The Burglar in the Rye

by Lawrence Block

  “What you didn’t figure on,” I said to Erica, “was that Carl would get to the room before the cops did. By the time they got there, there was no knife in the corpse, no purse on the chair, and nothing that would lead anybody to your old friend Karen. But she wasn’t exactly sitting pretty, either. She didn’t have the letters that had brought her to New York in the first place, and the jewelry she’d picked up along the way had somehow gotten out of her grasp.

  “But that wasn’t enough for you. You told her Carolyn had let something slip—you knew I had the rubies, and I might even have the letters, too. And you knew exactly where in my apartment I had hidden them.

  “You had her wait at your apartment. You went out for dinner, went home to Carolyn’s place instead of your own, and slipped out as soon as Carolyn was sound asleep. Then you dropped by your place to pick up Kassenmeier and the two of you went up to Seventy-first and West End. Once the two of you were inside my apartment, you just waited for your opportunity—first to get the knife from her handbag, then to use it on her the way you’d used it on Anthea Landau. This time your victim was conscious, so it wasn’t quite as easy. The two of you made enough noise to get my neighbor Mrs. Hesch’s attention, but not enough to make her call the cops right away. Then you let yourself out and went home.”

  “How’d they get in?” It was the uniformed cop, and he seemed interested now. “You said Kassenmeier didn’t have burglar’s tools. Is this dame a burglar?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “So how’d she get in?”

  “She had a key,” I said. “Carolyn’s my best friend. We have keys to each other’s apartment and place of business. She used her bookstore key the other day to feed my cat.”

  “And she gave the key to this dame?”

  “The dame’s name is Erica,” I said. “Erica Darby, and you’ll want to get it right when you write up the arrest for double homicide. She took Carolyn out for a night on the town, and for once she didn’t show any concern about the way Carolyn was drinking. In fact she encouraged it.”

  “It was supposed to be a celebration,” Carolyn said.

  “Earlier, she’d shown some uncharacteristic interest in me. Asked you where I lived, and other questions about me. So she knew the address, and she knew you had keys, and she made sure you had enough to drink and enough, uh…”

  “Stimulation,” Carolyn supplied. “And I passed out and slept like I’d been clubbed. Then what? How did she know where to find the keys?”

  “Where do you keep them?”

  “On a hook on the bulletin board next to the front door.”

  “And what does the little tag on the key ring say?”

  “Bernie’s Keys,” she said. “I guess they wouldn’t be too hard to find.”

  “What about the doorman?” the cop demanded. “You got twenty-four-hour doorman service in your building, don’t you?”

  “Twenty-hour service is more like it,” I said. “They don’t always man their post every minute of the shift, and sometimes they doze off. But even if he was on the spot and wide awake, so what? Two well-dressed middle-class white women? Getting out of a cab and walking into the lobby together like they belong there?”

  “In like Flynn,” the cop said.

  “Exactly. Then Erica closes the door on Kassenmeier’s corpse, locks up, cabs back down to Arbor Court, and puts my keys back on the hook where she found them. She would have taken your keys, too, so she could get back in, and she puts them back, too. Then she goes home and sleeps the sleep of the unjust.”

  “And that’s that?”

  “That’s that,” I said. “End of story. She killed two people because one of them did something a long time ago that really pissed her off. I suppose the DA’ll find out what it is by the time the case gets to court, but I kind of like the fact that we don’t know. It makes the whole thing seem as senseless as it was.”

  “It’s quite a story,” Erica said.

  “I’m proud of it,” I admitted. “There are probably a few undotted i’s and uncrossed t’s in it, but it stands up.”

  “The only thing I’m going to say,” she said, “is that there’s not a shred of proof for anything you’ve said.”

