Tricks

by Ed McBain

  Dolores Eisenberg was Frank Sebastiani's older sister.

  Five-feet ten-inches tall, black hair and blue eyes, thirty-eight, thirty-nine years old. Hugging Marie to her when Brown and Hawes came over from the garage. Tears in the eyes of both women.

  Marie introduced her to the cops.

  Dolores seemed surprised to see them there.

  "How do you do?" she said, and glanced at Marie.

  "We're sorry for your trouble," Brown said.

  An old Irish expression. Hawes wondered where he'd picked it up.

  Dolores said, "Thank you," and then turned to Marie again.

  "I'm sorry it took me so long to get here," she said. "Max is in Cincinnati, and I had to find a sitter. God, wait'll he hears this. He's crazy about Frank."

  "I know," Marie said.

  "I'll have to call him again," Dolores said. "When Mom told me what happened, I tried to reach him at the hotel, but he was out. What time was that, when you called Mom?"

  "It must've been around eleven-thirty," Marie said.

  "Yeah, she called me right afterward. I felt like I'd been hit by a locomotive. I tried to get Max, I left a message for him to call me, but then I left the house around midnight, as soon as the sitter got there. I'll have to call him again."

  She was still wearing her overcoat. She took it off now, revealing a trim black skirt and a crisp white blouse, and carried it familiarly to the coatrack. They were still standing in the entrance hall. The house seemed exceptionally still at this hour of the morning. The heater came on with a sudden whooosh.

  "Would anyone like some coffee?" Dolores asked.

  A take-charge lady, Hawes thought. Tragedy in the family, here she is at one in the morning, ready to make coffee.

  "There's some on the stove," Marie said.

  "Officers?" Dolores said.

  "Thank you, no," Brown said.

  "No, thanks," Hawes said.

  "Marie? Honey, can I get a cup for you?"

  "I'm all right, Dolores, thank you."

  "Poor baby," Dolores said, and hugged her sister-in-law close again. Her arm still around her, she looked at Brown and said, "My mother told me you think Jimmy did it, is that right?"

  "That's a strong possibility," Brown said, and looked at Marie.

  "You haven't found him, though?"

  "No, not yet."

  "It's hard to believe," Dolores said, and shook her head. "My mother said you have to do an autopsy. I wish you wouldn't, really. That's really upsetting to her."

  It occurred to Brown that she did not yet know her brother's body had been dismembered. Hadn't Marie told the family? He debated breaking the news, opted against it.

  "Well, ma'am," he said, "an autopsy's mandatory in any trauma death."

  "Still," Dolores said.

  Brown was still looking at Marie. It had further occurred to him that on the phone with Dolores not an hour ago, she herself advised her sister-in-law about the autopsy. Yet now Dolores sounded as if the information had come from her mother. He tried to remember the exact content of the phone conversation. Marie's end of it, anyway.

  Hello Dolores, no, not yet, I'm down in the kitchen.

  Which meant her sister-in-law had asked her if she was in bed, or getting ready for bed, or whatever, and she'd told her No, I'm down here with two detectives. Which meant that Doloresknew there were two detectives here, so why had she looked so surprised tofind them here?

  They want to look at the garage room.

  So you had to figure Dolores had asked her what two detectives were doing there. And she'd told her. And then the business about the autopsy. Which Dolores had just now talked about as if it had come from her mother. But if Dolores had called here just before leaving the house hellip; well, wait a minute.

  On the phone, Marie hadn't said anything about expecting her, nothing like "See you soon then," or "Hurry on over," or "Drive safely," just "I'll let you know," meaning about the autopsy, "Thanks for calling."

  Brown decided to play it flat out.

  He looked Dolores dead in the eye and said, "Did you call here about an hour ago?"

  And the telephone rang.

  Brown figured there had to be a god.

  Because if the earlier ringing of the phone had visibly startled Marie, this time the ringing caused an immediate look of panic to flash in her eyes. She turned toward the kitchen as if it had suddenly burst into flames, made an abortive start out of the entrance hall, stopped, said, "I wonder hellip;" and then looked blankly at the detectives.

  "Can't be Dolores again, can it?" Brown said.

