by Ed McBain
The needle was moving again.
He raced out of the building and crossed the street, taking up his position under the leaking awning, certain now that either Lewis or Margaret Redfield was coming downstairs with the dog before going to bed, and then wondering what the hell difference it made, and then wishing again he were home in bed. He kept his eyes on the doorway to the building. Margaret Redfield came out of the doorway, leading the terrier on a leash, just as the patrolman rounded the corner.
It was five minutes to midnight.
The patrolman glanced at Meyer as he passed him, took in the hatless, bald-headed man with the jacket collar turned up, standing outside a closed bakery, five to midnight, rain, empty streets…
The patrolman turned back.
The sniper was out of breath.
He had leaped the airshaft between the two buildings and taken up his position behind the parapet, looking down into the street now, the street empty and deserted, but knowing that she would soon turn the corner, knowing she would soon stroll leisurely up the block, leading the dog, knowing she would soon be dead, breathing hard, waiting.
The rifle felt long and lethal in his hands, more lethal because of the telescopic sight, bringing the street below into sharp focus. He sighted along the barrel at the lamppost in the middle of the block, far below, close to him because of the sight; she would make a good target.
He wondered if he should stop.
He wondered if she should be the last one, and then wondered if she shouldn’t have been the first one. He knew the dog would lead her to the lamppost. He knew she would stop there. He fixed the lamppost in the crossed hairs of the sight, and cursed the rain. He had not supposed the rain would make that much difference, and yet he could not see too clearly; he wondered if he should wait until another time.
No.
You bastards, he thought.
You, he thought.
I should have taken care of you first.
The rain drummed on his shoulders and his head. He was wearing a black raincoat, wearing the night around him, hidden by the night he felt a thrill of anticipation as he waited for her. Where are you, he thought, come walk into my rifle, come walk into my sight, come let me kill you, come, come, come.
The dog stopped alongside the fire hydrant on the corner. He sniffed, hesitated, sniffed again. Meyer, who was watching Margaret and the dog intently, didn’t even see the patrolman approaching.
“What’s the trouble, mister?” the patrolman said.
“Huh?” Meyer answered, startled.
“What are you standing around here for?”
A grin came onto Meyer’s face. Of all times for a cop to get conscientious, he thought, and then he said, “Look, I’m…”
The patrolman shoved him. The patrolman had just come on duty, he had a little heartburn, and he wasn’t ready to take any crap from a suspicious character who looked as if he was planning a burglary. “Move along,” he said angrily. “Go on, move along.”
“Look,” Meyer said, the grin dropping from his face. “I happen to be a—”
“You gonna give me trouble?” the patrolman asked, and he grabbed Meyer’s right sleeve, twisting it in his fist.
At that moment, Margaret Redfield disappeared around the corner.
He saw her turn into the block. She was partially obscured by the rain, but he recognized her and the dog immediately.
He wiped the palms of his hands on his coat, realizing only afterward that the coat was wetter than his hands.
I’m going to kill you better than the others, he thought.
You bitch, I am going to kill you better.
He was no longer out of breath, but his heart was pounding furiously, and his hands had begun to tremble. He glanced over the parapet again, saw that she was coming steadily down the block.
There was a lot of wind. He would have to compensate for the wind.
He wiped the rain from his eyes.
He put the rifle to his shoulder.
He sighted again on the lamppost, waiting.
Come on, he thought.
Come on.
Goddamn you to hell, come on!
“I’m a detective,” Meyer said. “Let go of my sleeve!”
Instead of letting go of Meyer’s sleeve, the patrolman twisted his arm up behind his back and began frisking him for a gun, which of course he found immediately.
“You got a permit for this?” he asked, while across the street Meyer could see nothing, could hear only the clatter of Margaret’s heels around the corner.
“You goddamn fool,” Meyer said to the patrolman. “You want to find yourself walking a beat in Bethtown? Give me that gun!”