  “I thought you’d say that. It’s funny, but innocent people don’t start hollering about lack of proof. They just say they didn’t do it. But the fact of the matter is that there’s plenty of proof, and there’ll be more when the police start looking. There’ll be people who know of your history with Karen Kassenmeier, for example. The cabbie who drove you and Karen to my place will probably remember you, once pictures of the two of you get shown around. Someone will turn up who saw you in the hotel on the night of Anthea Landau’s murder, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the police find your fingerprints, once they’ve got a set for comparison and know what they’re looking for.

  “Meanwhile, of course, there’s the knife.”

  “What knife?”

  “The one you used to kill two people, the stiletto with the four-inch blade. What do you want to bet it’s in your apartment?”

  “That is absolute nonsense.”

  “I have a hunch that’s where the cops’ll find it,” I said. “Soaking in a bowl of Clorox, right on the counter under the Virginia Slims calendar. I guess that’s to get rid of the blood traces, and that’s not a bad idea, but why not ditch the knife altogether? Throw it down a storm sewer, say, or drop it in a trash can?” I looked at her. “A souvenir? Well, I guess it’s better than the kind Jeffrey Dahmer kept, but it still strikes me as a risky thing to hang on to.”

  “There’s no knife in my apartment.”

  “I guess I was misinformed. What did you do with the knife, then?”

  “I never…How do you know there’s a Virginia Slims calendar in my kitchen?”

  “Carolyn must have mentioned the great picture of Martina.”

  “You bastard! You planted the knife. But—”

  “But how did I get in?”

  “I know how you got in. You’re a burglar. But where did you get the knife? It can’t be the same knife. It’s a different knife. You planted a different knife in my apartment!”

  “If you think about it,” I said, “you’ll figure out what everybody else in the room already realizes. There’s only one way you could know that.”

  “You have the right to remain silent,” Ray Kirschmann intoned. He’d said all this before, to the whole room, but now he was saying it to her, and the boy in blue was fastening handcuffs to her wrists. He had already moved over to her side while I was running it all down for them, and he had plenty of room, because Carolyn had been drawing away.

  Then the two cops led her out of the room, and the door swung shut behind them.

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-three

  I have to say the fresh air was welcome. Isis Gauthier’s room was larger than the one I’d had, and it was a help having the window open, but all the same it got a little close in there. A little cross-ventilation didn’t hurt a bit.

  Even so, the room seemed to be holding its collective breath while the door was open. When it swung closed and clicked shut, the energy in the room picked up.

  “Well,” Hilliard Moffett said, running a hand through his mop of curls. “I’m glad that’s out of the way.”

  “You said it,” Lester Eddington said.

  “It took long enough,” Victor Harkness said, “but it’s done, and the wretched woman’s gone, and we can get on with it.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “A very complicated series of events just got sorted out, and a murderer exposed and brought to justice. And you think that was just something to get out of the way?”

  “It’s not why we’re here,” Moffett said.

  “It’s why I summoned you all here,” I said. “In case you were wondering.”

  “But it’s not why we’re here,” Lester Eddington said. “It’s why you’re here, and it may be why that woman—Erica?”

  “Erica,” Ca
rolyn said.

  “It may be why she was here, and quite clearly it’s why the police were here. But several of us are here because of the letters.”

  “Ah,” I said. “The letters.”

  “From Gulliver Fairborn to his agent, Anthea Landau.”

  “Those letters,” I said.

  “The last we heard,” Moffett said, with a nod toward Alice, “she had them.”

  “But not for long,” Alice said.

  “Now whose fault was that? You called to tell me you’d shredded and burned the letters. They were gone, you assured me, and you’d already notified Fairborn, and he was relieved. And you were on your way home to Virginia. In fact you had to cut our conversation short so you could catch a plane.” I gave her my best sidelong look. “Another fib, Alice?”

  “You’d already put yourself in jeopardy on my account,” she said, “getting arrested and having to spend the night in jail. And I didn’t want you to keep on looking for something you wouldn’t be able to find. So I told, yes, another white lie to put you at ease and keep you out of harm’s way.”

  “That was considerate,” I said. “And I have to say it worked. I haven’t been locked up since.”

