"All right."
She went into the kitchen. I stayed in the middle of the room and kept looking around—turning my eyes and my body both in slow quadrants. Couch, end tables, coffee table, leather recliner Kerry had given me on my last birthday, shelves full of bright-spined pulps, old secretary desk. All just as we'd left it. Yet something wasn't as it should be. I made another slow circuit: couch, end tables, coffee tables, recliner, bookshelves, desk. And a third circuit: couch, tables, recliner—
Recliner.
The chair's footrest was pushed in, out of sight.
It was a small thing, but that didn't make it any less wrong. The chair is a good one, comfortable, but the footrest has never worked quite right. To get it folded all the way back under on its metal hinges, you have to give it a kick; and when you sit down again later, you have to struggle to work it free so you can recline. So I don't bother anymore to boot it all the way under. I always leave the footrest part way out, with its metal hinges showing.
Why would an intruder bother to kick it under? Only one conceivable reason: he thought it was supposed to be that way and wanted the chair to look completely natural. But why would he be messing around my recliner in the first place . . .
"Jesus," I said aloud, and again the hair pulled along my neck. I went to the recliner, gingerly eased the seat cushion out so I could see under it. What I was looking at then was a bomb.
Two sticks of dynamite wired together with a detonator plate on top, set into a slit in the fabric so that it was resting on the chair's inner springs. The weight of a person settling onto the cushion would depress the plate and set off the dynamite—
"Good God!"
Kerry was standing behind me, staring open-mouthed at the thing in the chair. I hadn't even heard her come in.
"Not a burglar after all," I said angrily. "Somebody who came in to leave something. This."
"I . . . don't hear any ticking," she said.
"It's a pressure-activated bomb, not a time bomb. Nothing to worry about as long as we stay away from it."
"But who . . . why . . . ?"
I caught her arm and steered her into the bedroom, where I keep my phone. I rang up the Hall of Justice, got through to an inspector I knew named Jordan, and explained the situation. He said he'd be right over with the bomb squad.
When I hung up, Kerry said in a shaky voice, "I just don't understand. All the doors and windows were locked—they're still locked. How did whoever it was get in and back out again?"
I had no answer for her then. But by the time the police arrived, I had done some hard thinking and a little more checking and I did have an answer—the only possible explanation. And along with it, I had the who and the why.
"His name is Howard Lynch," I said to Jordan. He and Kerry and I were in the hallway, waiting for the bomb squad to finish up inside. "Owns a hardware store out on Clement. He hired me about a month ago to find his wife; said she'd run off with another man. She had, too, but nobody could blame her. I found out later Lynch had been abusing her for years."
"So why would he want to kill you?"
"He must blame me for his wife's death. I found her, all right, but when I told her Lynch was my employer she panicked and took off in her boyfriend's car. She didn't get far—a truck stopped her three blocks away."
"Pretty story."
"That's the kind of business we're in, Mack."
"Don't I know it. Did Lynch threaten you?"
"No. He's the kind who nurses his hatred in private."
"Then what makes you so sure he's the one who planted the bomb?"
"He showed up here one night a couple of weeks after the accident. Said it was to give me a check for my services—I probably shouldn't have, but I'd sent him a bill—and to tell me there were no hard feelings. I knew about the abuse by then, but he seemed contrite about it, said he was in therapy . . . hell, I bought it all and felt sorry enough for him to let him in. He wasn't here long, just long enough to ask to use the bathroom and sneak a quick look at the back door."
Kerry said, "I don't see why the bomber has to be somebody who was here before tonight."
"That's the only way it makes sense. To begin with, he had to've gotten in tonight through one of the doors, front or back. The windows are all secure and there's nothing but empty space below them. There're no marks of any kind on the front door locks, no way he could've gotten a key, and he would've had a hard time even getting into the building because of the security lock on the main entrance downstairs. That leaves the alley staircase and the back door."
"But that one was—is—double-locked too."
"Right. But the lock on the door is a push-button, the kind anybody can pick with a credit card or the like. There's a tiny fresh scratch on the bolt."
