The Fourth Deadly Sin exd-4

by Lawrence Sanders

  He was saved from replying by Dr. Samuelson, who raised a hand and called in a squeaky voice, "A question!" They all quieted and turned to him.

  "Will anyone object if I sop up my gravy with chunks of this marvelous bread?"

  There were no objections.

  As the hostess had predicted, the wine went swiftly, and the stew and salad were almost totally consumed. Later, when the table was cleared, the women went into the kitchen, shooing the men back to the living room. The room had become chilly, and Samuelson added two more pressed logs to the fireplace.

  "There's central heating, of course," he told the others, "but Diane prefers to keep the thermostat low and use the fireplaces."

  "Can't blame her for that," Abner Boone said.

  "Saves on fuel, and an open fire is something special. But shouldn't she have a screen?"

  "I think there's one around," Samuelson said vaguely, "but she doesn't use it."

  They sat staring into the rejuvenated blaze.

  "I was afraid we might have upset Doctor Ellerbee," Delaney said to Samuelson, "with all our talk about murders. But she says no."

  "Diane is a very strong woman," Samuelson said.

  "She has made a very swift recovery from the trauma of Simon's death.

  Only occasionally now do I see how it has affected her. Suddenly she is sad, or sits in silence, staring at nothing. It is to be expected. It was a terrible shock, but she is coping."

  "I suppose her work helps," Boone said.

  "Oh, yes. Dealing with other people's problems is excellent therapy for your own. I speak from personal experience.

  Not a total cure, you understand, but a help. Tell me, Mr. Delaney, you are making progress in the investigation?"

  "Some," he said cautiously.

  "As Doctor Ellerbee probably told you, we're still working on the alibis. I haven't yet thanked you for getting her to cooperate."

  Samuelson held up a hand.

  "I was happy to assist. And do you think any of the patients she named might have been capable of the murder?"

  "Too early to tell. We've eliminated two of them. But there's one, a woman, who claims an alibi that doesn't seem to hold up – "

  "Oh? Did Diane give you any background on her?"

  "Suffers from depression. And she has attempted suicide several times.

  Once since we started questioning her."

  "Well…" the psychiatrist said doubtfully, "she may be the one you seek, but I find it hard to believe. I can't recall a case when a suicidal type turned to homicide. I am not saying it could not happen, you understand, but the potential suicide and the potential murderer have little in common. Still, human behavior is endlessly different, so do not let my comments influence your investigation."

  "Oh, they won't," Delaney said cheerfully.

  "We'll keep plugging."

  The women came in, and the men rose. They talked for a while, and then, catching Monica's look, Delaney suggested it might be time for them to depart, not knowing what traffic would be like on Saturday night. The hostess protested-but not too strongly.

  They thanked Dr. Ellerbee for her hospitality, the wonderful food, and complimented her again on her beautiful home.

  "Do plan to come back," she urged them.

  "In the spring or summer when the trees are out and the garden is planted. I think you'll like it."

  "I know we shall," Monica said. She and Rebecca embraced their hostess and they were on their way.

  On the drive back to Manhattan, Delaney said, "Do you suppose Samuelson is staying for the weekend?"

  "You dirty old man," Monica said.

  "What if he does?"

  "She's got three servants," Abner Boone said.

  "The Polack couple and him."

  "Oh, you picked up on that, did you?" Delaney said.

  "You're right.

  "Julie, mix the drinks. Julie, get the coffee." He hops. "

  "I think he's in love with her," Rebecca said.

  "Well, why not?" Monica said.

  "A widow and a widower.

  With so much in common. I think it's nice they have each other."

  "He's too old for her," the Sergeant said.

  "You think so?" Delaney said.

  "I think she's older than all of us. Good Lord, that's a grand home!"

  "A little too beautiful," Rebecca said.

  "Like a stage set.

  Did you notice how she kept emptying the ashtrays?"

  "If it's full ashtrays you want," Delaney said, "how about stopping at our place for a nightcap?"

