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The Fourth Deadly Sin exd-4

Page 34

by Lawrence Sanders


  At about the same time the boys showed up, Boone and Jason arrived and were whisked into the study, the door firmly closed against the noisy gaiety in the living room.

  "Tis the season to be jolly," Delaney said ruefully.

  "And they're doing it right here tonight. Before you tell me how you made out, let me fill you in on what I've been doing."

  He told them why Diane had revised her statement about her husband's mood swings in the past year and the fact that Simon added the codicil to his will just three weeks before his death. He also discussed Dr.

  Samuelson's curious relationship with Diane.

  "I called him," he said.

  "He agreed to see me tomorrow at ten. I think I'll lean on him."

  "You want me to come along, sir?" Boone asked.

  "No," Delaney said.

  "Thanks. But I think this better be a one-on-one. Also, he knows I have no official position; I'm just a friend of the family, so to speak.

  Maybe he'll be a little more open and spill. You've got to realize that everything I've told you won't make the DA lick his chops, but I think it's all evidence that we're heading in the right direction. Now let's hear what you dug up today. You both look like canary-eating cats, so I hope it's good news."

  "The first thing we did," Boone said, "was to check the Manhattan garage where the Ellerbees kept their cars. It's just a parking garage, no servicing and no repairs. I don't think they even have a screwdriver in the place, let alone a ball peen hammer. So we drove up to Brewster. We went by the Ellerbee home. She had a crowd up there today, all women from what we could see. Maybe it's her garden club or something.

  Anyway, we stopped at a phone, and I called and got the houseman. I said I was from Al's Garage, soliciting business.

  He said, sorry, they dealt with May's Garage and Service Station, and were perfectly satisfied. I thanked him, and we went over to May's. It was that easy. Jose, you take it from there."

  "We find the owner," Jason Two said, "a fat old tub named Ernest May. We flash our tin and ask him if he's lost a ball peen hammer in the last three months or so. His jaw dropped a mile, and he looks at us like we're from Mars or something.

  "How the hell did you know that he says. Well, it comes out that, yeah, a ball peen hammer turned up missing about three months ago. It was the only ball peen in the joint, and he had to go out and buy a new one. He can't put an exact date on when he lost the hammer, but he figures it was early in October. Sergeant?"

  "We asked him who had access to the tools in the garage," Boone said,

  "and he showed us around. Hell, everyone had access to the tools; they were laying all over the joint. It could have been one of his mechanics, a customer waiting to have a car serviced, or maybe just a sneak thief.

  I wish we could have brought you more, sir, but that's about it. At least we know there's a ball peen hammer missing from a Brewster garage.

  Delaney pulled at his lower lip.

  "This Ernest May-he knows Diane Ellerbee?"

  "Oh, hell, yes," the Sergeant said.

  "She's a good customer.

  Brings in all her cars to gas up. And for tune-ups. He put in new plugs in that Jeep station wagon not too long ago. The way he talked, she's at his place almost every weekend she's up there, for this or that."

  Delaney nodded.

  "You know where the ball peen hammer is right now?

  Boone?

  One guess."

  "At the bottom of that stream that runs through Ellerbee's property."

  "Right," Delaney said decisively.

  "Under the ice. And getting silted over."

  "A search warrant?" Jason suggested.

  "We could get some frogmen up there with grapples."

  Delaney shook his head.

  "There's not a judge in the country who'd sign a warrant on the basis of what we've got. We can't tie her directly to boosting the hammer. We could scam it and send in frogmen claiming they were from some phony state environmental agency wanting to test the water or the streambed or some such shit. But even if they found the hammer, what good would it do us? Tainted evidence. And after being under running water for two months, would there be identifiable fingerprints or bloodstains? I doubt it."

  "Goddamn it!" Boone burst out.

  "It's there, I know it is."

  "You know it," Delaney said, "and I know it, and Jason knows it. So what?

  It's not going to put Diane in the slammer.

  "What does that mean, sir?" Jason said anxiously.

