The Last Coincidence (The Nero Wolfe Mysteries Book 4)

by Robert Goldsborough

  Even with the relaxed feeling the drinks gave me, I felt my system could benefit from more exercise, so I tipped the bartender and walked the rest of the way home, arriving on the front stoop of the brownstone at twelve-seventeen. Because the door was double-locked, I had to ring for Fritz to let me in, which didn’t make me feel guilty because he always stays up reading till well past midnight. Wolfe had turned in, though, I noticed as I peeked into the dark office on my way up to bed.

  Despite the turmoil of the evening, I slept hard, getting my quota, and was in the kitchen at the usual time the next morning with the Times, coffee, wheatcakes delivered to me one at a time hot off the griddle by Fritz, and all the other wonderful things he shovels my way for breakfast. While I read, one corner of my mind kept gnawing away at a strategy for tackling Linville again. As far as I was concerned, one round does not a fight make.

  I was still thinking about Round Two in the office at a quarter to nine when the phone rang.

  “Archie!” It was Lily, in a voice that sounded like she wasn’t getting enough oxygen.

  “What is it—you all right?”

  “Archie, did you see … him last night?”

  “Linville? Yeah, but the less said about that, the better. I’m afraid that I didn’t exactly cover myself with glory, although—”

  “Archie—he’s dead!”

  “Wha-a-a-t? Are you talking about Sparky Linville?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was a whisper. “Dead. Killed. In a parking garage. Last night. I …”

  “Hey, stay with me on this,” I said. “First, it wasn’t me, if that’s on your mind. Although I confess that the idea isn’t exactly a repugnant one, particularly after having met him. Tell me what you know.”

  “I just heard it on the radio. I had the news on and … he’s dead.”

  “How?”

  “They said he was found early this morning in the garage where he keeps his car. He was … hit over the head with something, I don’t think they said what.”

  “And this was on the radio?”

  “Yes, one of the all-news stations. I usually listen while I do my hair. God, Archie, what happened, did you—?”

  “Hey, easy. I told you it wasn’t me. I saw him, yes, in front of Morgana’s, along with a foul-mouthed pal he called Hallie. Words got exchanged, that’s all, and damn few of them at that. Was there any more in the radio report?”

  “Not much,” Lily said. Her voice was gradually returning to normal. “A garage attendant found him lying on the concrete next to his car. Apparently it was well into the wee hours.”

  “Which would explain why it wasn’t in the Times. All right, I’ve got some calls to make; I’ll keep you posted. But before I go, it would be nice to know that you believe me.”

  “Oh, of course I do.” She didn’t hesitate for a second, bless her. “It’s just that it seems so strange that the day after we talked about this …”

  “I know, I know. It would appear that someone else had reason to harbor animus toward the junior Mr. Linville.”

  We said good-bye and I was about to dial Lon Cohen at the Gazette when the doorbell rang. I knew Fritz was out marketing so I went to the front hall and peeked through the one-way panel in the door. What I saw was none other than Fred Durkin, wearing a worried expression and a tie that was old enough to remember when the Weehawken ferry still ran.

  “I haven’t seen you in all of twelve hours,” I said, pulling the door open. “Come on in.”

  He muttered his thanks, studying his knuckles. “Archie, about last night, I—”

  “Come on into the office,” I told him, “where we can sit. Want some coffee?”

  Fred shook his head and followed me, taking one of the yellow chairs while I parked at my desk. He looked down at his hands again and cleared his throat twice. “I’m sorry about getting sore last night,” he muttered, shaking his head some more.

  I grinned. “Not to worry. We’ve been friends long enough to tolerate each other’s moods.”

  “Aw, there was no excuse for my getting hot. The fact is, Archie, I am hurting for work, and I guess I’ve gotten a little bit touchy about it. That’s no reason for me to take it out on you, though.”

  “Consider it forgotten. Now, while you’re here, will you accept a check for last night?”

  “Sure,” he said, smiling sheepishly.

