by Ed McBain
No, it's not me. No. I'm sorry, but no.
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This is me.
This gun is me.
Hard and cold and wet and hot in my hand.
Five minutes to midnight.
Coming out in your starched white uniform soon, never change before you go home, do you? March right out in your whites, Madam Nurse, his first and foremost choice, the pattern for all the rest, how dumb, how essentially stupidly dumbl Slender, beautiful, your basic American blonde, the man has a decided weakness for blondes, had. But not quite so beautiful now, are you, Miss Nightingale? And blonde only with a little help from your friends, isn't that correct? Little help from Miss Clairol, hmm? Little help from me, too, tonight, little help from Miss Cobra here in my pocket, little spit from Miss Cobra, empty it in you! Bloody the image of yourself as nurse, confirm my image as whatever you wish me to be, whatever you've constructed in your mind as the true and only image of me, again all in black tonight, hidden in mourning, shrouded in black, only my face showing white in the dark, who am I, tell me!
Red light over the door across the street.
Employees' entrance.
Sign says employees' entrance.
Three minutes to midnight.
Door opening now.
Nurses spilling out. Orderlies. Interns. Scattering on the night. Some in uniform, some in street clothes. Dispersing. But where are you, Madam Nurse? You mustn't keep us waiting, you know. Miss Cobra and I become extremely irritated when . . .
There!
Coming out now. Saying goodnight to a man wearing a blue jacket over his white hospital pants. Calling something to him. See you tomorrow, voice carrying on the still night air, oh, no, you won't see anyone tomorrow. Turning away now. Smiling. Moving left toward the subway kiosk on the next corner. Pair of nurses ahead of her. Now
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Step out. Fast. Cross the street. Gun out. Move in. Fast. Behind her. Here! Here! Here! Here! Here! Here! Someone screaming. Run. Run!
11
She could not have appeared more fearsome had she ridden into the squadroom on a broomstick. Her blonde hair a tangled mare's nest, blue eyes flashing, lips curled back over teeth on the biting edge of anger, she flung open the gate in the slatted rail divider and strode directly to where Brown and Carella were sitting at his desk.
"Okay, let's hear it!" she said.
Both detectives blinked. Since they'd just been looking over the report that had arrived from Ballistics not five minutes earlier, they could have told her that they now had a positive match on the .22-caliber bullets that had slain her mother last night. But she did not appear in the mood to hear that the same gun had also killed her father and stepmother. They had seen this look on indignant citizens before, but rarely quite so close to flash point. Fists clenched, it seemed as if Betsy Schumacher would at any moment strike out at either or both of the detectives. They wondered what they had done. She told them.
"Why didn't you call me?"
"We didn't have your number in Vermont," Carella said. "Your sister said she would ..."
"Never mind my sisterl It was your responsibility to inform me that my mother was dead!"
Actually, it hadn't been their responsibility at all. Nothing in the law or in any of the instructional guides required an
investigating detective to notify the family of a murder victim. Moreover, in this day and age police notification was often a redundancy; in most cases, the family had already been informed by television. In a manual prepared by a former chief of detectives, family and friends ranked only sixth in importance on his suggested list of procedures:
1) Start worksheet . . .
2) Determine personnel needs . . .
3) Assign personnel to clerical duties . . .
4) Arrange for additional telephone lines . . .
5) Carefully question all witnesses and suspects.
6) Interview family and friends of the deceased for background information.
Only after rounding up all the usual suspects was it considered necessary to talk to the family and friends. And then only to gather background information. But nowhere did the chief, or anyone else, insist that a detective had to call the family first, even if - in working practice - this often proved to be the case. Last night, they had notified Lois Stein at once, and had in fact asked her for Betsy's number in Vermont. She'd told them she would call her sister personally. Apparently she had. Because here was Betsy now, fuming and ranting and threatening to have them brought up on charges or hanged by their thumbs in Scotland Yard, whichever punishment most fitted their heinous crime. Carella was thinking that the true heinous crime was yet another murder, and he was wondering if the lady might not be protesting a bit too much about an imaginary oversight. Brown had already carried this a step further: he was wondering if Betsy hadn't boxed her own mother. Done the round-trip number from Vermont to here and back again. So long, Mama.
"We're very sorry, Miss Schumacher," he said, sounding genuinely sorry, "but it was very late when we finally got to your sister ..."
"So many things to do at the scene . . ." Carella said.
"And we did ask her for your number, truly."
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"She called me at four in the morning," Betsy said.
"Which was just a bit after we left her," Brown said.
Letting her know that these hardworking underpaid minions of the law had been on the job all night long, doing their crime-scene canvass, typing up re ...
"It was still your responsibility," Betsy said petulantly, but she was beginning to soften. "Lois told me Mother was shot around midnight, and I didn't hear till..."
"Yes, according to the witnesses, that's when . . ."
"You mean there are witnesses?" Betsy said, surprised.
"Yes, two of them."
"People who saw the shooting?"
"Well, heard it, actually," Carella said. "Two nurses heading down the steps to the subway. They turned when they heard the shots, saw the killer running off."