  Detective Ross Konigsbacher had to admit he was enjoying the best duty in fourteen years with the Department. This faggot he was assigned to, L. Vincent Symington, was turning out to be not such a bad guy after all.

  He seemed to have all the money in the world, and wasn't shy about spreading it around. He picked up all the tabs for dinners and drinks, and insisted on taking cabs wherever they went-even if it was only a five-block trip. He was a manic tipper, and he had already started buying gifts for the Kraut.

  It began with a bottle of Frangelico that Vince wanted him to taste.

  Then Ross got an identification bracelet of heavy silver links, a cashmere pullover, a Countess Mara tie, a lizard skin belt, a foulard ascot. Every time they met, Symington had a present for him.

  Ross had been invited to Vincent's apartment twice, and thought it the greatest pad he had ever seen. On one of those visits, Symington had prepared dinner for them-filet mignon that had to be the best steak Konigsbacher ever tasted.

  Meanwhile, the Kraut was submitting bullshit reports to Sergeant Boone, wanting this assignment to go on forever.

  But Boone couldn't be scammed that easily, and recently he had been pressuring Konigsbacher to show some results: Either confirm Symington's alibi or reject it. So, sighing, Ross did some work.

  The first time he went into Stallions, he bellied up to the bar, ordered a beer, and looked around. Symington had been right: He had never seen so much black leather in his life. All the weirdos were trying to look like members of motorcycle gangs. Their costumes creaked when they moved, and they even had zippers on their cuffs.

  "Nick been around?" he asked the hennaed bartender casually.

  "Nick who, darling? I know three Nicks." :"The kid who wants to be an actor."

  "Ohid, him. He's in and out of here all the time."

  "I'm casting for a commercial and might have a bit for him. If you see him, tell him, will you?"

  "How can he get in touch with you, sweet?"

  "My name is Ross," Konigsbacher said.

  "I'll be around. The bartender nodded. No last names, no addresses, no phone numbers.

  The Kraut spent more time at Stallions than he did at boine. He slowly sipped beers in the late afternoons and early evenings before his dinner dates with Symington. He began to like the place. You could get high just by breathing deeply, and if the Kraut wanted to set a record for drug busts, he could have made a career out of this one joint.

  It took him five days. He was sitting at a small corner table, working on a brew, when a kid came over from the bar and lounged in front of him. He had a 1950 duck's-ass haircut with enough grease to lubricate the QE2. He was wearing tight stone-washed jeans, a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and a wide leather bracelet with steel studs.

  "You Ross?" he asked lazily, eyes half-closed, doing an early Marlon Brando.

  "Yeah," the Kraut said, touching a knuckle to his blond mustache.

  "You Nick?"

  "I could be. Sidney pointed you out. Something about a commercial bit."

  "Pull up a chair. Want a beer? Or would you prefer a banana brandy?"

  "A Then the kid's eyes opened wide.

  "How'd you know what I drink?"

  "A fegela told me. You know what a fegela is? A little bird. Now sit down."

  Nick hesitated a moment, then pulled up a chair.

  "You don't look like a film producer to me," he sai
d.

  "I'm not," Konigsbacher said.

  "I'm a cop." Then, when Nick started to rise, the Kraut clamped onto his wrist and pulled him down again.

  "Be nice," he said.

  "You're carrying a switchblade on your hip. It shows. I could run you in on a concealed weapons charge. It probably wouldn't stick, but it would be a pain in the ass for you and maybe a night in the slammer where the boogies will ream you. Is that what you want?"

  The kid had moxie; he didn't cave.

  "Let's see your ID," he said coldly.

  Konigsbacher showed it to him, down low, so no one else in the bar would notice.

  "Okay," Nick said, "so you're a cop. What do you want?"

  Symington was also right about the accent; it came out "waddya wan'?"

  "Just the answers to a few questions. Won't take long. Do you remember a Friday night early in November? There was a hell of a rainstorm. You were in here that night."

  "You asking me or telling me?"

  "I'm asking. A rainy Friday night early in November. A guy came in, sat with you, bought you a few banana brandies.

  This was about nine, ten o'clock. Around there."