  "We're not going to bust her?"

  "No," Delaney said slowly, "it doesn't mean that. But right now we have nothing that would justify arrest, indictment, or conviction. There's got to be a way to destroy her, but at the moment I don't know what it is."

  "You think if we brace her--2' Boone said, "I mean really come on hard-she might crack?"

  "And confess? Not that lady. You know what she'd say? "I don't have to answer any of your questions." And she'd be exactly right.

  "Snookered," Jason Two said.

  "No," Delaney said.

  "Not yet."

  By midnight, the brownstone had emptied out: Boone and Jason gone, Peter and Jeffrey departed. The girls were up in their bedroom, doing their hair and giggling. Delaney made his nightly rounds, checking locks on doors and windows.

  Then, wearily, he dragged himself to the master bedroom, slumped on the edge of his bed, and tried to get up enough energy to undress.

  Monica was at the vanity, brushing her hair. He watched her a long time in silence, the pleasure of that sight restoring his strength.

  "You want to tell me about it?" she asked without turning around.

  "Sure," he said, and related everything that had happened since he had first decided on Diane Ellerbee's guilt.

  "You can't arrest her?" Monica said.

  "Not on the basis of what we've got so far."

  "But you're certain? Certain she did it?"

  "I am. Aren't you?"

  "I guess," she said, sighing.

  "But it's hard to admit it. I admired that woman."

  "I did, too. I still admire her-but for different reasons.

  She thought this whole thing out very, very carefully. The only mistakes she's made so far are little ones-nothing that could bring an indictment."

  "I must have missed something in her," Monica said.

  "Something that you saw and I didn't."

  "It goes back to that conversation we had about beautiful women and how they think."

  She put her brush aside and came over to him. She stood in front of him in a peach-colored nightgown and matching peignoir.

  "Turn around," she said.

  "What?"

  "Sit sideways on the bed," she ordered.

  "Take off your tie and open your shirt and vest."

  He obeyed, and she began to massage the meaty muscles of his neck and shoulders. Her strong fingers dug in, kneading and pinching.

  "Oh, God," he said, groaning, "don't stop. What do you charge by the hour?"

  "On the house," she said, her clever hands working.

  "Tell me-how do beautiful women think?"

  "They can't face reality. Or at least not our reality. They live in a shimmering crystal globe. You know-those paperweights: a Swiss chalet scene.

  You turn them upside down and snow falls. It's a never-never land.

  Beautiful women live in it.

  Admiration from all sides. The love of wealthy men. They don't have to lift a finger, and their future is assured. All wants granted."

  "You think Diane was like that?"

  "Had to be. Beauty is a kind of genius; you can't deny it.

  You got it or you don't. Then along comes Simon Ellerbee, her teacher.

  He convinces her she's got a good brain too. Not only is she beautiful, but she's brainy. That crystal ball she lives in is now shinier and lovelier than ever."

  "Then he asks for a divorce?"

  "Right! Oh, h
an, that feels so good. Up higher around my neck. Yes, her husband asks for a divorce. I'll bet my bottom dollar it was the first failure in her life. A defeat. We all learn to cope with defeats and disappointments. But not beautiful women; they're insulated in their crystal globes. It must have devastated her. The man who convinced her that she had a brain not only doesn't want her brain anymore, but doesn't want her. Can you imagine what that did to her ego?"

  "I can imagine," Monica said sadly.

  "When someone hurts you, you hurt back: that's human nature. But this was a cataclysmic hurt. And she responded in a cataclysmic way: murder.

  I told you that her reality was different from ours. When Simon asked for a divorce, he wasn't only destroying her, he was demolishing her world.

  And all for a little, plain, no-talent woman? If such things could happen, then Diane's reality had no substance. You can see that, can't you?"

  "I told you," Monica said, "you see more than I do."

  She moved away from him and began to turn down the blankets and sheet on her bed.

  "Open the window tonight?" he asked her.

  "Just a crack," she said.

  "It's supposed to be below freezing by morning."

