by Ed McBain
“Thank God, huh? Lotsa guys didn’t.”
“I know.”
“I’ll tell you the truth, I’m a little sorry I missed out on it. I mean it. When I was in the Navy, nobody even dreamed there was gonna be a war. And then, when it did come, I was too old. I’d have been proud to fight for my country.”
“Why?” Redfield asked.
“Why?” For a moment, Miscolo was stunned. Then he said, “Well…for…for the future.”
“To make the world safe for democracy?” Redfield asked.
“Yeah. That, and…”
“And to preserve freedom for future generations?” There was a curiously sardonic note in Redfield’s voice. Miscolo stared at him.
“I think it’s important my kids live in freedom,” Miscolo said at last.
“I think so, too,” Redfield answered. “Your kids and my kids.”
“That’s right. When you have them.”
“Yes, when I have them.”
The room went silent.
Redfield lit a cigarette and shook out the match. “What’s taking them so long?” he asked.
The policewoman who spoke privately to Margaret Redfield was twenty-four-years old. Her name was Alice Bannion, and she sat across the desk from Mrs. Redfield in the empty squadroom and listened to every word she said, her eyes saucer-wide, her heart pounding in her chest. It took Margaret only fifteen minutes to give the details of that party in 1940, and during that time Alice Bannion alternately blushed, turned pale, was shocked, curiously excited, repulsed, interested, and sympathetic. At 1:00, Margaret and Lewis Redfield left the squadroom, and Detective 3rd/Grade Alice Bannion sat down to type her report. She tried to do so unemotionally, with a minimum of involvement. But her spelling became more and more uncontrolled as she typed her way deeper into the report and the past. When she pulled the report out of the typewriter, she was sweating. She wished she hadn’t worn a girdle that day. She carried the typewritten pages into the lieutenant’s office, where Carella was waiting. She stood by the desk while Carella read what she had written.
“That’s it, huh?” he asked.
“That’s it,” she said. “Do me a favor next time, will you?”
“What’s that?”
“Ask your own questions,” Alice Bannion said, and she left the office.
“Let me see it,” Lieutenant Byrnes said, and Carella handed him the report:
DETAILS
Mrs. Redfield highly disturbed, did not wish to discuss matter at all. Claimed she had only told this to one other person in her life, her family doctor, and that because of urgency of matter, and need to do something about it. Has retained doctor over the years, general practitioner, Dr. Andrew Fidio, 106 Ainsley Avenue, Isola.
Mrs. Redfield claims drinks were forced upon her against will night of party Randolph Norden’s home, circa April 1940. Claims she was intoxicated when other students left at one or two in morning. Knew party was getting wild, but was too dizzy to leave. She refused to take part in what she knew was happening in other rooms, staying in living room near piano. Other two girls, Blanche Lettiger and Helen Struthers, forced Mrs. Redfield into bedroom, held her with assistance of boys while Randy Norden “abused” her. She tried to get out of room, but they tied her hands and one by one attacked her until she lost consciousness. She says all the boys participated in attack, and she can remember girls laughing. She seems to recall something about a fire, one of drapes burning, but memry is hazy. Someone took her home at about five a.m., she does not remember who. She did not report incident to sole living parent, mother, out of fear.
In circa October 1940, she went to Dr. Fidio with what seemed routine irritation of cervix. Blood test showed she was venereally infects, and that gonorrhea had entered chronic stage with internal scarring of female organs. She told Dr. Fidio about party in April, he suggested prosecution. She refused, not wanting mother to know about incident. But severity of symptoms indicated hysterectomy to Fidio, and she was admitted hospital in November, when he performed operation. Mother was told operation was appendectomy.
Mrs. Redfield feels to this day Randy Norden was boy who “diseased” her, but does not kniw for sure because each boy was attacker in turn. She stronly implies unnatural rlations with girls as well, but will not bring self to discuss it. She saed she was glad the boys were dead. When told that Blanche Lettiger had later became a prostitute, she said, “I’m not surprised.” She ended interview by saying, “I wish Helen was dead, too. She started it all.”
