Second Deadly Sin

by Lawrence Sanders

  “What did you get from the girl?” he asked Boone. “Although I don’t know why I call her ‘girl.’ About thirty-two, I figure.”

  “Thirty-five,” Boone said. “She volunteered that. Which probably means thirty-eight. Did you catch Mama’s reference to more discipline for her grandson? That’s the way I see it: plenty of discipline for Victor and Emily. But Victor wouldn’t take it, and split. Emily stayed under Mama’s thumb.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Delaney said slowly. “The girl’s got moxie; she’s not beaten. Maybe the drinking is a recent thing, and Mama is losing control. Why did the old man do the Dutch? Did you get that?”

  “He owned a lumberyard. Construction material. Stuff like that. Very successful. A big wheel in county politics. But he kept thinking he could draw to an inside straight. Also horses and local crap games. It all went. So he kicked the bucket, literally, and all the lawyers could salvage were the house and grounds, plus enough income from blue-chips to keep the two women going. Nothing from Victor baby. They’re not starving, far from it, but they’re not rolling either.”

  “Funny,” Delaney said. “Thorsen thought she was a rich old twist.”

  “Emily said that’s what everyone thinks. But they’re not. Just getting by.”

  “With a housekeeper,” Delaney reminded him. “Hardly poverty. Dora boasted of never selling off an acre. That land must be worth a mint. But she keeps coming up with the taxes and hanging on.”

  “For what?” Boone said.

  “Her dream,” Delaney said. “To restore it all the way it was. A paradise. Birds and flowers. She’s got to have it.”

  “No,” Boone said “that’s not what I meant. What is she hanging on for? A windfall? Like an inheritance?”

  “Ah,” Delaney said. “Good question. A shrewd lady. Did you catch that business of how she was a victim of malicious gossip when she was on the stage? I’ll bet she was! All that bullshit was just to disarm us if we went digging. Well, it was a profitable morning.”

  “Was it, sir?” Boone asked. “How?”

  “A lot of things we have to do now. We’ll have to come up here again. At least one more time. We’ll come on a Friday, when the housekeeper is off. We’ll get her full name and address from the local postman, or somehow. I want you to check her out.”

  “Me?”

  “How did you make her accent? I figured Virginia.”

  “Farther south than that, Chief,” Boone said. “Maybe Georgia.”

  “That’s why I want you to check her out. You’re a good old boy. You’ve got the accent.”

  “I do?” Boone said. “I didn’t think I had.”

  “Sure you do,” Delaney said genially. “Not much, but it’s there. And you can force it without faking.”

  “You want to know how often Victor Maitland and Saul Geltman visited?” Boone guessed.

  “Right,” Delaney nodded. “That for starters. And anything else you can glom. Like Dora’s drinking and does fat Emily have any larcenous boyfriends.”

  “What else?”

  “I’ll handle the bank account. I don’t know what it’ll take; maybe a court order, or maybe just a letter or call from Thorsen to the locals will do. We’ve got to walk on eggs here. After all, Dora’s brother is J. Barnes Chapin, and the last thing in the world we want is for him to get his balls in an uproar. But I’ve got to see those bank records.”

  “Chief, you really think Dora or Emily or both drove that great big old Mercedes down to New York that Friday and nixed the son? For the loot?”

  “It’s possible. He didn’t leave a will, but maybe the mother would share. That’s another thing I’ve got to check out. But even if they didn’t do it themselves, a hefty bank withdrawal in, say, the last six months would be a red flag.”

  Boone pondered a moment.

  “She hired someone?”

  “Could be,” Delaney said. “Happens all the time.”

  “Jesus Christ, Chief, she’s his mother!”

  “So?” Delaney said coldly. “It used to be that seventy-five percent of all homicides were committed by relatives, friends, or acquaintances of the victim. Things have changed in the past five years; the number of ‘stranger-murders’ has increased. But family and friends still do about two-thirds of the killing. It’s basic. If you catch a homicide, you look at the family first.”

  Abner Boone sighed. “That’s depressing,” he said.

  Delaney glanced at him sideways.