"Then you have a description."
"Not exactly. They saw a person. But they couldn't tell us what that person looked like except that he ..."
"Or she," Brown said.
"Or she," Carella repeated, nodding, "was dressed entirely in black."
"Then you don't really know ..."
"No, Miss Schumacher, we don't," Carella said. "Not yet."
"Uh-huh, not yet," she said. "When do you think you will know?"
"We're doing our ..."
"This is the fourth one, for Christ's sake!"
"Yes, we . . ."
"It is the same person, isn't it? Who killed Daddy and now . . ."
"We have good reason to believe it's the same person, yes."
"I don't give a damn about his bimbos, I wish someone had killed them both a long time ago. But if you want my opinion ..."
Which they truly didn't.
"... this person is after the whole family. The bimbos were a smoke screen ..."
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Which theory they had considered, too. And rejected.
". . .to hide the real targets, who were my mother and father. And that means maybe Lois and I are next." She hesitated for just an instant and then said, "While you do nothing."
"We're doing all we can," Carella said.
"No, I don't think so. Not if four people can get killed in the space of two weeks, three weeks, whatever the hell it is."
"It's exactly two weeks today," Brown said.
"So, sure, that's doing something. That's doing nothing is what it's doing. Where the hell were you last night when my mother was getting killed?"
The detectives said nothing.
"You can see there's a goddamn pattern, can't you?"
"What pattern do you see, Miss Schumacher?" Carella asked patiently.
"I see Daddy's bimbo getting killed, and then Daddy himself. So we'll think this is something that has to do exclusively with him and her. But then the other bim
bo gets killed..."
"By the other bimbo ..."
"Mrs Schumacher, his beloved wife," she said mockingly. "Margaret, the very first bimbo. Come September, they'd have been married for two years. But isn't the irony wonderful? By last June - even before the wedding meats were cold - he'd already found himself another girlfriend. The point is. . ."
No, your timing is off, Brown thought.
". . . this person, whoever he is, first kills the new bimbo and then my father ..."
He didn't start with the Brauer girl till this year.
"... in an attempt to make it seem as if there's a link between them ..."
"Well, there was a link," Carella said. "Your father was having an ..."
"I know what he was doing, I can read the papers, thank you. My point is the killer goes after Margaret next, so we'll think he's after all my father's little dollies when instead what he's going after is the whole damn Schumacher family. It doesn't take a genius to recognize that. I thought you were
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supposed to be policemen. Who would you like to see killed next? My sister? Me?"
"You've got that wrong, by the way," Brown said.
"Oh, have I?" she said, turning to him. "Then how do you see it? The first three murders were ..."
"I mean about when he started with the Brauer girl."
"I don't know when he started with her, whatever that means, but I know he was intimately involved with her last June."
"Couldn't have been."
"I'm telling you ..."
"Miss, we've got a letter from your father saying he met her on New Year's Day ..."
"Her letter is dated last June."
Both detectives looked at her.
"Whose letter?" Carella said.
"Well, who do you think? The woman he was keeping, the woman who was all over the newspapers, Little Suzie Sunshine."
"You have a letter Susan Brauer wrote to your father?"
"Yes."
"How'd you get it?"
"I found it."
"Where?"
"In Vermont."
"In the house your father gave you?"
"Not the house, the garage. A shoe box in the garage. I was cleaning out the garage when I moved in, and I..."
"Just that one letter in the box?"
"Yes."
"What kind of letter?" Brown asked.
"Hi!" she said, and put her hands alongside her face, and spread her fingers like fans. Blue eyes wide, smiling like Shirley Temple, she chirped in a tiny little voice, "I sure would love to suck your cock, baby!" and then snapped her hands shut and said in the same little voice, "Bye"
Brown nodded.
"That kind of letter," she said.
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"And you found this when?" Carella asked.
"Last July. When I moved into the house up there."
"Can't be," Brown said again. "Him and Susan . . ."
"Don't tell me what can't be!" Betsy said. "I know damn well when it was! It was the most important day of my life!"
"We have his letters to her," Carella said, "all dated this year ..."
". . . and hers to him," Brown said.
"Well, I found that letter a year ago," Betsy insisted, "and it's dated Friday, June thirtieth."
"Has to be this year," Brown said.
"Are you telling me I don't know when I ... look, where's a calendar?"
Carella looked at Brown, stifled a sigh, and reached into his desk drawer. He took out his appointment book, flipped through the pages till he came to the calendar for June of this year, glanced at it briefly, looked up, and said, "The thirtieth fell on a Saturday."
"See what you got for last year," Brown said softly.
At the back of the book, facing a map showing time zones and postal area codes for the entire United States, Carella found three reduced calendars printed on the same page, the current calendar flanked above and below by calendars for the preceding year and the one following. Squinting at the smaller numerals, he studied last year's calendar, looked up, and said to Brown, "She's right, June thirtieth fell on a Friday."
Brown nodded.
"You still got that letter?" he asked.
Friday, June 30 Hi!