  "Yeah? What'd he look like?"

  Konigsbacher described L. Vincent Symington: balding, flabby face, little eyes. A guy running to suet, probably wearing a bracelet of chunky gold links.

  "What's he done?" Nick asked.

  "Do you remember a guy like that?" Ross asked patiently.

  "I don't know," the kid said, shrugging.

  "I meet a lot of guys." The Kraut leaned forward, smiling.

  "Now I tell you what, sonny," he said in a low, confidential voice, "you keep smartassing me, I'm going to put the cuffs on you and frog-march you out of here. But I won't take you to the station house. I'll take you into the nearest alley and kick your balls so hard that you'll be singing soprano for the rest of your life. You don't believe it?

  Just try me."

  "Yeah, I met a guy like that," Nick said sullenly.

  "A fat old fart. He bought me some drinks."

  "What was his name?"

  "I don't remember."

  "Try," Ross urged.

  "Remember what I said about the alley, and try real hard."

  "Victor," the kid said.

  "Try again."

  "Vince. Something like that."

  Konigsbacher patted his cheek.

  "Good boy," he said.

  As far as the Kraut was concerned, that was enough to clear L. Vincent Symington. He had never believed in the poof's guilt in the first place.

  Vince could never kill anyone with a hammer. A knife maybe-a woman's weapon.

  But not a hammer.

  So, Konigsbacher thought sadly, that was the end of that.

  He'd submit a report to Boone and they'd shift him to some shit assignment.

  No more cashmere sweaters and free dinners and lazy evenings sitting around Symington's swell apartment, soaking up his booze and trading dirty jokes.

  But maybe, the Kraut thought suddenly, just maybe there was a way he could juggle it. He would clear Symington-he owed the guy that-but it didn't mean the gravy train had to come to a screaming halt. Confident again, he headed for dinner at the Dorian Gray, wondering what Vince would bring him tonight.

  Robert Keisman and Jason thought Harold Gerber might be a whacko, but he was innocent of the murder of Dr. Simon Ellerbee. Gerber's confession was what Keisman called a "blivet7- four pounds of shit in a two-pound bag.

  The Vietnam vet just didn't know enough of the unpublished details to fake a convincing confession. But Delaney wanted the guy's innocence proved out one way or another, a Id that n s what the two cops set out to do.

  The Catholic Bible was a flimsy lead. They had no gut reaction one way or the other. The only reason they worked at it was that they had nothing else. It was just something to do.

  They started with the Manhattan Yellow Pages and found the section for Churches-Roman Catholic. There were 103 listings, some of them with odd names like Most Precious Blood Church and Our Lady of Perpetual Help. the thought of visiting 103 churches was daunting, but when they picked out the ones in the Greenwich Village area, the job didn't seem so enormous.

  The Spoiler took the churches to the east of Sixth Avenue and Jason Two took those to the west. Carrying their photos of Harold Gerber, they set out to talk to priests, rectors, janitors, and anyone else who might have seen Gerber on the night Ellerbee was murdered.

  It was the dullest of donkeywork: pounding the pavements, showing their ID, displaying Gerber's photograph, and asking the same questions over and over: "Do you know this man?

  Have you ever seen him? Has he been in your church? Does the name Harold Gerber mean anything to you?"

  Sometimes the church would be locked, no one around, and Keisman and Jason would have to go back two or three times before they could find someone to question. They worked eight-hour days and met after five o'clock to have a couple of beers with Harold Gerber. They never told him what they were doing, and he always asked complainingly, "When are you guys going to arrest me?"

  "Soon, Harold," they'd tell him.

  "Soon."

  They kept at it for four days, and were beginning to think they were drilling a dry hole. But then the Spoiler got a break.

  He was talking to a man who worked in an elegant little church on 11th Street off Fifth Avenue. The old man seemed to be a kind of handyman who polished pews and made sure the electric candles were working-jobs like that.

  He examined Keisman's ID, then stared at the photo of Harold Gerber.

  "What's he wanted for?" he asked in a creaky voice.

  "He's not wanted for anything," the Spoiler lied smoothly.

