by Ed McBain
'I will,' Kling said. He rose and walked to the door. At the door, he turned. 'Mr Boone?' he said.
'Yes?'
'In the meantime, don't go to Connecticut this week-end.'
The law offices of Jefferson Dobberly were straight out of Great Expectations. They were small and musty, and they received rays of slanted sunlight upon which dust motes floated. Enormous legal tomes lined the reception room, lined the corridor leading to Dobberly's private office, and lined three walls of the private office itself.
Jefferson Dobberly sat before the windows which lined the fourth wall. Sunlight slanted in behind his balding head. Dust motes danced on the sunlight and on his pate. Books were piled on his desk, and they formed a fortress between him and Kling. Kling sat and watched him. He was a tall thin man with watery blue eyes. His mouth was wrinkled and he moved it perpetually, as if he wanted to spit and couldn't find a place to do it. He had cut himself shaving that morning. The gash ran sidewards on his cheek from his left sideburn. The sideburns were practically all that remained of the hair on his head, and even they were white as though they were weakening before their final surrender. Jefferson Dobberly was fifty-three years old. He looked like seventy.
'What has Theodore Boone done in connexion with getting custody of his daughter Monica?' Kling asked.
'I don't see what bearing that has on the case you're investigating, Mr Kling,' Dobberly said. His voice, in complete contradiction to his fragile appearance, was loud and booming. He spoke as if he were addressing a jury. He spoke as if every word he uttered were the key word in his summing up.
'You don't have to see the bearing, Mr Dobberly,' Kling said gently. 'Only the police do.'
Dobberly smiled.
'Will you tell me, sir?' Kling asked.
'What did Mr Boone tell you?'
'Counsellor,' Kling said gently, and Dobberly reared back slightly at the word, 'this is a murder investigation. Let's not play footsie.'
'Well, Mr Kling,' Dobberly said, still smiling, and Kling repeated, 'This is a murder investigation,' and the smile left Dobberly's face.
'What do you want to know?' Dobberly asked.
'What's he doing to get his child?'
'Now?'
'Yes, now.'
'Mrs Travail refuses to release the child. Under the law, Ted… Mr Boone can take forcible possession of her. He prefers not to handle it that way. For the child's sake. We have asked instead for an ex parte court order. We may have it any time within the next week or so. That's it.'
'When did you apply for the court order?'
'The day after Annie was killed.'
'Had Mr Boone made any prior attempts to gain custody of the child?' Kling asked.
Dobberly hesitated.
'Had he?'
'Well, they've been divorced for almost two years, you know.'
'Yes.'
'I had handled Ted's law affairs before that. When they decided to get a divorce, they naturally came to me. I tried to prevent it. But… well, people have their own reasons, I guess. Annie went to Las Vegas.'
'Go on.'
'Ted came to me about six months later. He said he wanted Monica.'
'You told him the courts had awarded the child to Annie, and that was that. Am I right?'
'Well, no, not exactly. That's not exactly what I told him.'
'What did you tell him?'
'I told him that the courts have been known to reverse their decision regarding custody. If, for example, the mother is shown to be unfit.'
'How do you mean?'
'Unfit, Mr Kling. If, for example, she is raising the child in a house of prostitution. Or if, for example, it is shown that she is a drug addict, or an alcoholic.'
'But this was not the case with Annie.'
'Well…' Dobberly hesitated.
'Well?'
'Mr Kling, I always liked Annie. I don't like to talk against her. I'm telling you this only because my client felt he could base a case upon it. When we made our appeal…'
'You made an appeal?'
'Yes. In an attempt to get a reversal of decision.'
'When was this?'
'We entered the appeal almost a year ago.'
'What happened?'
Dobberly shrugged. 'Court calendars are jammed, Mr Kling. We were still waiting when Annie was killed. I have withdrawn the appeal. There is no need for it now. Mr Boone has the legal right to that child now.'
'This appeal,' Kling said. 'On what was it based?'
'We were trying to show that Annie was an unfit mother. You must understand, Mr Kling, that if she failed to dress the child properly, or if they lived in a poor neighbourhood, or if she had too many—ah… boy friends…well, none of these would be sufficient reasons to support a claim of unfitness. You understand that.'
