Clancy nodded, frowning at the damaged door, thinking. His head came up. “Stan, see if there’s any powder of any sort around, something we can use to check for fingerprints. There’s no sense in dragging the technical boys up here from downtown for nothing …”
“There’s some talcum powder on his dresser, Lieutenant,” Kaproski offered. “I’ll go get it.”
Clancy unhooked the chain-guard and let it dangle; his hand turned the doorknob, swinging the door inward. A porch screen door beyond testified to the anxiety of the potential intruder; it had been jerked loose from its cheap latch and swung away as Clancy opened the kitchen door.
“They must be a bunch of deaf people around here,” Stanton commented, looking at the damage. “Whoever did this must have made a racket you should of been able to hear over in Hoboken.”
“Yeah.” Clancy studied the scarred surface of the kitchen door; deep gouges in the wooden panel above and below the lock indicated the amateurishness of the attempt at housebreaking. Kaproski extended a can of talcum over his shoulder; Clancy accepted it without comment and squatted down. He deftly sprinkled the powder over the outside surface of the knob and puffed gently. The powder drifted, sliding away except in one spot; Clancy bent closer, examining it carefully, and then straightened up. He shook his head.
“No dice. It’s a smudge, probably from some grease on his gloves.” He walked out to the rear areaway and repeated his experiment on the handle of the broken screen door; the results were no better. He came back into the kitchen, the talcum still held in one hand, studied the marred wood some more, and then closed the door and slipped the chain-guard back into place. “Let’s take a look at the front. It was too dark to notice anything when we first came in.”
“Plus we didn’t look,” Kaproski added.
The front door exhibited a series of deep scratches in the neighborhood of the lock, but there was no indication that entry had been accomplished. Clancy looked at the knob, remembered his having turned it, and shook his head at his own stupidity.
“Well,” he said, closing the door behind him, “whoever it was didn’t get in, so let’s get back to work.”
The men separated again; Clancy returned to the letters in the bookshelves, opening them and reading them. Most of them were personal and had no bearing on photography or on anything else in which Clancy was interested. The balance were ads of no particular bearing on the case. Kaproski came in while Clancy was reaching for another bunch; he was carrying a small camera.
“Hey, Lieutenant,” he said. “I found this in his top dresser drawer. I never seen one like it. Looks like it’s all lens.”
“Foreign,” Clancy said, taking it and examining it with interest. “Japanese.” He turned it over; the back swung free, disclosing an empty film spool. He clicked the panel back into place and turned the camera over. His eyes narrowed as he studied the dimensions. “It’s just about the right size, though …”
“For what, Lieutenant?”
“To fit a taxicab,” Clancy said cryptically. He was slipping the camera into his pocket when Stanton called.
“Hey, Lieutenant. The bathroom’s locked.”
Clancy came swiftly. “Anyone inside?”
“I don’t think so. Looks like the light’s out.”
Clancy rapped on the door authoritatively. “This is the police,” he said clearly. “If there’s anyone in there, open the door and come out. And don’t get cute!”
There was silence. Clancy slipped a key from his pocket into the lock and swung the door back. The room was empty. He turned on the light and looked around.
A wooden shelf covered the bathtub along one wall; on it stood a photo-enlarger, several development tanks, and a series of empty molded rubber development trays. Over the tub, slung from the shower-curtain rod, was a cord with a dozen or so of empty clips.
“Hey, I know what that stuff is,” Kaproski said, indicating the equipment. “That’s for making pictures. They call it a darkroom.”
“Yeah,” Clancy said absently. He looked up. “Kap, you go back to searching the bedroom. Stan, you take the living room and those letters I was going through. I’ll take this.”
The two men left. Clancy began with the medicine chest; the shelves were lined with bottles, some of them toiletries, but others marked as containing developers and fixers. There was only one small box that might hold negatives or prints and Clancy opened it; he poured the powder it held into the sink and peered inside. It was empty. He shut the medicine chest and gave his attention to the toilet. He lifted the seat and then put it down, removed the cover of the flush-box and stared within, turned the cover over for inspection, and then replaced it. He lifted the enlarger and pans away from the tub, setting them on the floor, and removed the boards that served as their support; the tub beneath was empty.
The clothes hamper came next. He turned it upside down, dumping the contents on the floor, and set the empty hamper back on its feet. The dirty shirts, socks, and underwear were examined piece by piece and then laid aside. Nothing.
Clancy squatted on his heels beside the hamper, frowning blankly at the bamboo lattice-work. It suddenly seemed to him to be taller from the outside than from the inside; he got to his feet, lifted the hinged top back, and reached inside. The wicker floor resisted his straining fingers for a moment and then sprang loose. Beneath it, lying on the plain plywood floor of the hamper, was a package of photographs with a negative fastened to it with a paper clip. Clancy nodded to himself with profound satisfaction and withdrew the package from its cavity.
