by Ed McBain
“Sit down, please,” Lasser said, and Carella searched for a chair and then sat on the couch. Hawes sat in a straight-backed chair which he pulled over from a drop-leaf desk against one wall. Mrs. Lasser stood against that wall, smiling, still waiting to be asked for a dance. Lasser himself sat next to Carella on the couch.
“Can you tell us what happened?” Lasser said.
“Someone killed him with an ax,” Carella said.
“An ax?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In the basement of the building where he works.”
“Why?” Lasser asked.
“Y is a crooked letter,” Mrs. Lasser said, “and A is for ax.”
“Mother, please,” Lasser said. He did not turn to face his mother as he said the words. His eyes did not even flick in her direction. It was as though he had said these same words a thousand times before—“Mother, please”—and said them only unconsciously now, with no need to look at her or to face her, without even the need to know for certain that she had heard him. Still watching Carella, he said, “Do you have any idea who might have done this?”
“None at all,” Carella said. “Yet.”
“I see.”
“If you will, Mr. Lasser, we’d like you to come down to the morgue with us and make a positive identification. Then we’d like to know from you whether or not your father had any—”
“I couldn’t leave my mother alone,” Lasser said.
“We could arrange for a patrolman to stay with her.”
“No, I’m afraid that would be unsatisfactory.”
“I don’t understand, sir.”
“Either my father or I must stay with her at all times,” Lasser said. “And since my father is dead, the burden is now mine.”
“I still don’t understand,” Carella said. “Even when your father was alive, he went to work in the city.”
“That’s right,” Lasser said.
“Don’t you work, Mr. Lasser?”
“I work here,” Lasser said. “At home.”
“Doing what?”
“I illustrate children’s books.”
“I see. Then you were able to stay here at home whenever your father was gone, is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And whenever he was here, you were free to go, is that also correct?”
“Well, essentially, yes.”
“What I mean is, well, if you had a book to deliver, or an editorial conference, anything like that. Or a social engagement.”
“Essentially, that’s it, yes.”
“Would you amend it in some way, Mr. Lasser?”
“No.”
“Or correct it?”
“No. Essentially, that’s it.”
“The word ‘essentially’ implies that I haven’t understood the complete picture,” Carella said. “Could you fill me in on it, Mr. Lasser?”
“Well…”
“Yes?”
“Well, I rarely leave the house,” Lasser said.
“What do you mean?”
“To deliver books. I do that by mail. Or for editorial conferences. I do that by phone. Anyway, I illustrate, as I told you, and there’s not very much to discuss once the initial sketches have been submitted and approved.”
“But you do leave the house on social engagements?”
“Well, not very often.”
Carella was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Mr. Lasser, do you ever leave the house?”
“No,” Lasser answered.
“Are you agoraphobic, Mr. Lasser?”
“Am I what?”
“Agoraphobic.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Agoraphobia is an abnormal fear of open spaces.”
“I’m not afraid of going outdoors, if that’s what you mean,” Lasser said. “Abnormally or otherwise.”
“When was the last time you went out, can you tell me that?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You spend all of your time here in this house, is that right? With your mother.”
“And with my father, when he was alive.”
“You have your friends come here to see you, is that it?”
“Well, essentially, yes, that’s it.”
“Again we have the ‘essentially,’ Mr. Lasser.”
“Yes, well, the truth is my friends don’t come here very often,” Lasser said.
“How often do they come, Mr. Lasser?” Hawes asked, “Not very often.”
“How often?”
“Never,” Lasser said. He paused. “As a matter of fact, I don’t have many friends.” He paused again. “My books are my friends.”
“I see,” Carella said. He paused. “Mr. Lasser, would you be willing to identify the corpse from a photograph?”
“I would have no objections.”
“We usually prefer a positive identification from the body…”
“Yes, but that’s impossible, as you can see,” Lasser said. “I must stay here with my mother.”
“Yes. With your permission then, we’ll come back with the police photographs and perhaps you’d be so kind as to…”
“Yes.”
“And at that time,” Carella said, “we’d also like to ask you some questions about your father and his personal relationships with other people.”
“Yes, of course.”
“But we won’t burden you with that now,” Carella said, and he smiled.
“Thank you. I appreciate your consideration.”
“Not at all,” Carella said. He turned to the old woman. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Lasser.”
“God b’ wi’ you, and keep you, and heal your pate,” Mrs. Lasser said.
“Ma’am?” Carella said.
“My mother used to be an actress. Those lines are from Lear.”
“Henry the Fifth,” the old lady corrected. “Fluellen to Ancient Pistol.”
” ‘Doth fortune play the huswife with me now?’ ” Hawes said suddenly. ” ‘News have I that my Nell is dead i’ th’ spital, Of malady of France; And there my rendezvous is quite cut off.’ “
“How do you know that?” the old lady asked, turning to Hawes and grinning with delight.
“We did it in high school,” Hawes said.
“Who’d you play?”
“Nobody. I stage-managed.”