  “Sometimes, sergeant,” he said. “I think you may be an idealist. We work with what we’ve got. We’d be morons to disregard percentages. And I think both Dora and Emily are big enough and strong enough to have done it. At first, I didn’t think it was a woman. My wife doesn’t think so. But I’m beginning to wonder. How much strength does it take to push in a shiv?”

  “More than I’ve got,” Sergeant Boone said.

  They were in the city, heading downtown on Columbus Avenue, when Delaney pulled over, double-parking.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” he said, and went into a bodega to buy a cold six-pack of Ballantine ale. When he returned, Boone asked him to wait a minute, and dashed across the street to a florist. He came back with a bunch of small white mums wrapped in green tissue paper.

  “For your wife,” he said.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Delaney said, pleased.

  They had to park in a restricted area in front of the 251st Precinct house, but Boone’s car was known to the local cops by now, and wouldn’t be plastered or hauled away. Just to make sure, the sergeant put the “Officer on Duty” card behind his windshield.

  The women were in the kitchen, flushed and laughing. Partly due to a pitcher of martinis Monica had prepared. Delaney helped himself to a double over ice, and added a slice of lemon peel. Boone had a small bottle of tonic water poured over ice and a squeezed wedge of lime.

  The two men were willing to sit around the kitchen shmoozing, but the ladies chased them out. They went into Delaney’s study, slumped into the worn club chairs gratefully, stretched out their legs. They sat awhile in comfortable silence.

  “I remember a homicide I worked, oh, maybe twenty years ago,” Delaney said finally. “It looked to be an open-and-shut. This young kid, maybe about twenty-five, around there, said he killed his father. The kid had been in Korea and smuggled in a forty-five. The old man was a terror. Always beating on the old lady. A long record of physical assaults. She filed complaints, but never pushed a prosecution. The son took it just so long, he said, then blasted away. Holy Christ, you should have seen that room. They had to replaster the walls. A full magazine had been fired, and the father took most of them. I mean, he was pieces. The son waltzed into the precinct house and slammed the pistol down on the desk. The duty sergeant almost fainted. The son admitted everything. But it didn’t add up. The kid had been an MP. And no dummy. He knew how to handle that Colt. He wouldn’t have sprayed. One pill would have done it.”

  “The mother,” Boone said somberly.

  “Sure,” Delaney nodded. “The son was covering for her. That’s what everyone thought. And who could blame her? After taking all that abuse. And what would she get? No one’s going to put an old lady in the slammer for blowing away a husband who talks to her with his fists. What would she get? A slap on the wrist. Probation, probably. Everyone knew it; everyone was satisfied.”

  Delaney stopped and sipped his martini. Boone looked at him, puzzled. The Chief’s expression revealed nothing.

  “So?” Boone said. “What’s the point, sir?”

  “The point?” Delaney said, almost rumbling, his chin down on his chest. “The point is that I couldn’t buy it. I went digging. The kid had a chance to buy in on a garage, and the old man wouldn’t lend him the dough. He had it, but he wouldn’t give his son a chance. ‘I worked hard for every penny I got. You go out and dig ditches—whatever.’ That kind of shit. Plenty of arguments, hot arguments. So finally the son blew him away in a fury, but not so furious that
he didn’t make it look like the old lady had done it, knowing she’d get home free. It was the son all along. He figured we’d think he was covering. I told you he was no dummy.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Boone said slowly. “So what happened?”

  “I dumped it in the lieutenant’s lap,” Delaney said. “He could have killed me. He was all set to charge the old lady and see her walk. Now it was his decision on charging the kid. Finally he decided to go with the old lady. He buried my paper and told me he was doing it, and I could have his balls if I wanted them. I didn’t. He was a good cop. Well, maybe not so good, but he was human. So he buried my paper on the kid, the old lady got charged, and like everyone expected, she walked. There was some insurance money, and the kid invested in his garage and lived happily ever after. Kept his nose clean; never strayed from the arrow. So where was justice in that case?”

  “Just the way it came out,” Boone said stoutly. “A no-goodnik gets wasted, a wife gets out of a miserable marriage, and the son gets a start on a clean life.”

  “Is that how you see it?” Delaney asked, raising his eyes to stare at Abner Boone. “There hasn’t been a day since that case twenty years ago that I haven’t regretted not pushing it. I should have racked up that kid, and if my lieutenant got in the way, I should have racked him up, too. Sergeant, that kid murdered a human being. No one should do that and get away with it. It’s not right. I’ve made my share of mistakes, and letting that kid off the hook was one of them.”

