04-Strangler

by Parnell Hall

  Sergeant Clark smiled coldly. “I see. You went there under the guise of friendship, and then proceeded to sell him a bill of goods.”

  It was an extremely blunt and offensive way to state the situation. But Sam was too overcome to even protest. He just sat there, rubbing his forehead.

  “Now,” Clark said. “The long and the short of it was you talked your uncle into letting you sign him up. Right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you didn’t do it then because you hadn’t brought your clipboard?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you had him call and make an appointment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he call from his hospital bed? Perhaps while you were there?”

  Sam flushed again. “Yes. He did.”

  “And why was the appointment made for three weeks later? Why not sooner?”

  “My uncle was going to Texas. He had business interests there. The accident actually delayed his trip. He left as soon as he got out of the hospital.”

  “When was that?”

  “I’m not sure. Two or three days.”

  “I see. And why didn’t you come back and sign him up in the hospital?”

  Sam flushed again.

  “I see,” Clark said. “You suggested that, but your uncle wouldn’t have it. He wanted to be left alone. His compromise was to make an appointment for later. He probably agreed to it largely to get rid of you.”

  This was a little much, even for Sam. “Now see here—” he began.

  Sergeant Clark held up his hand. “No offense meant, Mr. Gravston. I’m just trying to get the facts. But the fact is, he called from his bed while you were there and made the appointment, the one for this morning?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Tell me. The day you saw him at the hospital—was that the day he was admitted?”

  Sam thought. “No. The day after.”

  Clarked nodded. “Fine. Now then, when is the last time you saw your uncle?”

  “Then.”

  “What?”

  “That was it. There in the hospital. That was the last time I saw him.”

  “You hadn’t seen him since he got back from Texas?”

  “No.”

  “When did he get back?”

  “Saturday or Sunday. I’m not sure. But over the weekend.”

  “Did you speak to him on the phone?”

  “No. I called his office yesterday, to verify the appointment. But I didn’t speak to him. Just his secretary. She looked in his appointment book, and confirmed he was scheduled to meet me at his home at eleven o’clock.”

  “Why at his home? Why not in his office?”

  Sam grimaced. “Because he was a big shot. It was his company, you know. He was the boss. He never went in before noon. He’d lounge around home all morning, then go out to lunch at some fancy restaurant, and then breeze in around two or two-thirty and start giving everybody hell.”

  “All right. At any rate, you had the appointment this morning at eleven?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Like I said. My agent called, and ...” Reminded of it again, Sam once again lapsed into despair.

  “So you called Mr. Hasting’s wife, asked her to beep him and have him call you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where were you?”

  “At a pay phone.”

  “Where?”

  “On Houston Street.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “Shooting a photo assignment.”

  “Then how did your agent call you?”

  “He beeped me.”

  “Oh?”

  “I have a second frequency on my beeper. When he beeps me, I call in. That’s how I found out.”

  “So Mr. Hastings called you at this pay phone, and you got him to cover the assignment for you?”

  Sam looked at me miserably. “Yes.”

  Clark looked at me. “Is that right? Is that how it happened?”

  “That’s right.”

  Clark frowned and rubbed his head. “All right. That’s all for now, Mr. Gravston. But you’re going to have to go downtown and make a complete statement.”

  Clark strode to the door, yanked it open and barked an order to the plainclothes officers who were waiting right outside. They came in and escorted Sam Gravston out.

  Clark closed the door and wheeled on me. “All right. Now what about you?”

  “What about me?”

  Clark jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “About Mr. Gravston. What he said. Was it right? Do you have anything to add?”

  “You already asked me that.”

  “I asked you in front of him. Now that he’s gone, is there anything you didn’t say?”

  “No. Why would there be?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”

  “Well, the answer is no.”

  “Fine. Then let’s talk about you.”

  I sighed. “What do you want to know?”

  “When you called Sam this morning. At the pay phone. Was that the first time you heard about this signup?”

  Shit. He would ask me that.

  “No.”

  Sergeant Clark stared at me. So did Richard.

  “No?” Clark said. “You mean you knew about it?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “How? When did you find out?”

  “I found out on Sunday.”

  I hated to go into it, but I had no choice. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Richard, who had already figured out how and why that had happened. “Well,” I said. “I was talking to Sam—”

  “When?” Clark demanded.

  “I told you. On Sunday.”

  “Sunday. You were talking to Sam Gravston on Sunday?”

  “Yes.”

  “And where was this?”

  “At his apartment. His loft, really.”

  “His loft?”

  “Yes. He has a loft in SoHo.”

  Clark was looking at me as if he’d just cracked the case. “Oh, is that right? Tell me, have you ever been to Sam’s loft before?”

  “No.”

  “Sunday was the first time?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I see,” Clark said. “And could you tell me what was so special about this Sunday that you chose to go to SoHo and call on Sam Gravston in his loft?”

