Edge of Panic

by Henry, Kane,

  “About—an hour ago.”

  “No good, Mrs. Martin.”

  “Why? Why?” Thin shrillness of hysteria was in her voice. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you left your house at nine-thirty—”

  “How—how do you know?”

  “Nine-thirty. It wouldn’t take you more than a half hour by the Highway to get here. But the boys didn’t pick you up on the Highway. They picked you up on Madison and Twenty-Fourth. Why?”

  “Well—well—”

  “All right. You didn’t take the Highway. You wanted to do it slow. I’ll throw in another half hour. That still leaves an hour. I say you spent that hour with him. Show me different, and I apologize, humbly. Show me different—and prove it.”

  She began to cry, unashamed, like a child, looking at him, bewildered, her face contorted.

  “Show me different, Mrs. Martin.”

  She stamped both feet, jumping out of the chair, wavered, and he caught her. She was crying against his sleeve, convulsively, trying now to stop it, pushing her forehead against his arm, limp as he held her on her feet. “He couldn’t—couldn’t—”

  “Where is he?”

  “I won’t tell you.”

  “That’s better.”

  He let her cry until she was finished. He helped her into the chair. She wiped her face, her body heaving as she jerked down sobs. Then she sat quietly, watching him go back to the swivel chair. He finished the brandy in his glass, asked, “Would you like another?”

  “No, thank you.”

  He poured more into the glass, corked the bottle, put it back in the drawer. He rested heavily in the chair, closing his hands behind his head, looking at the ceiling. “All wives are gallant,” he said. “All good wives. You see what I mean about hating this business? Forty-four lousy years. Excuse me.”

  “How—how do you know when I left my home?” She made a ball of her handkerchief, rubbing it between her palms.

  “You left maybe five minutes before my people got there.”

  “Oh-oh. Then—”

  He swung forward in the chair, put his elbows on the desk, pushed the glass aside. “At eight-forty-five, the elevator girls shift schedule. I’m talking about the Everett, where Joyce Anderson lived, suite Eight-ten. At eight-forty-five, a new group comes on. One of the girls in the old group, a comely lass, but not particularly bright, stupid is more like it, has something on her mind. A guy went up to eight wearing a hat and carrying a briefcase. When he came down, he didn’t have the hat or the briefcase, the left side of his face was scratched and bleeding, and it sort of seemed to her, he was hiding behind her. She doesn’t say anything until the schedule shifts, and then she tells the manager, ‘Funny thing,’ she says, ‘but it’s been on my mind—’

  “The manager thinks about it. The eighth floor is built in suites, people with money. There are only nine tenants on the floor. Six of them are out, their keys are in the boxes behind him. So he takes a chance, and, on some pretext, calls the other three. Two answer, and he gets rid of them. No one answers in Joyce Anderson’s suite. No key in the box. Of course, it’s possible she went out with the key on her. Anyway, he sends a bellboy up to check. Tells him to knock first, knock plenty. The bellboy knocks, nobody answers, he lets himself in, and he finds her. We get called in. Are you with me, Mrs. Martin?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “I get the case. I always get the ones that keep you up all night. I go up there with a bunch of my experts, and it’s a wrap-up. Crime of passion, one of those things. Harry Martin killed her, nobody else. Bloody hammer—one of the sets of fingerprints are his—”

  “One of the sets of fingerprints? But Captain—Mr. Brophy—”

  He shook his head, jowls flapping. “There are always more than one set of fingerprints—one set of fingerprints is phony. You know what I mean? One set of fingerprints, it would mean an object thoroughly cleaned, pains taken, prepared for that one set of fingerprints. It doesn’t happen. On anything, there are many fingerprints, unless it is an exclusive object, which a hammer isn’t. There’s only one set of fingerprints we’re interested in—his—and they’re on it. The wall, now, that’s different. Those are bloody fingerprints—only his. That’s—”

  “But how would you know?”

  “What?”

  “That they’re his—his—where—?”