  Boone was silent awhile, staring across at the brooding figure slumped wearily in the club chair.

  “Are you sure of that, sir?” he said softly.

  “Yes,” Delaney said. “I’m sure.”

  Boone sighed, took a deep swallow of his tonic water.

  “How did you break it?” he asked. “How did you figure it wasn’t the abused wife who blasted the old man?”

  “She couldn’t have done that,” Delaney said. “She loved him.”

  Then after a moment, the Chief said, “Why did I tell you that story? Oh … now I remember. I was wondering if anyone loved Victor Maitland.”

  Rebecca Hirsch flung open the door, stood posed, a dish towel folded over one arm.

  “Gentlemen,” she announced, “dinner is served.”

  They laughed, dragged themselves to their feet, went into the dining room. The table was set for six, with candles yet, and Sergeant Boone’s flowers in a tall vase in the center. Chief Delaney sat at one end, Monica at the other, with Mary and Rebecca on one side and Sylvia and Sergeant Boone on the other.

  They started with an appetizer of caviar that everyone knew was lumpfish, and didn’t care. This with sour cream, chopped onions, capers, and a lemon wedge. A salad of oiled endive and cherry tomatoes. The London broil with new potatoes, plus fresh stringbeans and a bowl of hot spinach leaves with bacon chunks.

  Edward X. Delaney stood up to carve, and said, “Who wants the drumstick?” Monica and Rebecca Hirsch writhed with laughter, and the Chief looked at his wife suspiciously.

  “Did you tell Rebecca I’d say that?” he accused.

  It was a good meal, a good evening. Two, three, even four conversations went on at once. The London broil was pronounced somewhat chewy but flavorsome. Everyone had seconds, which pleased the cook. The salad disappeared, as did the chilled bottle of two-year-old Beaujolais. Potatoes, stringbeans, and spinach were consumed dutifully, and by the time the key-lime pie was brought in, the diners had lost their initial momentum and were beginning to dawdle.

  The girls kissed Monica, Rebecca, and their stepfather good night, shook hands solemnly with Sergeant Boone, giggling, and took their wedges of pie and glasses of milk upstairs to their room. Delaney moved around the table, pouring coffee. He paused to lean down and kiss his wife’s cheek.

  “Wonderful meal, dear,” he said.

  “Just great, Mrs. Delaney,” Boone said enthusiastically. “Can’t remember a better one.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it,” she smiled happily. “Where did you boys have lunch?”

  “A greasy spoon,” Boone said.

  “You shouldn’t eat at places like that,” Rebecca said severely. “Instant heartburn. If not ulcers.”

  Now she and Boone were sitting across from each other. When their eyes met, they looked casually away. She called him “Sergeant,” and he avoided addressing her directly by name. Their manner with each other was polite, coolly friendly.

  Son of a bitch, Delaney thought suddenly; they’ve been to bed.

  Abner Boone had suffered through cocktails and wine—drinking only water during dinner—and Delaney couldn’t see torturing him further by inhaling a snifter of cognac. So he sipped his coffee with every evidence of satisfied benignity, silent as he listened to Boone and the woman discuss the best way to roast a goose.

  Talk was quiet, almost subdued, although no one felt constraint. But there was no need for chatter. Each hoped the others felt equally content: a good meal, a surcease of wanting. The peace that comes when covetousness vanishes, even temporarily.

  “Rebecca,” Chief Delaney said, almost lazily, “is your mother living?”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “In Florida. Thank God.”

  “Why ‘Thank God’?” he asked. “Because she’s living or because she’s living in Florida?”

  She laughed and hung her head, the beautiful long hair falling forward to hide her face. Then she threw back her head suddenly, the hair flinging back into place. Sergeant Boone stirred restlessly in his chair.

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” she confessed, “but she’s a bit much. A professional mother. When she lived in New York, she drove me up a wall. Even from Florida, I still get the nudging. What to eat, what to wear, how to act.”

  “She wants to run your life?” Delaney asked.

  “Run it? She wants to own it!”