  "We're just trying to find him. He's in the Missing Persons file. His parents are anxious. You can understand that, can't you?"

  "Oh, sure," the gaffer said, still staring at Gerber's photo.

  "I've got a son of my own; I know how they'd feel. What does this kid do?"

  "Do?"

  "His job. What does he work at?"

  "I don't think he works at anything. He's on disability. A Vietnam vet.

  A little mixed up in the head."

  "That I can understand. A Vietnam veteran you say?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "And he's a Catlick?"

  "That's right."

  "Well," the handyman said, sighing.

  "I'll tell you. There's a priest-well, he's not really a priest. I don't mean he's unfrocked or anything like that. But he's kind of wild, and he's got no parish of his own. They more or less let him do his thing, if you catch my drift."

  Keisman nodded, waiting patiently.

  "Well, this priest," the janitor went on, enjoying his long story more than the Spoiler was, "Father Gautier, or Grollier, some name like that-he opened a home for Vietnam vets.

  Gives them a sandwich, a place to flop, or just come in out of the cold.

  I'm not knocking him, y'understand; he's doing good. But he's running a kind of scruffy joint. It's not a regular church."

  "Where does he get the money?" the detective asked.

  "For the sandwiches, the beds, or whatever? The Church finance him?"

  "You kidding? He does it all on his own. He gets donations from here, there, everywhere. Somehow he keeps going."

  "That's interesting," Keisman said.

  "Where's his place located?"

  "I don't know," the old guy said.

  "Somewhere south of Houston Street, I think. But I don't know the address."

  "Thank you very much," the Spoiler said.

  He told Jason about the priest, and they agreed it was the best lead-the only lead-they had uncovered so far. So they started making phone calls.

  They phoned the Archdiocese of New York, the Catholic Press Association, Catholic Charities, the American Ugion, asking if anyone knew the address of a Catholic priest who was running a shelter for Vietnam vets somewhere around Houston Street in
Manhattan. No one could help them.

  Then they called the Catholic War Veterans and got it: Father Frank Gautier, in a storefront church on Mott Street, a block south of Houston.

  "Little Italy," Jason said.

  "I used to pound a beat down there."

  "Wherever," Keisman said.

  "Let's go."

  They found the place after asking four residents of the neighborhood. It looked like a Mafia social club, the plateglass window painted an opaque green, and no name or signs showing. The door was unlocked and they pushed in. There was a big front room that looked like it might have been a butcher shop at one time: tiled walls, a stained plank floor, tin ceiling.

  But it was warm enough. Almost too warm. There were about a dozen guys, maybe half of them blacks, sitting around on rickety chairs, reading paperbacks, playing cards, dozing, or just counting the walls. They all looked like derelicts, with unlaced boots, worn jeans, ragged jackets.

  One was in drag, with a blond wig and a feathered boa.

  No one looked up when the two officers came in. Keisman stood close to a man holding a month-old copy of The Wall Street Journal.

  "Father Gautier around?" he asked pleasantly.

  The man looked up, slowly examined both of them, then turned to a back room.

  "Hey, pop!" he roared.

  "Two new fish for you!"

  The man who came waddling out of the back room was shaped like a ripe pear.

  He was wearing a long-sleeved black blouse with a white, somewhat soiled clerical collar. His blue Levi's were cinched with a cowboy belt and ornate silver buckle. He was bearded and had a thick mop of pepper and salt hair.

  "Father Gautier?" Jason asked.

  "Guilty," the priest said in a hoarse voice.

  "A%o you?"

  They showed him their IDS.

  "Oh, God," he said, sighing, "now what? Who did what to whom?"

  "No one we know of," Keisman said. He held out the photo of Harold Gerber.

  "You know this man?"

  Gautier looked at the photograph, then raised his eyes to the officers.

  "You got any money?" he demanded.

  They were startled.

  "Money!" the priest repeated impatiently.

  "Dough. Bucks.

  YOU want information? No pay, no say. Believe me, it's for a good cause.

  You'll get your reward in heaven-or wherever."