  I got my own checkbook out and wrote out a figure equal to what Fred would have gotten from Wolfe for the same amount of time. “By the way,” I said, “have you heard the radio or TV news this morning?” He shook his head.

  “Well, it seems that the subject of our surveillance last night got himself put to sleep—permanently.”

  “Killed?”

  “Very. It’ll be all over the papers by this afternoon. I don’t know much yet. But it’s just possible that before this is over, your services may be needed again.”

  Fred stood up, looking puzzled, and absently took the check I held out. “I’ll help any way I can,” he said. “Are you in trouble, Archie?”

  I laughed. “No. But you’re the second person this morning who’s thought that.”

  Back at my desk after letting Fred out, I called Lon Cohen.

  Lon doesn’t have an official title I’m aware of at the New York Gazette, but his office is within a horseshoe pitch of the publisher’s, and he seems to know the skinny about everything that happens in New York, from scandals in high places to false fire alarms on Staten Island. And best of all, Lon is a friend; his information has been invaluable to Wolfe and me on cases, and conversely, we’ve been able to repay him with scoops worthy of headlines.

  He answered on the first ring. “What’s going on?” he yapped in his usual “I-have-seven-seconds-to-spare” tone.

  “Just wondering what you’ve got on the Linville murder.”

  “How in the hell does that one interest you?”

  “I’m not entirely sure,” I told him. “And what’s more, I’m not even sure that if it does end up interesting me, I’ll even be able to tell you why.”

  “Just what I like—cooperative friends of the media,” Lon groused. “Okay, I’ll shovel it to you fast: Barton David Linville, aka Sparky, age twenty-six, heir to something in the neighborhood of six million simoleons, was found dead at approximately four-thirty this morning by the attendant in the Mark 2 parking garage on East Seventy-seventh Street. Linville was lying on the concrete next to his car, this year’s model Porsche. His skull had been crushed. No weapon was found. The police think he could have been bashed by a tire iron, or maybe a wrench, but it really sounds like they’re guessing on that.”

  “Suspects?”

  “Not that we’ve heard of yet. The kid was a wild one, drove his car like he was on the track at Indy, had plenty of women around, got into a few bar fights, nothing serious that I can recall, though.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What do you want for nothing? The body was discovered only four and a half hours ago. Your time is up—I gotta run.”

  I hadn’t been off the phone with Lon for more than fifteen seconds when it rang again, and I knew who it was before I lifted the receiver.

  “Is what I just heard on the radio simply one of those incredible coincidences, the kind the Reader’s Digest sometimes writes about?” Saul Panzer asked.

  “You don’t even get the Reader’s Digest,” I said.

  “Don’t evade the question.”

  “Yes, it really is a coincidence. It’s possible I’ll tell you about it sometime. It’s also possible I won’t.”

  “Ever the enigma. Okay, Archie, if you need any help, you have the number.”

  I told him it was appreciated and leaned back in my chair, contemplating the rows of bookshelves on the far wall of the office. Wolfe wouldn’t be down from his morning session with the plants for another hundred minutes, which gave me time to think about how I was going to drop all this on him. I was still thinking about it at two minutes after eleven, when the whir
of the elevator told me he was descending from his greenhouse in the sky.

  “Good morning, Archie. Did you sleep well?” That was his standard opening question, and I gave him my standard affirmative answer as he detoured around his desk and got his bulk settled in the best-reinforced chair in North America. He rang for beer and shuffled through the morning mail, which I had as usual stacked neatly on the blotter. He then read and signed three letters that I’d typed while meditating on how to approach him. I waited until he had set them aside and poured beer into a glass from one of the two chilled bottles Fritz had brought.

  “We need to talk,” I said.

  “Indeed?” He raised his eyebrows and leaned back, lacing his fingers over his center mound, a feat you have to see to believe.

  “Yeah, indeed. I’m breaking a confidence, but you don’t count. As you’ve said yourself, on matters of business, we are as one. I’m not sure that what I’m going to tell you will ever grow into a business matter for us, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s close enough. If that’s what you call a rationalization, so be it.”