  Monica turned to look at him.

  “Edward, why the interest in Rebecca’s mother?”

  He sighed, wondering what he should and should not say. Still, they were women and their insights might be useful. He’d use anyone, and not apologize for it.

  “This thing Sergeant Boone and I are working on …” he said. “We ran into an interesting situation today. A mother-and-daughter relationship …”

  He described, as accurately as he could, Dora and Emily Maitland, their ages, physical appearance, the clothes they wore, the house they lived in, their voices, manner, and behavior.

  “Is that an accurate description, would you say, sergeant?” he asked Boone when he finished.

  “Yes, sir, I’d say so. Except you seemed to see more—more spirit in the girl than I did. I thought the mother was the heavy.”

  “Mmm,” Delaney said. Then, without telling Monica and Rebecca that the two women under discussion were suspects in a murder investigation (although surely Monica guessed it), he asked them directly, looking back and forth, “How do you see a relationship like that? Specifically, why is the daughter still hanging around? Why didn’t she take off? And does mother dominate daughter or vice versa?”

  “Take off where?” Monica Delaney demanded. “With what? Mama controls the money, doesn’t she? What’s the daughter going to do—come to New York and walk Eighth Avenue? The way you describe her, I don’t think she’d make out. Is she trained for anything? Can she hold down a job?”

  “Then why didn’t she leave home fifteen years ago and learn to support herself?” Rebecca asked. “Maybe she likes it there. The nice, safe cocoon.”

  “That’s my point, too,” Sergeant Boone said. “Chief, if she had as much chutzpah as you—”

  “Hoo-hah!” Rebecca cried. “Chutzpah. Listen to the knacker!”

  Boone blushed, smiling.

  “Well … you know,” he said lamely. “If the girl had as much courage as you think, Chief, she’d have split years ago.”

  “Maybe she’s afraid,” Monica said.

  “Afraid?” Delaney said. “Of what?”

  “Of
the world,” his wife said. “Of life.”

  “You said she’s overweight,” Rebecca said. “That could be from loneliness. Believe me, I know! You’re miserable, so you eat. Stuck out there in the country with a crazy mother—or am I being redundant?—what else is there to do but eat? She wants something else, something better. The Is-this-all-there-is-to-life syndrome? But like Monica said, she’s afraid. Of change. And every year it gets harder to make the break.”

  “Or maybe she’s waiting for Mama to die,” Monica said. “That happens sometimes. But also, sometimes it takes so long that by the time it does happen, the daughter has become the mother. If you know what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean,” Delaney nodded, “but I’m not sure you’re right. This girl isn’t dead. I mean, inside she isn’t dead. She still feels things. She’s got urges, wants, desires. My question is why hasn’t she done something about getting what she wants?”

  “Maybe she has,” Rebecca said. “Maybe she’s working on her ambitions right now, and you don’t know anything about it.”

  “That’s possible,” Delaney acknowledged. “Very possible. Another explanation might be that she’s lazy. I know that sounds simple, but sometimes we credit people with more complex motives than they’re capable of feeling. Maybe this girl is just bone-lazy, and likes that slow, sluggish life she’s living out there.”

  “Do you believe that, sir?” Boone asked.

  “No,” Delaney said, “I don’t. There’s something there. Something. No idiot she. She’s not just a lump. Going by the book, I’d have to say the mother is running her. But I can’t get rid of the feeling that maybe she’s running the mother.”

  “That would be a switch,” Rebecca said.

  “But understandable,” Delaney said. “How’s this: At first the mother was the honcho. The iron fist and strict discipline for her children. Then, as she grows older, the vigor fades. The mother weakens; the daughter senses it. The mother seems to be living in the past, more every year. There’s a power vacuum. The daughter moves in. Slowly. A little at a time. Remember, there’s no man around the house. As the old lady’s energy gets less and less, the daughter gets more and more. The mother is weary of trying to make ends meet, trying to live in style. All she wants are her dreams of the past. She can’t cope with today. Like there’s an X-quantity of resolve there, and less for the mother means more for the daughter. Like an hourglass. The sand runs from one container to another. The mother loses, the daughter gains. Well …” He laughed briefly. “It’s fanciful, but that’s the way I see it.”