  I avoided looking at Richard. “Well,” I said. “I got to thinking about the murders, and it occurred to me that Sam had been offered some of those cases before I had, and—”

  Clark couldn’t wait to hear the rest. “Yes, yes, of course,” he said, throwing up his hands. “You got to thinking about the murders and you decided, hell, you were a detective, weren’t you, maybe there was something you could do. Something the poor bungling cops were too stupid to think of.” Clark shook his head. “Amateurs. God save me from amateurs.” He glared at me. “So. You knew about this signup as early as Sunday?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You knew it was for Tuesday morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know what time?”

  “I’m not sure Sam mentioned that.”

  “Oh, you’re not, are you? Pretty poor memory for a detective, wouldn’t you say?”

  I wouldn’t say. I sat there and took it.

  “So, you knew that the signup was for Tuesday morning, and you knew it was with Sam Gravston’s uncle. Did you know his address?”

  “No.”

  “No matter. It’s an unusual name, Gravston. You could have looked it up in the phone book.”

  “Now just a minute,” Richard said sharply. “I’m afraid I have to jump in here. This man is my client. If you are suspecting him of a crime, I must point out that you haven’t advised him of his rights.”

  Clark wheeled on him. “Great! Wonderful! What an admirable contribution to the conversation, Mr. Rosenberg. For your information, I am not suspecti
ng this gentleman of a crime. I happen to be suspecting him of gross incompetence.”

  “I beg your pardon,” I said.

  Clark turned on me frostily. “No offense intended,” he said. “Just a simple statement of fact. Up till now, I had assumed that no one except Sam Gravston was aware of this signup. With the exception of the secretary who took the call three weeks ago, who couldn’t be expected to remember that. You’ll recall Mr. Rosenberg was complaining about the police inefficiency in not preventing this murder. And I said, the reason was we didn’t know. But you knew.” He lowered his voice, but spoke with almost fierce intensity. “Why didn’t you tell us? You’ve known about the murders all along. You, of all people, are the man on the inside, with all the knowledge about how we are conducting our investigation. You knew we were protecting all prospective clients. And here was one that no one knew about but you, and you didn’t tell us! And now that man is dead.”

  I said nothing. But I felt, as I always seemed to when dealing with Sergeant Clark, both bad and angry. Yes, I should have told them, and I felt bad. Yes, I should have thought. I should have known. But, Jesus Christ, how the hell was I to know that the police didn’t know about this one? I mean, they were in the office, monitoring the cases. How should I know they would have overlooked this one? Yeah, I could have figured it out, that with the appointment having been made three weeks ago, it wouldn’t be coming in now, so there would be no phone call to monitor, and no new entry in the log. But could I really have been expected to have made that leap in logic? I didn’t think so. So I felt justly angry.

  But I felt bad, too. Even without that leap of logic, it should have occurred to me that Sam’s uncle was a potential victim. And that hadn’t occurred to me at all. So Sergeant Clark’s accusation, unjust as I felt it really was, had just enough elements of truth in it to make it hurt.

  Which made me even angrier.

  “So,” Clark said. “At any rate, you told no one. And thus we find ourselves in this disgusting mess.”

  Richard came to my aid. “Bullshit!” he said. “The fact is, you guys blew it, and now you’re trying to weasel out by blaming your own mistake on one of my investigators!”

  Clark turned to Richard. “And now we come to you, Mr. Rosenberg.”

  Richard was startled. “Me! What do you mean, me? What, now you’re suspecting me of these crimes?”

  Clark smiled his frosty smile. “Not at all, Mr. Rosenberg. I was referring to what we are going to do with you. Or rather, what we are going to do with your firm.”

  The threat hung in the air. Richard shifted uncomfortably.

  Clark kept quiet, prolonged the moment. I knew he was enjoying it.

  Finally he spoke.

  “The answer is, nothing. We shall maintain media silence. We shall proceed as we have been doing.”

  Richard blinked, but that was all. He was poker-faced, giving nothing away. He kept quiet.

  I jumped in. “Why?”

  Clark ignored me. He replied to Richard, as if he were the one who had spoken. “Because, essentially, nothing has changed. This murder, if anything, has helped clarify the situation. I would expect a solution in the next few days.”

  Richard stared at him. “You’re telling me you still believe the killer is a black man from Harlem?”

  “I do.”

  “A client that I have wronged?”

  “That’s right.”

  Richard’s only comment was a contemptuous snort.

  “So,” Clark said. “This is what I want. You will continue to run your business as usual, with Mr. Hastings and Mr. Gravston in the field. Now, Mr. Gravston will be tied up the rest of the day with the police investigation and matters pertaining to his uncle. But tomorrow, I want him back on the job. Now, that may not be easy. Right now he’s had an emotional shock, but as soon as it wears off, he’s going to realize that he probably stands to inherit money from his uncle and doesn’t need this job. So it may take a personal appeal from you to keep him working.” Clark looked evenly at Richard. “I want you to make that appeal. If necessary. If there is any question of Sam Gravston leaving work. Because I can’t have anything altered. I must have all elements of the pattern remain the same, if we expect to clear this up. Do you understand?”

  “I understand what you’re asking, but—”

  “Fine. Then do it. But the thing is, you can’t let Mr. Gravston know why you’re asking. I don’t want him, or anyone else here, knowing what our plans are. That would ruin everything. That is why I stress a personal appeal. You are asking him to help you. You are willing to replace him, of course, but you are asking him to stay on the job just long enough for you to do so. You need help, that’s the tack to take. Your business has been hurt, and you’re desperate. Offer more money, if necessary.”