  “Continue,” Wolfe said, his eyes closed. With that, I laid it all out in detail, from a verbatim report of my talk with Lily right through to the events of the morning, including Fred’s visit and my phone conversations with Lily, Lon, and Saul.

  Wolfe alternately scowled, frowned, and drank beer, and also injected an occasional question or comment, including the remark I mentioned earlier about my impetuosity. “You know I view you to have better-than-adequate percipience,” he said when I had finished. “What do you feel the likelihood is that either Mr. Linville’s friend or the doorman could identify you?”

  “That’s a tough one,” I said. “At the risk of appearing immodest, I am somewhat well-known, if only because of my long association with you. And you, as everyone knows, are one of New York’s ‘One Hundred Most Interesting People,’ as selected by Big Apple magazine.”

  That brought a new scowl, which was still on Wolfe’s face when the doorbell rang a few seconds later. For the second time that morning, I went to the hall to look through the one-way panel. This time, however, I returned to the office without opening the door to our visitor.

  “I think your question about my being identified has been answered,” I said to Wolfe. “Planted on our stoop—and looking far from overjoyed to be there, I might add—is none other than Inspector Cramer.”

  FIVE

  WOLFE’S SCOWL DEEPENED WHEN HE learned who our visitor was. “Confound it, show him in,” he sighed, putting on one of his long-suffering expressions. Despite what he has said in the past about the relationship between host and guest being sacred, he has been known to make exceptions—Inspector Cramer of the New York Police Department’s Homicide Bureau notable among them. I won’t go so far as to say that Wolfe and Cramer flat out don’t like each other—actually, I think each of them secretly enjoys verbally sniping at the other. Heaven knows they’ve had enough practice through the years. But Cramer’s trips to the brownstone usually end with him storming out, which is upsetting to Wolfe’s sense of order and decorum—never mind that he is almost invariably the cause of the storming.

  “Good morning, Inspector,” I said with a smile after swinging open the front door. “To what do we owe the unexpected pleasure?”

  That got me a glare and more as Cramer, his broad face a trifle ruddier than usual, stomped into the front hall. “You …” He bit off whatever comment he had prepared, waggled a finger, shook his head, and barreled into the office ahead of me.

  As he has so many times before, the inspector beelined to the red leather chair, not waiting for an invitation to be seated. His bulk, which would have been impressive in any context but this, made the cushion wheeze on contact.

  “Well?” he spat at Wolfe, taking a cigar from his breast pocket and jamming it unlit into his mouth. Cramer uses stogies the way most people use chewing gum.

  “Well indeed?” Wolfe responded. “We have not seen each other for some months, sir. Have you been well?”

  “Can the solicitousness!” Cramer snarled. “I think you know why I’m here.”

  “Think again, Mr. Cramer. And enlighten us, please, since you went to the trouble of coming. Will you have something to drink?” To Wolfe, anyone voluntarily voyaging into the outside world qualifies as a latter-day Marco Polo—intrepid, fearless, and of questionable mental stability.

  Cramer took a deep breath and a nasty bite out of his cigar and leaned forward, palms on knees. “No thanks on the drink,” he said gruffly. “All right, I’ll play this like you don’t know anything, even though I refuse to believe that for a second. Last night, this morning, actually, a kid—if you want to call somebody who’s twenty-six a kid—was murdered in a garage on the Upper East Side. His name was Barton Linville. Maybe you’ve heard of him.”

  Wolfe nodded for Cramer to go on.

  “He was found by an attendant on the floor of the garage next to his car, a Porsche. One side of his head—the left—was pretty well caved in. Cause of death, massive head injuries, from a blow or a series of blows. Time of death, estimated at between midnight and one. His watch crystal was shattered, but the watch was still running, so that’s as close as we can come to an exact time. The body had no bullet wounds or other indications of violence. No weapon has been found.”

  Wolfe leaned back in his chair. “And you come here seeking advice?” he asked.