There were six positives, all the same; he held the negative to the light and nodded his head. It was undoubtedly the source of the six prints. He walked to the doorway, sticking his head out.
“Kap! Stan!”
The two men hurried in, noticing the pile of dirty clothing on the floor with raised eyebrows. Clancy leaned back against the sink, holding up the package of pictures.
“I think these are probably what we were looking for,” he said. He sounded a bit pleased with himself. “On the other hand, I could be wrong. Kap, I want you to stick around and keep shaking the place down. I want to see every photograph and every negative in the place.” He turned to Stanton. “You come back with me, Stan. One man’s enough for this job now.”
“Hey, Lieutenant,” Kaproski said, holding out his hand. “Let’s see the pictures.”
Clancy passed them over. Stanton moved back of Kaproski, examining them over his shoulder. Kaproski fanned them out, discovered they were all the same, and shoved them together again, concentrating on the top one. He whistled. “Why, the dirty old goat! What kind of a thing is that to be doing to an innocent young girl?”
Clancy reached over, retrieving the package. “I doubt if she was all that innocent,” he said dryly. “Anyway, that’s the least of his crimes. If I’m not mistaken, he’s the one who shot Caper Connelly. And with good reason, for my money.” He slipped the package into his pocket. “O.K., Kap; do a good job.”
“Sure, Lieutenant. How about lunch?”
Clancy glanced at his wristwatch. “All right, but make it fast.” He reached into his pocket and brought out his ring of master keys, handing them over.
Kaproski followed them to the door. “And Lieutenant, you want any kind of pictures, or just the kind like you found?”
“Bring them all,” Clancy said. “So far all we’ve got is a theory, but I think it’s a pretty good one. I’ll bet a week’s pay this is our man, but bring them all anyway.”
“Yeah,” Stanton said, and grinned. “Any like that one we don’t use, we can always sell.”
Thursday–2:15 P.M.
Clancy picked up the ringing phone to hear a muffled voice on the line. He bent forward, straining to hear, pressing the receiver tighter against his ear. “What?”
“I said, this is Kaproski, Lieutenant.” The voice was low and almost unintelligible.
“Well, speak up!” Clancy barked.
“I can�
��t, Lieutenant. I’m calling from the phone in the bedroom—with my head practically under the covers.” Kaproski hastened to explain before Clancy got the idea he had been investigating Caper Connelly’s liquor supply. “They’s somebody at the front door, Lieutenant. Scratching around at the lock …”
“Hold it!” Clancy cupped the receiver with the palm of his hand and raised his voice. “Stan!” Stanton stuck his head in the doorway; Clancy spoke rapidly. “Stan, tell the desk to get hold of the patrol car nearest to Caper Connelly’s apartment and get them over there right away. One man is to stay in the lobby downstairs and the other is to get up to the apartment in a hurry. Somebody’s back trying to break in again.” He hesitated for a fraction of a second. “And give them the description of that old guy in that picture. In case any tenant is leaving the building; we want to be sure and get the right man.”
Stanton nodded and disappeared on the run. Clancy uncupped the receiver. “Kap, I’m sending a squad car over there right away. They’ll cover the lobby and get a man up to the floor; they should be there in a few minutes. You just stay back and keep quiet. Don’t make any noise; I don’t want to scare him away. Do you understand?”
“I got you, Lieutenant.”
“And just on the offhand chance that he manages to make it inside, don’t take any chances with him. He could be armed with a twenty-two, probably with a silencer.”
Despite the need for quiet, Kaproski could not help but snort. “My God, Lieutenant! You couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn with a silenced twenty-two …”
“Tell that to Caper Connelly,” Clancy said coldly. “You just follow orders and don’t take any chances, hear?”
“O.K., Lieutenant.”
“It’s probably the old guy in those pictures we found,” Clancy said. “I feel sorry for the poor schnook; see to it he isn’t hurt if you can.” His voice tightened. “But see to it you don’t take any chances, either!”
“Right, Lieutenant. I better get back to the front room …”
There was a click of a telephone being disconnected. Clancy replaced the receiver and leaned back, staring at the silent instrument with a frown. Time never went as slowly as at a moment such as this, when he knew decisive action was being taken somewhere else, and he was playing no personal part in it. And when men under his command were accepting the danger of their assignments without complaint while he had to sit and wait to hear the results. He took a deep breath and tried to bring his thoughts back to the pile of work on his desk, but it was useless.
