“I’ll sue you!” she screamed. “I’ll sue all of you!”
“Be my guest,” he said with a frosty smile. “You sue, and you’re going to be in the headlines a long time, lady. But meanwhile your career is down the drain. No more kiddie patients for you. And wherever you go, for the rest of your life, people will point a finger and whisper, ‘That’s the woman they said killed her husband.’ You’ll never outlive that.”
“You’re a brute,” she shouted at him, quivering with anger. “A brute!”
“A brute, am I? And what do you call someone who hammers in the skull of another human being and then crushes his eyes? I’m a brute but you’re not—is that the way your mind works? You didn’t really think you were going to get off scot-free, did you? This is an imperfect, unfair world, I admit, but you sin and you pay the price, one way or another. It’s payment time for you, doctor.”
“I didn’t do it!” she howled desperately. “I swear I didn’t!”
“You did it,” he said, looking at her steadily. “You know it, I know it, these officers know it, the Department knows it. And pretty soon the whole city will. You’re going to be a nine-day wonder, Doctor Ellerbee. Maybe they’ll even make up rhymes about you—like ‘Lizzie Borden took an axe …’ Won’t it be great to be a superstar?”
She moved so swiftly they didn’t have time to react. Instead of circling the desk, she launched herself over the top, claws out, going for Delaney’s face. He jerked back, his chair went over with a crash, and he dragged her down atop him, hoping his glasses wouldn’t break.
Boone and Jason Two pulled her off. She fought them frantically and they slammed her back into the chair behind the desk. Jason stood next to her, a meaty hand clamped on her shoulder.
Delaney climbed awkwardly to his feet. He set the chair upright, examined his reading glasses to make sure they weren’t broken, and touched the stinging marks on his cheek. His fingers came away bloody. He pressed his handkerchief to the gouges.
“Anger,” he said to the others, nodding. “Uncontrollable. The way she was when she killed her husband. Sergeant Boone, take a look out the window, see if the press is here.”
Abner Boone looked down from the window fronting on East 84th Street.
“They’re here,” he reported. “A lot of guys with cameras and a TV crew.”
“Right on schedule,” Delaney said quietly. “I should tell you, Mrs. Ellerbee, that because this is a felony arrest, you will be handcuffed.”
She sat, huddled and shrunken, head bowed, arms crossed over her breast, holding her elbows. She would not look at him.
“Do you understand what you did?” he asked gently, still pressing a handkerchief to his cheek. “You killed a human being. The man betrayed you, certainly. But was that sufficient reason to take a human life? Sergeant …”
Abner Boone stepped close to Diane.
“You have the right to remain silent …” he started.
Delaney sat while they took her away. He had no desire to watch from the window. But he saw the flash of photographer’s lights and heard the uproar. Deputy Thorsen had delivered.
He waited until the noise and confusion had died away. He was out of it now; let Thorsen and Suarez carry the ball. His job was finished. He had done what they asked him to do, and if the result was less than perfect, they got what they wanted.
He gingerly touched the back of his head. It had smacked the floor when his chair went over, and he suspected he’d have a welt there. He was, he acknowledged, getting a bit long in the tooth for that kind of nonsense.
It wasn’t so much that he was physically tired, but the evening had taken a lot out of him. He couldn’t summon the energy to rise and tramp home to Monica and the girls. So he tucked his reading glasses away and just sat there, fingers laced across his vest, and brooded.
His first wife, Barbara, had once accused him of acting like God’s surrogate on earth. He didn’t think that was entirely fair. He had lost his hubris, he was convinced. What drove him now was more a sense of duty. But duty to what he could not have said.
Despite those things he had shouted about Diane Ellerbee playing him for a fool, he felt more pity for her than anger. He thought her life had been so structured, so neat and secure, that she had never learned to handle trouble.
But he could continue forever making up excuses. He was a cop, with a cop’s bald way of thinking, and the naked fact was that she had killed and had to be punished for it.
He dragged himself to his feet, and, as if it were his own home, made the rounds of doors and windows in the deserted townhouse, making certain they were securely locked.
He stopped suddenly, wondering where the hell his overcoat and homburg were. Probably still in Jason’s car, now parked outside the precinct house. But when he went down to the first floor, he found them waiting for him, neatly folded on a marble-topped lobby table. God bless …
He pounded home, head down, hands in pockets. He pondered how much to tell Monica of what had happened. Then he decided to tell her everything; he had to explain the jagged scrapes on his face. If it made him seem like a vindictive beast, so be it. He wasn’t about to start lying to her now. Besides, she’d know.
He looked up suddenly, and beyond the city’s glow saw the stars whirling their ascending courses. So small, he thought. All the poor, scrabbling people on earth caught up in a life we never made, breaking ourselves trying to manage.