  “I’m not done!” Cramer barked. “In the first place, this Linville kid, they called him Sparky, comes from money on both sides—frozen foods and department stores—which means there’s a lot of heat being generated, and which I’m sure you don’t give a fig about. Anyway, we’ve been checking into his activities of last night, and we found something interesting.” Cramer paused to study Wolfe, maybe expecting a reaction, but he didn’t get even raised eyebrows for his theatrics.

  “We talked to another kid that Linville had spent a good part of the evening with—a guy named Todd Halliburton, who’s apparently an old friend. Anyway, this Halliburton says that when the two of them were walking out of a nightspot on Second Avenue, a place called Morgana’s, some guy tried to give Linville a hard time out in front on the sidewalk. And who do you suppose that guy was?”

  “Mr. Cramer,” Wolfe said, rearranging his bulk, “if you have ventured forth to assault me with guessing games, you risk the immediate loss of an audience. I suggest that you forgo your charade and come to the point.”

  Cramer’s face took on a decidedly unhealthy shade of plum. “Charade, eh? You’re damn right I’ll come to the point. The man on the sidewalk who hassled Linville is in this room.”

  Wolfe finished his beer and set the empty glass down deliberately, dabbing his lips with one of the fresh handkerchiefs Fritz puts in his center desk drawer every morning. “Really, sir,” he said, “are you suggesting that I have taken to nocturnal wanderings and hostile confrontations on street corners?”

  “You’re getting as bad as Goodwin with the smart remarks,” Cramer shot back. “When we talked to Halliburton, and that was only an hour ago, he said Goodwin came up to them outside Morgana’s and seemed like he was looking for a scrap with Linville. Halliburton said he recognized Goodwin from pictures he’d seen of him in the papers. Heaven knows you’ve both had your mugs in print often enough. Care to comment?” Cramer looked at me and back at Wolfe, then glared at his cigar as if wondering how it had traveled from his mouth to his hand.

  “Sir, are you in the habit of accepting identifications like Mr. Halliburton’s without attempting to verify them?” Wolfe asked dryly.

  Cramer leaned forward, sticking his chin out. “Of course not, and you know it. But since you asked, we pulled some glossy eight-by-tens of about five of our lieutenants, in civilian clothes, along with a similar shot of Goodwin from my file on him—it’s a dupe of the one he turned in with his last license renewal. Anyway, we showed them all to Halliburton and he pointed to Goodwin instantly. He was emphatic about
it.”

  “Inspector, I’m touched that you have a file on me,” I said, grinning.

  “Yeah. It’s mainly filled with press clippings about you and Wolfe, most of them due to your personal publicist, Cohen. I keep them around to read when I need inspiration.”

  I thought for sure Wolfe would use that line as an opening to zing Cramer, but he just scowled. “Mr. Cramer, are you suggesting that Mr. Goodwin is in some way implicated in this young man’s demise?”

  “You’re damn right I am! And what you once referred to as my native cynicism forces me to ask three questions: One, was that in fact Goodwin trading words with Linville in front of the fleshpot? Two, if yes, why? And three, where was he between midnight and dawn?”

  “Well, Archie, do you care to respond?” Wolfe asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “Sure, why not? Answer to number one—yes. To number two—I’m not at liberty to say at this time, maybe never. And to number three—upstairs in my room dreaming about a World Series between the Mets and Yankees that the Mets sweep in four straight, all shutouts, including a no-hitter by Gooden. By the way, Fritz let me in at precisely seventeen minutes after the witching hour. If Mr. Wolfe doesn’t have any objections, you can check with him.”

  “Just what I need—a disinterested party like your pal Brenner supplying your alibi.”

  “Take it or leave it; I was just trying to be helpful.”

  “Balls!” Cramer bellowed. “If you’re so damn helpful, what’s to hide about your connection with Linville?”

  “Sir, I think we have been more than indulgent,” Wolfe injected. “You show no connection between their conflux on the sidewalk and Mr. Linville’s violent death a few hours later—and indeed, there is none.”

  “So I should chalk all this up to coincidence, is that it?” Cramer had done a number on the poor stogie and looked like he was about to start chewing the corner of Wolfe’s desk.