by Barbara Paul
She held up her shield. “Lieutenant Larch. Are you the first officer on the scene?”
His eyes widened a fraction: So this is our new lady lieutenant. “No, Lieutenant, Jackson’s first officer.” He indicated the bluesuit guarding the front exit of the bus. “What we gonna do about all these people?”
“We’re going to let them off two at a time. What’s your name, Officer?”
“Torelli.” A pause. “Ma’am.”
“Well, Torelli, I want you and Detective O’Toole here to take down the names and addresses of all the passengers and ask them if they saw anything.”
“They all say they didn’t see nothin’.”
“Ask them again. If they have more than one form of ID, you can let them go. No ID or anything that smells fishy, hold them. For out-of-towners, get local addresses.”
“I gotta call in,” the bus driver said in an aggrieved tone.
“We’ll call for you. Give the phone number to Detective O’Toole. And wait here—I’ll want to talk to you.”
The right bluesuit was guarding the bus passengers: a barrel-chested black man with shoulders wide enough to block the exit. “Officer Jackson?” Marian identified herself and told him to start letting the agitated passengers off two at a time. “You’re the first officer?”
“Yes’m. Most of the passengers had scrammed before I got here. This bunch here musta been daydreaming—they didn’t think nothing of it when the driver stopped the bus to make a phone call.”
“I was afraid of that.” She waited while Jackson ordered the first two passengers to step off; O’Toole and Torelli were waiting for them. “How long between the dispatcher’s call and your arrival?”
“Couldna been more’n two or three minutes. But that’s long enough for most of ’em to get off. There’s only ten, twelve people here—but the driver said the bus was packed.”
So most of their potential witnesses had disappeared into the streets. Marian nodded her thanks to Jackson and went back to the bus driver, who was watching the cops directing traffic around his bus amid a lot of horn-honking and shouting.
The driver was an angry man in his late thirties who took it as a personal affront that someone would go and get himself killed on his bus. “Like I don’t have enough to worry about,” he complained. “Busful of tired and short-tempered people on their way home from work. And me already behind schedule.”
“How did you find out you had a dead man on board?” Marian asked. She had to shout to make herself heard.
“Passenger told me,” the driver shouted back. “And she told me loud enough that everybody in the front part of the bus heard her. They couldn’t wait to get out of there! I couldn’t even go back and check the guy right away because of that mob pushin’ to get off.”
“Did you touch the body?”
“Hell, no. With all that blood everywhere? He was dead, all right.”
“The woman who told you—was she one of those who left?”
The driver looked at her scornfully. “You expect her to hang around?”
No, Marian didn’t. “I don’t suppose you remember where the dead man got on?”
The driver looked smug. “Matter of fact, I do. Second Avenue.”
“How can you be sure?”
“He was an old guy, slow … ya know. While he was climbin’ on, I was lookin’ at what the Thirty-Fourth East was showin’.”
A movie theater. “So he was killed somewhere between Second and Ninth Avenues. Let’s see, counting in Lexington and—”
“Nine blocks,” he interrupted. “Exactly.”
“And nobody heard the shot? Or saw anything?”
“Musta used a silencer,” the driver said, nodding sagely.
While they’d been talking, both the Crime Scene Unit van and the car from the Medical Examiner’s office had arrived. Marian could hear the CSU men griping about having to deal with a movable crime scene that was blocking traffic. They waited until the last passenger was off and then boarded the bus.
The traffic noise had died down to its usual level—which was to say, merely deafening. O’Toole and Torelli had let everyone go except three people, one of whom was a girl of thirteen or fourteen who looked scared to death. Marian shot a look at O’Toole.
“You said keep everybody who didn’t have ID,” he said defensively.
Marian drew the girl aside. “What’s your name, kiddo?”
The girl whispered something.
“What’s that? I can’t hear you.”
“Sharon Brandt.” A louder whisper.
“Sharon, don’t you know you should never leave home without carrying some kind of identification? What if you’re in an accident? How could we let your parents know?”
