Sadie When She Died

by Ed McBain

  “Good,” Meyer said.

  “But more important,” Davies said, “I got a good walking picture from the footprints on the floor, and I think we can assume it was the man’s usual gait, neither dawdling nor hurried.”

  “How can you tell that?” Meyer asked.

  “Well, if a man is walking slowly, the distance between his footprints is usually about twenty-seven inches. If he’s running, his footprints will be about forty inches apart. Thirty-five inches apart is the average for fast walking.”

  “How far apart were the prints you got?”

  “Thirty-two inches. He was moving quickly, but he wasn’t in a desperate hurry. The walking line, incidentally, was normal and not broken.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, draw an imaginary line in the direction the suspect was walking, and that line should normally run along the inner edge of the heelprints. Fat people and pregnant ladies will often leave a broken walking line because they walk with their feet spread wider apart . . . to keep their balance.”

  “But this walking line was normal,” Meyer said.

  “Right,” Davies said.

  “So our man is neither fat nor pregnant.”

  “Right. Incidentally, it is a man. The size and type of the shoe, and also the angle of the foot indicate that clearly.”

  “Okay, fine,” Meyer said. He did not thus far consider Davies’ information valuable nor even terribly important. They had automatically assumed that anyone burglarizing an apartment would be a man and not a woman. Moreover, according to Carella’s report on the size of the footprint in the sink, it had definitely been left by a man—unless a female Russian wrestler was loose in the precinct. Meyer yawned.

  “Anyway, none of this is valuable nor even terribly important,” Davies said, “until we consider the rest of the data.”

  “And what’s that?” Meyer asked.

  “Well, as you know, the bedroom window was smashed, and the Homicide men at the scene . . .”

  “Monoghan and Monroe?”

  “Yes, were speculating that the suspect had jumped through the window into the alley below. I didn’t think it would hurt to go downstairs and see if I could get some meaningful pictures.”

  “Did you get some meaningful pictures?”

  “Yes, I got some pictures of where he must have landed—on both feet, incidentally—and I also got another walking picture and direction line. He moved toward the basement door and into the basement. That’s not the important thing, however.”

  “What is the important thing?” Meyer asked patiently.

  “Our man is injured. And I think badly.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The walking picture downstairs is entirely different from the one in the kitchen. The footprints are the same, of course, no question but that the same person left them. But the walking line indicates that the person was leaning quite heavily on the left leg and dragging the right. There are, in fact, no flat footprints for the right foot, only scrape marks where the edges of the sole and heel were pulled along the concrete. I would suggest that whoever’s handling the case put out a physician’s bulletin. If this guy hasn’t got a broken leg, I’ll eat the pictures I took.”

  A girl in a green coat was waiting in the lobby. Leaning against the wall, hands thrust deep into the slash pockets of the coat, she turned toward the basement door the instant it opened. Carella and Kling, followed by the red-faced patrolman (who was slightly more red-faced at the moment), came through the doorway and were starting for the street when the girl said, “Excuse me, are you the detectives?”

  “Yes?” Carella said.

  “Hey, listen, I’m sorry,” the patrolman said. “I just got transferred up here, you know, I ain’t too familiar with all you guys.”

  “That’s okay,” Kling said.

  “The super told me you were in the building,” the girl said.

  “So, like excuse it, huh?” the patrolman said.

  “Right, right,” Kling said, and waved him toward the front door.

  “You’re investigating the Fletcher murder, aren’t you?” the girl said. She was quite soft-spoken, a tall girl with dark hair and large brown eyes that shifted alternately from one detective to the other, as though searching for the most receptive audience.

  “How can we help you, miss?” Carella asked.

  “I saw somebody in the basement last night,” she said. “With blood on his clothes.”

  Carella glanced at Kling, and immediately said, “What time was this?”

  “About a quarter to eleven,” the girl said.

  “What were you doing in the basement?”

  “My clothes,” the girl said, sounding surprised. “That’s where the washing machines are. I’m sorry, my name is Nora Simonov. I live here in the building.”

  “So long, you guys,” the patrolman called from the front door. “Excuse it, huh?”

  “Right, right,” Kling said.

  “I live on the fifth floor,” Nora said. “Apartment 5A.”

  “Tell us what happened, will you?” Carella said.

  “I was sitting by the machine, watching the clothes tumble—which is simply fascinating, you know,” she said, and rolled her eyes and flashed a quick, surprising smile, “when the door leading to the backyard opened. The door to the alley. You know the door I mean?”

  “Yes,” Carella said.

  “And this man came down the stairs. I don’t even think he saw me. The machines are sort of off to the side, you know. He went straight for the steps at the other end, the ones that go up to the street. There are two flights of steps. One goes to the lobby, the other goes to the street. He went up to the street.”

  “Was he anyone you recognized?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “From the building? Or the neighborhood?”

  “No. I’d never seen him before last night.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “Sure. He was about twenty-one, twenty-two years old, your height and weight, well, maybe a little bit shorter, five-ten or eleven. Brown hair.”

  Kling was already writing. “Notice the color of his eyes?” he said.

