Lullaby

by Ed McBain

A: What are you pursuing here, Mr Carella?

  Q: Let me level with you. Your client . . .

  A: (from Mr Proctor) Go hide the silver, Ralph.

  Q: Well, I'm happy for a little levity here . . .

  A: (from Mr Proctor) You either laugh or you cry, am I right?

  Q: I'm glad you have a sense of humor.

  A: One thing you develop in the slammer is a good sense of humor.

  Q: I'm happy to hear that, but I don't think there's anything funny about a dead six-month-old baby.

  A: (from Mr Angelini) So that's the case.

  Q: That's the case.

  A: Maybe we ought to pack up and go home, Martin.

  Q: Well, Mr Proctor isn't going anywhere, as you know. If you mean you'd like him to quit answering my questions, fine. But as I was about to say . . .

  A: Give me one good reason why I should permit him to continue.

  Q: Because if he didn't kill that baby and her sitter . . .

  A: He didn't. Flatly and unequivocally.

  Q: Before you even ask him, huh?

  A: My client is not a murderer. Period.

  Q: Well, I'm glad you're so certain of that, Mr Angelini. But as I was saying, I wish you'd permit your client to convince us he's clean. We're looking for a place to hang our hats, that's the truth. Two people are dead, and we've got your client in the building doing a felony. So let him convince us he didn't do a couple of murders, too. Is that reasonable? That way we go with the burglary and the parole violation and we call it a day, okay?

  A: I wish we were talking only parole violation here.

  Q: There's no way we can lose the burglary. Forget it.

  A: I was merely thinking out loud. You understand what I'm saying, don't you?

  Q: You're asking me what's in it for you. The DA might want to bargain on the burglary charge, that's up to him. But it won't just disappear, believe me. We're looking at a Burglary One here. Two people in the apartment while he was doing the . . .

  A: Not while he was in there. He was already out the window.

  Q: He spoke to them. Threatened them, in fact. Pointed a gun at them and . . .

  A: The gun is your contention.

  Q:Mr Angelini, we've got an occupied dwelling at nighttime, and a threat with a gun. I don't know what else you think we need for Burglary One, but . . .

  A: Okay, let's say you do have a Burg One. How can the DA help us?

  Q: You'd have to discuss that with him.

  A: I'd be looking for a B and E.

  Q: You'd be looking low.

  A: Would he go for Burg Two?

  Q: I can't make deals for the DA. All I can tell him is that Mr Proctor was exceedingly cooperative in answering whatever questions we put to him about the double homicide committed in that building. Which is of prime importance to a lot of people in this city, as I'm sure you must realize. On the other hand . . .

  A: Tell him what he wants to know, Martin.

  A: (from Mr Proctor) I forgot the question.

  Q: Minute by minute. Starting with one-thirty when you went out on that fire escape.

  * * * *

  Minute by minute, he had come down the fire escapes until he reached the one outside the first-floor window, and then he had lowered the ladder there to the cement area in the backyard, and had gone down it and jumped the four, five feet to the ground, and then he'd come around the side of the building carrying the VCR under his arm and wearing the camel hair coat with the emerald ring in one of the pockets. He'd walked up to Culver and dumped the VCR right away, sold it to a receiver in a bar named The Bald Eagle, which was still open as this must have been a little before two in the morning by now.

  'Better nail it down closer,' Carella advised.

  'Okay, a movie was just starting on the bar TV. A Joan Crawford movie. Black-and-white. I don't know the name of it, I don't know the channel. Whatever time the movie went on, that's what time I got to the bar.'

  'And sold the VCR . . .'

  'To a fence who gave me forty-two bucks for it. I also . . .'

  'His name,' Carella said.

  'Why?'

  'He's your alibi.'

  'Jerry Macklin,' Proctor said at once.

  He'd also showed Macklin the emerald ring, and Macklin had offered him three bills for it, which Proctor told him to shove up his ass because he knew the ring was worth at least a couple of grand. Macklin offered him fifty for the coat he was wearing, but Proctor liked the coat and figured he'd keep it. So he'd headed out, still wearing the coat with the ring in the pocket, looking for somebody he could score a coupla vials off...

  'What time did you leave The Bald Eagle?' Meyer asked.

  'Exact?'

  'Close as you can get it.'

  'I can tell you what scene was on in the movie, is all,' Proctor said. 'I didn't look at a clock or anything.'

  'What scene was on?'

  'She was coming out a fancy building.'

  'Who?'

  'Joan Crawford. With an awning.'

  'Okay, then what?'

  Proctor had gone out of the bar and cruised Glitter Park, which was the street name for the center-island park on Culver between Glendon and Ritter, where he'd run across . . .