'Yes,' Kling said. 'What was unfit about Annie?'
Dobberly sighed heavily. 'She was a hopeless drunkard,' he said.
'Boone never mentioned that,' Kling said. 'Neither did her mother.' Kling thought a moment. 'Did this have any connexion with the fact that she worked in a liquor store?'
'Perhaps. I haven't seen Annie since the divorce. She was not a drunkard then.'
'Then she became one between the time of the divorce and the time you made your appeal, is that right?'
'Apparently. Yes. Unless her alcoholism was kept secret during the time I knew her. I wouldn't know about that.'
'You know Boone well, am I right?'
'Fairly well, yes.'
'He told me he made no attempt to see either Annie or the child until six months after the divorce. Yet he claims he loved both very much. Can you offer any explanation for his behaviour?'
'Certainly,' Dobberly said.
'What?'
'He was hoping he'd get her back. Annie, I mean. He stayed away from her and the child because he thought she'd miss him, thought she'd want him again, thought she'd "come to her senses," as he put it.' Dobberly shrugged sadly. 'It didn't work that way, Mr Kling. And finally, Ted faced the facts. It was all over. That was when he decided he wanted Monica. If he couldn't have Annie, he would at least have the child. That's the way his thinking went, Mr Kling.'
'I see. Have you ever met Mrs Travail?'
'Ted's mother-in-law? Never. From what he says about her, she seems to be the mother-in-law who's in all the nasty jokes one hears.'
'She speaks very highly of him.'
'Does she?' Dobberly raised his eyebrows. 'I'm surprised.'
'Why?'
'Well, as I said, Ted seems to dislike her intensely.' Dobberly paused. 'You don't seriously believe he killed Annie, do you?'
'I don't seriously believe anything yet,' Kling said.
'He didn't kill that girl, Mr Kling, believe me. I'm willing to bet my life on that. The boy's harmless. Annie Boone took a lot of happiness out of his life. He was only trying to recapture a little of it by getting his daughter back. He would no more do murder than you or I.'
'I would, Mr Dobberly,' Kling said.
'In the line of duty, yes. Legal murder. If you had to. But Ted Boone didn't have to.'
'How else would he have gotten his daughter back?'
'I already told you, Mr Kling. Annie was a drunkard.'
'I have only your word for that, so far. And you admitted you hadn't seen her since the divorce. I hardly think you'd make a capable witness as to whether or not she was a drunkard.'
'Ted can tell you,' Dobberly said.
'If Ted Boone committed murder, he can tell me a lot of things, all of which might be untrue.'
'He's not a criminal type. I used to be a criminal lawyer many years ago, when I first began practice. Those were booming days for criminals. I was very busy. I got to know criminal types. Surely, Mr Kling, you are familiar with criminal types.'
'Surely, Mr Dobberly, you are familiar with the fact that most murders are not committed by people with previous criminal records.'
'Yes. But I do not feel that Ted Boone is capable of murder.'
'Pretty, vibrant.'
'Overly intelligent?'
'Average, I would say.'
'Overly quick?'
Dobberly shrugged. 'Average.'
'Would you say she had outgrown Mr Boone?'
'No, I don't think so. They both seemed to have grown in social experience. Naturally, I didn't have very much to do with them. That is, I only saw them occasionally. Whenever Ted needed the services of an attorney. It was Anne, you know, who wanted the divorce. Ted didn't. I tried to keep them together. I always do. But she wanted it. It was a strange thing. They seemed very well matched.'
'But you didn't see them very often?'
'No.'
'How often?'
'In the two years I'd known them before the divorce? Oh, perhaps a dozen times.' Dobberly shook his head. 'Very well matched. I couldn't understand it. I tried to keep them together. But she wanted the divorce. I still don't know why.'
'There's only one person who does, Mr Dobberly,' Kling said.
'Who?'
'Annie Boone.'
