by Ed McBain
“Today is Saturday,” Bloom said. “You think you got that?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“So did she come here yesterday afternoon, or didn’t she?”
“No.”
“Not at six-thirty, and not at any time before that, right?”
“Right.”
“Then what are her panties doing on the shower rod?” Rawles asked. He didn’t know if in fact they were Sunny’s panties or even Queen Elizabeth’s panties, though he doubted Her Majesty wore lacy black bikinis. As a matter of fact, he didn’t care whose panties they were. All this bullshit about panties was to put Crowell on the defensive and to alert Lettie to the fact that she wasn’t the only woman using his shower.
“Those aren’t hers,” Crowell said, “Sunny’s. She took everything with her when she left the apartment. Except a bathing suit. I think I already told you that.”
“And she hasn’t been back since, right? Since Tuesday, right?”
“Yeah, Tuesday. I guess that’s when it was.”
“Then whose you think they might be?” Rawles asked. “You sure they’re not yours, honey?” he said to Lettie, and again winked.
“You seen me puttin’ mine on,” Lettie said. “You want another look at them? Make sure they ain’t walked in the bathroom and jumped up on the rod?”
“Maybe later,” Rawles said, and grinned at her.
“Must be some other girl’s, huh?” Bloom said.
“Well, I know a few girls,” Crowell said.
“Did you have another girl in here last night?”
“No, not last night.”
“Night before last?”
“When would that’ve been?”
“Thursday. Two days after Sunny cleared out.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Crowell said.
“Been partying a lot?” Rawles asked.
“A little.”
“Celebrating something?”
“No, just...you know.”
“I’d be celebrating too,” Bloom said, “a girl like that walked out on me. Way it looks, she killed both her brother and the farmer.”
“Only thing,” Rawles said, “is the alibi.”
“Yeah,” Bloom said.
“We ever find her,” Bloom said, “we’d nail her for both murders if it wasn’t for the alibi.”
“You wouldn’t know where she was the afternoon that farmer got shot, would you?” Rawles asked.
“When was that?” Crowell asked.
“You have a lot of trouble keeping up with the calendar, don’t you?”
“No, but—”
“He was shot Monday,” Bloom said. “The day before Sunny disappeared. She left here on Tuesday, remember? Packed all her clothes and left. Except for a bathing suit. I was here that same night, remember? Miss Holmes was taking a shower.”
“Miss Holmes is a very clean person,” Rawles said, and grinned at her again.
“Thursday was when I came to see you again, remember?” Bloom said. “At the supermarket. You were spraying cabbages—”
“Lettuce.”
“Lettuce, right, you do remember. That was when you told me again that you and Sunny were together the night her brother was killed. You remember telling me that, don’t you?”
“I remember.”
“Which is the thing of it,” Rawles said, shaking his head. “She didn’t have that alibi, man, we’d throw the book at her the minute we get her.”
“You’re sure you don’t know where she is, huh?” Bloom asked.
“Positive.”
“Reason we asked about last night,” Rawles said, and touched his nose, “is we had her located at six-thirty, she was staying with this friend of her mother’s, but she left there at six-thirty. And we had her located again at eight-thirty, in a lounge on the trail; showed a bartender there her picture just a little while ago, he’s sure she was the girl. But we don’t know where she headed after she left the bar, and we thought if she’d come here first, she might have mentioned—”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Or maybe later. After she left the bar.”
“No, she didn’t come here at all.”
“You didn’t see her then, either, right?” Bloom asked Lettie. “At six-thirty. She didn’t come here to pick up that bathing suit or anything?”
“I didn’t see nobody,” Lettie said, and looked at her sandaled feet.
“Well, we’ll find her, that’s for sure,” Rawles said, sighing. “Just take a little time, that’s all. Once we get her...you’re sure you were with her all that night?”
They had no way of knowing at this point whether Crowell was buying anything they told him. They were trying to sell three things. First, they wanted Crowell to believe that they did not yet know Sunny’s body had been found; as far as they were concerned, she was still alive, and they were still looking for her. Next, they wanted him to believe they were convinced that Sunny had slain both her brother and Burrill. And finally, they wanted him to believe that they had enough on her to convict her—if only it weren’t for that damn alibi.
Crowell was the alibi.
Crowell was also stupid.
They were counting on his stupidity.
They were also counting on the cleverness most stupid people think they possess. They were hoping that Crowell would cleverly think, Gee, if I take away her alibi, they’ll be positive she did both murders. They were hoping Crowell would not think beyond that, would not wonder what would happen once the police did find Sunny’s body. A smarter person might have realized at once that the moment Sunny’s body was discovered in that swimming pool, she would no longer be suspect in either of the murders; she would instead be a third victim. But Crowell was stupid. And stupid people are incapable of planning very far in advance. They take whatever solution seems expedient, and then worry about the next solution when the next problem presents itself. Or so the detectives were hoping.
They had offered Crowell a solution.
Break Sunny’s alibi, and we charge her with both murders the minute we catch up with her.