  "What?" Dolores said, puzzled.

  "Better go answer it," Brown said.

  "Yes," Marie said.

  "I'll go with you," he said.

  In the kitchen, the phone kept ringing.

  Marie hesitated.

  "Want me to get it?" Brown asked.

  "No, I'll hellip; it may be my mother-in-law," she said, and headed immediately for the kitchen, Brown right behind her.

  The phone kept ringing.

  She was thinking You goddamn fool, Itold you the cops were here!

  She reached out for the receiver, her mind racing.

  Brown was standing in the doorway to the kitchen now, his arms folded across his chest.

  Marie lifted the receiver from the hook.

  "Hello?" she said.

  And listened.

  Brown kept watching her.

  "It's for you," she said, sounding relieved, and handed the receiver to him.

  CHAPTER 13

  Parker felt like a real cop again.

  A working detective.

  The feeling was somewhat exhilarating.

  The newspaper story accompanying the headline told him everything he needed to know about the liquor-store holdups tonight. The story extensively quoted Detective Meyer Meyer who had been interviewed in his room at Buenavista Hospital. Meyer had told the reporter that the heists and subsequent felony murders had been executed by four midgets being driven by a big blonde woman in a blue station wagon. One of the holdup victims had described the thieves as midgets. She had further told the police that one of the midgets was named Alice.

  Parker did not have to be a detective to know that there couldn't be too many midgets named Alice in this city. But making the connection so quickly made him feel like a real cop again.

  He put Peaches in a taxi mdash;even though they were only four blocks from her apartment mdash;told her he'd try to call her later, and then hailed a cruising patrol car. The two uniformed cops in the car advised Parker they were from the Three-One mdash;which Parker knew anyway since the number of the precinct was on the side of the car mdash;and they didn't know if they had authority to provide transportation for a detective from the Eight-Seven.

  Parker said, "This is a homicide here, open the fucking door!"

  The two uniformed cops looked at each other by way of consultation, and then the cop riding shotgun unlocked the back door for him. Parker sat in the back of the car like a common criminal, a metal grille separating him from the two cops up front.

  "Four-oh-three Thompson Street," he told the driver.

  "That's all the way down the Quarter," the driver complained.

  "That's right, it should take you fifteen, twenty minutes."

  "Half hour's more like it," the shotgun cop said, and then got on the walkie-talkie to tell his sergeant they were driving a bull from the Eight-Seven downtown.

  The sergeant said, "Let me talk to him."

  "He's in back," the shotgun cop said.

  "Stop the car and let me talk to him," the sergeant said. He sounded very no-nonsense. Parker had met sergeants like him before. He loved trampling on sergeants like him.

  They stopped the car and opened the back door. The shotgun cop handed the walkie-talkie in to Parker.

  "What's the problem?" Parker said into it.

  "Who's this?" the sergeant said.

  "Detective Andrew Lloyd Parker," he sai
d, "Eighty-Seventh Squad. Who's this?"

  "Never mind who this is, what's the idea commandeering one of my cars?"

  "The idea is homicide," Parker said. "The idea is two cops in the hospital. The idea is I gotta get downtown in a hurry, and I'd hate like hell for the media to find out a sergeant from the Three-One maybe stood in the way of a timely arrest. That's the idea. You think you got it?"

  There was a long silence.

  "Who's your commanding officer?" the sergeant asked, trying to save face.

  "Lieutenant Peter Byrnes," Parker said. "We finished here?"

  "You can take the car downtown, but I'll be talking to your lieutenant," the sergeant said.

  "Good, you talk to him," Parker said, and handed the walkie-talkie to the shotgun cop. "Let's get rolling," he said.

  They closed the back door again. The driver set the car in motion.

  "Hit the hammer," Parker said.

  The blues looked sidelong at each other. This kind of thing didn't seem to warrant use of the siren.

  "Hit the fucking hammer," Parker said.

  The driver hit the siren switch.

  They were sitting in the living room when Brown got off the phone. Marie and her sister-in-law side by side on the sofa, Hawes in an easy chair opposite them.

  Brown walked in looking very solemn.

  "Hal Willis," he said to Hawes.

  "What's up?" Hawes said.