"You can't pick a chain lock with a credit card," Jordan said.
"No, but once the spring lock is free, the door will open a few inches—wide enough to reach through with a pair of bolt cutters and snip the chain. That explains the brass sliver I found on the porch floor. Easy work for a man who owns a hardware store, and so is the rest of it: When he was here the first time, he noted the type of chain lock back there, and among the other things he brought with him tonight was an exact duplicate of that lock. After he was inside, he unscrewed the old chain-lock plates from the door and jamb and installed the new ones, using the same holes—a job that wouldn't have taken more than a few minutes. Then he reset the spring lock, put the new chain on, and took the pieces of the old lock away with him when he was done planting the bomb."
"If he relocked the door," Jordan said, "how did he get out of the flat?"
"Walked out through the front door. Opened the deadbolt, opened the door, reset the push-button on the knob, and closed the door behind him. Simple as that."
Kerry said, "It would have worked, too, if you hadn't realized the deadbolt was off when we got back and felt something was wrong." She shivered a little. "If you'd sat down in that chair . . ."
"Don't even think about it," I said.
THE IMPERFECT CRIME
It was a balmy early summer night, pungent with wood smoke and the sweetness of honeysuckle. In the willow garden behind the small frame house, crickets sang sonorously and tree frogs were in full-throated voice.
On the porch, in the deep shadows at the far end, Ellen and George Granger sat in silence without touching, without looking at each other. They had been sitting there for some time, listening to the night sounds.
George said finally, "What're you thinking about, Ellen?"
"You really want to know?"
"I asked, didn't I?"
"I was thinking about our perfect crime," she said. "I was thinking about Tom."
He was silent again for a time. Then, "What for?"
"T'was an evening just like this one when we murdered him."
"Don't use that word!"
"There's no one around to hear."
"Just don't use it. We agreed never to use that word."
"T'was an evening just like this one," she said again. "You remember, George?"
"Am I likely to've forgotten?"
"We shouldn't have come together so often," Ellen said.
"If we'd been more careful he wouldn't have caught us. But it was such a beautiful night . . ."
"Listen," George said, "if it hadn't been that night it would've been some other soon after. We couldn't of hidden it from him much longer."
"No, I suppose not."
"Worked out fine as it was," he said. "Wasn't no one else around that night. Worked out just fine."
"George, why didn't we run off together? Before that night? Why didn't we just run off somewhere?"
"Don't be silly. I had no money, you know that. Where would we of gone?"
"I don't know."
"No, course you don't."
"If only Tom hadn't been so jealous," Ellen said. "I could have asked him for a divorce. Things would've been so simple, then; we wouldn't have done what we did
."
"Well, he was jealous," George said. "He was a jealous fool. I'm not sorry for what we done."
"I wasn't either, at the time. But now . . ."
"What's the matter with you tonight, Ellen? You're acting damned peculiar, you ask me."
"T'was a night just like this one," she said for the third time. "The honeysuckle, the wood smoke, the crickets and tree frogs. It could've been this night."
"Don't talk silly."
Ellen sighed in the darkness. "Why'd we kill him, George? Why did we do it?"
"Chrissake. Because he caught us together, that's why."
"At the time we said it was because we were in love."
"Well, there was that too."
"That too," Ellen repeated. "At the time that was everything. It was what made it all right, what we did."
"Why in hell are you talking this way?" George said in exasperation. "We committed the perfect crime—you said so yourself, then and just a couple of minutes ago. Nobody ever suspected. They all thought it was an accident."
"Yes. An accident."
"Well then? What's the matter with you?"
Ellen said, "Was it worth it, George?"
"What?"
"What we did. Was it worth it?"
"Sure it was worth it. We got married, didn't we?"
"Yes."
"We been happy together, ain't we?"
"I suppose we have."
"You always said you weren't sorry."
"So did you. Did you really mean it?"
"Sure I did. Didn't you?"
