The Fourth Deadly Sin exd-4

by Lawrence Sanders

  Bullshit! It was all hers, and this time she was going to track it down herself. Wasn't that what a detective was supposed to do?

  She decided not to submit a report to Boone on the night's conversation with Joan Yesell or even mention the mother's Friday-night bridge club and how it was possible she was lying in confirming her daughter's alibi. When Detective Venable checked it all out, then she'd report it.

  Until that time, all those more experienced guys could go screw.

  That same evening, one of those more experienced guys, Edward X.

  Delaney, was in a mellow mood. His irritation of the afternoon had disappeared with a dinner of pot roast, potato pancakes, and buttered carrots-all sluiced down his gullet with two bottles of dark Uwenbriiu.

  Monica leaned forward to pat his vested stomach.

  "You ate everything on your plate except the flowers," she said.

  "Feeling better?"

  "A lot better," he affirmed.

  "Let's just leave everything for now and have our coffee in the living room."

  "There's nothing to leave. We went through everything like a plague of locusts."

  "I remember my mother used to say a good digestion is a blessing from heaven. Was she ever right."

  In the living room, Monica said, "You don't talk much about your mother."

  " she died when I was five; I told you that. So my memories are rather dim. I have some old snaps of her in the attic. I'll dig them out one of these days. A lovely woman; you'll see."

  "What did she die of, Edward?"

  "In childbirth. So did the baby. My brother."

  "Was he baptized?"

  "Of course. Terence. Terry."

  "What was your father's first name?"

  "Marion-believe it or not. He never remarried. So you and I are both only children."

  "But we have each other."

  "Thank God for that."

  "Edward, why don't you go to church anymore?"

  "Monica, why don't you go to the synagogue anymore?"

  They both smiled.

  "A fine couple of heathens we are," he said.

  "Not so," she said.

  "I believe in God-don't you?" -of course," he said. "Sometimes I think He'd like to be Deputy Commissioner Thorsen."

  "You nut," she said, laughing.

  "Want to watch the news on TV" "No, thanks. I think I'll spend a nice relaxed evening for a change. I need a -- The phone rang.

  He got heavily to his feet.

  "There goes my nice relaxed evening," he said.

  "Bet on it. I'll take it in the study."

  It was Dr. Diane Ellerbee.

  "Mr. Delaney," she said, "I want to apologize for the way I spoke to you this morning. I realize you're volunteering your time, and I'm afraid I was rather hard on you."

  "Not at all. I know how concerned you are. Sometimes it's tough to be patient in a situation like this."

  "I'm driving up to Brewster tonight," she said.

  "To spend the weekend. There's something I'd like to tell you that may or may not help your investigation. Would it be possible for me to stop by your home for a few minutes?"

  "Of course. We've finished dinner, so come whenever you like."

  "Thank you," she said.

  "I'll be there shortly."

  He went back into the living room and reported the conversation to Monica.

  "Oh, lord," she said.

  "We've got to get the kitchen cleaned up. Are there fresh towels in the hall bathroom? Do I have time to change?"

  "To what?" he said.

  "You look fine just the way you are.

  And yes, there are fresh towels in the bathroom. Take it easy, babe; this isn't a visit from the Queen of England."

  But by the time Dr. Diane arrived, the kitchen was cleaned up, the living room straightened, and they were sitting stiffly, determined not to be awed by the visitor-and not quite succeeding.

  Diane Ellerbee was graciousness personified. She complimented them on their charming home, unerringly selected the finest piece in the living room to admire-a small Duncan Phyfe desk-and assured Delaney that the vodka gimlet he mixed for her was the best she had ever tasted.

  In fact, she played the grande dame so broadly that he made a cop's instant judgment: The woman was nervous and wanted something. Having concluded that, he relaxed and watched her with a faint smile as she chatted with Monica.

  She was wearing a sweater and skirt of mushroom-colored wool, with high boots of buttery leather. No jewelry, other than a plain wedding band, and very little.makeup. Her flaxen hair was down, and her classic features seemed softened, more vulnerable.