  He went in for a shower. Scrubbed his teeth, brushed his hair, climbed into his old-fashioned pajamas. When he came back into the bedroom, Monica was sitting up in her bed, back against the headboard.

  "You don't like me much tonight, do you?" he said.

  "It's not a question of liking you, Edward. But sometimes you scare me."

  "Scare you? How so?"

  "You know so much about Diane. It all sounds so logical, the way you dissect her. What do you think about me?"

  He put a palm softly to her cheek.

  "That you're an absolutely magnificent woman, and I hate to imagine what my life would be without you. I love you, Monica. You believe that, don't you?"

  "Yes. But there's a part of you I'll never understand. You can be so-so strict sometimes. Like God."

  He smiled.

  "I'm not God. Not even close. Do you think Diane Ellerbee should get off scot-free?"

  "Of course not."

  "Of course not," he repeated.

  "So the problem now is how she can be made to pay for what she did."

  "How are you going to do that, Edward?"

  "I'm going to turn over her crystal globe," he said coldly, "and watch the snow come down."

  He turned off the light and found his way to Monica's bed.

  She pulled the blankets up to their chins.

  "Please don't tell me that I scare you," he begged.

  "That scares me. "You don't really scare me," she said.

  "It's just the way you become obsessed with a case."

  "Obsessed? I guess so. Maybe that's the way you've got to be to get anything done. I just don't like the idea of someone getting away with murder. It offends me. Is that so awful?"

  "Of course not. But sometimes you can be vindictive, Edward."

  "Oh, yes," he readily agreed.

  "I plead guilty to that."

  "Don't you sympathize with Diane at all?"

  "Sure I do. She's human."

  "Don't you feel sorry for her?"

  "Of course,"

  "But you're going to destroy her?"

  "Completely," he vowed.

  "But that's enough about Doctor Diane Ellerbee. What about us?"

  "What about us?"

  "Still friends?"

  "Come closer," Monica said.

  "I'll show you."

  "Oh, yes," he said, moving.

  "Thank you, friend."

  Delaney prepared carefully for his meeting with Dr. Julius K. Samuelson: went over once again the biography Jason had submitted, reviewed his report on the first interrogation, read his notes on Samuelson's comments and behavior during that visit to Brewster.

  He had told Boone and Jason that he intended to lean on Dr. Samuelson.

  But in cops' lexicon, there are varieties of leaning, from brutal hectoring to the pretense of sorrowful sympathy. In this case, Delaney decided, tough intimidation would be counterproductive; he might achieve more with sweet reasonableness- an approach Delaney characterized as the "I need your help" style of interrogation.

  He lumbered over to Samuelson's office at 79th Street and Madison Avenue. It was a harshly cold morning, the air still but the temperature in the teens. Delaney was thankful for his flannel muffler, vested suit, and balbriggan underwear. He thrust his gloved hands into his overcoat pockets, but he felt the cold in his feet, a numbing chill from the frozen pavement.

  The doctor greeted him at the office door with a tentative smile. The little man was wearing his holey wool cardigan and worn carpet slippers.

  He seemed staggered by the weight of Delaney's overcoat, but he hung it away manfully and offered a cup of black coffee from a desk thermos.

  Delaney accepted gratefully.

  "Doctor Samuelson," Delaney began, keeping his voice low-pitched and conversational, "thank you for giving me your valuable time. I wouldn't have bothered you, but some things have come up in the investigation of Simon Ellerbee's death that puzzle us, and I hoped you might be able to help."

  The doctor made a gesture.

  "Whatever I can do," he said.

  "First of all, we have discovered that for the past year or so, Doctor Simon had been having an affair with Joan Yesell, one of his patients."

  Samuelson stared at him through the thick curved lens of his wire-rimmed glasses.

  "You are certain of this?"

  "Absolutely, sir. Not only from a statement by the lady concerned, but from the testimony of corroborating witnesses.

