87P14-Lady, Lady, I Did It!

by Ed McBain

  The house was very still. Veronica Land explained that her mother had come to take the children away for a few days. The children did not yet know their father had been killed. She would have to tell them, she knew, but she wanted to be composed when she did, and she had not yet adjusted to the fact herself. She spoke in a low, controlled voice, but the tears sat just behind her eyes, waiting to be released, and the detectives picked through the conversation delicately and cautiously, not wanting to release the torrent. She sat very stiffly in an easy chair, carrying her unborn child like a huge medicine ball in her lap. She did not take her eyes from the detectives as they spoke. Carella had the feeling that every shred of her being was furiously concentrated on what they were saying. He had the feeling that she was clinging to the conversation for support, that if she once lost its thread she would burst into uncontrollable tears.

  “How old was your husband, Mrs. Land?” Meyer asked.

  “Thirty-one.”

  “And he was a teacher at the university, is that right?”

  “An instructor, yes. As assistant professor.”

  “He commuted daily from Sands Spit?”

  “Yes.”

  “What time did he leave the house, Mrs. Land?”

  “He caught the eight-seventeen each morning.”

  “Do you own a car, Mrs. Land?”

  “Yes.”

  “But your husband took the train?”

  “Yes. We have only one car, and I’m…well, as you can see, I’m going to have a baby. Herbie…Herbie felt I should have the car here. In case…well…”

  “When is the baby due, Mrs. Land?” Carella asked.

  “It’s supposed to come this month,” she answered. “Sometime this month.”

  Carella nodded. The house went still again.

  Meyer cleared his throat. “What time does the eight-seventeen reach the city, would you know, Mrs. Land?”

  “Nine o’clock, I think. I know his first class was at nine-thirty, and he had to take a subway uptown from the terminal. I think the train got in at nine, yes.”

  “And he taught philosophy?”

  “He was in the philosophy department, yes. Actually he taught philosophy and ethics and logic and esthetics.”

  “I see. Mrs. Land…did…uh…did your husband seem worried about anything? Did he mention anything that might have seemed…”

  “Worried? What do you mean, worried?” Veronica Land said. “He was worried about his salary, which is six thousand dollars a year, and he was worried about our mortgage payments, and worried about the one car we have which is about to fall apart. What do you mean ‘worried’? I don’t know what you mean by ‘worried.’”

  Meyer glanced at Carella. For a moment the tension in the room was unbearable. Veronica Land fought for control, clasped her hands in her lap just below the bulge of her stomach. She sighed heavily.

  In a very low voice she said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean by ‘worried,’“ but she had regained control, and the edge of hysteria was gone now. “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, did…did he have any enemies that you know of?”

  “None.”

  “Any instructors at the university with whom he may have… well…argued…or…well, I don’t know. Any departmental difficulties?”

  “No.”

  “Had any one threatened him?”

  “No.”

  “His students perhaps? Had he talked about any difficulties with students? Had he failed anyone who might possibly have—”

  “No.”

  “—carried a grudge against—”

  “Wait, yes.”

  “What?” Carella said.

  “Yes, he failed someone. But that was last semester.”

  “Who?” Carella asked.

  “A boy in his logic class.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “Yes. Barney…something. Just a minute. He was on the baseball team, and when Herbie failed him he wasn’t allowed to… Robinson, that was it. Barney Robinson.”

  “Barney Robinson,” Carella repeated. “And you say he was on the baseball team?”

  “Yes. They play in the spring semester, you know. That was when Herbie failed him. Last semester.”

  “I see. Do you know why he failed him, Mrs. Land?”

  “Why, yes. He…he wasn’t doing his work. Why else would Herbie have failed him?”

  “And because he failed he wasn’t allowed to play on the team, is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did your husband seem to think Robinson was carrying any resentment?”

  “I don’t know. You asked me if I could think of someone, and I just thought of this Robinson because…Herbie didn’t have any enemies, Mr.—what was your name?”

  “Carella.”

  “Mr. Carella, Herbie didn’t have any enemies. You didn’t know my husband so…so…you wouldn’t know what…what kind of a person he—”

  She was about to lose control again. Quickly Carella said, “Did you even meet this Robinson?”

  “No.”

  “Then you wouldn’t know whether he was tall or short or—”

  “No.”

  “I see. And your husband discussed him with you, is that right?”

  “He only told me he’d had to fail Barney Robinson, and that it meant the boy wouldn’t be able to…pitch, I think it was.”

  “He’s a pitcher, is that right?”

  “Yes.” She paused. “I think so. Yes. A pitcher.”

  “That’s a very important person on a team, Mrs. Land. The pitcher.”

  “Is he?”

  “Yes. So there’s the possibility that, in addition to Robinson himself, any number of students could have been resentful of your husband’s actions. Isn’t that so?”

  “I don’t know. He never mentioned it except that once.”

  “Did any of his colleagues ever mention it?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Did you know any of his colleagues socially?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “But they never mentioned Barney Robinson or the fact that your husband had failed him?”