Crowell, if he was indeed the murderer and if all of this wasn’t just a pointless exercise, had to have known that the police would never be able to charge Sunny with anything; she was already dead on the bottom of my swimming pool. But if he broke her alibi, and they were convinced that she’d killed her brother and Burrill, then wouldn’t they think she’d got herself into some other kind of trouble afterwards? Something that had led to somebody killing her, too? Somebody other than himself, who had Lettie here swearing that she’d been with him from six-thirty on?
He took the bait.
“This alibi...,” he said, and hesitated.
The detectives waited.
“You mean her saying we were together all that night, don’t you?”
“You can’t be in two places at the same time,” Rawles said. “Either she was here with you, or she was out stabbing her brother.”
“Simple,” Bloom said.
“Well, I can vouch for her being here with me,” Crowell said.
“So that’s it,” Bloom said. “Sorry to’ve bothered you, we’ll just have to keep—”
“Most of the time,” Crowell said.
The detectives looked at each other.
“She wasn’t here all that time,” Crowell said.
“You hearing this?” Rawles said to Bloom.
“Oh, brother, am I?” Bloom said. “Are you saying she left here at some time that night?”
“Yes, sir, that’s what I’m saying.”
“When? What time?”
“Around nine.”
“When did she get back? Did she come back?”
“She came back, yes.”
“What time?”
“Around ten-thirty.”
“Terrific,” Rawles said. “Gave her plenty of time to get over to Stone Crab, do the number on her brother, and crawl back here into bed. Did she say where she was going?”
�
��Said she was hungry, wanted to pick up some burgers.”
“Did she come back here with any burgers?”
“No, sir, she did not,” Crowell said.
“Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?” Bloom asked. “We appreciate your telling us now, believe me, but it would have made a big difference—”
“Well, I loved that girl a lot,” Crowell said, which was perhaps the biggest lie either detective had ever heard in their combined years of police work. “And I got to tell you, officers, I didn’t think she killed her brother, I mean it.”
“You just figured she went out for burgers, huh?” Rawles said.
“Yes, sir.”
“But didn’t bring any back?”
“That’s right, sir.”
He was “sirring” them to death now. He must have figured he was home free.
“Gone an hour and a half, but didn’t come back with the burgers she said she was going for.”
“Must’ve eaten them there,” Crowell said, nodding.
“You didn’t ask her, though.”
“Sir?”
“Whether she’d eaten them there or not?”
“No, sir.”
“How about you, Jackie?” Rawles said, a clear indication to Bloom that they were ready to close in on him; Rawles had used the suspect’s first name, an old police trick designed to make him feel both inferior and intimidated. “Weren’t you hungry?”
“No, sir, I was not.”
“Didn’t ask her to bring back any burgers for you?”
“No, sir.”
“Even though the last time you’d eaten was...what time did you say it was? When you took her to McDonald’s?”
“Seven o’clock.”
“And came right back here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And she left at nine, you say?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Gone an hour and a half.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Jackie,” Bloom said, and hesitated. “Where were you during that time?”
“Why...here, sir.”
“All alone?”
“Well...yes, sir.”
“Nobody with you?”
Crowell looked at Bloom. He looked at Rawles. He must have realized in that instant that breaking Sunny’s alibi was the same thing as breaking his own.
“Well...I was waiting for Sunny to come back, you see.”
“You didn’t go out during that hour and a half, did you?”
“No, I was right here.”
“In bed here, or what?”
“Well...yeah. Watching television.”
“What show did you watch?”
“I forget.”
“You got a TV Guide?” Rawles asked.
Lettie, who’d been silent during all this, suddenly said, “There’s a bunch of them over on the dresser.”
“I don’t think they go back that far, though,” Crowell said.
Maybe he wasn’t as stupid as they thought he was. He had spotted what was coming. They were going to quiz him on the shows he’d seen. The eighth of August was a Monday night. As Rawles went to the dresser, Crowell must have been trying to remember which shows were on every Monday night. There were three or four old TV Guides on the dresser, not quite the “bunch” Lettie had advertised. Rawles picked one up, discarded it, picked up a second one, checked the dates on its cover, and said, “We’re in luck. August sixth to August twelfth.”
Rawles knew, of course, that McKinney had been murdered on a Monday night, the eighth of August. He also knew that the TV Guide listings started on a Saturday and ended on a Friday, each and every week of the year. He had been through this particular performance at least a dozen times before with suspects who’d claimed they were watching television. To Rawles, what he was about to do was as routine as strapping on his shoulder holster every day. To Crowell, it was a brand-new experience, a test of his memory, a test of his cleverness. But he was stupid. He never asked to check the dates on the cover of the magazine, or he’d have discovered that Rawles was holding in his hands a copy of the August 13–19 issue. Moreover, as Rawles flipped the pages, he assumed that the test was going to be as square and honest as those he’d taken in high school before he’d dropped out to become a clerk in the produce department of a supermarket.
