Lullaby

by Ed McBain

  Herrera, apparently satisfied that no one on the street was life-threatening, came down the steps in front of the building, and then stopped to talk to an old man standing near a fire in a sawed-off gasoline drum. It took Fields a minute to figure out what Herrera wanted. He was showing the old man the package of cigarettes he had just taken from his coat pocket. He was asking the old man to light a cigarette for him. The old man nodded in comprehension, took the matchbook Herrera handed him, struck several matches unsuccessfully against the wind, finally got one going, and held it to the tip of the cigarette dangling from Herrera's mouth.

  Enjoy it, Fields thought.

  It'll be your last one, man.

  Herrera thanked the old man, retrieved his matchbook, and put it in the same pocket with his cigarettes. He looked up and down the street again. It'll be a terrible shame if nobody assassinates this dude, Fields thought, seeing as he's looking for it so bad.

  Herrera was in motion now.

  So was Fields.

  Following behind him at a safe distance, waiting for a good time to make his approach, didn't want too many people around, wanted the street populated enough to provide cover, but not so crowded that anyone brushing by could hear what he was telling Herrera. They had come maybe five, six blocks when Fields saw up ahead a nice break in the sidewalk traffic. Two, three people in Herrera's immediate orbit, moving in the same direction, half a dozen more up ahead, walking toward him. Time to move on the man.

  He stepped out smoothly and quickly, planning to come up fast on Herrera's left, the side with the bad arm and also the side closest to the gun in the right-hand pocket of his coat. He was half a dozen paces behind him when Herrera suddenly veered in toward a door on his right. Fields stopped dead. The little spic was going into a bar. The name of the bar was Las Palmas. Fields peeked in through the plate glass window.

  The big blond cop who'd done all the shooting on New Year's Day was sitting at the bar.

  Herrera took the stool alongside his.

  * * * *

  Felice Handler was standing against a zebra-striped wall. With her frizzied blonde hair and her amber eyes, she looked somewhat like a healthy lioness posing against the hides of a herd she had stalked, killed and eaten. The other walls in the apartment's den were black. As she had already mentioned, Mrs Handler was an interior decorator.

  Workmen were still trotting through the apartment as Meyer and Mrs Handlertalked. It made their conversation difficult. He suspected she welcomed the interruptions; he was there, after all, to ask further questions about her son. For Mrs Handler, everything else took precedence over the business of bloody murder. Did the wallpaper with the tiny floral pattern go in the master bedroom or the second bedroom? Which wall in the master bedroom got the floor-to-ceiling mirror? (Meyer knew the answer to that one.) Where did the gold metallic paper with the purple flecks go? Would she like to see a dipstick sample of the red for the ceiling in the study? Did the rocket ship paper go in the nursery? What was this roll of yellow paper that wasn't indicated anywhere on the floor plan? Where should they put it? (Meyer had an answer to that one, too.)

  'Mrs Handler,' he said at last, his patience virtually exhausted, 'I know it's important that you give all these people the answers they're . . .'

  'Yes, it is,' she said.

  'I realize that,' he said. 'But we have a lot of people waiting for answers, too.'

  'Oh?'

  One eyebrow raised. Her expression saying What in the world could possibly be more important than what I'm doing here?

  'Yes,' he said. 'So, you know, I'd hate to have to get a subpoena just to talk to you, but . . .'

  He let the sentence trail.

  She looked at him.

  Was he really about to subpoena her?

  Amber eyes flashing with intelligence.

  Considering whether to tell him to go ahead and get his goddamn subpoena if that's how he wanted to be.

  Instead, the smile from Fatal Attraction.

  'I do apologize,' she said, 'I know you must be getting a lot of pressure. The case is all over everything, isn't it?'

  He wished he could have said that the pressure from upstairs had nothing to do with his eagerness to solve the case. But this wasn't entirely true. Television and the tabloids were having a holiday with this one. A six-month-old baby? Murdered in her crib? If a baby wasn't safe from the maniacs in this city, then who was?

  The calls to Lieutenant Byrnes had started on the morning the story broke. First a captain from Headquarters Division downtown. Then the Chief of Detectives. Then Howard Brill, one of the Deputy Police Commissioners, and then the First Dep himself, and finally the Commissioner, all of them politely inquiring as to whether Byrnes felt the investigating detectives were making reasonable headway or did he think Homicide should enter the case in something more than an advisory capacity? Or perhaps Special Forces? Just checking, of course, please let them know if the squad needed any help. Meaning please let them know if his men were ready to admit to failure before they'd even done the preliminary legwork.

  'Do you think we could step out into the hall?' Meyer said. 'For ten minutes, okay? Without your people bothering us? That's all I ask.'