The patrolman suddenly recognized something in Meyer’s voice, a note of authority, a no-nonsense attitude that told him he might indeed be walking a beat in Bethtown if he didn’t cooperate with this bald bastard. He handed back the .38 immediately. Lamely he said, “You can understand…” But Meyer wasn’t in an understanding mood, nor did he even hear the patrolman’s words. He ran to the corner and turned it immediately. He could see Margaret Redfield halfway up the street, the dog hesitating near the lamppost, close to the curb. He began walking after her, ducking into doorways. He was perhaps 100 feet from her when she suddenly collapsed on the sidewalk.
He had heard no shot.
She fell swiftly and soundlessly, and the absence of sound magnified the event, because he knew she had been shot, and yet there was no clue to the sniper’s hiding place. He began running toward her, and then stopped, and then looked up at the rooftops on either side of the street, and realized suddenly that the shot could have come from any one of them. The terrier was barking now, no, not barking but wailing, a lonely terrible wail like the mournful sound of a coyote.
The woman, Meyer thought. Get to the woman.
The roof, he thought, get to the roof.
Which roof?
Where?
He stopped dead in the middle of the street.
The killer is up there somewhere, he thought, and his mind stopped working for a moment. The rain drumming around him, Margaret Redfield lying on the sidewalk ahead of him, the dog wailing, the patrolman coming around the corner curiously, Meyer’s mind clicked shut, he did not know what to do or where to turn.
He ran to the doorway of the building closest to the lamppost, ran reflexively, passing Margaret Redfield, who poured blood into the gutter while the dog wailed, ran without stopping to think it through, going there automatically because that was where the shot had most likely come from. Then he stopped on the sidewalk and shut his eyes for a moment, forced reason into his mind, forced himself to realize the killer would not come down on this block, he would leap the airshaft, cross over to one of the other buildings and try to make his escape either on the avenue or the next cross street.
He ran for the corner. He almost slipped on the slick, wet asphalt, regained his balance, ran with the gun in his right fist, pumping the air with both arms, reaching the corner and turning it, and running past the fire hydrant, and stopping before the entrance to the Redfields’ apartment building, and looking up at the still-lit windows, and then turning his eyes back to the street, and seeing nothing.
Where? he thought. Where are you?
He waited in the rain.
The patrolman discovered the body of Margaret Redfield around the corner. The terrier snapped at him when he tried to pick up her wrist to feel for a pulse beat. He kicked the dog in the chops with the side of his shoe, and then lifted her wrist. Blood was pouring down her arm from the wound in her shoulder. She was one hell of a mess, and it was raining, and the patrolman had heartburn.
But he had sense enough to know she wasn’t dead, and he immediately phoned the nearest hospital for an ambulance.
The sniper did not come down into the street where Meyer was waiting for him. Nor did Meyer suppose he was still on one of the roofs up there. No, he had guessed wrong, and that was that. The sniper had made his escape
elsewhere, swallowed by the rain and the darkness, free to kill again.
As he holstered his gun, Meyer wondered how many mistakes a cop is allowed. Then, dejectedly, he looked up as he heard the sound of the approaching ambulance.
The hospital was shrouded in a slow, steady drizzle that echoed the grayness of its walls. They arrived there at 1:00 A.M., parked the car, and then went to the admissions desk, where a nurse told them Mrs. Redfield was in Room 407.
“Has Mr. Redfield arrived yet?” Meyer asked.
“Yes, he’s upstairs,” the nurse said. “Mrs. Redfield’s doctor is with her, too. You’ll have to check with him before talking to the patient.”
“We’ll do that,” Carella said.
They walked to the elevator. Carella pressed the call button, and then said, “Redfield got here fast enough.”
“He was in the shower when I went up to the apartment to tell him his wife had been wounded,” Meyer said. “Takes a shower every night before going to bed. That explains the bathroom light going on.”
“What’d he say when you told him?”