They worked on David Arthur Cohen for four hours, putting him through a sort of crash therapy his analyst would never have dreamed of. They had him tell and retell the details of that party long ago, read him sections of the report on Margaret Redfield, reread it, asked him to tell what had happened in his own words, asked him to explain the drapes being on fire, asked him what the girls had done, went over it and over it until, weeping, he could bear it no longer and simply repeated again and again, “I’m not a murderer, I’m not a murderer.”
The assistant district attorney, who had been sent up from downtown, had a small conference with the detectives when they were finished with Cohen.
“I don’t think we can hold him,” the assistant DA said. “We’ve got nothing that’ll stick.”
Carella and Meyer nodded.
“We’ll put a tail on him,” Carella said. “Thanks for coming up.”
They released David Arthur Cohen at 4:00 that afternoon. The detective assigned to his surveillance was Bert Kling. He never got to do any work, because Cohen was shot dead as he came down the precinct steps into the afternoon sunshine.
There were no buildings across the street from the station house: there was only a park. And there were no trees behind the low stone wall that bordered the sidewalk. They found a discharged shell behind the wall, and they assumed that the killer had fired from there, at a much closer range than usual, blowing away half of Cohen’s head. Kling had immediately run out of the muster room, and down the precinct steps, and across the street into the park, chasing aimlessly along paths and into bushes, but the killer was gone. There was only the sound of the whirling carousel in the distance.
The precinct patrolmen were beginning to think this was all very funny. A guy getting killed on the steps of the station house was a pretty macabre piece of humor, but they enjoyed the fun of it nonetheless. They were all aware that the detectives upstairs had called in the DA that afternoon, and they were also aware that Cohen had been held in the squadroom for a damn long time, and they joked now about the fact that he could no longer bring charges of false arrest since someone had very conveniently murdered him. One of the patrolmen jokingly said that all the detectives had to do was wait long enough and then everybody who’d been in that play would be dead, and the killings would automatically stop, and they could all go home to sleep. Another of the patrolmen had a better idea. He figured it was simply a process of elimination. As soon as the killer had murdered everybody but one, why then the remaining person was obviously the murderer of all the others.
Carella didn’t think it was so funny. He knew that neither Thomas Di Pasquale nor Helen Vale had put that bullet in Cohen’s head because they both were being escorted around the city by patrolmen who never let them out of sight. On the other hand, Lewis and Margaret Redfield had left the squadroom at 1:00, some three hours before Cohen walked down those steps and into a Remington .308 slug. Detective Meyer Meyer was sent promptly to the Redfield apartment on the corner of Grover and Forty-first in Isola, where he was told that Margaret Redfield had gone directly to the beauty parlor after leaving the squadroom, apparently feeling in need of treatment after her cathartic experience. Lewis Redfield told Meyer he had gone to his office on Curwin Street after leaving the squadroom, and stayed there until 5:00 P.M., at which time he had come home. He could remember, in fact, dictating some letters to his secretary, and then attending a meeting at 3:00 P.M. A call to the office verified the fact that Redfield had come t
o work at about 1:30 and had not left until 5:00. They could not say where he was specifically at 4:00 when Cohen was murdered, but there seemed little doubt he was somewhere in the office. Nonetheless, because that narrow margin of doubt did exist, Meyer phoned Carella at the squadroom to tell him he was going to stick to the Redfields for a while. Carella agreed that the tail was a good idea, and then he went home to dinner. Neither he nor Meyer thought the case was very funny. In fact, they were sick to death of it.
And then, oddly, considering how lightly the patrolmen were taking all this grisly slaughter, it was a patrolman who provided the next possibility for action in the case, and then only indirectly through a call from Captain Frick at 11:00 that night, while Carella was home and trying to read the newspaper.
