let me get you a drink; you look a little pale.”
He went into the kitchen, brought back a bottle of Frascati and two glasses. Then he sat down again, and poured the wine.
“Was I too graphic? I’m sorry. But do you see any holes in the story? It hangs together, doesn’t it? Makes a crazy kind of logic?”
“I suppose,” Monica said hesitantly. “But why, Edward? Was it just the woman scorned?”
“That was part of it, sure, but there was more to it than that. I completely misjudged that woman. I thought her cold, always in control, always thinking before she acted. But now I believe that behind that façade is a very passionate woman.”
There were other things Delaney wanted to tell his wife. Why Diane Ellerbee had crushed her husband’s eyes, for instance. But he thought Monica, now looking forlorn and shaken, had heard enough gore and violence for one night.
“Let’s go watch some TV comedy,” he suggested. “Or just sit and talk. We haven’t had an evening together in a long time.”
She smiled wanly. “No, we haven’t. What are you going to do now, Edward? Arrest her?”
He shook his head. “I don’t have enough for that yet. Everything I told you is just supposition. We’ll have to try and come up with hard evidence. Maybe we will, maybe we won’t. But I can tell you one thing: That bloody lady is not going to walk away from this whistling a merry tune.”
25
EARLY ON THE MORNING of December 28th, a Saturday, Delaney called Boone and Jason and asked both men to come to the brownstone at 11:00 A.M. By the time they had arrived, he had assembled more reports, notes, and data he felt clearly pointed to the guilt of Dr. Diane Ellerbee.
He sat them down and went through his presentation again, much as he had related it to Monica the night before.
“As I see it,” he finished, “there’s no way we’re going to prove or disprove she went up to Brewster that night at the time she claimed. Unless an eyewitness comes forward—which is about as likely as a blizzard in July. But let’s assume she had the opportunity to waste him. That leaves the motive and method.”
“Seems to me you’ve got the motive, sir,” Boone said. “A wife being dumped for another woman. I’ve handled a dozen homicides like that.”
“Sure you have,” Delaney said. “Happens all the time. But I think there was more to it than that. This gets a little heavy, but bear with me. Here we have a beautiful young woman who’s enjoying all the perks that beautiful young women enjoy. Then she becomes Ellerbee’s student. He sees her potential and tells her that if she doesn’t use her brain, she’s nothing but a statue. Get it? He’s saying that her looks don’t mean damn-all; it’s just a lucky accident of birth. He’s not impressed by her beauty, he tells her, but he’s impressed by her brain and convinces her that she’s got to use it if she wants a fulfilling life. Okay so far?”
“He’s trying to improve her,” Jason Two said. “Like we talked about before.”
“Right! He’s telling her that beauty is only skin deep. She goes along with that, makes a happy marriage and a successful career. Then, suddenly, she finds out he’s got eyes for another woman. Get that—he’s got eyes for another woman.”
The Sergeant said, “So you think that’s why she put his eyes out?”
“Had to be,” Delaney said definitely. “Not only was he being unfaithful to her, but he was going back on everything he had told her. So, after he was dead, she blinded him. Now you’ll never find anyone more beautiful than me, you son of a bitch—that’s what she was saying.”
“Hey,” Jason said, “that’s one crazy lady.”
“Maybe she was when she did it,” Delaney admitted, “but after it was done she covered up like an Einstein and diddled us with no trouble at all. I mean she was thinking every step of the way, acting like the outraged widow seeking justice and making a great show of cooperating with us any way she could. No dummy she.”
“We’re never going to hang it on her,” Boone said. “What have we got?”
“It’s all circumstantial,” Delaney said. “And thin at that. But we’ve got to try to flesh it out. Here’s what I want you men to do today … You can divide it up any way you like. First, check out that Manhattan garage where the Ellerbees kept their cars when they were in town. Find out if the garage does any servicing or repairs. If so, did they lose a ball peen hammer in the last three months? If that doesn’t work, go up to Brewster. They keep that Jeep station wagon up there; they must have a local garage or gas station doing their servicing. Ask the same question: Are you missing a ball peen hammer? I’ve got a couple of things I want to check out. Let’s all meet back here at, say, nine o’clock tonight and compare notes. Boone, you look doubtful. Aren’t you convinced she did it?”
“Oh, I’m convinced,” the Sergeant said mournfully. “After listening to Joan Yesell’s story, Diane becomes the number one suspect. The only thing that bothers me is that I think she’s going to walk.”
“Jason?”
“Yeah, I think the lady killed her husband. But like the Sergeant says, pinning her is something else again.”
“We’ll see,” Delaney said stolidly. “We’ll see.”
After they left, he went into the kitchen to fortify himself. The women had gone shopping and then planned to catch the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall. So Delaney had the house to himself. More important, he had the refrigerator to himself.
There was a marvelous loaf of marbled rye: half-rye, half-pumpernickel baked in a twist. With thick slices of smoked turkey, chips of kosher dill pickle, and a dousing of Tiger sauce, a great condiment he had discovered. At first taste it was sweet-and-sour. A moment later, sweat broke out on your scalp and steam came out of your ears.
He took that sandwich and a frosty bottle of Tuborg into the study and ate while he worked.
What was bothering him was this: In the first interview with Diane Ellerbee, she stated that she had noticed no recent change in her husband’s behavior. Then, days later, she had come over to Delaney’s brownstone and said yes, on second thought, she realized his manner had altered.
Now what in hell caused her to change her mind?
It took him almost a half-hour to find it, but find it he did. When he first phoned Carol Judd, he had suggested she call Diane Ellerbee to check him out. Carol had called, and met with him—at which time she had described the changes in
Dr. Simon’s personality; how he had started to wear a flower in his lapel.
Comparing the dates of his meeting with Judd and Diane’s visit to the brownstone, Delaney guessed what had happened. But he had to confirm it. He dialed Carol Judd’s number and, because he was a superstitious man, he told himself that if she was home, it would be a good omen and his theory would prove out.
She was home.
“Miss Judd?” he boomed. “Edward X. Delaney here.”
“Oh, hi, Mr. Delaney. That was a nice lunch we had. When are we going to do it again?”
He laughed. “It looks like I owe you a lot of lunches. But meanwhile there’s one little question you can answer for me. Remember when I first called you, I suggested you check with Diane Ellerbee to make sure I wasn’t just a telephone freak.”
“Sure, I remember that. I called and she said you were okay and I could talk to you.”
“Uh-huh. Now for my question: Did she call you back later and ask you what questions I had asked?”
Silence for a second. Then: “Let’s see … I think she called the next day. She was trying to find me a job, you know. We talked about that for a while and … Yes, you’re right; she wanted to know what questions you had asked.”
“And you told her,” Delaney said, “that I had asked if you had noticed any change in her husband’s personality. And you told her what you told me—right?”
“I really can’t remember, but I suppose I did. Shouldn’t I have?”
“Of course you should!” he said heartily. “Thank you for your help, Carol. And I was serious about having another lunch. May I call you?”
“Anytime,” she said breezily.
He hung up, smiling coldly. That was some brainy lady. Not Carol Judd, but Diane Ellerbee. When she heard that he had asked if the victim’s manner had changed, she realized he had probably asked the same question of Joan Yesell and Sylvia Mae Otherton and received similar answers.
But she, the wife, who should have been the most sensitive to her husband’s moods, had said, oh, no, he hadn’t changed. So, having lied and fearing that Delaney would pick up on it, she had hiked herself to the brownstone and confessed: Oops, I made a mistake; he had become moody in the past year.
Fourth Deadly Sin Page 33
