Third Deadly Sin

by Lawrence Sanders

  “We’re having avocado and cottage cheese salad,” Monica said firmly. “Bibb lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, little green peppers. There’s plenty for you. And if you don’t like that, there’s a cheese-and-macaroni casserole ready to pop in the oven, or the cold chicken left over from last night.”

  “Don’t you worry about me,” he advised. “I ate so much yesterday, I’d really like to take it easy tonight. I’ll just make a sandwich and take that and a bottle of beer into the den. I assure you, I am not going to starve.”

  In his methodical way, he began his preparations early, before Rebecca Boone arrived and the women got busy in the kitchen. He inspected the contents of the refrigerator, and built two sandwiches from what was available.

  One was white meat of chicken with slices of red onion and little discs of pitted black olives. With a small dollop of horseradish sauce. The second was a crude construction of canned Argentine corned beef, the meat red and crumbly, with cucumber slices. On rye. He wrapped both sandwiches in aluminum foil, and thrust them in the back of the refrigerator to chill.

  When Rebecca arrived, and soon after that the front doorbell began to ring, Edward X. Delaney hastily retrieved his sandwiches, took a bottle of cold Lowenbrau Dark, and hustled out of the kitchen. He retired to his den, closing the heavy door firmly behind him.

  The desk in the study was covered with papers, receipts, letters, vouchers, open notebooks. For the past two weeks, Delaney had been spending a few hours each day working on his federal income tax return. Actually, the Chief was doing the donkey work, assembling totals of income, expenses, deductions, etc. The final return would be prepared by Monica, his second wife.

  Monica was the widow of Bernard Gilbert, a victim of Daniel Blank, a random killer Delaney had helped apprehend. The multiple homicides had been brought to an end right there in the room where Delaney was now seated, headquarters for Operation Lombard.

  A year after his first wife, Barbara, had died of kidney infection, the Chief had married Monica Gilbert. He had two children, Edward, Jr., and Elizabeth, both now married, Liza with twin boys. Monica had two young girls, Mary and Sylvia, now away at boarding school, preparing for college.

  Monica’s first husband, Gilbert, had been a CPA and tax accountant, and she had taken courses to enable her to assist him in what had started as a kitchen business. She had kept up with annual changes in the tax laws. Delaney was happy to leave to her the task of preparing the final return that each year seemed to become longer and more complex.

  Since he didn’t want to disturb the papers on his desk, Delaney drew up a wheeled typewriter table. He removed his old Underwood, setting it on the floor with an effort that, he was pleased to note, didn’t elicit a grunt.

  He then lifted the leaves of the table, locked them in position, and spread the wide surface with newspaper. He unwrapped his sandwiches, uncapped the beer, and settled down in his worn swivel chair.

  He took a bite of the corned beef sandwich. Washed it down with a swallow of dark beer. Then he grunted.

  He donned his reading glasses and set to work, oblivious to the sounds of talk and laughter in the living room outside his door. When you had worked as long as he had in a crowded detective squad room, you learned the trick of closing your ears. You can shut your mouth and your eyes; why not your ears?

  He worked steadily, doggedly. He added up their total annual income, for Monica had brought to their marriage an annuity her deceased husband had set up, plus investments in a modest stock portfolio that yielded good dividends although prices were down.

  Edward X. Delaney had a generous pension, income from investments in high-yield, tax-exempt New York City bonds which—thank God—had not defaulted, and he had applied for early Social Security. Between them, husband and wife, they were able to live comfortably in a wholly owned refurbished brownstone right next to the 251st Precinct house.

  Still, a combined income that would have allowed them to live in comparative luxury ten years ago was now being cruelly eroded by inflation. It had not yet seriously affected their way of life, since neither was profligate, but it was worrisome.

  Delaney, going over his check disbursements, saw how much had gone in cash gifts to Eddie, Jr., to Liza, and to Liza’s children. And how much had gone to clothing and educating Mary and Sylvia. He did not regret a penny of it, but still … By the time the two younger girls were ready for college, in a few years, the cost of a university education would probably be $50,000 or more. It was discouraging.