  “He left his hat and briefcase, running. We know where to look. They check with his fingerprints in his office, which we broke into. They check with the numerous fingerprints in your home. Look, Brophy works unorthodox, but Brophy works thorough. My system is saturation, with me hanging around, waiting. Once I’ve got it clear, I come back here and sit. I throw the whole works in, I use fifty men, a hundred. We blot up every angle, fast—saturation. That’s Brophy. The minute we get your husband fixed as the boy—a whole carload of men go up to his office, another carload goes up to your home. Right now, there’s only two—sitting around with a pleasant little girl, Ruth, waiting—for you; maybe for Harry. You know?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I know.”

  “My people get there maybe five minutes after you leave. That’s how I know when you leave.” He sat back, drank brandy.

  “But, why—why should he? Why—?”

  “We know that too.”

  “You know—what?”

  “First, it’s time you gave me the business. It won’t hurt him. Nothing can hurt him any more. He’s hurt, all the way. From here on in, he can only be helped, which I don’t think is possible—but he can’t be hurt any more, Mrs. Martin—he’s in all the way, he can’t go any further.”

  She put her hands over her face, dragging fingers down her cheeks, pinching skin. She got up and began to walk. “But there’s no reason—why should he—?”

  “I suggest you let me have it, Mrs. Martin. I suggest you tell me just what he told you. Man running, that’s dangerous. Dangerous to him, dangerous to others. Man running, after a trick like that, the guy’s on the edge of panic. You don’t know what he might do. You think you’ve got him safely hidden out—but you don’t know, Mrs. Martin—you do not know. I suggest you tell me.”

  She told him. She told him everything she knew. She walked the uncarpeted floor, talking, crying sometimes, talking—telling him, as though he were her father, as though he were a holy man, a priest who would console her. “… I won’t tell you where he is. I won’t tell you with whom he is. I told you the man is a lawyer, and I told you what he said. He’s with him, with the lawyer, and in the morning, if I say so, he’ll bring him in. If I say so. But I want it proved to me—”

  “Sit down.”

  She looked at him, went to the chair.

  “A little brandy?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  He brought the bottle out of the drawer and poured for her and poured for himself. He flicked the key on the inter-com. “Give me Foley.” He sipped brandy. “Foley? You know that travel agency down there at Grand Central? Yeah. I want a woman that sits behind the adjustment window. What? Look, Lieutenant, I don’t care how many adjustment windows there might be—I want them all. I don’t care who you wake up, I want a woman behind an adjustment window at the travel agency by Grand Central. I don’t care who you wake up—the president, the numerous vice-presidents, all of their mistresses—I don’t care how many men you use, I don’t care how many women you bring in—it’s on that Martin-Anderson deal. Go to work.” He flipped the key.

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. Nothing’s going to help the guy. But Brophy don’t let nothing go by. She’ll fix it, that’s all. She’ll set it. She’ll prove the man running—if she remembers him. It only adds up—it don’t break it down. God, how I hate this business.” He drank brandy.

  “But why? Please, sir, why? He’s my husband, Mr. Brophy. I know him. He’s good—a good man—he wouldn’t, he couldn’t—”

  “Unorthodox, they call me. But nobody never said Brophy don’t play ball.
Brophy checks everything. When I get through with a case, all the D.A. has to do is recite it in court. I break all the rules, but they don’t let me retire. Do they?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “They don’t. You want to hear more on the story?”

  “More?”

  “First, she was sick. She had a cold.”

  “Who?”

  “Joyce Anderson. Doctor told her to stay in today. We check with him, not telling him anything’s wrong. We got ways. She’s supposed to have been in all day. Nobody saw her go out, none of the elevator girls remembers. Nobody saw her come back. Maybe, she did. I’m not saying she didn’t. I’m not saying she didn’t go down to your husband’s office and talk with him. That’s not the brightest set of elevator girls in the business. This we do know—because we blot it all up, saturation, the Brophy system—we know she called him, left her name with the telephone answering service. We know she was told he’d be at the office at four o’clock. We know he was loaded. We know he’s a guy gets nasty when he’s loaded. We know he was drinking in a joint called Caesar Stein’s Topaz Grotto. We know he was drinking in a joint called Cradle By the Park. He was loaded. We got a bartender, maybe five minutes before he went up there, that says he was loaded and pugnacious—”

  “I’ll admit he used to drink.”