The girl nodded dumbly, wide-eyed.
“Even if it’s just a card you’ve written your address on. Something.”
Sharon nodded again.
“You promise me you’ll carry ID from now on?”
“Oh yes!” Faintly.
“Good. You go on home now.”
The girl took off running. The other two who’d been held back were a middle-aged woman and a scruffy, stick-thin youngish man. The latter’s pupils were pinpoints; his head was swaying in time to music only he could hear, and a loose grin made him appear as carefree as he probably felt. His only protection against the February cold was a ragged sweater; the guy looked like a slaphappy scarecrow.
“This one can’t even tell us his name,” O’Toole said in disgust.
Marian sighed. “Take him in and hold him until he comes down from wherever he is.” Torelli led the unresisting scarecrow away.
That left the middle-aged woman, who blinked when a flash from the police photographer’s camera went off inside the bus. She had short brown hair, minimal make-up, featureless clothing. Nondescript. “No ID?” Marian asked.
“Oh, she has ID all right,” O’Toole said with a grim smile. “She’s a private.”
“I’m not licensed,” the woman said hurriedly. “I work for a licensed detective. I’m an operative.”
“Her name’s Zoe Esterhaus,” O’Toole added. “Zoh-ee without a y. She and the victim got on the bus at—”
“Second Avenue,” Marian interrupted.
O’Toole looked surprised. “That’s right.”
Marian couldn’t believe this early break. “You were following the victim?”
“Yes, I was,” the operative admitted readily. “But don’t ask me why. My instructions were to file a report on everywhere he went. That’s all I know.” The Esterhaus woman heaved a big sigh. “Lieutenant, I’d like to cooperate, but I really think you’d better talk to my boss.”
“We’re going to talk to both of you. What’s the victim’s name?”
“Oliver Knowles. Retired businessman of some sort. He lived on Central Park South. Lived pretty well, from what I could see.”
“All right, Ms Esterhaus, I want you to go along to the station with Detective O’Toole. I’ll be there shortly. O’Toole, get hold of her boss and have him come in. We’ll need statements from both.”
“You can’t reach him now,” the other woman said. “He’s flying back from London tonight.”
“Tomorrow, then. Call him first thing, O’Toole. But we’ll get her statement first.”
“Do you want me to take the car?” he asked. “How will you get back?”
“Take the car,” Marian said. “Officer Jackson will give me a ride back, won’t you, Officer?”
“Glad to, ma’am.”
A man from the Crime Scene Unit was getting off the bus, carrying a battery-powered hand vacuum cleaner. “Do you have any idea,” he said to the world at large, “how much junk is on the floor of a public bus?”
“Are you about finished?” Marian asked him.
“Yeah, we’re done. Dr. Whittaker’s still in there, though.”
Marian climbed on the bus. She could see only the gray head of the victim leaning against the bus window, about three-fourths of the way
back on the left as she faced the rear. The man from the Medical Examiner’s office was bending over the body.
“Dr. Whittaker,” Marian said, to let him know she was there.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, hello, Sergeant Larch. Kind of off your turf, aren’t you?”
“New precinct. And a new rank. It’s Lieutenant Larch now.”
“Congratulations,” he said absently as he stood up straight. “You know, this guy’s been dead less than an hour. Rigor’s just starting.”
Marian moved in and took a close look at Oliver Knowles’s body. The dead man was wearing glasses and had a full iron-gray mustache. His overcoat looked expensive, and Marian could see the glint of a gold watch showing under the cuff of his left sleeve. His right hand was propping up a blood-soaked copy of Newsweek against his chest.
“Let’s take a look at this,” Dr. Whittaker said, easing the magazine out from under the dead man’s hand. He held it up where light was showing behind it.
“No bullet hole,” Marian said quickly. “Probably a contact shot?”
“Little hard to see powder burns under all that blood. The lab techs will have to look.”