I like this game. I'm only sorry you didn't think of it sooner. But the next time I see you, you'll have to explain the rules again. Am I allowed to write whatever comes into my mind? Oh dear, I'll be so naughty, you won't be able to stand it.
It's raining today. Want to go splash in the
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rain with me? Want me to play with you in the rain?
You always ask me what I'm wearing. Right now I have on a push-up black lace bra, cut so low it exposes my nipples. Black silk stockings, held up by a garter belt. Black crotch-less panties. Black spiked heels. These silk stockings feel so smooth. I think you'd like to run your hand over them, run your hand up along my thigh until you reach the rim of the hose. Maybe then you'd like to move your hand over to my moist, eager cunt. My legs are spread so wide for you. But maybe, since you know I'm ready and aching for you, you'd just like to slide your cock inside me and start fucking me right this minute.
Do you think of me when you're fucking your wife?
I'm getting so hot sitting here, thinking of you and your big hard cock. Why aren't you here with me? What am I supposed to do without you here? Maybe I'11 just put my own hand between my legs, do you think I should do that? Start rubbing my middle finger against my clitoris? Yes, that's what I'll do, I think that's just what I'll do. Just touch myself and think of you and think of your cock in my mouth. Close my eyes and see that cock in my mouth, feel it in my cunt, hear you say all those things to me, oh God I wish it was your mouth down here between my legs, wish it was your tongue licking me, licking me, licking me, this can't be me talking. I would never say to you that thinking of you makes my breasts swell and grow and ache with desire, that thinking of you fucking me makes my cunt drool a river. I love the way you caress my breasts, it makes them feel red hot with desire. My wet cunt is more than ready for you, come to me, come slip your cock inside me. Fuck me real slow at first — it's so sexy to feel a cock almost pull all the way out, and then go in again as deep as it can — faster and faster, fuck me, come fuck me, I love it, I love it, oh Jesus I'm coming and you're not even here.
What an evil man you are to make me do such things.
Stop by and I'll give you a new toy. Bye!
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The same typewriter had been used on this letter as on the letters they'd found in Arthur Schumacher's safe-deposit box; the typeface was unmistakably identical. Like the seventeen other letters, this one began with first the typewritten day of the week ...
Friday.
Then the month . . .
June.
And then the date in numerals.
30.
June thirtieth last year had fallen on a Friday. A call to the morning newspaper's morgue confirmed that it had been raining that day. In all of the letters, there was no year following the date. There was only Wednesday, June 28, and Friday, June 30, and Tuesday, July 4, and Saturday, July 15, and so on - eighteen letters in all, including the one Betsy had found at the bottom of an otherwise empty shoe box in a dusty garage in Vermont. All of the dates corresponded to last year's calendar; there was no doubt now as to when they'd been written.
But if anyone at all ...
Well, all the indications . . .
But still . . .
If any of the master sleuths on the 87th Squad had taken the trouble to check a calendar against the dates on the letters they'd found, when they found them . . .
Well, the letters seemed absolutely related to ...
Then they'd have realized at once that none of the dates on the letters in Schumacher's box corresponded to the days in this year's calender.
Still, it was easy to see how . . .
No, damn it, they should have checked.
"We should have checked," Brown said.
Which was true.
Nonetheless, if Arthur Schumacher had not met Susan
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Brauer until January of this year, then she could not have written those letters dated in June and July of last year.
Which was elementary.
In which case, who had written them?
None of them were signed. Each began with the salutation "Hi!" and ended with the complementary close "Bye!" The contents were similar and so was the style - if such it could be called. Whoever had written any one of those letters had written all of them.
"What do you think she means here?" Brown asked.
"Where?" Carella said.
"Here. About the toy."
"I don't know."
Brown looked at him.
"What is it?" Carella said.
"I don't know. Something just seems to be ringing some kind of bell."
"Are you talking about the toy?"
"I don't know if it's the toy."
"Then ..."
"Just something," Brown said.
"Stop by and I'll give you a new toy," Carella said, prompting him.
Both men looked at each other. Both men shrugged.
"Some kind of sex toy?" Carella said.
"Could be, but..."
"Or maybe she meant a three-way."
"Uh-huh."
"A new toy you know?"
"Uh-huh."
"Another girl. A three-way. Stop by and I'll give you a new toy."
"Uh-huh," Brown said. "But doesn't that ring some kind of bell with you?"
"No. The toy, you mean?"
"The new toy. Didn't somebody . . . wasn't there something about new toys?"
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"No, I don't. . ." "About getting a new toy ..." "No ..."
". . .or buying a new toy ... or ... some kind of shipment of toys ..." "Oh God, the dog!" Carella said.
The place used to be called Wally's Soul, and it still served soul food, but the owner had renamed it the Viva Mandela Deli shortly after the South African leader's triumphant visit to the city. At seven o'clock that Tuesday night, it was fairly crowded. Bent was eating country fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans cooked with fatback and hot buttered biscuits. Wade was eating fried chicken with mashed rutabaga, fried okra, and hot buttered corn bread. They were not here primarily to eat, but every cop in this city knew you grabbed a bite whenever you could because you never knew when the shit might hit the fan.