CHAPTER EIGHT
Regal Oldsmobile was in that part of the city called Riverhead. There was, in actuality, no river which had its head—or even its tail—in that part of the city. In the days of the old Dutch settlers the entire part of the city above Isola was owned by a patroon named Ryerhert. Ryerhert's Farms was good land interspersed with igneous and metamorphic rock. As the city grew, Ryerhert sold part of his land and donated the rest of it until eventually all of it was owned by the city. Ryerhert was hard to say. Even before 1917 when it became unfashionable for anything to sound even mildly Teutonic, Ryerhert had become Riverhead. There was, to be sure, water in Riverhead. But the water was a brook, really, and it wasn't even called a brook. It was called Five Mile Pond. It was not five miles wide, nor was it five miles long, nor was it five miles from any noticeable landmark. It was simply a brook which was called Five Mile Pond in a community called Riverhead which had no river's head in it. Riverhead could get confusing sometimes.
Regal Oldsmobile was in the heart of Riverhead on an avenue called Barbara Avenue beneath the elevated structure. Regal Oldsmobile was composed of two branches, or rather three. It was easy to make the error of thinking there were only two departments because there were only two buildings. But one of those buildings housed the new cars showroom and the service department. The other building housed the used cars department. Two buildings, three branches. Very confusing. Like Riverhead itself.
Detectives Cotton Hawes and Steve Carella were primarily interested in the service department of Regal Oldsmobile. They spoke there with a man named Buck Mosley. Buck was covered with oil. He had been engaged in changing a differential when the detectives arrived. Buck didn't like to talk much, anyway. He was good with his hands, and the other mechanics felt he did most of his talking to cars, but they never begrudged him the title of Service Manager because they knew he was the best damned mechanic at Regal. It isn't everyone who can talk to an automobile. And even fewer people can get an answer from one. Buck could do both these things. With people, it was different. With people, he was somewhat reticent. With people who also happened to be cops, Buck somehow resembled the lowly clam.
'It was you who called us in answer to our flyer, wasn't it?' Hawes asked.
'Uh-huh,' Buck said.
'You think your department did the paint job on the '47 Dodge?'
'Uh-huh.'
'What colour did you paint it?'
'Green,' Buck said.
'What kind of green?'
'Kelly.'
'Bright?'
'Uh-huh.'
'When was this?'
'Three weeks ago,' Buck said in a longish sentence which qualified him as a marathon lecturer.
'For whom?'
'Fellow.'
'Do you know his name?'
'Inside,' Buck said, gesturing to the office with his head. He began walking. Hawes and Carella followed him.
'Don't let him talk too much,' Carella whispered. 'Tire the poor fellow out.'
Hawes grinned. 'Uh-huh,' he said.
In the office, Buck did not speak until he found the service record. Then he extended it to Carella and said only, 'Here.'
Carella looked at the form.
'Charles Fetterick,' Carella said. 'Ever see him before?'
'Nope,' Buck said.
'Just came in off the street?' Hawes asked.
'Yep.'
'Car been in a smack-up?'
'Nope?'
'Stolen?'
'Checked the list,' Buck said loquaciously. 'Okay.'
'Just wanted it repainted,' Hawes said. 'That's strange.'
'It may have been spotted on another heist,' Carella said. He looked at the form again. '127 Boxer. That isn't far. Let's make the collar.'
'Shouldn't we run him through the I.B. first?'
'What for?'
'I like to know what I'm going against,' Hawes said.
'By the time we check on whether or not he's got a record, he may have moved to California,' Carella said. 'Let's nab him while we know where he is. If this is the real address.'
'Whatever you say,' Hawes said. He turned to Buck. 'Thanks a lot,' he told him.
'Welcome,' Buck said, and that was that.
It was by the sheerest good fortune that Steve Carella remained alive that day. When it was all over, he had only Cotton Hawes to thank for his close brush with the black angel. When it was all over, he was in no mood to thank Cotton Hawes. He said, instead, 'You stupid son of a bitch!' even though Hawes got his share of the lumps and was lying flat on his back in a tenement hallway.
They had left Regal Oldsmobile at ten minutes to noon. Hawes wanted to stop for lunch. Carella wanted to nab Fetterick. Hawes conceded.