Marian nodded. “Bet you a dollar they’re there. The killer held the gun to his chest, fired, and then propped up the magazine to hide the wound. He was probably off the bus and gone by the time the blood began seeping into the paper. Is that how you read it?”
“Sounds good to me, Sergeant,” Dr. Whittaker said, having already forgotten her new title. “And I’ll bet you a dollar that the bullet is so spread out in there we won’t be able to identify the caliber.”
“No bet,” Marian said dryly. “But you’ll let me know about the bullet right away? Before you go on with the autopsy?”
“First thing,” he promised. “Anything else?”
“Pockets,” she prompted.
With latex-gloved hands, Dr. Whittaker opened Knowles’s blood-covered overcoat and went through his pockets, removing billfold, keys, coins, a wadded-up receipt slip from a drugstore, cigarettes, lighter, and an old-fashioned pearl-handled penknife. Marian bagged and tagged it all, including the dead man’s eyeglasses and wristwatch.
“Gloves?”
He checked the overcoat pockets. “No gloves.”
Odd. “Call me at Midtown South,” she reminded Dr. Whittaker and made her way back up the aisle.
Outside, the temperature seemed to have dropped ten degrees during the short time she’d been on the bus. Marian pulled her coat tighter and headed toward where the Crime Scene Unit van was waiting; the CSU was not permitted to remove anything from the body. Marian handed over her bags of evidence and said, “When Dr. Whittaker sends you the clothing, be sure to look for powder burns on the overcoat.”
The CSU man looked annoyed. “We always do, Lieutenant.”
Marian grinned and said, “And I want the victim’s keys back first thing tomorrow morning. We’ll need to get into his apartment.”
“You got it.”
She watched the body being removed from the bus. “What’s your procedure when you have a movable crime scene? Do you take it with you?”
He shrugged and said, “We got no place to put a bus.”
“I could tell the driver to take it back to the garage, if you need to go over it some more. Your call.”
The CSU man shook his head. “It’s a public bus. Six million fingerprints. We got everything in the immediate vicinity of the killing. You might as well let it go.”
“Right.” She stepped over to the bus driver and told him he could leave.
“About time,” he grumbled and climbed aboard. The engine started up with a roar that made Marian flinch. The bus pulled away, followed by the CSU van and Dr. Whittaker’s car.
A gust of wind made Marian shiver. She looked around for Officer Jackson.
“Ready to go, Lieutenant?” he said from behind her.
“Ready,” she replied.
4
Zoe Esterhaus sat on a folding chair on the other side of a table from Marian in a Midtown South interview room, staring disconsolately at the slowly winding-and-unwinding double spool in the tape recorder. “I wish I could tell you more, Lieutenant Larch. I really do.”
“So do I.” The operative had had very little to add to what Marian already knew. “How many days had you been following him?”
“This is the fourth.”
“What did he do with his time?”
“Stayed home, mostly. Too cold out for old bones, I guess. He went out to restaurants twice—alone. Like I said.”
According to the woman who’d been hired to follow him, Oliver Knowles had taken a cab from his Central Park South apartment down to Lionel Madison Trains on East Twenty-third, where he’d stayed for thirty-five minutes. Then he’d taken another cab uptown eleven blocks to a store called Hobby World that had a GRAND OPENING sign in its window, along with an elaborate miniature train set. Knowles had stayed there for almost an hour. If he’d bought anything, he was having it delivered; he’d left both stores carrying nothing.
On the street immediately outside Hobby World, Knowles had searched through his overcoat pockets and then gone right back into the store again. When he came out the second time, he was still bare-handed.
But on Thirty-fourth Street, Knowles had not been able to get his third cab of the day. After ten minutes of trying, he’d given up and instead boarded the crosstown bus at Second Avenue. Zoe Esterhaus had boarded right behind him.
“Anyone else get on with you?” Marian asked.
“Four others. The bus was packed. The only reason Knowles got a seat was that two people got off at the next stop and he just happened to be standing nearest where they were sitting.”
“Two people got off. Who sat down next to Knowles?”