Ellen was quiet. From somewhere down the block, a dog bayed mournfully at the pale moon—or maybe at something in the dark. The crickets created a symphony all around them.
At length she said, "I wish we hadn't done it. Before God, I wish we hadn't done it."
"Ellen, it was the perfect crime!"
"Was it? Was it really?"
"You know it was."
"I don't know it. Not anymore."
"Damn you, woman, stop talking that way."
"I can't help it," she said. "I'm afraid. I been afraid for a long time."
"Of what?" George said. "We weren't caught, were we? Won't never be caught now."
"Not by the law."
"Now what's that supposed to mean?"
"There's no such thing as the perfect crime, George," she said. "I know that and so do you."
"I don't know any such thing."
"Yes you do. Down deep, we've both known it all along. We haven't gone unpunished for what we did—but we haven't paid the full price, either. Won't be long now before we do. Not much longer at all."
They sat once more in silence, with nothing left to say, with the cloying fragrance of the honeysuckle in their nostrils and the songs of the crickets and tree frogs swelling in their ears. Sat without touching, without looking at each other on the deep-shadowed porch . . . remembering . . . waiting.
Ellen and George Granger, seventy-nine and eighty-one years of age, who had committed the perfect crime in the year 1931.
SHELL GAME
(With Jeffrey M. Wallmann)
Gloved hands thrust into the pockets of his heavy tweed overcoat, Steve Blanchard entered the Midwestern National Exchange Bank a few minutes before three P.M. on a snowy Thursday in December. A uniformed guard stood near the main entrance doors with a ring of keys in his hand, his eyes cast upward to the clock on the side wall. Blanchard's steps echoed hollowly as he crossed the almost-deserted lobby to the teller at window four, the only one open at this late hour. He waited until a stout, gray-haired man had finished his transaction, then moved up to the window.
A small nameplate indicated that the teller's name was James Cox. He was a thin young man with dark eyes and sand-colored hair. He smiled at Blanchard, said, "Yes, sir, may I help you?"
Blanchard took the folded piece of paper from his coat pocket and slid it across the counter. The second hand on the wall clock made two full sweeps, half of a third, and then Blanchard turned and strode quickly away without looking back.
He had just passed through the entrance doors, was letting them swing closed behind him, when Cox shouted, "Stop that man! He just robbed me, Sam. Stop him!"
Blanchard halted on the snow-covered sidewalk outside and turned, his angular face a mask of surprise. The guard, a florid man with mild blue eyes, remained motionless for a moment; then, like an activated robot, he pulled the doors open, stepped out, and grasped Blanchard by the coat with his left hand, his right fumbling the service revolver off his hip.
"What the hell is going on?" Blanchard demanded.
The guard drew him roughly inside, holding the revolver pressed against Blanchard's ribs. The near-funereal silence of three o'clock closing had dissolved now into excited murmurings, the scrape of chairs, the slap of shoes on the marble floor as the bank's employees surged away from their desks. Cox ran out from behind his teller's window, the president of Midwestern National Exchange Bank, Allard Hoffman, at his heels. The teller's eyes were wide and excited; he held a piece of paper clenched in his right hand. Hoffman looked angrily officious.
"He held me up," Cox said as they reached Blanchard and the guard. "Every bill I had over a ten."
Blanchard gave his head a small, numb shake. "I don't believe this," he said. He stared at Cox. "What's the matter with you? You know I didn't try to hold you up."
"Look in his overcoat pockets, Sam," Cox said. "That's where he put the money."
"You're crazy—"
"Go ahead, Sam, look in his pockets," Hoffman said.
The guard instructed Blanchard to turn around and keep his hands upraised. When Blanchard obeyed, the guard patted his pockets, frowned, and then made a thorough one-handed search. After which he looked as bewildered as Blanchard. In his hand he held a thin pigskin wallet and seven rolls of pennies, nickels and dimes.
"This is all he's got on him," he said.
"What?" Cox burst out. "Sam, I saw him put that money into his overcoat pockets."
"Well, it's not there now."
"Of course it's not there," Blanchard said angrily. "I told you I didn't commit any robbery."