“He came to the door in a bathrobe, dripping water all over the floor. He said, ‘I should have taken the dog down myself.’ “
“That’s all?”
“That’s all. Then he asked where his wife was, and said he’d dress and get right over here.”
They took the elevator up to the fourth floor, and waited in the corridor outside Margaret’s room. In ten minutes’ time, a white-haired man in his sixties came out of Room 407. He looked at his watch and was hurrying toward the elevators when Carella stopped him.
“Sir?” he said.
The man turned. “Yes?”
“Sir, are you Mrs. Redfield’s doctor?”
“I am,” the man said. “Dr. Fidio.”
“I’m Detective Carella of the 87th Squad. This is my partner, Detective Meyer.”
“How do you do?” Fidio said, and he shook hands with the men.
“We’d like to ask Mrs. Redfield some questions,” Carella said. “Do you think she’s up to it?”
“Well,” Fidio said skeptically, “I just gave her a sedative. I imagine it’ll begin working any minute. If this won’t take too long…”
“We’ll try to keep it short,” Carella promised.
“Please,” Fidio answered. He paused. “I can appreciate the gravity of what has happened, believe me, but I wish you’d try not to overtax Margaret. She’ll live, but she’ll need every ounce of strength she can summon.”
“We understand, sir.”
“And Lewis as well. I know you’ve got to ask questions, but he’s been through a great deal in the past month, and now this thing with…”
“The past month?” Carella said.
“Yes.”
“Oh, worrying about Margaret, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“Well, we can understand the strain he’s been under,” Carella said. “Knowing a sniper was at large and wondering when…”
“Yes, yes, that too, of course.”
Meyer looked at Fidio curiously. He turned to Carella, and saw that Carella was also staring at the doctor. The corridor outside Room 407 was suddenly very silent.
“That too?” Carella said.
“What do you mean?” Meyer said instantly.
“What else was bothering him?” Carella asked.
“Well, the entire business with Margaret.”
“What entire business, Dr. Fidio?”
“I hardly think this is germane to your case, gentlemen. Margaret Redfield was shot and almost killed tonight. This other thing is a private matter between her and her husband.” He looked at his watch again. “If you’re going to question her, you’d better hurry. That sedative…”
“Dr. Fidio, I think we ought to decide what’s germane to the case, don’t you? What was troubling Lewis Redfield?”
Dr. Fidio sighed deeply. He looked into the detectives’ faces, sighed again, and then said. “Well…” and told them what they wanted to know.
Margaret Redfield was asleep when they entered the room. Her husband was sitting in a chair beside her, a round-faced man with sad brown eyes and a dazed expression on his face. A black raincoat was draped over a chair on the other side of the room.
“Hello, Mr. Redfield,” Carella said.
“Hello, Detective Carella,” Redfield answered. Behind his chair, rain stained the window, crawling over the glass, dissolving the pane in globs of running light.
“Dr. Fidio tells us your wife is going to pull through.”
“Yes, I hope so,” Redfield said.
“It’s no fun getting shot,” Meyer said. “In the movies, it all looks so clean and simple. But it isn’t any fun.”
“I don’t imagine it is,” Redfield said.
“I take it you’ve never been shot,” Carella said.
“No.”
“Were you in the service?”
“Yes.”
“What branch, Mr. Redfield?”
“The Army.”
“Did you see combat?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know how to use a rifle?”
“Oh, yes,” Redfield said.
“Our guess is you know how to use it pretty well, Mr. Redfield.”
Redfield looked suddenly alert. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Our guess is you were an expert shot during the war, is that right, Mr. Redfield?”
“I was only fair.”
“Then you must have learned an awful lot since.”
“What do you mean?” Redfield asked again.
“Mr. Redfield,” Meyer said, “where did you go tonight when your wife left the apartment with the dog?”
“I went into the shower.”
“Which shower?”
“What…what do you mean…the shower,” Redfield said. “The shower.”