“I couldn’t see. I was standing in the aisle, a little farther back. Other people were between me and where Knowles sat down.”
“And you didn’t hear the shot?”
She shook her head. “The bus was noisy. I mean, the bus was noisy. It was one of those old ones that make so much noise your ears ring. The passengers weren’t exactly quiet either. They were all pushing and snapping at one another. Bad scene.”
“When did you learn he was dead?”
Esterhaus looked embarrassed. “Not until the police got there. The driver stopped the bus and most of the passengers got off. I didn’t know what was going on, but I couldn’t leave while Knowles was still there. He looked as if he was just resting his head against the window. I saw him only from the back, remember. I didn’t know about the blood.”
But enough others had known about it to get out of there as fast as they could. “And you never noticed anyone else following Knowles?”
This time she looked more than embarrassed; she looked distraught. “No. I wasn’t looking for anyone, but whoever was following Knowles was also following me. I should have caught that.”
Marian stared at her in disbelief. Every private detective and operative she’d ever dealt with had always had a hundred excuses for everything he or she did or failed to do. It was like some honor code peculiar to the profession: Never admit to a mistake. Marian felt some urge to comfort Zoe Esterhaus. “You weren’t hired to protect him. Only to watch.”
“And a fine job I did of that. I didn’t even see who shot him.” She gave Marian a faint smile in acknowledgement of the latter’s friendly gesture. “Not your problem.”
Marian smiled back and turned off the tape recorder. “I’ll get this typed up for you to sign. Can you think of anything else that might help us?”
Zoe Esterhaus slumped a little. “I wish to god I could.”
Marian stepped out of the interview room and into the adjoining room where Captain Murtaugh stood looking through the one-way glass. “Anything?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I think you got everything. Let her go as soon as she signs her statement. I’ll be in my office.”
Marian went in search of a
typist. The captain had come back to the station after leaving for the day, but at least he’d had some dinner. Marian’s stomach growled.
A half hour later, Zoe Esterhaus had signed her statement and gone home. Marian got a cup of ersatz coffee out of the hall machine and took it with her to Captain Murtaugh’s office.
“Dr. Whittaker just called,” she told the captain after sitting down and taking a swallow of the let’s-pretend coffee. “The slug mushroomed on impact and is not identifiable. Ballistics’ guess is that it was a hand-load. And the lab found powder burns on the victim’s overcoat.”
Murtaugh nodded, a sour expression on his face; they both knew what they were dealing with here. “Spell it out,” he ordered.
“A professional hit,” she said, “obviously. Done in a crowded public place right under the nose of a trained observer. The killer follows Knowles without being spotted until the conditions are right. They get right, fast, on the bus. He slides into the seat next to Knowles with his gun concealed inside the copy of Newsweek. He’s loaded his gun with dumdums or backward loads, and he’s put a suppressor on the barrel. He presses the nozzle right up against Knowles’s chest, muting the sound even more. One shot, and it’s done. He slips the gun into his coat pocket, props up the magazine over the wound, and gets off the bus. Fast, neat, and anonymous. A paid-for murder.”
Murtaugh stared at his hands glumly for a moment, and then said quietly, “A public bus. How coldly self-assured these killers are.” He shifted his weight and asked, “Are you running this one yourself?”
“Yes.” Marian gave up on the coffee and put the paper cup on the corner of Murtaugh’s desk. “O’Toole caught the squeal, but he’s too green to put in charge. I’ll keep him on the case, though, and … oh, Perlmutter too, I suppose. To start.”
“This may turn into a two-pronged investigation,” Murtaugh cautioned. “Depending on whether the killer is a solo or not.”
Marian nodded agreement. “Could be imported talent.”
“Possibly.”
Neither one of them wanted to think that Oliver Knowles’s murderer was anything other than an independent killer for hire. Find out who hired him and they’d most likely get the guy who pulled the trigger as well. Case closed. But if there was a middleman, someone who kept a stable of talent available … this would be no simple murder investigation.