“Monday, Monday,” Rawles said out loud, strengthening the impression that this was all on the up-and-up. “August eighth, here we are. Nine o’clock,” he said, “that’s what time she left, right?”
“Yes, sir,” Crowell said.
“Okay, let’s see what was on at nine o’clock.”
“Tell us if you remember any of these will you?” Bloom said.
“Nine o’clock,” Rawles said, and looked at the eight o’clock listings for Tuesday night, August the sixteenth. “Here we go. Channel Three, ‘Nova.’ Channel Eight, ‘A-Team.’ Channel Ten, ‘Happy Days.’ Channel Thirteen—”
“‘Happy Days,’” Crowell said. “That’s what I was watching.”
“I like that show,” Rawles said, smiling. “That Fonz is hot stuff.”
“Yeah,” Crowell said, and smiled back. “I like it, too.”
“So that’s what you were watching,” Bloom said. “So that settles that.” He, too, had been through this number many times before, with Rawles and also with other detectives on the squad. He knew that Rawles had fed Crowell false data. He knew that Crowell had identified a show he couldn’t possibly have seen on the Monday night McKinney was killed. He had just blown his own alibi for the night of August eighth, and his alibi for last night was sitting right there in a striped shift, her legs crossed, jiggling one sandaled foot.
“I don’t suppose you watched any television last night,” Bloom said.
“No, we didn’t,” Crowell said, and looked at Lettie.
The detectives figured he was playing it safe. As dumb as he was, he was maybe beginning to think they’d somehow pulled a fast one, and he didn’t want to take any more chances on television. Better to say he hadn’t been watching it at all last night. Better to clue Lettie in with a look as obvious as a rivet.
“That right, Lettie?” Bloom said.
“We weren’t watching no television, that’s right,” she said.
“What were you doing?” Rawles asked. “You came here to take a shower, didn’t you? What time did you take your shower?”
“Soon’s I got here.”
“At six-thirty? Is that when you got here?”
“Around then.”
“And that’s when you took your shower.”
“That’s when I took it.”
“Did you take another shower later on?”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t have any clothes on when we got here. Did you take another shower after the first shower?”
“Look,” Lettie said, “you know what we were doing here, so let’s cut the shit about the shower, okay? Far as I know, it ain’t no crime, what we were doing.”
“Did you take any shower at all?” Bloom asked.
“I took a shower, yes. When I got here. I was all sweaty, so I took a shower.”
“And that was at six-thirty.”
“More or less.”
“Which was it? More or less?”
“A little after, I guess. Musta been about twenty to seven, right, Jackie?”
“That’s right,” Crowell said. “Around then.”
“Then it wasn’t six-thirty,” Rawles said.
“What difference does a few minutes make?” Lettie said. “We’re talking twenty to seven, a quarter to seven—”
“Oh, was it a quarter to seven?” Bloom said.
“It was sometime between six-thirty and a quarter to seven,” Lettie said.
“You’re sure about that? It couldn’t have been, say, seven o’clock? Or even eight o’clock?”
“No, it wasn’t seven o’clock, it was—”
“How about eight o’clock?”
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�If it wasn’t seven o’clock, then it couldn’ta been eight o’clock, neither.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause I got here at six-thirty, a quarter to seven.”
“Where were you before then?”
“My own place.”
“Where’s that?”
“Across the way.”
“You were there at six-thirty, huh?”
“That’s where I was.”
“How long did it take you to get here from there?”
“Just a few minutes. It’s only right across the way, you can see it from the window here if you look out.”
“How’d you know Jackie was home?” Rawles asked.
“I seen his car,” Lettie said.
“What time did you get home from work?” Bloom asked.
“Me?” Lettie said.
“No. You, Jackie.”
“Six o’clock, it must’ve been,” Crowell said.
“And you parked your car outside.”
“Right outside. They give these spaces, they assign—”
“Where Lettie could see it.”
“Well, I didn’t know whether she could see it or not. I just parked it where I’m supposed to park it.”
“And that’s where you saw it, right, Lettie?”
“That’s where I saw it.”
“At six-thirty.”
“Around then.”
“And neither one of you have been out of this apartment since six-thirty last night, right?”
“We both been here,” Crowell said, and gave Lettie his pointed look again.
“Both of us,” Lettie said.
They were getting nowhere. Bloom sighed. Rawles sighed too, and then touched his nose again, the signal to Bloom that he was about to tell another outrageous lie and he expected Bloom to pick up on it. Bloom didn’t know what the lie was going to be. But he was ready for it.
“This man outside,” Rawles said, and hesitated. “Sitting on the stoop outside. Black like you and me, Lettie, said he was sitting outside around eight o’clock sometime...”
“Little after eight, it must’ve been,” Bloom said.
“Said he saw you coming in the building, Jackie,” Rawles said.
Crowell looked at him.
“Said you seemed to be in a hurry, Jackie,” Bloom said.
“No,” Crowell said, shaking his head.
“No, you weren’t in a hurry?”
“I wasn’t—”