  “But then you stole the letters from me,” she said. “Didn’t you?”

  “I had a phone number for you,” I said, “even if you never seemed to be there to answer it. Ray came up with an address to go with it, and I packed up my picks and probes and did what I do best.”

  “And you have them?” Moffett demanded.

  “He must,” Alice said, “because I’m sure I don’t.” She shook her head sadly. “If I’d just had a chance to copy them,” she said, “I wouldn’t care what happened to them. I was planning to do that right away, but I decided there was no hurry, and I might as well take time and read them through first. Then I could have them copied, and after that I could destroy the originals.”

  “My God,” Victor Harkness said. “That’s…that’s vandalism!”

  “You wouldn’t have done that,” I said. “You’d have found a way to sell them to one of these gentlemen.”

  She was about to protest, then shrugged instead. “Maybe,” she said. “I don’t have them anymore, so what difference does it make?”

  “Let’s get down to it.” Moffett looked more like a bulldog than ever, and one sensed his bite was as bad as his bark. “Who gets them?”

  “All I need are copies,” Lester Eddington said. “As long as I’m given the opportunity to purchase a set of photocopies at a reasonable price, I don’t care which of the other two gentlemen winds up with the originals.”

  “And the same goes for me,” Alice said, and everyone turned to stare at her. “Well, I still have a book to write,” she said, “and a story to tell, and the letters aren’t indispensable, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have them. And I’d pay a reasonable fee, too, the same as Mr. Eddington. In fact there’s no reason we couldn’t each have a set, without harming the originals or lessening their value in any way.”

  “That’s up to the owner,” Moffett said. “And after I’ve acquired the letters I’ll decide who may receive copies.”

  “I must have missed something,” Isis said. “When did you get to be the owner?”

  “As soon as this formality is concluded,” he told her, “that’s precisely what I’ll be. I’m in a position to outbid anyone else here, and that’s what I intend to do. You’re running this little auction, Mr. Rhodenbarr, so why don’t we get on with it?”

  “Just a moment,” Victor Harkness said. “You may have deep pockets, sir, but Sotheby’s has legal standing. Title to these letters remains with Miss Anthea Landau, and becomes a part of her estate upon her death. Our agreement with her is binding upon her estate. While we’ll happily pay a substantial finder’s fee to expedite matters, we’ll certainly not stand idly by while someone with no right, title, or interest in the property seeks to transfer it to somebody else.”

  “Sue me,” Moffett suggested.

  “We’re prepared to.”

  “Or save us both some aggravation and come to terms with me here and now. There’s no reason I can’t write out two checks, one to Rhodenbarr and one to Sotheby’s. And when I say checks, it’s a manner of speaking. It could just as easily be cash, more than enough to cover the commission your firm could expect to make on the sale.”

  “That’s most irregular. I don’t think my people would approve.”

  “I won’t tell them if you don’t,” Moffett said. “In which case the cash could go wherever you wanted it to go, couldn’t it?”

  Harkness managed to look shocked and attracted at the same time. It would have been interesting to see which way he jumped, but it had already been a long evening. I raised a hand and signaled, and I didn’t have to do it twice.

  “I say,” Marty Gilmartin said, clearing his throat. “It’s not my place to say anything, as letters are out of my purview, but aren’t you fellows getting a little ahead of yourselves?”

  Someone asked him what he meant.

  “You’re fighting over some letters,” he said, “that may or may not exist, and may or may not be in our friend’s possession. Shouldn’t you check the hypothesis before leaping to the conclusion?”

  “A good point,” Moffett said. “If you’ve got those letters with you, Rhodenbarr, now’s the time for you to give us a look at them.”

  “And if you haven’t,” Harkness said, “this might be a good time to go get them.”

  I reached into my breast pocket, drew out the sheet of purple paper I’d showed them earlier. This time I unfolded it and handed it to Marty. “I brought a sample,” I said. “Read this, why don’t you?”