Cox opened the folded piece of paper he held. "This is the note he gave me, Mr. Hoffman. Read it for yourself."
Hoffman took the note. It had been fashioned of letters cut from a newspaper and glued to a sheet of plain paper, and it said: Give me all your big bills, I have a gun. If you try any heroics I'll kill you. I'm not kidding. The bank president put voice to the message as he read it.
"He's not carrying any weapon, either," Sam said positively.
"I believed the note about that," Cox said, "but I made up my mind to shout nonetheless. I just couldn't stand by and watch him get away with the bank's money."
"I don't know where you got that note," Blanchard said to Cox, "but I didn't give it to you. I handed you a slip of paper, that's true, but it was just a list of those rolls of coins and you know it."
"You claim Mr. Cox gave them to you?" Hoffman asked him.
"Certainly he did. In exchange for twenty-eight dollars in fives and ones."
"I did not give him any coin rolls," Cox said with mounting exasperation. "I did exactly what it says in that note. I gave him every large bill I had in the cash drawer. The vault cart happened to be behind me at the time, since my cage was the only one open, and he told me to give him what was on that too. He must have gotten sixty-five or seventy thousand altogether."
"You're a liar," Blanchard snapped.
"You're the one who's lying!"
"I don't have your damned money. You've searched me, haven't you? All I've got is about twenty dollars in my wallet."
"Well," Hoffman said darkly, "somebody has it."
At that moment two plainclothes detectives entered the bank, having been summoned by a hurried call from one of the other Midwestern officials. The one in charge, a lumbering and disheveled man with small, bright eyes, was named Freiberg. He instructed the guard to lock the doors,
and when that was done he said, "All right, let's hear what happened."
Cox related his version of the affair. Freiberg, writing laboriously in a notebook, didn't interrupt. When the teller had finished, Freiberg turned to Blanchard. "Now what's your story?"
Blanchard told him about the rolls of coins. "I wanted them for a poker game some friends of mine and I set up for tonight." He made a wry mouth. "I'm supposed to be the banker."
"He also claims to have given Mr. Cox a list of what he wanted in the way of coins," Hoffman said.
"The only note he gave me is that holdup note," Cox insisted. "He must have gotten those coins elsewhere, had them in his pocket when he came in here."
"Why don't you check his cage?" Blanchard countered. "That list of mine has to be around here somewhere." He glared at Cox. "Maybe you'll even find your missing cash."
"Are you suggesting I stole that money?" Cox shouted.
Hoffman said stiffly, "Mr. Cox has been a trusted employee of Midwestern National for four years."
"Well, I've been a trusted employee of Curtis Tool and Die for a hell of a lot longer," Blanchard said. "What does any of that prove?"
"All right, that's enough." Freiberg looked at the bank president. "Mr. Hoffman, detail someone to find out exactly how much money is missing." Then he turned to the other plainclothesman. "Flynn, question the rest of the employees; maybe one of them saw or heard something. You might as well go through Mr. Cox's cage and personal possessions, too."
Cox was incredulous. "You mean you're taking this thief's word over mine?"
"I'm not taking anybody's word, Mr. Cox. I'm just trying to find out what happened here today." He paused. "Would you mind emptying all your pockets for me?"
"Of course I mind," Cox said in an icily controlled voice. "But I'll do it just the same. I have nothing to hide."
It appeared that he hadn't, as far as his person went. He did not have either a list of coins or any appreciable amount of money.
Freiberg sighed. "Okay," he said, "let's go over it again . . ."
Sometime later, Hoffman and Flynn tendered their reports. A check of receipts and records revealed that a total of $65,100 was missing. No list of coins had been found in or about Cox's cage or among his possessions, and there were exactly as many coin rolls in his cash drawer as he was supposed to have. None of the other employees could shed any light on the matter; no one had been near Cox's cage at the time. Nor did any of them have the missing money on his person, among his belongings, or at his work station.
Small Felonies - Fifty Mystery Short Stories Page 3