  'Certainly,' she said, and looked at her watch. 'It's time for a cigarette break, anyway.'

  They went out into the corridor, and walked down to the end of it, where there was an emergency exit. Mrs. Handler shook a cigarette free from a package of Pall Malls, and offered the package to Meyer. He had smoked Pall Malls for years. The familiar red package filled him with craving. He shook his head. And watched as she lighted her cigarette. And inhaled. And exhaled in deep satisfaction. Chinese torture.

  'Mrs Handler,' he said, 'you know, of course, that your son's not back at school yet.'

  'No, I didn't know.'

  'I called Prentiss this morning, shortly before I spoke to you.'

  'I see. And now you want to know if I've heard from him.'

  'Have you?'

  'No.'

  'When we spoke to you last Tuesday . . .'

  'Yes.'

  'You said your son had left for Maine early that morning . . .'

  'Yes.'

  'But of course he hadn't.'

  'I didn't know that at the time.'

  'He told you he was going back to school.'

  'Yes.'

  'Mrs Handler, do you have a school calendar?'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Didn't you know that classes would not resume until the ninth?'

  'Yes, I knew that.'

  'But you didn't think it odd that your son was going back on the third. Almost a full week before he was due back.'

  'Scott is a very good student. He was working on a difficult science project and he wanted to get back early.'

  'Then you saw nothing odd about . . .'

  'Nothing. He's a graduating senior. The top colleges look favorably on student initiative.'

  'So when he said he was going back . . .'

  'I had no reason to believe he did not go back.'

  She inhaled and exhaled smoke every two or three sentences. Meyer was getting a nicotine fix just standing beside her.

  'And do you find it odd that he isn't there at the school now? The day after classes started again?'

  'Yes, I find it odd.'

  'But you don't seem very concerned,' Meyer said.

  'I'm not. He's a big boy now. He knows how to take care of himself.'

  'Where do you think he might be, Mrs Handler?'

  'I have no idea.'

  'He hasn't called you . . .'

  'No.'

  'Or written to you.'

  'No.'

  'But you're not concerned.'

  'As I told you . . .'

  'Yes, he's a big boy now. Mrs Handler, let's talk about New Year's Eve.'

  'Why?'

  'Because your son had a relationship with one of the victims, Mrs Handler, and now we can't find him. So I'd like to know what he was doing on New Ye
ar's Eve.'

  'I already told you . . .'

  'Yes, you had a party that started at nine o'clock . . .'

  'Yes.'

  '. . . and ended at four in the morning.'

  'That's an approximate time.'

  'And your son was there all night long.'

  'Yes.'

  'Are you sure about that?'

  'I'm positive.'

  'I suppose the other guests at the party would be willing to corroborate . . .'

  'I have no idea whether anyone else noticed Scott's comings or goings. He's my son, I'm the one who . . .'

  'Were there comings and goings?'

  'What do you mean?'

  She dropped her cigarette to the floor and ground it out under her sole. Then she opened her handbag, reached for the package of Pall Malls again, shook one free, and lighted it. A delaying tactic, Meyer figured. She'd already made her first mistake, and she knew it. But so did he.

  'You said he was there all night long, Mrs Handler.'

  'Yes, he was.'

  'Well, when he's home, he lives with you, doesn't he?'

  'Yes?'

  Cautious now. The lioness sniffing the air.

  'So he didn't have to come to the party, did he? He was already there, wasn't he?'

  'Yes?'

  'And he didn't have to go anywhere after the party, did he? Since, again, he was already where he lived. So what did you mean by his comings and goings?'

  'That was merely a figure of speech,' she said.

  'Oh? Which one? Simile? Meta . . . ?'

  'Listen, you,' she said, and hurled the cigarette down like a gauntlet.

  'Yes, Mrs Handler?'

  Her eyes were blazing again.

  'Don't get smart with me, okay?'

  She stepped on the cigarette, ground it out.

  And looked challengingly into his eyes.

  Taxpayer to civil servant.

  Meyer figured it was time to take off the gloves.

  'I'll need a guest list,' he said.

  'Why?'

  'Because I want to know if everyone at that party will swear that your son was there all night long. While a six-month-old baby and her sixteen-year-old sitter were getting killed, Mrs Handler. If you want me to go get a court order, I will. We can make it easier by you just giving me, right here and now, the names, addresses and telephone numbers of everyone who was there. What do you say? You want to save us both a lot of time? Or do you want to protect your son right into becoming the prime suspect in this thing?'

  'I don't know where he is,' Mrs Handler said.

  'That wasn't my question,' Meyer said.

  'And I don't know where he went that night.'

  Meyer pounced.

  'Then he did leave the party.'

  'Yes.'

  What time?'

  'About . . .'