  “Now that’s real big of you.”

  “He used to—”

  “We even got a record that he was pulled in for slugging a guy once—”

  “I’ll admit, sometimes, he’d get out of hand. But you must understand—never with a woman. Just the contrary—protecting women, that sort of thing, tilting at windmills, a minor-league barfly Don Quixote, bad, sometimes, at his worst, but not—evil. He wouldn’t kill a woman, Mr. Brophy—he wouldn’t kill anybody… Why—why?”

  He rolled back his chair, pulled open the flat wide middle drawer of the desk. “Here’s why. Crime of passion. Here’s the background. I hate to do it to you, Mrs. Martin. But it’s going to be done, sooner or later.” He took a black leather book out of the drawer.

  “What is it?”

  “A diary. I wish some nice quiet-talking psychiatrist would explain to me sometime why all these tomatoes keep diaries, but invariably.”

  “A diary? What’s that got to do with—?”

  “She had a million boy friends. A discreet tomato, she refers to them only by their first names. Take a look where we put the slats in. Take a look about Harry. It’s been going on for maybe six months. That’s always a good setup for this kind of crime of passion pitch.” He handed her the book She sat back in the chair, reading hurriedly. She read about Harry, the new one, the interesting one, the one that spoke so well, so softly… what would his wife think, if she knew… what, what…

  She fainted, sliding from the chair.

  He ran around the desk with the bottle in his hand, bent, pulled her lips apart, poured brandy into her mouth. He put the bottle on the floor, slapping at her face, until she opened her eyes.

  “I know how it is,” he said.

  “No. No you don’t.” She shook her head. The room righted. “I’m sorry.” She stood up, tossed the book on the desk, began to walk, up and down in the room, running her hands through her hair, rubbing her hands together, touching her hair, rubbing her hands again, holding them together behind her, fingers squeezing. “No. No.”

  “It’s right there. Written right there.”

  “He couldn’t—”

  “I suppose he’ll deny that part of it, and I wouldn’t blame him, but my God, Mrs. Martin, how much do you need to convince you? Harry wouldn’t and Harry couldn’t—that’s your song, and I’m sure you believe it. But Harry did.” He took the bottle off the floor, stooping, grunting, brought it back to the desk. He put the diary into the drawer. “Harry did. Harry himself says he did. It didn’t take with you. You found blanks. You couldn’t find a reason. Now you’ve got a reason. Which ought to fill in the blanks. Where is he, Mrs. Martin? Let’s go get him.”

  She came to the desk, lips tight to teeth, hollows in her cheeks. She leaned on spread hands, stiff at the elbows, looking down at him. “May I go there, sir?”

  “Where?”

  “To the Everett. Her apartment.”

  “Why—for the love of God?”

  “Please, sir—if there’s anything—I want to do anything I can—I want to try—”

  “How much more do you want, ma’am?”

  “Please.”

  “He’s admitted it, we’ve underwritten it. What else do you want, Mrs. Martin? It’s all there, clearly piled up, including his own admission to you and to the lawyer. Now you’ve got their relationship, whether or not he’ll admit that, for motive. In a setup like that, things happen, things like that, things out of emotion.”

  “I want to see—”

  “What can you see, that hasn’t been seen?”

  “It’s just—”

  “We’re not persecuting anybody, Mrs. Martin. It’s facts, plain cold facts. Cops got a business. There’s nothing personal anybody’s got against him. A guy commits a crime and it catches up with him, period. Why don’t you give yourself a break? Why don’t you start pitching on the other side? With the defense. Maybe there’s an angle, maybe there’s an out, maybe, like the lawyer thinks, he was out of his head, maybe there’s something else, some kind of cockeyed justification. Why don’t you give yourself a break, ma’am?”

  “I’d like to go up there.”

  “Why?”