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “Was he white or black?”

  “White.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  “Dark trousers, high-topped sneakers, a poplin windbreaker. With blood on the sleeve and on the front.”

  “Which sleeve?”

  “The right one.”

  “Any hat?”

  “No.”

  “Was he carrying anything?”

  “Yes. A small red bag. It looked like one of those bags the airlines give you.”

  “Any scars, tattoos, marks?”

  “Well, I couldn’t say. He wasn’t that close. And he went by in pretty much of a hurry, considering.”

  “Considering what?” Carella asked.

  “His leg. He was dragging his right leg. I think he was hurt pretty badly.”

  “Would you recognize him if you saw him again?” Carella asked.

  “In a minute,” Nora said.

  What they had in mind, of course, was identification from a mug shot. What they had in mind was the possibility that the I.S. would come up with something positive on the fingerprints that had been sent downtown. What they all hoped was that maybe, just once, it would turn out to be a nice, easy one—the Identification Section would send them the record of a known criminal, and they would pick him up without a fuss, and parade him in a squad-room lineup, from which Nora Simonov would pick him out as the man she had seen in the basement at 10:45 the night before, with blood on his clothes.

  The I.S. reported that none of the fingerprints in their file matched the ones found in the apartment.

  So the detectives sighed, and figured it was going to be a tough one after all (they are all tough ones, after all, they groaned, awash in a sea of self-pity), and did exactly what Marshall Davies had suggested: th
ey sent out a bulletin to all of the city’s doctors, asking them to report any leg fractures or sprains suffered by a white man in his early twenties, five feet ten or eleven inches tall, weighing approximately 180 pounds, brown hair, last seen wearing dark trousers, high-topped sneakers, and a poplin windbreaker with bloodstains on the front and on the right sleeve.

  And, just to prove that cops can be as wrong as anyone else, it turned out to be a nice, easy one, after all.

  The call came from a physician in Riverhead at 4:37 that afternoon, just as Carella was ready to go home.

  “This is Dr. Mendelsohn,” he said. “I have your bulletin here, and I want to report treating a man who fits your description.”

  “Where are you located, Dr. Mendelsohn?” Carella asked.

  “On Dover Plains Avenue. In Riverhead. 3461 Dover Plains.”

  “When did you treat this man?”

  “Early this morning. I have early office hours on Monday. It’s my day at the hospital.”

  “What did you treat him for?”

  “A bad ankle sprain.”

  “No fracture?”

  “None. We X-rayed the leg here. It was quite swollen, and I suspected a fracture, of course, but it was merely a bad sprain. I taped it for him, and advised him to stay off it for a while.”

  “Did he give you his name?”

  “Yes. I have it right here.”

  “May I have it, sir?”

  “Ralph Corwin.”

  “Any address?”

  “894 Woodside.”

  “In Riverhead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Mendelsohn,” Carella said.

  “Not at all,” Mendelsohn said, and hung up.

  Carella pulled the Riverhead telephone directory from the top drawer of his desk, and quickly flipped to the C’s. He did not expect to find a listing for Ralph Corwin. A man would have to be a rank amateur to first burglarize an apartment without wearing gloves, then stab a woman to death, and then give his name when seeking treatment for an injury sustained in escaping from the murder apartment.

  Ralph Corwin was apparently a rank amateur.

  His name was in the phone book, and the address he’d given the doctor was as true as the day was long.

  They kicked in the door without warning, fanning into the room, guns drawn.

  The man on the bed was wearing only undershorts. His right ankle was taped. The bedsheets were soiled, and the stench of vomit in the close, hot room was overpowering.

  “Are you Ralph Corwin?” Carella asked.

  “Yes,” the man said. His face was drawn, the eyes squinched in pain.

  “Police officers,” Carella said.

  “What do you want?”

  “We want to ask you some questions. Get dressed, Corwin.”

  “There’s nothing to ask,” he said, and turned his head into the pillow. “I killed her.”

  3

  R alph Corwin made his confession in the presence of two detectives of the 87th Squad, a police stenographer, an assistant district attorney, and a lawyer appointed by the Legal Aid Society. The man from the D.A.’s office conducted the Q and A.

  Q: What is your name, please?

  A: Ralph Corwin.

  Q: Where do you live, Mr. Corwin?

  A: 894 Woodside Avenue. In Riverhead.

  Q: Will you relate to us, please, the events that took place on the night of December twelfth. That would be last night, Mr. Corwin, Sunday, December twelfth.

  A: Where do you want me to start?

  Q: Did you enter a building at 721 Silvermine Oval?

  A: I did.

  Q: How did you enter the building?

  A: First I went down the steps from the street, where the garbage cans were. I went in the basement, and through the basement and up the steps at the other end, into the backyard. Then I climbed up the fire escape.

  Q: What time was this?

  A: I went in the building at about ten o’clock.

  Q: Ten P . M .?

  A: Yes, ten P . M .

  Q: What did you do then?

  A: I went in an apartment.

  Q: Which apartment?

  A: Second-floor rear.