  He finished the corned beef sandwich. And the beer. He listened carefully at the door to the living room. He heard the voice of a woman he believed to be the lecturing psychologist.

  Judging the time was right, he darted out the door leading to the kitchen. Moving as quietly as he could, he grabbed another beer from the refrigerator, a can of Schlitz this time, and hurried back to his study. He pushed his glasses atop his head. He popped the beer, took a swallow. Took a bite of the chicken sandwich.

  He sat slumped, feet up on the corner of his desk. He thought about the children, all the children, Monica’s and his. And he thought sadly of the one child they had together, an infant son who died from a respiratory infection after three months of fragile life. The coffin had been so small.

  After a while, munching slowly and sipping his beer, he heard the sounds of conversation and vociferous debate coming from the living room. He guessed the lecture was over, the general discussion period was concluding, and soon the avocado and cottage cheese salad would be served. He had been wise to avoid that!

  The door to the living room opened suddenly. A young woman started in. She saw him, drew back in alarm and confusion.

  “Oh!” she said. “I’m sorry. I thought this was …”

  He lumbered to his feet, smiling.

  “Perfectly all right,” he said. “What you’re probably looking for is out in the hallway, near the front door.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Sorry to disturb you.”

  He made a small gesture. She closed the door. He sat down again, and to reassure himself, to convince himself, he tested his skills at observation. He had seen the woman for possibly five seconds.

  She was, he recited to himself, a female Caucasian, about thirty-five years old, approximately 5’ 6” tall, weight: 120, blondish hair shoulder-length, triangular face with long, thin nose and pouty lips. Wearing gold loop earrings. A loose dress of forest-green wool. Digital watch on her left wrist. Bare legs, no stockings. Loafers. A distinctive lisp in her voice. A Band-Aid on her right shin.

  He smiled. Not bad. He could pick her out of a lineup or describe her sufficiently for a police artist to make a sketch. He was still a cop.

  God, how he missed it.

  He sat brooding, wondering not for the first time if he had made an error in resigning his prestigious position as Chief of Detectives and opting for retirement. His reason then had been the political bullshit connected with the job.

  Now he questioned if the political pressures in such high rank were not a natural concomitant. The fact that he could not endure them might have been a weakness. Perhaps a stronger man could have done all he did while resisting the tugs, threats, and plots of a city government of ambitious men and women. And when he could not resist, then compromising to the smallest degree compatible with survival.

  Still, he was—

  His reverie was interrupted by a light, tentative tap on the door leading to the kitchen.

  “Come in,” he called.

  The door opened.

  Edward X. Delaney struggled to his feet, strode across the room, shook the other man’s proffered hand.

  “Sergeant!” he said, smiling happily.

  A few minutes later, Detective Sergeant Abner Boone was seated in a cracked leather club chair. Delaney moved his swivel chair so he could converse with his visitor without the desk being a barrier between them.

  The Chief had made a quick trip to the busy kitchen to bring back a buc
ket of ice and a bottle of soda water for the sergeant, who was an alcoholic who had not touched a drop in two years. Delaney mixed himself a weak highball, straight rye and water.

  “I dropped by to pick up Rebecca,” Boone explained, “but they’re still eating. I hope I’m not disturbing you, sir.”

  “Not at all,” the Chief said genially. He motioned toward his littered desk. “Tax returns. I’ve had enough for one night. Tell me, what’s the feeling about the new PC?”

  For about fifteen minutes the two men talked shop, gossiping about Departmental matters. Most of the information came from Boone: who had been promoted, who transferred, who retired.

  “They’re putting the dicks back in the precincts,” he told Delaney. “The special squads just didn’t work out.”

  “I read about it,” the Chief said, nodding. “But they’re keeping some of the squads, aren’t they?”

  “A few. That’s where I am now. It’s a major crime unit working out of Midtown North.”

  “Good for you,” Delaney said warmly. “How many men have you got?”

  Boone shifted uncomfortably. “Well, uh, a month ago I had five. Right now I have twenty-four, and they’re bringing in a lieutenant tomorrow morning.”