  "Mr. Delaney," she said, turning to him, "was that list of patients I gave you any help?"

  "A great deal. They are all being investigated."

  "I hope you didn't tell them I gave you their names?"

  "Of course not. We merely said we're questioning all your husband's patients-which is true-and they accepted that."

  "I'm glad to hear it. I still don't feel right about picking out those six, but I wanted to help any way I could. Do you think one of them could have done it?"

  "I think possibly they are all capable of murder. But then, a lot of so called normal people are, too."

  "I really don't know exactly how you go about investigating people," she said with a confused little laugh.

  "Question them, I suppose."

  "Oh, yes. And their families, friends, neighbors, employers, and so forth.

  We go back to them several times, asking the same questions over and over, trying to spot discrepancies."

  "Sounds like a boring job."

  "No," he said, "it isn't."

  "Edward has the patience of a saint," Monica said.

  "And the luck of the devil," he added.

  "I hope."

  The doctor laughed politely.

  "Does luck really have much to do with catching a criminal?"

  "Sometimes," he said, nodding.

  "Usually it's a matter of knocking on enough doors. But sometimes chance and accident take a hand, and you get a break you didn't expect. The criminal can't control luck, can he?"

  "But doesn't it work the other way, too? I mean, doesn't luck sometimes favor the criminal?"

  "Occasionally," he agreed.

  "But it would be a very stupid criminal who depended on it.

  "The best laid schemes… ' and so on and so on." He turned to Monica.

  "Who said that?" he asked her, smiling.

  "Shakespeare?" she ventured.

  "Robert Bums," he said.

  "Shakespeare didn't say everything – " He turned to Diane Ellerbee.

  "Now it's your chance. who wrote, "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!'?"

  "That was Shakespeare," she said.

  "Sir Walter Scott," he said, still smiling.

  "Did you say you had something to tell me, doctor?"

  "Oh, you'll probably think it's silly," she said, "but it's been bothering me, so I thought I'd tell you anyway. The first time you and Sergeant Boone came to see me, you asked a lot of questions, and I answered them to the best of my ability.

  After you left, I tried to remember everything I had said, to make sure I hadn't unintentionally led you astray."

  She paused.

  "And?" he said.

  "Well, it probably means nothing, but you asked if I had noticed any change in Simon over the last six months or year, and I said no. But then after thinking it over, I realized there had been a change.

  Perhaps it was so gradual that I really wasn't aware of it."

  "But now you feel there was a change?" Delaney asked.

  "Yes, I do. Thinking over this past year, I realize Simon had become-well, distant and preoccupied is the only way I can describe it.

  He had been very concerned about his patients, and I suppose at the time. I thought it was just overwork that was bothering him. But yes, there was a change in him. I don't
imagine it means anything, but it disturbed me that I hadn't given you a strictly accurate answer, so I thought I better tell you."

  "I'm glad you did," Delaney said gravely.

  "Like you, I don't know if it means anything or not, but every little bit helps."

  "Well!" Diane Ellerbee said, smiling brightly.

  "Now I do feel better, getting that off my conscience."

  She drained her gimlet, set the glass aside, and rose. They stood up.

  She offered her hand to Monica, "Thank you so much for letting me barge in," she said.

  "You have a lovely, lovely home, I wish the two of you would come up to Brewster soon and see our place. It's not at its best in winter but Simon and I worked so hard to make it something special, I'd like to have you see it. Could you do that?"

  "We'd be delighted," Monica said promptly.

  "Thank you."

  "Let's wait for a weekend when no blizzards are predicted," Diane Ellerbee said, laughing.

  "The first good Saturday-all right?"

  "We don't have a car," Delaney said.

  "Would you object if Sergeant Boone and his wife drove us up?"

  "Object? I'd love it! I have a marvelous cook, and Simon and I laid down some good wines. I enjoy having company, and frankly it's lonely up there now. So let's all plan on getting together."