Philosophers said you could laugh or you could weep. Delaney preferred to think there was a middle ground, an amused struggle in which you recognized the odds and knew you’d never beat them. Which was no reason to stop trying. Las Vegas did all right.
When he came to his brownstone, the lights were on, the Christmas wreath still on the door. And inside was the companionship of a loving woman, a tot of brandy, a good cigar. And later, a warm bed and blessed sleep.
“Thank you, God,” he said aloud, and started up the steps.
28
DELANEY DIDN’T WANT THE girls to go out on New Year’s Eve.
“It’s amateur night,” he told Monica. “People who haven’t had a drink all year suddenly think they’ve got to get sloshed. Then they throw up on you or get in their cars and commit mayhem. The safest place for all of us is right here, with the door locked.”
Wails and tears from Mary and Sylvia.
Finally a compromise was devised: They would have a New Year’s Eve party at the brownstone, with Peter and Jeffrey invited. The rug would be rolled up and there would be dancing. Formal dress: The ladies would wear party gowns and the men dinner jackets.
“There I draw the line,” Delaney protested. “My tux is in the attic, and probably mildewed. Even if I can find it, I probably won’t be able to get into it; I’ve put on a few ounces, you know.”
“No tux, no party,” Monica said firmly. “And the girls go out.”
So, grumbling, he trudged up to the attic and dug out his tuxedo from a grave of mothballs. It was rusty and wrinkled, but Monica sponged and brushed it. He could wear the jacket unbuttoned, and Monica assured him that with his black, pleated cummerbund in place, no one would know that the top button of his trousers was, by necessity, yawning.
Still grousing, he left the brownstone and marched out to purchase party supplies and food for a light midnight supper. He dragged along a wheeled shopping cart and thought he cut an undignified figure with his cart and black homburg. But he met no one he knew, so that was all right.
He returned home two hours later to find numerous messages waiting for him. He went into the study to return the calls. He phoned Abner Boone first.
“How did it go, Sergeant?” he asked.
“Just about the way you told her it would, sir. She’s out now, back in her townhouse.”
“A lot of reporters?”
“And photographers and television crews. She cracked up.”
“Cracked up? How do you mean?”
“A crying fit. Close to hysteria.”
“Sorry to hear that. I thought she had more spine.”
“Well, she just dissolved, and we had our hands full. Fortunately, when her lawyer showed up, he brought along Doctor Samuelson, and the doc gave her something that quieted her down. She didn’t look so beautiful when she left.”
“No,” Delaney said grimly, “and her husband didn’t look so beautiful on the floor of his office. Thank you for all your help, Sergeant, and please convey my thanks to Jason and all the others.”
“I’ll do that, sir, and a Happy New Year.”
“Thank you. And to you and Rebecca. Give her our love.”
“Will do. I hope we get a chance to work together again.”
“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” Delaney said.
His next call was to First Deputy Commissioner Ivar Thorsen, who sounded very ebullient and maybe a wee bit smashed.
“Everything’s coming up roses, Edward,” he reported exuberantly. “We didn’t make the first editions this morning, but we’ll be in the afternoon papers. Four TV news programs so far, and more to come. The phone is ringing off the hook with calls from out-of-town papers and news magazines. It looks like the press thinks we’ve solved the case.”
“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Oh, hell, yes! The Commish is grinning like a Cheshire cat, and even the Chief of Operations has congratulated Suarez. I think Riordan knows he’s lost. It looks good for Suarez to get the permanent appointment.”
“Glad to hear it; I like the man. Ivar, Happy New Year to you and yours.”
“Same to you, Edward. Give Monica a kiss for me. You’ll be getting your case of Glenfiddich, but that doesn’t begin to express my gratitude.”
“All right, then,” Delaney said, “send two cases.”
They hung up laughing.
On impulse, he phoned Dr. Samuelson. He was unable to reach him at his apartment or office. Thinking Samuelson might still be attending Diane Ellerbee, he called her number. He was prepared to hang up immediately if she answered, but he got a busy signal.
He phoned repeatedly for almost a half-hour, but couldn’t get through. He thought perhaps Diane had taken the phone off the hook, or perhaps she was being bedeviled by calls from the media. But finally his call was answered.
“Yes? Who is this?”
He recognized the high-pitched, squeaky voice.
“Doctor Samuelson? Edward X. Delaney here.”
“Ah.”
“How is Doctor Ellerbee?”
“At the moment she is sleeping. I prescribed something. She is destroyed by this.”
“I can imagine. Doctor, I have one question for you. You can answer or tell me to go to hell. Did you know, or guess, what she did?”
“Go to hell,” the little man said and hung up.