“In your bathroom…or on the roof?”
“What?”
“It’s raining, Mr. Redfield. Is that why you missed killing her? Is that why you only hit her in the shoulder?”
“I don’t know what you…who are you…my wife, do you mean? Are you talking about Margaret?”
“Yes, Mr. Redfield. We are talking about your knowing your wife would take the dog down sometime before midnight. We are talking about your going up to the roof the moment she left the apartment, and crossing over to a building around the corner, and waiting for her to come around the block. That is what we are talking about, Mr. Redfield.”
“I…that’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Why, I…I was in the shower when it…when it all happened. I even came to the door in my bathrobe. I…”
“How long does it take to shoot someone, get back down to the apartment, and hop into the tub, Mr. Redfield?”
“No,” Redfield said. He shook his head. “No.”
“Yes, Mr. Redfield.”
“No.”
“Mr. Redfield,” Carella said, “we just had a chat with Dr. Fidio in the hall outside. He told us that you and Mrs. Redfield have been trying to have a baby since you were married two years ago. Is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“He also told us that you came to see him at the beginning of April because you thought perhaps something was wrong with you, that you were the one who was responsible.”
“Yes,” Redfield said.
“Instead, Dr. Fidio told you that your wife, Margaret, had had a hysterectomy performed in November 1940, and that she could never have a child. Is that also true, Mr. Redfield?”
“Yes, he told me that.”
“And you didn’t know about it before?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Surely your wife must have a scar. Didn’t you ever ask her about it?”
“Yes. She said it was an appendectomy scar.”
“But when Dr. Fidio told you the real nature of the operation, he also told you about a party that had taken place in April 1940, an
d about your wife’s subsequent venereal—”
“Yes, yes, he told me,” Redfield said impatiently. “I don’t see what…”
“How old are you, Mr. Redfield?”
“I’m forty-seven.”
“Have you ever had any children?”
“No.”
“You must have wanted them pretty badly.”
“I…I wanted children.”
“But they made it impossible, didn’t they?”
“I…I…don’t know who you mean, what you mean.”
“The people who were at that party, Mr. Redfield. The ones who caused the hysterectomy, the ones—”
“I don’t know who those people were. I don’t know what you mean.”
“That’s right, Mr. Redfield. You didn’t know who they were. You only knew there had been a party following a production of The Long Voyage Home, and you properly assumed all the members of the cast had been to that party. What did you do? Find Margaret’s old theater program and just start going down the list?”
Redfield shook his head.
“Where’s the rifle, Mr. Redfield?” Carella said.
“Who was next on your list?” Meyer said.
“I didn’t do any of this,” Redfield said. “I didn’t kill any of them.”
“If that’s your raincoat,” Carella said, “you’d better put it on.”
“Why? Where are you taking me?”
“Downtown.”
“What for? I’m telling you I didn’t—”
“We’re booking you for homicide, Mr. Redfield,” Carella said.
“Homicide? I didn’t kill anyone, how can you…?”
“We think you did.”
“You thought Cohen did, too.”
“There’s one difference, Mr. Redfield.”
“What’s that?”
“This time we’re sure.”
It was 2:00 A.M. by the time they got back to the precinct. He tried to brazen it through at first, but he did not know a patrolman was going through his apartment while the detectives were questioning him in the squadroom. He refused to admit a thing. He kept repeating that he was in the shower when his wife was shot, he hadn’t known a thing about it until Meyer knocked on his door to report the shooting, and then he’d put on a robe and come to answer it. How could he have been on the roof? And when Cohen was killed on the precinct steps, he had been at work in his office, how could they hold him responsible for that death? True, no one had seen him after the time the office meeting broke up at 3:30, true, he could have left the office by the back stairs and come over to the precinct to wait for Cohen, but wasn’t that the wildest sort of speculation, by those rules anyone could be convicted of murder, he had nothing to do with any of this.