  Richard had opened his mouth to say something, but that suggestion left him speechless. He nearly gagged.

  “And that’s all, Mr. Rosenberg,” Clark said. “If you can do that, and only that, you’ll have nothing to worry about.” Clark nodded in agreement with himself. “For I guarantee you, we are going to catch this killer.”

  35.

  I WASN’T CONVINCED.

  And neither was Richard. And, despite the fact that two new cases had come in and what with Sam Gravston out of the picture I was the only investigator left to sign them up, for once Richard let ’em hang. He kept me in the office a good two hours after Sergeant Clark finally left, and we painstakingly went over the fruits of my investigation.

  I told him everything, and in minute detail. Except that I gave him a bowdlerized version of the account of my encounter with Wendy Millington’s boyfriend. I’m not a tattletale, and I didn’t feel such a juicy tidbit of gossip was fair game. It also made me feel sleazy, and put a taint on my whole investigation.

  Of course, without it, the whole thing was rather dull. Dull and unprofitable. In the end, Richard was forced to admit we weren’t any further advanced than we had been, despite what Sergeant Clark might think.

  I finally got out of there, signed up the two clients and one more that came in that day, all of whom were alive, and finally got home.

  Where Alice put me through a similar interrogation. At least about the Gravston murder—she already knew all about my investigations.

  But the Gravston murder was big news. After we got Tommie into bed, we batted it around for hours. And nothing helpful emerged. We both agreed that it was a terrible thing, but that was about it.

  It was on the eleven o’clock news. Not the lead story—a fire in Brooklyn beat it out—but the one after that.

  It was the first time one of the killings had made the TV news. That was for two reasons: 1), Sergeant Clark had the lid on, so no one knew the crimes were the work of a serial killer; and 2), Marvin Gravston was the first victim that had any money. “OILMAN MURDERED,” was the heading in that rectangular box that’s always projected on the screen behind the anchorman’s head. The account wasn’t much—just that Marvin Gravston had been brutally strangled, and that the police had no leads.

  Rosenberg and Stone was not mentioned.

  After that, I switched off the TV with the remote control and sat in bed, rubbing my head.

  “It’s not your fault,” Alice said.

  I looked at her. “I know that.”

  “I know you know that. But I think you need to hear it every now and then.”

  I smiled. “You’re right. I do.”

  “And you’re going to solve it.”

  I opened my mouth.

  “No, you are,” she said. “You’re very good at stuff like that. Thinking things out. You just think you’re not. But you are. You’ll solve it.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  But I wasn’t convinced.

  We turned out the light shortly after that, but I couldn’t sleep. I lay there in the dark, thinking about the case.

  The case I was going to solve.

  I thought about everything I knew. Everything I’d he
ard. Everything I’d seen.

  I thought of the detective books I’d seen in Sam Gravston’s loft. Particularly the Agatha Christies. And her famous protagonist, Hercule Poirot. Yeah, that was who I needed to be to solve this case. Hercule Poirot. Who could solve a crime by just thinking about it. By exercising the “little gray cells” of the brain.

  Surely I had enough evidence now to solve the crime. It was just a question of sifting through it, discarding the irrelevant and latching on to the significant.

  It could be done.

  I thought about the suspects. Sam Gravston chief among them. Sam Gravston, who stood to inherit a pile of money now that his uncle was dead. An excellent motive for murder.

  Of his uncle.

  But not of a black man in Harlem.

  Or even a white man in Queens.

  I thought about Frank Burke. The failed investigator. The gutless wonder. Funny, I should be saying that. But suppose his cowardice, unlike mine, was merely feigned? Then he could have killed those people, even Marvin Gravston—the assignment was in the book and he could have seen it.

  Was that it? Was it Frank Burke?

  I didn’t know.

  I thought about Janet’s boyfriend, Barry. And Wendy’s boyfriend, David Cooper.

  I suspected them both.

  I had no idea why.

  I thought about Sergeant Clark. I had twice suspected him of the killings, facetiously to be sure, but still he bore thinking about. His mimicry of Richard had been remarkable. And he certainly was privy to all the inside information. And wasn’t his cold, reserved manner just the sort of facade that sometimes masked the violence within, the type of manner one associated with a form of insanity? And he had certainly showed a flagrant hostility toward Richard. And—

  Richard.

  Jesus.

  The one person I’d never suspected. Never even thought of.

  Richard.

  Who else had all the information of Rosenberg and Stone at his fingertips? Who else had the brilliant mind necessary to plot and plan the whole incredible scheme. Who else—

  Wait a minute. What incredible scheme? How the hell did bumping off his own clients benefit Richard?

  I chuckled softly into my pillow. I’d just realized something. I’d been trying to think like Hercule Poirot, and I’d failed utterly. Instead, I’d been thinking like my namesake, Hercule Poirot’s sidekick, Hastings, whose method of attempting to solve a crime was to indiscriminately suspect each person in turn.