  “Never.”

  “Not even jokingly?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Had your husband ever received any threatening letters, Mrs. Land?”

  “No.”

  “Calls?”

  “No.”

  “But yet you thought of Robinson instantly when we asked if anyone might have a grudge against your husband.”

  “Yes. I think it troubled Herbie. Having to fail him, I mean.”

  “Did he say it troubled him?”

  “No. But I know my own husband. He wouldn’t have mentioned it if it wasn’t troubling him.”

  “But he told you about it after he’d failed the boy?”

  “Yes.”

  “How old is Robinson, do you know?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you have any idea what class he was in?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, would he have graduated already? Or is he still at the school?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “All you know, then, is that your husband failed a boy named Barney Robinson, a baseball player in his logic class.”

  “Yes, that’s all I know,” Veronica said.

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. Land. We appreciate—”

  “And I know my husband is dead,” Veronica Land said tonelessly. “I know that, too.”

  The university buildings rose in scholastic splendor in the midst of squalor, a tribute to the vagaries of city development. Those many years back, when the university was planned and executed, the surrounding neighborhood was one of the best in the city, containing several small parks, and rows of dignified brownstones, and apartment buildings with doormen. A slum grows because it has to have someplace to go. In this case, it grew toward the university, and around the university, ringing it with pov
erty and contained hostility. The university remained an island of culture and learning, its green grass providing a moat that defied further encroachment. Student and professor alike came out of the subway each morning and walked book-laden through a neighborhood where The Razor’s Edge was not a novel by Somerset Maugham but a fact of life. Oddly, there were few incidents between the people of the neighborhood and the university people. Once a student was mugged on his way to the subway, and once a young girl was almost raped, but a sort of undeclared truce existed, a laissez faire attitude that enabled citizen and scholar to pursue separate lives with a minimum of interference.

  One of those scholars was Barney Robinson.

  They found him on a campus bench, talking to a young brunette who had escaped from a Kerouac novel. They explained who they were and the girl excused herself. Robinson didn’t seem particularly pleased by the intrusion, or by the girl’s sudden disappearance.

  “What’s this all about?” he asked. He had blue eyes and a square face, and he was wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the name of the university. He straddled the bench and squinted into the sun, looking up at Meyer and Carella.

  “We didn’t expect to find you here today,” Carella said. “Do you always have classes on Saturday?”

  “What? Oh, no. Practice.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Basketball.”

  “We thought you were on the baseball team.”

  “I am. I’m also on the basket…” Robinson paused. “How’d you know that? What is this?”

  “Anyway, we’re glad we caught you,” Carella said.

  “Caught me?”

  “That’s just an expression.”

  “Yeah, I hope so,” Robinson said glumly.

  “How tall are you, Mr. Robinson?” Meyer asked.

  “Six-two.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “Mr. Robinson, did you once take a class with Professor Land?”

  “Yeah.” Robinson kept squinting up at the detectives, trying to understand what they were driving at. His tone was cautious but not overly wary. He seemed only to be extremely puzzled.

  “When was this?”

  “Last semester.”

  “What was the class?”

  “Logic.”

  “How’d you make out?”

  “I flunked.”

  “Why?”

  Robinson shrugged.

  “Do you think you deserved to flunk?”

  Robinson shrugged again.

  “Well, what do you say?” Meyer asked.

  “I don’t know. I flunked, that’s all.”

  “Were you doing the work?”

  “Sure I was doing the work.”

  “Did you understand what you were doing?”

  “Yeah, I thought so,” Robinson said.

  “But you flunked anyway.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, how’d you feel about that?” Meyer asked. “You were doing the work, and you say you understood it, but still you flunked. How about that? How’d it make you feel?”

  “Lousy—how do you think?” Robinson said. “Would you mind telling me what this is all about? Since when do detectives—”

  “This is just a routine investigation,” Carella said.

  “Into what?” Robinson asked.

  “How’d you feel about flunking?”

  “I told you. Lousy. An investigation into what?”

  “Well, that’s not important, Mr. Robinson. The only—”

  “What is it? Is there a fix in or something?”

  “A fix?”

  “Yeah. The team, is that it? Is somebody trying to fix a game?”

  “Why? Have you been approached?”

  “Hell, no. If there’s something going on, I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Are you a good basketball player, Mr. Robinson?”

  “Fair. Baseball’s my game.”

  “You pitch, is that right?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. You know an awful lot about me, don’t you? For a routine investigation—”

  “Are you a good pitcher?”

  “Yes,” Robinson answered without hesitation.

  “What happened when Land flunked you?”

  “I got benched.”

  “For how long?”

  “For the rest of the season.”

  “How’d this affect the team?”

  Robinson shrugged. “I don’t want to blow my own horn…”

  “Go ahead,” Meyer said, “blow it.”

  “We lost eight out of twelve.”

  “Think you’d have won them if you were pitching?”

  “Let’s put it this way,” Robinson said. “I think we’d have won some of them.”