  He put on a pair of reading glasses and peered through them. “‘Dear Anthea,’” he read. “‘I still haven’t received the check for the sale of Italian rights. Tell them I was planning on stocking up on spaghetti, so the money’ll all come back to them. Meanwhile they’re sitting around playing bocce and sipping cappuccino with my money, and I don’t like it. In high dudgeon, Gully.’”

  “Let me see that,” Moffett and Eddington said as one, and clustered around Marty.

  “It’s his signature,” Moffett said. “I’d know it anywhere.”

  “So would I,” said Eddington. “I should—I’ve seen it often enough. And I couldn’t swear to it, but that looks like the same Royal portable he was using during those years. The top of the small e is filled, and the g strikes a little high.”

  “I’ll take that,” I said, and did.

  “That’s a genuine letter,” Moffett said, “and I’m willing to believe you have the rest in a safe place. So let’s get down to cases. What do you want?”

  “You’ve all told me what you want,” I said, “and now you want to know what I want.”

  “Well?”

  “What no one seems to care about,” I said, “is what Gulliver Fairborn might want.”

  “He’s not here,” Moffett said, “so we can’t ask him. Get to the point, man.”

  “In any event,” Harkness said, “he’s not an interested party.”

  “Oh? It seems to me he’s the most interested party of all. He wrote the letters.”

  “But they ceased belonging to him the minute he dropped them in the mail. He retains the copyright, but the actual letters are legally the property of the recipient.”

  “I know.”

  “Then what he wants or doesn’t want is immaterial.”

  “Not to me,” I said. “I didn’t get into this mess for money. Believe me, there are easier ways to turn a dishonest dollar. I wanted to do something nice for a man who wrote a book that changed my life.”

  “Get to the point, man.”

  “All right,” I said. I had been moving closer to the fireplace. I looked up at Elvis, who looked back at me. It was silly, I know, but I got the feeling the King approved of what I was going to do.

  So I reached over the top of the fire screen and slipped the letter on through. �
��There,” I said. “Alice, you said you burned the letters. Well, let’s say you did. And let’s say that was the only one that escaped. Now it can join the others.”

  They were a little slow off the mark, but once they got moving they didn’t waste time shoving me aside and yanking the screen out of the way. The letter they’d all just examined was on top of the dying fire, and as they watched it burst into flame.

  It was a pretty sight, that sheet of purple paper burning brightly atop a heap of half-burned logs and glowing ashes. And as they stared at it they saw other scraps of purple paper, the charred remnants of all the other sheets that had been burning up while we’d been learning who killed their lawful owner.

  “My God,” Victor Harkness said.

  “An irreplaceable treasure,” Moffett said. “Unique material, and now it’s lost forever. You rotten son of a bitch.”

  “You’ve just stolen something from future generations of scholars,” Lester Eddington said. “I hope you’re happy.”

  “You’ve broken the law,” Harkness said. “We could press charges, you know, on behalf of the Landau estate. Criminal mischief, wanton destruction of property…”

  “Laws were made to be broken,” I said, “and you might have trouble making those charges stick. But what choice did I have? How much choice did any of us have?”

  Isis asked me what I meant.

  “Well, we’re all obsessed, aren’t we? Alice is obsessed with her book, and Eddington’s obsessed with his studies. Moffett is obsessed with his collection. Harkness is obsessed with doing his job. And look at Erica Darby. She was obsessed with revenge. Look where that led.”

  “And you, Bern?”

  I looked at Carolyn, then at everybody else. “I may be a criminal,” I said, “but that doesn’t make me a bad person. It sounds corny, but I was obsessed with doing the right thing.”

  Silence greeted this remark, a profound and all-embracing silence, and it held until I took the fireplace poker and stirred the ashes. Little scraps of purple paper that had managed to be incompletely consumed came into contact with glowing embers and at once were burning brightly, if briefly. The sight brought a gasp to some of the people watching. The scraps were too small to be worth saving, but it was still somehow shocking to see them disappear altogether.