  You were probably the Ellerbees' best friend, doctor-saw them frequently in town, visited their Brewster home on weekends-yet in our first meeting you stated that Doctor Simon was faithful to his wife, and theirs was a happy marriage. You had no inkling of Simon's infidelity?"

  "Well-ah-I might have had a suspicion. But you cannot condemn a man because of suspicion, can you? Besides, poor Simon is dead, and what good would it do to tarnish his reputation? Is this important to your investigation?"

  "Very important."

  "You mean the patient involved, this Joan Yesell, may have killed him?"

  "She is being watched."

  Samuelson shook his head dolefully.

  "What a dreadful thing. And what a fool he was to get involved with a patient.

  Not only a horrendous breach of professional ethics, but a despicable insult to his wife. Do you think she was aware of his philandering?"

  She says no. Do you think she was?"

  "Mr. Delaney, how can I possibly answer a question like that? I don't know what Diane thinks."

  "Don't you, doctor? I noticed some unusual facts in your personal history.

  First, you were acquainted with both Ellerbees for some time prior to their marriage. Second, you suffered a breakdown two weeks after their marriage. Third, you continue to maintain a close relationship with Diane. I don't wish to embarrass you or cause you pain, but whatever you tell me will be of tremendous help in convicting Simon's killer. And will, of course, be held in strictest confidence.

  Doctor Samuelson, are you in love with Diane Ellerbee?"

  The diminutive man looked like he had been struck a blow.

  His nartow shoulders sagged. The large head on a stalky neck fell to one side as if he hadn't the strength to support it. His grayish complexion took on an even unhealthier pallor.

  "Is it that obvious?" he asked with a failed smile.

  Delaney nodded.

  "Well, then-yes, I love her. Have since the first time I met her. She was studying with Simon then. My wife had died years before that. I suppose I was a lonely widower. Still am, for that matter. I thought Diane was the most beautiful woman I had ever met. Had ever seen. Her beauty simply took my breath away."

  "Yes, she's lovely."

  "Every man who has met her feels the same way. I
have always felt there is something unearthly about her beauty. She seems to be of a different race than human. There! You see the extent of my hopeless passion?"

  That line was spoken with wry self-mockery.

  "Why hopeless?" Delaney asked.

  "Look at me," Samuelson said.

  "A shrimp of a man.

  Twenty years older than Diane. And not much to look at.

  Besides, there was Simon: a big, handsome, brilliant fellow closer to her own age. I could see the way she looked at him, and knew I had no chance. Is all this making me a prime suspect in the murder?"

  "No," Delaney said, smiling, "it's not doing that."

  "Well, I didn't do it, of course. I could never do anything like that. I abhor violence. Besides, I loved Simon almost as much as I did Diane-in a different way."

  "You've spent a lot of time with her, doctor. Especially since her husband's death. Would you say she's a proud woman?"

  "Proud? Not particularly. Confident, certainly."

  "Very sure of herself?"

  "Oh, yes."

  "Obstinate?"

  "She can be stubborn on occasion."

  "What you're saying is that she likes her own way?"

  Samuelson thought that over for a few seconds.

  "Yes," he said finally. "I think that's a fair assessment: She likes her own way. That's hardly a fault, Mr. Delaney."

  "You're right, sir, it isn't; we all like to get our own way.

  Prior to Simon's death, did Diane give any indication at all that she was aware of her husband's unfaithfulness? Please think carefully before you answer, doctor; it's very important.

  Samuelson poured them both more coffee, emptying the desk thermos. Then he sat back, patting the Waves of his heavy russet hair. Delaney wondered again if it might be a rug.

  "I honestly cannot give you a definite answer," the psychiatrist said.

  "Certain things, the way people talk and act, can seem perfectly normal, innocuous. Then someone like you comes along and asks, can you interpret that talk and those actions in this manner-is the person in question suspicious, jealous, paranoid, depressive, or whatever? And almost invariably the speech and actions can be so interpreted. Do you understand what I am saying, Mr. Delaney? Human emotions are extremely difficult to analyze. They can mean almost anything you want them to mean: open and above board or devious and contrived."

 

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