“A big man like you,” the old lady said. “You should have been on the stage showing your cock.”
For a moment there was a deep silence in the room. The detectives glanced at each other as though not certain they had heard the old lady’s words. And then Anthony Lasser, without turning to look at her, said, “Mother, please,” and showed the detectives to the door. Behind them, they could hear Mrs. Lasser laughing raucously. The door closed. They stood on the slate walk for a moment. It was late afternoon, and there was a new chill in the air. They lifted the collars of their coats and listened to the sounds of the boy across the street as he pedaled his tricycle on the pavement and fired an imaginary pistol, “P-kuh, p-kuh, p-kuh!”
“Let’s go talk to him,” Carella said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “The old lady was staring at him.”
“The old lady is nuts,” Hawes said.
“Mmm, that’s for sure. What did you think of the son?”
“I don’t know. He could be providing himself with an alibi a mile long.”
“Which is why I was jumping on him.”
“I know.”
“Or, on the other hand, he could be telling the truth.”
“I wish we knew a little more about the old man,” Hawes said.
“All in due time. When we come back with the pictures, we’ll ask our questions.”
“While the corpse grows cold.”
“The corpse is cold,” Carella said.
“So’s the case.”
“What can you do? It’s January,” Carella answered, and they cr
ossed the street.
The boy on the tricycle fired at them as they approached. “P-kuh, p-kuh, p-kuh,” and then braked to a stop, his soles scraping along the pavement. He was perhaps four years old, wearing a red-and-white stocking cap pulled down over his ears. A hank of red hair stuck out of the cap’s front and hung onto his forehead. His nose was running, and his face was streaked with dried mucus where he had repeatedly wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
“Hi,” Carella said.
“Who’re you?” the boy asked.
“Steve Carella. Who’re you?”
“Manny Moscowitz,” the boy said.
“Hi, Manny. This is my partner, Cotton Hawes.”
“Hi,” Manny said, and waved.
“How old are you, Manny?” Hawes asked.
“This many,” the boy said, and held up four fingers.
“Four years old. That’s very good.”
“Five,” Manny said.
“No, that was four.”
“It was five,” Manny insisted.
“Okay, okay,” Hawes said.
“You don’t know how to deal with kids,” Carella said. “You’re five, right, Manny?”
“Right,” Manny said.
“How do you like it around here?”
“Fine.”
“Do you live in this house right here?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know the old lady across the street?”
“What old lady?”
“The one across the street,” Carella said.
“Which one across the street? There’s lots of old ladies across the street.”
“Well, the one right in the house there,” Carella said.
“Which house?”
“Right there,” Carella said. He did not want to point because he had the certain feeling that Anthony Lasser was watching him from behind his drawn drapes.
“I don’t know which house you mean,” Manny said.
Carella looked across the street at the identical Tudor reproductions, and then he sighed.
“He means, do you know Mrs. Lasser?” Hawes asked, coming to his rescue.
“That’s right,” Carella said. “Do you know Mrs. Lasser?”
“Is she the one in the house across the street?”
“Yes,” Carella said.
“Which house?” Manny asked, and a voice shouted, “Manny! What are you doing there?”
Even before he turned, Carella knew it was another mother. There were days when all you got was mothers, sane or otherwise, and he knew without doubt that this was another mother, and he braced himself and turned just as a woman in a housedress with an open coat thrown over it, her hair in curlers, came marching down the front walk like a chowder society on Pennsylvania Avenue during Easter week.
“What is it?” she said to Carella.
“How do you do, ma’am?” Carella said. “I’m a police detective. We were simply asking your son some questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Oh, about the neighborhood in general.”
“Did you just come from the Lasser house across the street?” the woman asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Have you had complaints, is that it?”
“No, no complaints,” Carella said. He paused. “Why do you say that, Mrs. Moscowitz? You are Mrs. Moscowitz?”
“Yes.” She shrugged. “I just thought maybe you’d had some complaints. I thought maybe they were going to put the old lady away.”
“No, not that we know of. Why? Has there been any trouble?”
“Well, you know,” Mrs. Moscowitz said. “You hear stories.”
“What kind of stories?”
“Oh, you know. The husband a janitor someplace in the city, and he goes out every Sunday chopping down trees—God knows where he chops them—and carries them in to sell to his tenants, some funny business there, don’t you think? And the old lady laughing half the night away and crying if her husband doesn’t buy her an ice cream pop in the summer when the Good Humor truck comes around, that’s peculiar, isn’t it? And how about the son, Anthony? Drawing his pictures all day long in that back room overlooking the garden, summer and winter, and never stepping outside the house. I call that strange, mister.”
“He never goes out, you say?”
“Never. He’s a shut-in. He’s a regular shut-in.”
“Who’s a shut-in?” the boy asked.
“Shut up, Manny,” his mother said.
“Anyway, what is a shut-in?” he asked.
“Shut up, Manny,” his mother said.
“You’re sure he never goes out?” Carella asked.