  'Oh, wait a minute,' he said, 'I can pin the time down closer. 'Cause this guy I made the buy from, he told me he had to be uptown a quarter to three, and he looked at his watch and said it was already two-twenty. So you got to figure it look me five minutes to walk from the Eagle to Glitter, so that puts me leaving the bar a quarter after two.'

  'And his name?' Carella said.

  'Hey, come on, you got me doin' a snitch on half the people I know.'

  'Suit yourself,' Meyer said.

  'Okay, his name is Fletcher Gaines, but you don't have to mention the crack, do you? You can just ask was I with him at twenty after two.'

  'So according to you,' Meyer said, 'you . . .'

  'Can you do that for me, please? 'Cause I'm cooperating here with you, ain't I?'

  'Does this guy deliver all the way upstate?' Meyer asked.

  'What do you mean?'

  'You broke parole, Proctor. You're heading back to Castleview to see all your old buddies again. You don't have to worry about where your next vial's coming from.'

  'Yeah, I didn't think of that,' Proctor said.

  'But let's try to nail this down, okay?' Meyer said. 'You were in the Unger apartment at one-thirty . . .' 'Just leaving at one-thirty . . .'

  'And you came down the fire escapes ...'

  'Right.'

  'No stops on the way down . . .'

  'Right.'

  'No detours ...'

  'Right.'

  'And you walked to The Bald Eagle on Culver and . . . where'd you say it is?'

  All the way up near Saint Paul's.'

  'Why'd you go all the way up there?'

  ''Cause I knew Jerry'd be there.'

  'Jerry Macklin.'

  'Yeah.'

  'Your fence.'

  'Yeah. Who I knew would take at least the VCR off my hands. So I could buy some vials to tide me over, you know?'

  'You walked all the way up there, huh?'

  'Yeah, I walked.'

  'That's a long walk, cold night like that.'

  'I like the cold.'

  'And you got there just as the Joan Crawford movie was coming on.'

  'A few minutes before. We were just beginning to talk price when it went on. It musta gone on about two o'clock, don't you think? I mean, they start them on the hour, don't they?'

  'Usually. And you left there at a quarter after.'

  'Yeah.'

  'And took another little walk. This time to Glitter.'

  'Well, that wasn't too far. Five minutes is all.'

  'You like walking, huh?'

  'As a matter of fact, I do.'

  'So if all this is true . . .'

  'Oh, it's true.'

  'Then you can pretty much account for your time between one-thirty and a quarter past
two. Provided Macklin and Gaines back your story.'

  'Unless you scare them with shit about receiving stolen goods and dealing controlled substances, they should back my story, yes. Look, I'm going back to jail, anyway, I got no reason to lie to you.'

  Except maybe a couple of dead bodies, Carella thought.

  * * * *

  They found Macklin at a little past nine that night.

  He corroborated everything Proctor had said.

  He even remembered the name of the Joan Crawford movie that had gone on at two in the morning.

  And he remembered looking up at the clock when Proctor left the Eagle; he'd been invited to a New Year's Eve party, and he was wondering if it'd still be going at this hour. Which was a quarter past two in the morning.

  It took them a while longer to find Fletcher Gaines.

  Gaines was a black man living all the way uptown in Diamondback.

  When finally they caught up with him at five minutes to ten that Monday night, he told them he was clean and asked them if they weren't just a wee bit off their own turf. They told him they weren't looking for a drug bust, which news Gaines treated with a skeptically raised eyebrow. All they wanted to know was about New Year's Eve. Did he at any time on New Year's Eve run into a person named Martin Proctor?

  No mention of time.

  No mention of place.

  Gaines said he had run into Proctor in Glitter Park sometime that night, but he couldn't remember what time it had been.

  They asked him if he could pinpoint that a bit closer.

  Gaines figured his man Proctor was looking for a net.

  No way to lie for him, though, because he didn't know what time Gaines needed covered.

  So he told them he wasn't sure he could be more exact.

  They told him that was a shame, and started to walk off.

  He said, 'Hey, wait a minute, it just come to me. I looked at my watch and it was twenty minutes after two exact, is that of any help to you?'

  They thanked him and went back downtown - to their own turf.

  * * * *

  Visiting hours at the hospital were eight to ten.

  The old man was in what was called the Cancer Care Unit, he'd been there since the third of July, when they'd discovered a malignancy in his liver. Bit more than six months now. A person would've thought he'd be dead by now. Cancer of the liver? Supposed to be fatal and fast.

  They visited him every night.

  Two dutiful daughters.

  Got there at a little before eight, came out of the hospital at a little after ten. Said their goodbyes in the parking lot, went to their separate cars. Joyce was driving the old man's car now. Big brown Mercedes. Living in the big house all alone. Went back to Seattle in August, soon as she found out the old man was going to die. Visited him in the hospital every night. A person could've set his watch by her comings and goings. Melissa was driving the old blue station wagon. Waddled like a duck, Melissa did.