  "Whenever you say," Monica said.

  "I'm sorry you have to leave so soon. Drive carefully."

  "I always do," Dr. Ellerbee said lightly.

  "Good night, all."

  Delaney locked and bolted the front door behind her.

  "What an intelligent woman!" Monica said when he came back to the living room.

  "Isn't she, Edward?"

  "She is that."

  "You'd like to see her Brewster home, wouldn't you?"

  "Very much. The Boones will.drive us up. We'll make a day of it."

  "What she said about her husband changing-does that mean anything?"

  "I have no idea."

  "She really is beautiful, isn't she?"

  "So beautiful," he said solemnly, "that she scares me."

  "Thanks a lot, buster," she said.

  "I obviously don't scare you.

  "Obviously," he said, and headed toward the study door.

  "Hey," Monica said, "I thought you weren't going to work tonight."

  "Just for a while," he said, frowning.

  "Some things I want to check."

  Detective Benjamin Calazo was a month away from retirement and dreading it.

  He came from a family of policemen.

  His father had been a cop, his younger brother was a cop, and two uncles had been cops. The NYPD wasn't just a job, it was a life.

  Calazo didn't fish, play golf, or collect stamps, He had no hobbies at all, and no real interests outside the Department.

  What the hell was he going to do-move the wife to a mobile home in Lakeland, Florida, and play shuffleboard for the rest of his days?

  The Ellerbee case seemed like a good way to cap his career. He had worked with Sergeant Boone before, and knew he was an okay guy. Also, Boone's father had been a street cop killed in the line of duty. Calazo had gone to the funeral, and you didn't forget things like that.

  The detective had asked to be assigned to Isaac Kane for the reason he stated: His nephew was retarded, and he thought he knew something about handling handicapped kids. Calazo had three married daughters, and sometimes he wondered if they weren't retarded when he was forced to have dinner with his sons-in-law-a trio of losers, Benny thought; not a cop in the lot.

  His first meeting with Isaac Kane went reasonably well.

  Calazo sat with him for almost three hours at the Community Center, admiring the kid's pastel landscapes and talking easily about this and that.

  Every once in a while Calazo would spring a question about Dr. Simon Ellerbee. Isaac showed no hesitation in answering, and the subject didn't seem to upset him. He told the detective pretty much what he had told Delaney and Boone which didn't amount to a great deal.

  The boy didn't display any confusion until Calazo asked him about his activities on the night of the murder.

  "It was a Friday, Isaac," Calazo said.

  "What did you do on that night?"

  "I was here until the Center closed. Ask Mrs. Freylinghausen; she'll tell you."

  "Okay, I'll ask her. And after the Center closed, what did you do then?"

  "I went home."

  "Uh-huh. You live right around the corner, don't you, Isaac? So I guess you got there around nine-five or so. Is that correct?"

  Kane didn't look at the detective, but concentrated on adding foliage to a tree in his landscape.

  "Well, uh, it was probably later. I walked around awhile."

  "That was a very rainy night, Isaac. A bad storm. You didn't walk about in that, did you?"

  "I don't remember!" Kane said, breaking one of his chalks and flinging it away angrily.

  "I don't know why you're.asking me all these questions, and I'm not going to answer any more.

  You're just-" He began to stutter unintelligibly.

  "All right," Benny said mildly, "you don't have to answer any more questions. I just thought you'd want to help us find out who killed Doctor Simon."

  Kane was silent.

  "Hey," the detective said, "I'm getting hungry. How about you? There's a fast-food joint on the corner. How's about I pick up a couple of burgers and coffee for us and bring them back here?"

  "Okay," Isaac Kane said.

  Calazo brought the food and they had lunch -together. An old lady wheeled up her chair and stared at the detective with ravenous eyes. He gave her his slice of dill pickle. He didn't mention Ellerbee again, but got Kane talking about his pastels and-why he did only landscapes.

  "They're pretty landscapes," Isaac explained "Not like around here.

  Everything is clean and peaceful." Sure it is," the detective said.