The tenements lining Boxer Lane were perhaps better tenements than those to be found in the 87th Precinct territory. The ones in the 87th were generally cold water railroad flats heated by kerosene stoves. The kerosene stoves accounted for the fact that the fire house in the 87th was the most overworked house in the city, answering some 2,500 calls yearly, with the heaviest load in the winter. The tenements on Boxer Lane all had steam heat. Aside from that, the line between them and the 87th's tenements was a thin one. Tenements are tenements.
Cops, too, are cops. They are used to tenements. They are used to entering dimly lit entrance hallways and seeing broken mailboxes. They are used to garbage cans stacked on the ground floor, and narrow steps leading to each landing of the multiple dwelling. They are used to the smells of a tenement and the sounds of a tenement. The tenement in which Charles Fetterick, Thief, lived was no different from any other tenement in the world. Charles Fetterick, Thief, had his name in a broken mailbox. The apartment number lettered on the small white card was 34. Cotton Hawes and Steve Carella, Detectives, began climbing the steps to the third floor in hope of apprehending Charles Fetterick, Thief.
They passed an old man on the second floor. The old man knew they were bulls. He could tell simply by looking at them. He stood on the second floor landing and looked up after them curiously, wondering whom they were after.
On the third floor landing, Carella drew his service revolver. Hawes studied him dispassionately for a moment and then drew his own .38. He heard Carella click off the safety. He followed suit. In the dimness of the corridor, they found Apartment 34. Carella put his ear to the door. There was no sound from within the apartment. He backed away from the door and leaned momentarily against the opposite wall, preparatory to shoving himself off the wall and kicking out at the lock with the flat of his left foot. He was remembering that Charles Fetterick was perhaps the fellow who'd thrown Roger Havilland through a plate glass window and killed him. He was remembering that Roger Havilland wasn't exactly a half-pint, and that it must have taken quite a shove to brush him off into that window. He was remembering, too, that he had a lovely wife named Teddy, and he had no intention
of leaving her a young widow. And so his .38 was cocked and ready in his right fist, and he backed off on to the opposite wall preparatory to kicking in a door lock, an operation he had performed perhaps fifty thousand or sixty thousand or sixty million times since he'd been a cop, a very simple and routine operation, a thing as common as answering the phone with '87th Squad, Detective Carella.'
When Hawes knocked on the door, Carella blinked.
When Hawes said, without waiting for an answer to his knock, 'Police, Fetterick. Open up!' Carella was speechless. He still would have kicked in the lock, except that a series of explosions sounded from within the apartment, and suddenly the wood of the door was splintering outward and bullets were whizzing past Carella's head and knocking big chunks of plaster from the wall. He didn't think anything then but DUCK! He fell flat to the floor with his pistol in his fist, and then the door opened and Charles Fetterick—or whoever the hell was inside the apartment—threw another shot out of the doorjamb, and Hawes stood with his mouth wide open and Fetterick—or whoever the hell was shoving his way out of the door—slammed his gun sidewards against Hawes' head without saying a word. Hawes brought up his hand to cover the wide gash of blood that suddenly crossed his eye and Fetterick—or whoever the hell was wielding that gun—lashed out at Hawes again, opening his nose and sending him sprawling backwards against Carella who hugged the floor and who was angling for a shot past the six-foot-two-inch bulk of Hawes. Hawes came down. He came down on to Carella's right hand, pinning the gun. Fetterick—or whoever the hell was wearing those size twelve shoes—kicked out at Hawes' face, splitting his lip, and then he ran for the steps. By the time Carella rolled Hawes off him and on to his back, Fetterick was in the street and probably eight blocks away. Carella walked back to Hawes. There were four shots in the plaster where Carella's head had once been. Hawes lay on the floor with his face open at every seam.
'You stupid son of a bitch!' Carella said. 'Are you all right?'
CHAPTER NINE
When a new man joins a firm, the other employees are apt to talk about him, speculate about him, generally form their own conclusions about him. If he contributes something colourful to the working day, the employees very often will take their talk home to their wives. They will dissect the newcomer at the dinner table.