  “But, instead, you lost.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’d the team feel about this?”

  “Lousy. We thought we might cop the city championship. We were unbeaten until I was benched. Then we lost those eight games and we wound up in second place.”

  “Well, that’s not so bad,” Carella said.

  “There’s only one first place,” Robinson answered.

  “Did the team feel Mr. Land had been unfair?”

  “I don’t know how they felt.”

  “How’d you feel?”

  “Look, those are the breaks,” Robinson said.

  “Yes, but how’d you feel?”

  “I thought I knew the work.”

  “Then why’d he flunk you?”

  “Why don’t you go ask him?” Robinson said.

  This was the place to say “Because he’s dead,” but neither Meyer nor Carella said the words. They watched Robinson squinting up into their faces and into the sun, and Carella said, “Where were you last night about five o’clock, Mr. Robinson?”

  “Why?”

  “We’d like to know.”

  “I don’t think that’s any of your business,” Robinson said.

  “I’m afraid we’ll have to be the judge of what’s our business or what isn’t.”

  “Then maybe you better go get a warrant for my arrest,” Robinson said. “If this is as serious as all that—”

  “Nobody said it was serious, Mr. Robinson.”

  “No?”

  “No.” Meyer paused. “Do you want us to get that warrant?”

  “I don’t see why I have to tell you—”

  “It might help us to clear up a few things, Mr. Robinson.”

  “What things?”

  “Where were you last night at five o’clock?”

  “I was…I was involved in something personal.

  “Like what?”

  “Look, I don’t see any reason—”

  “What were you involved in?”

  “I was with a girl,” Robinson said, sighing.

  “From what time to what time?”

  “From about four…well, a little before four…my last class broke at three forty-five…”

  “Yes, from three forty-five until when?”

  “Until about eight.”

  “Where were you?”

  “At the girl’s apartment.”

  “Where?”

  “Downtown.”

  “Where downtown?”

  “For Christ’s sake…”

  “Where?”

  “On Tremayne Avenue. It’s in the Quarter, near Canopy.”

  “You were at the apartment at four o’clock?”

  “No, we must’ve got there about four-fifteen, four-thirty.”

  “But you were there at five?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Well, you know…”

  “Tell us.”

  “I don’t have to tell you! You figure it out for yourself, goddamn it!”

  “Okay. What’s the girl’s name?”

  “Olga.”

  “Olga what?”

  “Olga Wittensten.”

  “Was that the girl ju
st sitting here with you?”

  “Yeah. What’re you gonna do—question her, too? You gonna foul up a good thing?”

  “All we want to do is check your story, Mr. Robinson. The rest is your problem.”

  “This is a very high-strung girl,” Robinson said. “She’s liable to spook. I don’t understand what this is all about anyway. Why do you have to check my story? What is it I’m supposed to have done?”

  “You’re supposed to have been in an apartment on Tremayne Avenue from four-fifteen yesterday afternoon to eight o’clock last night. If you were doing what you’re supposed to have been doing, you’ll never see us again as long as you live, Mr. Robinson.”

  “Well, maybe not as long as you live,” Meyer amended.

  “Which means you’ll be back Monday morning,” Robinson said.

  “Why? Weren’t you in that apartment?”

  “I was there, I was there. Go on and check. But the last time there was a basketball scandal, we had detectives and district attorneys and special investigators crawling all over the campus for weeks. If this is the same thing—”

  “This isn’t the same thing, Mr. Robinson.”

  “I hope not. I’m clean. I play a clean game. I never took a nickel, and I never will. You just remember that.”

  “We will.”

  “And when you talk to Olga, for Pete’s sake, try not to foul this up, will you? Will you please do me that favor? She’s a very high-strung girl.”

  They found Olga Wittensten in the student cafeteria drinking a cup of black coffee. She said like man, she had never before seen fuzz up close like this. She said yeah, she had a pad on Tremayne, downtown in the Quarter. She said she like waited for Barney yesterday afternoon, and they cut out to her place and got there about 4:00, 4:30, something like that. She said they were there all afternoon, like maybe till 8:00 or so, when they went out to break some bread. Like what was this all about?

  Like it was about murder.

  Bert Kling arrived at the squadroom at 2:00 that Saturday afternoon, in time to see the report that had been delivered from Ballistics downtown. He was unshaven, a blond bristle covering his jowls and his chin. He was wearing the same suit and shirt he’d worn the night before, but he had taken off his tie, and his clothes looked as if he’d worn them to sleep. He accepted a few condolences in the corridor outside the squadroom, turned down the coffee Miscolo offered him, and went directly into the lieutenant’s office. He stayed with Byrnes for a half hour. When he came out into the squadroom again, Carella and Meyer had returned from the university, where a promising lead had turned as dead as ashes. He went to Carella’s desk. “Steve,” he said. “I’m working on it.” Carella looked up and nodded. “Think that’s a good idea?” “I just spoke to the lieutenant,” Kling said. His voice was curiously toneless. “He thinks it’ll be all right.”