  "But I notice you don't put in any people."

  "No," Kane said, shaking his head.

  "No people. Those places belong to me."

  Calazo checked with Mrs. Freylinghausen. She confirmed that Isaac Kane came in every day and stayed until the Community Center closed at nine o'clock. The detective thanked her and walked around the corner to Kane's home, timing himself. Even at a slow stroll it took less than two minutes.

  Kane lived with his mother in the basement apartment of a dilapidated brownstone on West 78th Street. It was next to an ugly furniture warehouse with rusty steel doors for trucks and sooty windows on the upper floors. Both buildings were marred with graffiti and had black plastic bags of garbage stacked in front. Some of the bags had burst or had been slashed open.

  Benjamin Calazo could understand why Isaac Kane wanted to draw only pretty places, clean and peaceful.

  He walked cautiously down three crumbling steps to a littered doorway.

  The name over the bell was barely legible. He rang, and waited. Nothing.

  Rang again-a good long one this time. A tattered lace curtain was yanked aside from a streaky window; a gargoyle glared at him.

  Calazo held his ID close to the window. The woman tried to focus, then she disappeared. He waited hopefully. In a moment he heard the sounds of locks opening, a chain lifted. The door opened.

  "Mrs. Kane?" he asked.

  "Yeah," she said in a whiskey-blurred voice.

  "What the hell do you want?"

  A boozer, he thought immediately. That's all I need.

  "Detective Benjamin Calazo, NYPD," he said, "I'd like to talk to you about your son."

  "He ain't here."

  "I know he's not here," Calazo said patiently.

  "I just left him at the Center. I want to talk to you about him."

  "What's he done now?" she demanded.

  "Nothing, as far as I know."

  "He's not right in the head. He's not responsible for anything."

  "Look," the detective said.

  "Be
nice. Don't keep me standing out here in the cold. How's about letting me in for a few questions? It won't take long."

  She stood aside grudgingly. He stepped in, closed the door, took off his hat. The place smelled like a subway urinalonly the piss was eighty proof.

  The half-empty whiskey bottle was on the floor, a stack of paper cups beside it.

  She saw him looking.

  "I got a cold," she said.

  "I been sick."

  "Yeah.

  She tried a smile. Her face looked like a punched pillow.

  "Want a belt?" she asked.

  "No, thanks. But you go ahead."

  She sat on the lumpy couch, poured herself a drink, slugged it down. She crumpled the cup in her fist, threw it negligently toward a splintered wicker wastebasket. Bull'seye.

  "Nice shot," Calazo said.

  "I've had a lot of practice," she said, showing a mouthful of tarnished teeth.

  "Is Mr. Kane around?" the detective asked.

  "Your husband?"

  "Yeah, he's around. Around the world. Probably in Hong Kong by now, the son of a bitch. Good riddance."

  "Then you and your son live alone?"

  "So what?"

  "You on welfare?"

  "Financial assistance," she said haughtily.

  "We're entitled.

  I'm disabled and Isaac can't hold a job. You an investigator?"

  "Not for welfare," Calazo said.

  "Your son goes to the Community Center every day?"

  "I guess so."

  "Don't you know?"

  "He's of age; he can go anywhere he likes."

  "What time does he leave for the Center?"

  "I don't know; I sleep late. When I wake up, he's gone.

  What the hell is all this about?"

  "You're not asleep when he gets home from the Center, are you? What time does he get here?"

  She peered at him through narrowed eyes, and he knew she was calculating what lies she could get away with. Not that there was any need to lie, but this woman would never tell the truth to anyone in authority if she could help it.

  She stalled for time by taking another shot of the booze, crumpling the paper cup, tossing it toward the wastebasket.

  This time it fell short.

  "No," she said finally, "I'm not asleep in the evening. He gets home at different times."

  "Like what?"

  "After nine o'clock."

  "How much after nine?"

  "Different times."

  "Now I'll tell you what this is about," the old gumshoe said tonelessly.