  She hesitated. Trying to remember when the murders had taken place. Covering her son's tracks again. Counting on the faulty and perhaps drunken memories of whoever had seen him putting on his coat and hat and-

  'Okay, forget it,' Meyer said. 'I'll go get my subpoena while you work up that guest list. I just want you to know you're not helping your son one damn bit, Mrs Handler. I'll see you later.'

  He was starting for the elevator when she said, 'Just a minute, please.'

  * * * *

  7

  They found Colby Strothers at two o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, the eleventh day of January. He was sitting on a stone bench in the Matisse Wing of the Jarrett Museum of Modern Art on Jefferson Avenue, making a pencil sketch of the huge Matisse painting that hung on the white wall in front of him. For several moments, so intent was he on what he was drawing, he didn't even know the detectives were standing there. When finally he looked up, it was with a surprised look on his face.

  'Mr Strothers?' Meyer asked.

  He looked pretty much the way Felice Handler had described him. Nineteen years old, with startlingly blue eyes, a cleft chin, a shock of dark brown hair falling over his forehead. He had the strapping build of a football player but apparently the soul of an artist, too: Strothers was a freshman at the Granger Institute, one of the city's more prestigious art schools.

  'Detective Meyer, 87th Squad,' Meyer said, and showed his shield and ID card. 'My partner, Detective Carella.'

  Strothers blinked.

  Mrs Handler had directed Meyer to the Granger Institute. He had gone there this morning and spoken to someone in the Registrar's Office, who had passed him on to the head of the Art Department, who had told him that Strothers would be at the Jarrett that afternoon. Now Meyer and Carella stood with a Matisse at their backs and a puzzled art student directly in front of them, looking up at them from a stone bench and probably wondering if it was against the law to sketch in a privately owned museum.

  'Want to come someplace where we can talk?' Meyer asked.

  'Why? What'd I do?' Strothers said.

  'Nothing. We want to ask you some questions,' Carella said.

  'About what?'

  'About Scott Handler.'

  'What'd he do?'

  'Can we go outside in the garden?'

  'In this weather?'

  'Or the cafeteria. Take your choice.'

  'Or we can sit right here,' Meyer said. 'It's up to you.'

  Strothers kept looking at them.

  'What do you say?' Carella asked.

  'Let's go to the cafeteria,' Strothers said.

  They walked like three old buddies through corridors lined with Picassos and Van Goghs and Chagalls and Gauguins. They followed the signs past the glass wall overlooking a sculpture garden dominated by a magnificent Chamberlain, and then up the escalator to the second floor and the newly installed Syd Solomon exhibition, and on up to the third floor where the signs led them past the museum's movie theater (which was currently running a Hitchcock retrospective that included The Birds) and finally into the cafeteria itself, only mildly busy at ten minutes past two in the afternoon.

  'Would you like some coffee?' Carella asked.

  'Sure,' Strothers said tentatively. He looked as if he was wondering whether they would dare use a rubber hose on him in a public place.

  'What do you take in it?'

  'Sugar and a little cream.'

  'Meyer?'

  'Black.'

  Carella went to the counter. Meyer and Strothers sat at the table. Meyer smiled at him, trying to put him at ease. Strothers did not smile back. Carella returned, transferred the coffee cups and spoons from the tray to the table, and then sat with them.

  'So,' Meyer said, and smiled again.

  'Tell us where you were on New Year's Eve,' Carella said.

  'I thought this was about Scott.'

  'It is. Were you with him?'

  'Yes.'

  'Where?'

  'At his house. His folks gave a party. Scott invited me.'

  'What time did you get there?' What'd Scott do?'

  'Nothing. Have you talked to him lately?'

  'No.'

  'What time did you get to the party?'

  'About nine-thirty, ten o'clock.'

  'Alone.'

  'No, I had a girl with me.'

  'What's her name?'

  'Why?'

  'Mr Strothers, this is a routine questioning, all we . . .'

  'Well, thank you, but I'd like to know why you're . . .'

  'We're trying to pinpoint Scott Handler's whereabouts on New Year's Eve,' Meyer said.

  'So why do you need my girlfriend's name? If this is about Scott, why . . . ?'

  'Only because she would have been another witness,' Carella said.

  'A witness to what?'

  'To where Scott Handler was at what time.'

  'What time are you trying to pinpoint?' Strothers asked.

  Carella noticed that he still hadn't given them his girlfriend's name. He guessed he admired that. He wondered now if he should level with the kid. Tell him they were interested in knowing where Handler was between twelv
e-thirty, when Annie Flynn received her last phone call, and two-thirty that same morning - when the Hoddings came into their apartment to find her dead. His eyes met Meyer's briefly. Meyer nodded with his eyelids. A blink. Go ahead, risk it.