  It was foggy tonight.

  Big surprise. Fog in Seattle. Like London in all those Jack the Ripper movies. Or those creepy werewolf movies. Only this was Seattle. If you didn't get fog here in January, then you got rain, take your choice, that's all there was. In this city, rain was only thicker fog. You wanted to get rich in Seattle, all you had to do was start an umbrella factory. But he figured the fog was good for what he had to do tonight.

  The gun was a Smith & Wesson Model 59, which was a nine-millimeter double-action automatic pistol. Same as the 39 except that it had a fourteen-shot magazine instead of an eight. Otherwise, you couldn't tell the two apart: bit more than seven inches long overall, with a four-inch barrel, a blued finish and a checkered walnut stock. It looked something like an army Colt .45. He'd bought it on the street for two hundred bucks. You could get anything you wanted on the street these days. He planned to drop the gun in the Sound after he used it tonight, goodbye, darling. Even if they found it, they'd never be able to trace it. A gun bought on the street? No way they could link it to him.

  He'd had the gun sent to Seattle. Just sent it UPS second-day air. Carried it all wrapped and sealed to one of those post-office alternatives that sent things by Federal Express and UPS, even wrapped things for you if you asked them to, though he wasn't about to have them wrap a gun for him. Told the girl who weighed it that it was a toy truck. The weight, with the packing and all, had come to twenty-eight pounds. She'd marked on the shipping label TOY TRUCK and asked if he wanted to insure it for more than the already covered hundred bucks. He'd said, no, it had only cost him twenty-five. That easy to send a gun. This was a democracy. He hated to think what real criminals were getting away with.

  There she came.

  Down the hospital steps.

  Wearing a yellow rain slicker and black boots, made her look like a fisherman. Melissa was wearing a black cloth coat, kerchief on her head. Fifteen years older than Joyce. Prettier, too. Usually. Right now, she was pregnant as a goose.

  Two of them walking toward the parking lot now.

  He ducked down behind the wheel of the car.

  Fog swirling in around the car, enclosing him.

  Watched the yellow rain slicker. A beacon. Joyce in the slicker, bright yellow in the gray of the fog. Melissa's black coat swallowed by the gray, a vanishing act. A car door slamming. Another one. Headlights coming on. The old blue station wagon roared into life. Melissa pulled the car out into the fan of her own headlights, made a right turn, heading for the exit.

  He waited.

  Joyce started the Benz.

  New car, the old man had bought it a month before he'd learned about the cancer. You could hardly hear the engine when it started. The headlights came on. He started his own car.

  The Mercedes began moving.

  He gave it a respectable lead, and then began following it.

  * * * *

  The house sat on four acres of choice land overlooking the water, a big gray Victorian mansion that had been kept in immaculate repair over the years since it was built. You couldn't find too many houses like this one nowadays, not here in the state of Washington, nor hardly anywhere else. You had to figure the house alone would bring twenty, thirty million dollars. That wasn't counting the furnishings. God alone knew what all those antiques were worth. Stuff the old lady had brought from Europe when she was still alive. And her jewelry? Had to be a fortune in there. The paintings, too. The old man had been a big collector before he got sick, the art in there had to be worth millions. The old Silver Cloud in the garage, the new Benz, the thirty-eight-foot Grand Banks sitting there at the dock, those were only frosting on the cake.

  He parked the car in a stand of pines just to the north of the service road. Went in through the woods, walked well past the house and then approached it from the water side. Huge lawn sloping down to the water. Fog rolling in, you couldn't even see the boat at the dock no less the opposite shore. Lights burning in the upstairs bedroom of the house. The shade was up, he saw her move past the window. Wearing only a short nightgown. House was so naturally well protected by water and woods, not another house within shouting distance, she probably figured she could run around naked if she wanted to.

  He could feel the weight of the gun in the pocket of his coal.

  He was left-handed.

  The gun was in the left-hand pocket.

  He could remember movies where they caught the killer because he was left-handed. Left-handed people did things differently. Pulled matches off on the wrong side of the matchbook. Well, wrong side for right-handed people. That was the old chestnut, the matchbook. More left-handed killers got caught because they didn't see all those movies with the missing matches on the left side of the matchbook. Another thing was ink stains on the edge of the palm, near the pinky. In this country we wrote from left to right and the pen followed a right-handed person's hand, whereas the opposite was true for a left-handed person. A left-handed person trailed his hand over what he'd already written. Live and learn. If you were left-handed and
you'd just finished writing a ransom note in red ink, it was best not to let the police see the edge of your palm near the pinky because there'd surely be red ink on it.

  He smiled in the darkness.