  The Chief was startled, but tried not to show it. He looked at Boone curiously. The man seemed exhausted, sallow loops below his eyes. His body had fallen in on itself, shrunken with fatigue. He looked in need of forty-eight hours of nothing but sleep and hot food.

  Boone was tall, thin, with a shambling walk and floppy gestures. He had gingery hair, a pale and freckled complexion. He was probably getting on to forty by now, but he still had a shy, awkward, farmerish manner, a boyish and charming smile.

  Delaney had worked with him on the Victor Maitland homicide and knew what a good detective he was when he was off the booze. Boone had a slow but analytical and thorough mind. He accepted the boredom and frustrations of his job without complaint. When raw courage was demanded, he could be a tiger.

  The Chief inspected him narrowly. He noted the slight tremor of the slender fingers. It couldn’t be booze. Rebecca had married him only after he had vowed never to touch the stuff again. Delaney couldn’t believe that Boone would risk what was apparently a happy marriage.

  “Sergeant,” he said finally, “I’ve got to tell you: you look like death warmed over. What’s wrong?”

  Boone set his empty glass on the rug alongside his chair. He sat hunched over, forearms on his bony knees, his long hands clasping and unclasping. He looked up at Delaney.

  “We’ve got a repeater,” he said. “Homicide.”

  The Chief stared at him, then took a slow sip of his highball.

  “You’re sure?” he asked.

  Boone nodded.

  “Only two so far,” he said, “but it’s the same MO; no doubt about it. We’ve kept a lid on it so far, but it’s only a question of time before some smart reporter puts the two together.”

  “Two similar killings?” Delaney said doubtfully. “Could be coincidence.”

  The sergeant sighed, straightened up. He lit a cigarette, holding it in tobacco-stained fingers. He sat back, crossed and recrossed his gangly legs.

  “Maybe we’re antsy,” he acknowledged. “But ever since that Son of Sam thing, everyone in the Department’s been super-alert for repeat homicides. We should have been onto the Son of Sam killings earlier. It took Ballistics to tip us off. Now maybe we’re all too eager to put together two unconnected snuffings and yell, ‘Mass killer!’ But not in this case. These two are identical.”

  Chief Edward X. Delaney stared at him, but not seeing him. He felt the familiar tingle, the excitement, the challenge. More than that, he felt the anger and the resolve.

  “Want to tell me about it?” he asked Boone.

  “Do I ever!” Boone said fervently. “Maybe you’ll see something we’ve missed.”

  “I doubt that very much,” Delaney said. “But try me.”

  Detective Sergeant Abner Boone recited the facts in a rapid staccato, toneless, as if reporting to a superior officer. It was obvious he had been living with this investigation for many long hours; his recital never faltered.

  “First homicide: February fifteenth, this year. Victim: male Caucasian, fifty-four years old, found stabbed to death in Room 914 of the Grand Park Hotel. Naked body discovered by chambermaid at approximately 9:45 A.M. Victim had throat cut open and multiple stab wounds in the genitals. Cause of death according to autopsy: exsanguination. That first throat slash didn’t kill him. Weapon: a sharp instrument about three inches long.”

  “Three inches!” Delaney cried. “My God, that’s a pocket knife, a jackknife!”

  “Probably,” Boone said, nodding. “Maximum width of the blade was about three-quarters of an inch, according to the ME who did the cut-’em-up.”

  The sergeant picked up his glass from the floor, began to chew on the ice cubes. Now that he was talking, he seemed to relax. His speech slowed, became more discursive.

  “So the chambermaid knocks and goes in to clean,” he continued. “She’s an old dame who doesn’t see too good. She’s practically alongside the bed, standing in the blood, when she sees him. She lets out a scream and faints, right into the mess. A porter comes running. After him come two hotel guests passing in the corridor. The porter calls the security man, using the room phone of course, and ruining any prints. The security man comes running with his assistant, and he calls the manager who comes running with his assistant. Finally someone has enough brains to call 911. By the time the first blues got there, there’s like maybe ten people milling about in the room. Instant hysteria. Beautiful. I got there about the same time the Crime Scene Unit men showed up. They were furious, and I don’t blame them. You could have galloped the Seventh Cavalry through that room and not done any more damage.”