“I’ve never seen him go out. Listen, how do I know what he does when it’s dark? He may sneak out and go to opium dens, who knows? I’m only telling you that I, personally, have never seen him leaving the house.”
“What can you tell us about the old man?” Hawes asked.
“Mr. Lasser?”
“Yes.”
“Well, now there’s another peculiar thing, I mean besides his going out to chop down trees. I mean, this man is eighty-six years old, you follow? That’s not exactly a young teenager. But every Saturday and Sunday, out he goes to chop down his trees.”
“Does he take an ax with him?”
“An ax? No, no, he has one of those saws, what do you call them?”
“A chain saw?” Hawes suggested.
“Yes, that’s right,” Mrs. Moscowitz said. “Even so, even with that saw, cutting down trees is very strenuous work for a man of eighty-six years of age, am I right?”
“Absolutely,” Carella said.
“Certainly, but this isn’t where it ends. Now mind you, there are hearty specimens in the world. I’ve seen men—well, my own father, may he rest in peace, he weighed a hundred eighty pounds, all muscle, God bless him, when he died aged seventy-nine. But Mr. Lasser is not a hearty specimen. Mr. Lasser is a frail old man, but he is always doing very heavy work. Moving big rocks out of his backyard, and pulling up stumps, and painting the house, well, that’s not very heavy work, but still, an old man like him on a ladder, to me it’s very peculiar.”
“In other words, then, you feel the entire family is peculiar, is that right, Mrs. Moscowitz?”
“I wouldn’t say anything against neighbors,” Mrs. Moscowitz said. “Let’s put it this way. Let’s say I consider it odd, well, strange, well, let’s say peculiar, all right? Let’s say I find it peculiar that a nutty old lady like Mrs. Lasser is left in the hands of two other nuts like her husband and her son, okay? Which is why I thought maybe somebody was going to have her put away, is all I’m saying.”
“Who’s nutty?” the boy asked.
“Shut up, Manny,” Mrs. Moscowitz said.
“Mrs. Moscowitz,” Carella said, “can you tell us whether or not you saw Anthony Lasser leaving the house at any time today?”
“No, I did not,” Mrs. Moscowitz said.
“Can you say with certainty that he was inside that house all day long?”
“What?”
“Did you actually see him across the street at any time today?”
“No, I did not.”
“Then he could have been gone, without your knowing it?”
“Well, what do you think I do?” Mrs. Moscowitz asked. “Go peeking over my neighbors’ windowsills?”
“No, of course not.”
“I should hope not,” Mrs. Moscowitz said, offended.
“We were simply trying to—”
“Yes, I understand,” Mrs. Moscowitz said. “Come along, Manny. Say goodbye to the two gentlemen.”
“Goodbye,” Manny said.
“Goodbye,” Carella answered. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Moscowitz.”
Mrs. Moscowitz did not answer. With one hand on the handlebar of her son’s bike, she led bike and child up the walk and into the house, and then slammed the door.
“What did I do?” Carella asked.
“I don’t know how
to handle kids, huh?”
“Well…”
“You don’t know how to handle women,” Hawes said.
The woman’s name was Teddy Carella, and she was his wife, and he knew how to handle her.
The positive identification of the dead man had been made from photographs by 5:30 that afternoon, after which Carella and Hawes had further questioned Anthony Lasser about his father, and then gone back to the squadroom to sign out. They left the station house at 6:15, a half hour later than they should have, said goodbye on the precinct steps and headed off in opposite directions. Hawes had a date with a girl named Christine Maxwell. Carella had a date with his wife and two children.
His wife had black hair and brown eyes and a figure even the bearing of twins had failed to intimidate. Full-breasted, widehipped, long-legged, she greeted him in the foyer with a sound kiss and a hug that almost cracked his spine.
“Hey!” he said. “Wow! What’s going on?”
Teddy Carella watched his lips as he spoke, because she was deaf and could “hear” only by watching a person’s lips or hands. Then, because she was mute as well, she raised her right hand and rapidly told him in the universal language of deaf mutes that the twins had already been fed and that Fanny, their housekeeper, was at this moment putting them to bed. Carella watched her moving hand, missing a word every now and then, but understanding the sense and meaning, and then smiled as she went on to outline her plans for the evening, as if her plans needed outlining after the kiss she had given him at the front door.
“You can get arrested for using that kind of language,” Carella said, grinning. “It’s a good thing everybody can’t read it.”
Teddy glanced over her shoulder to make sure the door to the twins’ room was closed, and then put her arms around his neck again and moved as close to him as it was possible to get and kissed him once again, and he almost forgot that it was his custom to go in to say good night to the twins before he had his dinner.
“Well, I don’t know what brought this on,” he said, and he raised one eyebrow appreciatively, and Teddy moved the fingers on her right hand rapidly and told him never to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“You’re the nicest-looking gift horse I’ve seen all week,” he said. He kissed the tip of her nose and then went down the hall to the twins’ room, knocking on the door before he entered. Fanny looked up from Mark’s bed where she was tucking him in.