The four Delaneys had an early pickup dinner, mostly leftovers, and then finished decorating the living room, rolled up the rug, and swept and waxed the bare floor. They prepared the midnight supper. Then they all went upstairs to dress.
“Shaving is murder,” Delaney said to Monica in their bathroom. “She got me good.”
“Want me to put on bandages or tape?”
“No. I’ll leave them open to the air. I’ve been dabbing on hydrogen peroxide. They’ll heal okay. Did you tell the girls what happened?”
“I just said you had assisted in the arrest of a mugger and had been attacked. They seemed satisfied with that.”
“Good. When are the boys arriving?”
“They promised to be here by nine.”
“What are you going to wear?”
“What would you like me to wear?” she asked coquettishly.
“The short black silk with no back and all the fringe,” he said immediately. “It makes you look like a flapper from the twenties.”
“So shall it be,” she said, touching his cheek softly. “My poor wounded hero.”
While they were dressing, she said, not looking at him, “You’re absolutely certain she did it, Edward?”
“Absolutely. But you’re not?”
“It’s so hard to believe—that lovely, intelligent, talented woman.”
“Loeb and Leopold were geniuses. There’s no contradiction between intelligence and an urge to kill.”
“Well, if she’s guilty, as you say, I still don’t understand why she’s not going to be tried for it.”
“The law,” he said shortly. “We just don’t have enough that’ll stand up in court. But she’ll pay.”
“You think that’s enough?” Monica said doubtfully.
“It’s a compromise,” he admitted. “I agree with you; a long prison term would have been more fitting. But since that was impossible, I went for what I could get. We all settle, don’t we? One way or another. Who gets what they dream? We all go stumbling along, hoping for the best but knowing we’re going to have to live with confusion, sometimes winning, sometimes cutting a deal, occasionally just being defeated. It’s a mess, no doubt about it, but it’s the price we pay for being alive. I like to think the pluses outnumber the minuses. They do tonight. You look beautiful!”
Peter and Jeffrey arrived promptly at nine o’clock, bringing along a bottle of Dom Perignon, which everyone agreed would not be opened until the stroke of midnight. Meanwhile, there were six bottles of Delaney’s Korbel brut, and the party got off to a noisy, laughing start.
It took three glasses of champagne before Delaney finally broke down and consented to dance with his wife and stepdaughters. He shuffled cautiously around the floor with all the grace of a gorilla on stilts, and after one dance with each of the ladies was allowed (Allowed? Urged!) to retire to the sidelines where he stood beaming, watching the festivities and making certain glasses were filled.
At 11:30, dancing was temporarily halted while supper was served. There was caviar with chopped onions, grated hard-boiled eggs, sour cream, capers, melba toast, quarters of fresh lemon—all on artfully contrived beds of Bibb lettuce.
Monica and Delaney balanced their plates on their laps, but the young people insisted on sprawling on the floor. The television set was turned on so they could watch the mob scene in Times Square.
At about ten minutes to twelve the phone rang. Monica and Delaney looked at each other.
“Now who the hell can that be?” he growled, set his plate aside, and rose heavily to his feet. He went into the study and closed the door.
“Mr. Delaney, this is Detective Brian Estrella. Sorry to bother you at this hour, sir, but something came up I thought you should know about as soon as possible.”
“Oh?” Delaney said. “What’s that?”
“Well, right now I’m in Sylvia Otherton’s apartment and we’ve been working on the Ouija board. You read about that in my previous reports, didn’t you, sir?”
“Oh, yes,” Delaney said, rolling his eyes upward. “I read about the Ouija board.”
“Well, the first question we asked, weeks ago, was who killed him. And the board spelled out ‘Blind.’ B-L-I-N-D. Then, the second time, we asked if it was a stranger who killed him, and the board spelled out ‘Ni.’ N-I.”
“Yes, I recall,” Delaney said patiently. “Very interesting. But what does it mean?”
“Well, get this, sir …” Estrella said. “Tonight we asked the spirit of Simon Ellerbee whether it was a man or a woman who killed him, and the Ouija board spelled out ‘Wiman.’ W-I-M-A-N. Now that didn’t make much sense at first. But then I realized this board has a slight glitch and is pointing to ‘I’ when it means ‘O.’ If you follow that, you’ll see that the killer was blond, not blind. And the board meant to say ‘No’ instead of ‘Ni’ when we asked if the murderer was a stranger. And the final answer should have been ‘Woman’ instead of ‘Wiman.’ So as I see it, sir, the person we’re looking for is a blond woman who was not a stranger to the victim.”
“Thank you very much,” Delaney said gravely.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1985 by Lawrence Sanders
cover design by Jason Gabbert
978-1-4532-9839-8
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media
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THE EDWARD X. DELANEY SERIES
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Fourth Deadly Sin Page 37