  “These things happen,” Delaney said sympathetically.

  “I suppose so,” Boone said, sighing, “but we sure weren’t overwhelmed with what you might call clues. The victim was a guy named George T. Puller, from Denver. A wholesale jewelry salesman. His line was handmade silver things set with turquoise and other semiprecious stones. He was in town for a jewelry show being held right there at the Grand Park. It was his second night in New York.”

  “Forced entry?”

  “No sign,” Boone said.

  He explained that Room 914 was equipped with a split-lock—half spring-latch and half dead-bolt. The door locked automatically when closed, but the dead-bolt could only be engaged by a turn of the key after exiting or by a thumb knob inside.

  “When the chambermaid came in,” Boone said, “the spring-latch was locked, but not the dead-bolt. That looks like the killer exited and just pulled the door closed.”

  Delaney agreed.

  “No signs of fiddling on the outside of the lock,” Boone went on. “And the Crime Scene Unit took that mother apart. No scratches on the tumblers, no oil, no wax. So the chances are good the lock hadn’t been picked; George T. Puller invited his killer inside.”

  “You went through the drill, I suppose,” the Chief said. “Friends, business acquaintances? Personal enemies? A feud? Business problems? A jealous partner?”

  “And hotel guests,” the sergeant said wearily. “And hotel staff. And bartenders and waiters in the cocktail lounge and dining room on the lobby floor. A lot of ‘Well, perhaps …’ and ‘Maybes …’ But it all added up to zip. With the jewelry show and all, the hotel was crowded that night. The last definite contact was with two other salesmen in the jewelry show hospitality suite. That was about seven P.M. Then the three men split. Puller told the others he was going to wander around, find a place that served a good steak, and turn in early. They never saw him again.

  “The CSU found a lot of prints, but mostly partials and smears. They’re still working on elimination prints. My God, Chief, in that hotel room you’ve got to figure all the people who crowded in there after the body was discovered; plus the hotel staff, plus peop
le who stayed in the room before Puller checked in. Hopeless. But we’re still working on it.”

  “You’ve got no choice,” Delaney said stonily.

  “Right. One other thing: The Crime Scene Unit took the bathroom apart. They found blood in the bathtub drain. Not enough for a positive make, but the Lab Services Unit thinks it’s the victim’s blood. Same type and also, the victim was on Thorazine, and it showed up in the blood taken from the drain.”

  “Thorazine? What the hell was he taking that for?”

  “You’re not going to believe this, but he had bad attacks of hiccups. The Thorazine helped. Anyway, it’s almost certain it was his blood in the drain, and no one else’s. There was no way he was going to get from that bed to the bathroom, take a shower, and then go back to bed to bleed to death. So it had to be the killer—right? Covered with blood. Takes a shower to wash it off. Then makes an exit.”

  “No hairs in the drain? Hairs that didn’t belong to the victim?”

  “Nothing,” Boone said mournfully. “We should be so lucky!”

  “A damp towel?” the Chief asked.

  Boone smiled, for the first time.

  “You don’t miss a thing, do you, sir? No, there was no damp towel. But one of the hotel’s bath towels was missing. I figure the killer took it along.”

  “Probably,” Delaney said. “A smart apple.”

  Sergeant Boone, intent again, serious, leaned forward.

  “Chief,” he said, “I think I’ve given you everything I had on the Puller homicide in the first couple of days. If you had caught the squeal, how would you have handled it? The reason I ask is that I’m afraid I blew it. Well, maybe not blew it, but spent too much time charging off in the wrong direction. How would you have figured it?”

  Edward X. Delaney was silent a moment. Then he got to his feet, went over to the liquor cabinet. He mixed himself another highball, using the last of the ice in the bucket.

  “Another club soda?” he asked Boone. “Coffee? Anything?”

  “No, thanks, sir. I’m fine.”

  “I’m going to have a cigar. How about you?”