  Brown tugged casually at his earlobe before he started talking again. Hawes picked up the signal at once. Little dog-and-pony act on the way.

  "They found the rest of the body," Brown said.

  Marie looked at him.

  "Head and the hands," Brown said. "In the river. I'm sorry, ma'am," he said to Dolores, "but your brother's body was dismembered. I hate to break it to you this way."

  "Oh myGod !" Dolores said.

  Marie was still looking at Brown.

  "Guys dredging the river pulled up this aluminum case, head and the hands in it," he said.

  Hawes was trying to catch the drift. He kept listening intently.

  "Did you know this?" Dolores asked Marie.

  Marie nodded.

  "You knew he'd been hellip; ?"

  "Yes," she said. "I didn't tell Mom because I knew what it would do to her."

  "Monoghan responded," Brown said to Hawes, "phoned the squad. Willis went on over with the stuff on my desk."

  The stuff on his desk, Hawes thought. The reports, the positive ID, the poster he'd taken from the high school bulletin board.

  "I hate to have to go over this another time, Mrs. Sebastiani," Brown said, "but I wonder if you can give me a description of your husband again. So we can close this out."

  "I have it right here," Hawes said. He was beginning to catch on. Nobody closed out a case while the murderer was still running around loose. He took his notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket, flipped through the pages. "Male, white, thirty-four years old hellip;" he said.

  "That right?" Brown asked Marie.

  "Yes," she said.

  "Five-eleven," Hawes said, "one-seventy hellip;"

  "Mrs. Sebastiani?"

  "Yes."

  Eyes flashing with intelligence now. Hawes figured she was beginning to catch on, too. Didn't know exactly what was coming, but was bracing herself for it. Hawes didn't know exactly what was coming, either. But he had a hunch.

  "Hair black," he said, "Eyes hellip;"

  "Why do we have to go over this again?" she said. "I identified the body, you have everything you hellip;"

  My brother's hair was black, yes," Dolores said softly, and patted Marie's hand.

  "Eyes blue," Hawes said.

  "Blue eyes, yes," Dolores said. "Like mine."

  "Will I have to come into the city again?" Marie asked. "To look at hellip; at what they hellip; they found in the hellip; ?"

  "Mrs. Sebastiani," Brown said, "the head we found in the river doesn't match your husband's photograph."

  Marie blinked at him.

  Silence.

  Then:

  "Well hellip; does hellip; does that mean hellip; what does that mean?"

  "It means the dead man isn't your husband," Brown said.

  "Has someone made a mistake then?" Dolores asked at once. "Are you saying my brother isn't dead?"

  "Mrs. Sebastiani," Brown said, "would you mind very much if I read you this description you gave me of Jimmy Brayne?"

  "I really don't see why we have to go over this a hundred times," she said. "If you were doing your job right, you'd havefound Jimmy by how."

  Brown had already taken out his notebook.

  "White male," he read, "thirty-two years old. Height, six feet. Weight, a hundred and eighty hellip;"

  "Yes," she said impatiently.

  Eyes alert now. Hawes had seen those eyes before. Desperate eyes, trapped eyes. Brown was closing in, and she knew it.

  "Hair black, eyes brown."

  "Yes," she said again.

  "Mrs. Sebastiani, the eyes were brown."

  "Yes, I just told you hellip;"

  "On the head in the river. The eyes were brown." He turned to Dolores. "Does your brother have an appendectomy scar?" he asked.

  "A what?"

  "Did he ever have his appendix removed?"

  "No. I don't understand what you hellip;"

  "Was he ever in a skiing accident? Did he ever tear the cartilage on his hellip;"

  "He never skied in his life," Dolores said.

  She looked extremely puzzled now. She glanced at Marie.

  "The techs printed the fingers and thumbs on both hands," Brown said. "We're running a comparison check right this minute. Was your brother ever in the service?"

  "Yes. The Army."

  "Would you know if Jimmy Brayne was ever in the service?"

  "I don't know."

  "Or in any security-sensitive job? How about you, Mrs. Sebastiani? You seem to know a lot about Jimmy Brayne, maybe you know whether he's ever been fingerprinted."