When he heard the phone ring, he glanced at it sourly, rose from his easy chair in the living room, and quickly walked into the foyer. He picked the receiver from the cradle and said, “Hello?”
“Steve, this is Captain Frick. I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No, no. What is it?”
“I hate to bother you on this, but I’m still here at the office trying to get these time sheets straightened out.”
“What time sheets are those, Marshall?”
“On my patrolmen.”
“Oh, yes. Well what is it?”
“Well, I’ve got Antonino listed as being with this Helen Vale woman from eight this morning until four this afternoon, when he was relieved by Boardman, who’ll be on until midnight. That right?”
“I guess so,” Carella said.
“Okay. And Samalman was supposed to be with this guy Di Pasquale from eight this morning until four this afternoon, but I see here on his sheet he left at three. And I see that Canavan, who was supposed to relieve him at four, called in at nine P.M. to say he had just relieved on post. Now, I don’t get that, Steve. Did you give these guys permission for this?”
“What do you mean, Marshall? Are you saying nobody was with Di Pasquale from three o’clock this afternoon to nine o’clock tonight?”
“That’s what it looks like. Judging from these time sheets.”
“I see,” Carella said.
“Did you give them permission?”
“No,” Carella said. “I didn’t give them permission.”
Thomas Di Pasquale had a patrolman at his door and a woman in his apartment when Carella arrived that night. The patrolman moved aside to allow his superior to ring the doorbell. Carella rang it with dispatch, and then waited for Di Pasquale to answer the ring. Di Pasquale’s dispatch did not equal Carella’s, since he was all the way in the bedroom at the other end of the apartment, and he had to put on a robe and slippers and then come trotting through six rooms to the front door. When he opened the door, he looked out at a face he had never seen before.
“Okay, what’s the gag?” he asked.
“Mr. Di Pasquale?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m Detective Carella.”
“That’s very nice. Do you know it’s eleven-thirty at night?”
“I’m sorry about that, Mr. Di Pasquale, but I wanted to ask you some questions.”
“Can’t they wait till morning?”
“I’m afraid not, sir.”
“I don’t have to let you in, you know. I can tell you to go whistle.”
“You can do that, sir, that’s true. In which case I’d be forced to swear out a warrant for your arrest.”
“Hey, sonny boy, you think you’re dealing with a hick?” Di Pasquale said. “You can’t arrest me for anything, because I haven’t done anything.”
“How about suspicion of murder?”
“How about it? There’s no such crime as suspicion of anything. Murder? Don’t make me laugh. Who am I supposed to have killed?”
“Mr. Di Pasquale, can we discuss it inside?”
“Why? You afraid of waking the neighbors? You already woke me up, what difference will a few dozen others make? Argh, come in, come in. No damn manners, the police in this lousy town. Come around the middle of the night. Come in, for Chrissake, don’t stand there in the hall.”
They went into the apartment. Di Pasquale turned on a light in the living room, and they sat facing each other.
“So?” he said. “You’re here, you got me out of bed, so say what’s on your mind.”
“Mr. Di Pasquale, a man was shot and killed this afternoon at four o’clock as he was leaving the police station.”
“So?”
“Mr. Di Pasquale, we checked with the patrolman who was assigned to ‘protect’ you, and he tells us you let him go at three o’clock this afternoon. Is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“Is it also true that you told him you wouldn’t be needing him again until nine o’clock this evening? Is that also true, Mr. Di Pasquale?”
“That’s true. So what? Is that why you come knocking on my door in the middle of the night? To check on whether or not your patrolman is telling the truth? Is that all you’ve got to do with your time? You’re the guy who called me up at seven-thirty one morning, ain’t you? You like waking people up, don’t you?”
“Mr. Di Pasquale, why’d you tell the patrolman you wouldn’t need him?”