  Q: Why did you go into the apartment?

  A: To rip it off.

  Q: To burglarize it?

  A: Yes.

  Q: Had you ever been in this building before?

  A: No. I never done nothing like this in my life before. Never. I’m a junkie, that’s true, but I never stole nothing in my life before this. Nor hurt nobody, either. I wouldn’t have stole now except this girl I was living with left me, and I was desperate. She used to give me whatever bread I needed. But she left me. Friday. She just walked out.

  Q: Which girl is that?

  A: Do we have to drag her in? She’s got nothing to do with it. She never done me no harm, I got no hard feelings toward her, even though she walked out. She was always good to me. I don’t want to drag her name in this.

  Q: You say you had never been in this building before?

  A: Never.

  Q: Why did you pick this particular apartment to enter?

  A: It was the first one I saw without no lights inside. I figured there was nobody home.

  Q: How did you get into the apartment?

  A: The kitchen window was open a tiny crack. I squeezed my fingers under the bottom of it, and opened it all the way.

  Q: Were you wearing gloves?

  A: No.

  Q: Why not?

  A: I don’t have no gloves. Gloves cost money. I’m a junkie.

  Q: Weren’t you afraid of leaving fingerprints?

  A: I figured that was crap. For the movies, you know? For television. Anyway, I don’t have no gloves, so what difference does it make?

  Q: What did you do after you opened the window?

  A: I stepped in the sink, and then down to the floor.

  Q: Then what?

  A: I had this little flashlight. So I used it to find my way across the kitchen to the dining room.

  Q: Would you look at this photograph, please?

  A: Yeah?

  Q: Is this the kitchen you were in?

  A: I don’t know. It was dark. I guess it could be. I don’t know.

  Q: What did you do in the dining room?

  A: I found where they kept the silverware, and I emptied the drawer and put the stuff in this airlines bag I had with me. I had to go to Chicago last month because my father died, so I went by plane, and I bought this little airlines bag. My girlfriend paid for me to fly out there. She was a great girl, I wish I could figure why she left. I wouldn’t be in this trouble now, if she’d stayed, you know that? I never stole nothing in my life, nothing, I swear to God. And I never hurt nobody. I don’t know what got into me. I must’ve been scared out of my wits. That’s the only thing I can figure.

  Q: Where did you go when you left the dining room?

  A: I was looking for the bedroom.

  Q: Was the flashlight on?

  A: Yeah. It’s just this little flashlight. A penlight is what they call them. A tiny little thing, you know? So you can have some light.

  Q: Why were you looking for the bedroom?

  A: I figured that’s where people leave watches and rings, stuff like that. I was going to take whatever jewelry I could find and then get out. I’m not a pro, I was just hung up real bad and needed some bread to tide me over.

  Q: Did you find the bedroom?

  A: I found it.

  Q: What happened?

  A: There was a lady in bed. This was only like close to ten-thirty, you don’t expect nobody to be asleep so early, you know what I mean? I thought the apartment was empty.

  Q: But there was a woman in bed.

  A: Yeah. She turned on the light the minute I stepped in the room.

  Q: What did you do?

  A: I had a knife in my pocket. I pulled it out.

  Q: Why?

  A: To scare her.

  Q: Would you look at
this knife, please?

  A: Yeah, it’s mine.

  Q: This is the knife you took from your pocket?

  A: Yeah. Yes.

  Q: Did the woman say anything to you?

  A: Yeah, it was almost comical. I mean, when I think back on it, it was comical, though at the time I was very scared. But it was like a movie, you know? Just like a movie. She looks at me and she says “What are you doing here?” Which is funny, don’t you think? I mean, what did she think I was doing there?

  Q: Did you say anything to her?

  A: I told her to keep quiet, that I wasn’t going to hurt her.

  Q: Then what?

  A: She got out of bed. Not all the way, she just threw the covers back, and swung her legs over the side, you know? Sitting, you know? I didn’t realize what was happening for a minute, and then I saw she was reaching for the phone. That’s got to be crazy, right? A guy is standing there in your bedroom with a knife in his hand, so she reaches for the phone.

  Q: What did you do?

  A: I grabbed her hand before she could get it. I pulled her off the bed, away from the phone, you know? And I told her again that nobody was going to hurt her, that I was getting out of there right away, to just please calm down.

  Q: You said that?

  A: What?

  Q: You asked her to calm down?

  A: I don’t know if those were the exact words, but I told her like to take it easy because I could see she was getting hysterical.

  Q: Would you look at this photograph, please? Is this the bedroom you were in?

  A: Yeah. There’s the night table with the phone on it, and there’s the window I went out. That’s the room.

  Q: What happened next?

  A: She started to scream.

  Q: What did you do when she screamed?

  A: I told her to stop. I was beginning to panic by now. I mean, she was really yelling.

  Q: Did she stop?

  A: No.

  Q: What did you do?

  A: I stabbed her.

  Q: Where did you stab her?

  A: I don’t know. It was a reflex. She was yelling, I was afraid the whole building would come down. I just . . . I just stuck the knife in her. I was very scared.