  “Please. I’d like to know I tried everything—everything, before—before—”

  “But what’s the sense?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t know.” She went away from the desk, slapping her hands against her sides, walking. “Put yourself in my place. This morning I was home with my husband—my child—”

  He put a hand up. “Wait a minute. Don’t start that. I don’t want to hear it.”

  “But, sir—”

  “Look, Mrs. Martin. I’ve got children of my own, and grandchildren. You think I enjoy this? I don’t want to hear it, the home-life, that stuff—it’s bad enough I’ve got the kind of job that kicks hell out of me, as is. I don’t need the extra trimmings. I know you’ve had a shock. But—”

  “We have his story, sir. We have the admission that he—that he did it, that something happened, that something snapped. I didn’t believe it. I don’t believe it. But, if this—this affair is a fact—why didn’t he tell it? Is it easier to admit to murder than to—to an illicit relationship? Is it? Is it?”

  “Maybe it is. Between a man and his wife—”

  “But he didn’t tell it to me. He told it to his friend, the lawyer, he—”

  “Then maybe the friend didn’t tell you.”

  “No. He told me everything that was told to him. I’m sure of that. He wouldn’t have omitted anything, in the circumstances. I know the man. I’ve known him all my life.”

  “Will you bring him in, no matter what?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  “I promise. By morning, or before.”

  He slammed both hands on the desk. “Okay, Mrs. Martin. Roam. Roam your head off. Go where you want and do what you like. Remember, if you don’t bring him in—we’ll catch up with him anyway. And there’s a serious charge called accessory after the fact. And you’ll be it. Understand?”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  He clicked the key on the communicator. “Send in Crawford.” He shut it off, sighed. “Brophy, the unorthodox. I ought to have my head examined. Listen, Mrs. Martin, don’t do anything foolish.”

  “I won’t, sir.”

  “You’ve got a kid at home, remember that. Fact is, that’s the only reason I’m letting you run around loose. You won’t go out of line—there’s an anchor on you.”

  “Yes, sir. I know it.”

  “That’s me. Brophy. I’m human. I play ball.”

  “Thank you.”

  “
Satisfy yourself, satisfy yourself all you like. Maybe you’ll come up with an angle we didn’t dream of, not that it’ll help. We know who did it—our job is tying it up tight and right, and that’s done already. Just remember you promised to bring him in—or, at least, to let us go get him. If you don’t co-operate, you’ll go to jail, so help me. Understand? That’ll be two of you out of the house, and the kid alone. A woman of your caliber, I’m not taking much of a chance. All right?”

  “I want to thank you, sir. I—”

  “The hell with that. Excuse me.”

  “I promise you—”

  “Brophy,” he sighed, “the unorthodox.”

  There was a knock and he said, “Come in,” and a tall young man saluted.

  “Fred Crawford. Mrs. Martin. Harry Martin’s wife.”

  “How do you do?”

  “Take Mrs. Martin up to that Joyce Anderson place. Let her see whatever she wants to see, answer anything she wants to know. She goes where she likes and she does what she likes and if she doesn’t want you with her, she goes alone. Check?”

  “Check, sir.”

  “You’ll go in Fred’s car, ma’am. In your own, on that call that was on the air, you’d be stopped all the time. Check?”

  “Thank you, Captain.” She opened her bag, wiped her face with her powder puff.

  “Don’t call me Captain. You’ll find a couple of lady detectives up there, taking calls, keeping tabs. There’s a Shirley Vaughn and an Anne Pepper. Tell them it’s okay, Fred, that is, if they can understand you. Lady detectives, bah. Bah and bah.”

  “This way, miss.” The young man held the door for her.

  Brophy listened to the footsteps in the corridor, poked the key on the inter-com. “I want four men close-tail on a woman going out of the building with Fred Crawford. I don’t want them to lose her for a minute. Hurry up, relay that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He kept the key up, hearing quick commands, scrape of chairs, running feet. He pursed his mouth, pulled gently, with two fingers, at the tip of his nose. “How unorthodox,” he complained, “can a guy get?”

  “What’s that, sir?”

  “Nothing.” He slammed down the key, rubbed one hand across his bald head. The other reached for the brandy bottle.