“For the very simple reason that I was up at Columbia Pictures today talking a deal with the head of the story department. I went up there at three o’clock, and I expected to be there with him until six, at which time I knew we would both go downstairs where a chauffeured Cadillac would be waiting to take us to a very fancy restaurant where I wouldn’t be sitting near any windows. We would have a couple of drinks at the bar, and at seven o’clock we would be joined by a writer who would give a story line to the head of the story department, and then we would eat dinner, also not sitting near any windows. Then we would get right into the Cadillac again, and they would drive me home, where I asked that fathead patrolman to meet me—I see he isn’t even here, there’s some other jerk outside—and where also the young lady who is now asleep in the other room would be waiting for me. So you see, Mr. Carella who likes to wake up people in the middle of the night, I thought I would save the city a little money and also release a cop for active duty in spots all over the city where teenagers are bashing each other’s heads in, instead of hanging around me when I knew I’d be absolutely safe, that’s why, Mr. Carella. Does that answer your question?”
“Were you anywhere near the precinct today, Mr. Di Pasquale?”
“I was up at Columbia all afternoon, and then I went straight to dinner, and then I came straight here.”
“Mr. Di Pasquale, do you own any guns?”
“No.” Di Pasquale stood up angrily. “What is all this, would you mind telling me? How come I’m suddenly a suspect in this thing? What’s the matter? You running out of people?”
He had delivered his words in anger, but he had struck very close to the truth. They were running out of people. They had begun the case by grasping at straws, and they were still grasping at straws.
Carella sighed heavily. “I suppose the head of Columbia’s story department can corroborate…”
“You want to call him from here? I’ll give you his home number. Go ahead, why don’t you call him? You might as well wake up the whole goddamn city while you’re at it.”
“I think that can wait until morning,” Carella said. “I’m sorry I disturbed you. Good night, Mr. Di Pasquale.”
“Can you find your way out?” Di Pasquale asked sarcastically.
It was close to the witching hour.
Meyer Meyer stood on the corner opposite the Redfields’ apartment building, and wondered if he should call it a day. He had positioned himself on the street corner at 6:00 that evening, and it was now 11:40, and he was certain the Redfields would turn out their lights soon and go to sleep. But at 7:00 that evening, Margaret Redfield had come down into the street with a Welsh terrier on a leash, and she had walked around the block and then returned to the building at 7:25. Meyer did not own a dog, b
ut he was sure a 7:00 constitutional would not be the final promenade for a terrier kept in a city apartment. And yet, it was now 11:40—he glanced at his watch, no, 11:45—and there was no indication that either Margaret or Lewis Redfield would take the pooch down for another stroll before retiring, and besides, it was beginning to rain.
It was not a heavy rain at first; it was only a light, sharp drizzle that penetrated directly to the marrow. Standing on the corner, Meyer looked up again at the lit third-floor apartment window. He swore mildly under his breath, decided to go home, changed his mind, and crossed the street to stand under the awning outside a bakery. The bakery was closed. It was nearing midnight, and the streets were deserted. A strong wind suddenly came in off the river, pushing heavier rain clouds ahead of it. The deluge covered the street. The drizzle turned to a teeming downpour in a matter of seconds. Lightning streaked the sky over the tops of the buildings. Meyer stood under the awning and thought of a warm bed with Sarah beside him. He cursed the Redfields again, decided to go home, remembered that damn Welsh terrier, convinced himself the dog would be going for another walk, pulled up the collar of his coat, and again looked up at the lit third-floor window. The awning leaked. He glanced up at the tear in the canvas, and then switched his scrutiny back to the window.
The light went out.
There was what seemed like a half-hour of blackness, and then another light went on, the bedroom, he figured, and then a light came up behind a smaller window. The bathroom, Meyer thought. Thank God, they’re finally going to sleep. He waited. Both lights stayed on. On impulse, he walked across the street rapidly and into the building. The elevator was directly opposite the entrance doorway. He walked halfway into the lobby and looked up at the indicator over the closed elevator doors. The needle was stopped at the number six. He watched patiently for several moments, and suddenly the needle began to move. Five, four, three…the needle stopped again.
Three, he thought. The Redfields live on the third floor.