He reached two fingers into his pocket, bringing out a cigarette, lighting it with nervous fingers. And then swiveled his chair about, drawing in the welcome smoke shudderingly, staring out of the streaked window at the snow-filled areaway beyond.…
11
At three-thirty that afternoon at Kennedy International Airport a 707 pilot, attempting to abort a take-off, struck a melting patch of ice near the end of the runway. The huge metal monster, screaming mightily, veered from the concrete out of control, tore down a section of fence, and plowed madly along on the fuselage and one wing for a hundred more yards before coming to a shuddering halt locked in the mud that bordered the field. By some miracle the fuel tanks did not explode and no one was hurt in the accident.
But when the emergency chutes were rigged and the stewardesses started to get the dazed passengers to their feet and to the exits, one passenger remained who was impervious to the repeated instructions. He had died of a heart seizure undoubtedly caused by the fearful contemplation of the impending disaster.
When his body was finally removed, it was found that he had bitten his tongue in two.
Thursday–4:00 P.M.
They brought the chattering little man into the precinct handcuffed to Kaproski. The sergeant booked him on suspicion of murder and he was led away, still talking twelve to the dozen. Kaproski walked into Clancy’s office.
“Any trouble?” Clancy asked.
“Naw,” Kaproski said disdainfully. “He’s strictly an amateur. He fumbled with the door so long he started to make me nervous. I was about to go over and open it for him when one of the boys from the squad car come upstairs and collared him in the hallway.”
Stanton came into the room, grinning at Kaproski. He walked over and pretended to inspect him carefully. “No bullet holes?”
“That’s right,” Clancy said. “Did he have the twenty-two on him?”
“No,” Kaproski said, “but we don’t need it. And if we do, he says he has it home. He spilled everything in the squad car coming back, and they’re taking it all down inside right now.”
“What did he say?”
“Well,” Kaproski said, “he didn’t say too much about how come he got his picture took in the first place, but he don’t deny he knocked off Caper. He’s sort of proud of it, actually. That was him on the subway platform, all right. He says he set up a meet with Caper there—told Caper he was coming uptown on a local at that time for the pay-off. He picked a stop at a place and a time when there wouldn’t be many people around. Only he was hanging around in the street, waiting, and when Caper showed, he followed him down into the subway and stood back with a newspaper in front of his face.” Kaproski shrugged. “Anyways, by the time he gets through jabbering, we’ll have the whole story. He’s gabbing away a mile a minute, having the fun of his life.”
Clancy frowned a bit unhappily. “I hope he doesn’t gab himself right into the electric chair. I feel sorry for him, but that story about the pay-off … He may have set up the meet the way he said—and the subway isn’t a bad place for a meet—but one thing is certain: it wasn’t for the pay-off. Or at least Caper Connelly didn’t think so.”
Stanton stared at him. “Why not?”
“Because his pictures were still at Caper’s apartment,” Clancy explained calmly. “As a matter of fact, that’s why I was so positive he was the killer.”
“I don’t get you,” Kaproski said, puzzled.
“I don’t get the whole thing,” Stanton said, half-disgusted. “I still don’t know why you weren’t satisfied with the suicide thing in the first place, Lieutenant.”
“Look,” Clancy said patiently. “We all knew Caper Connelly—he was strictly no good. That cab of his was always a front for one chisel or another. Suddenly Caper gets hold of a brilliant idea—an idea he can work himself without needing any of the other boys in the rackets. He probably gets it one night when he picks up a fare he recognizes as having money and also a wife, who starts to use the back seat of his cab for a wrestling match. Bingo—a little bulb lights up in his head. He rigs his cab to take pictures without his passengers knowing about it. His idea is to blackmail those that can stand the price. And he puts up a glass partition, even, to make them feel more alone and less inhibited.” Clancy shook his head in pretended admiration. “Madison Avenue could have used a guy like that.”
“And?” Kaproski asked.
“And to his amazement the thing worked,” Clancy said. “He finds he’s stumbled into a gold mine.”
“So?” Stanton asked.
“So we get to the point of this lecture,” Clancy said evenly. “At that stage of the game, with everything going right, a man doesn’t jump off of a subway platform. Not a man like Caper Connelly, at any rate.” He raised a finger. “But, on the other hand, at that stage of the game it’s always possible that somebody feels strongly enough about being blackmailed to try and knock off the blackmailer.” He nodded his head. “And that, my friends, is just what happened.”
“I still don’t see how you were so sure it was this selfsame guy, Lieutenant,” Kaproski said. “According to the way you put it, Caper done the same thing to lots of people.”
“Sure he did,” Clancy said patiently. “And they paid off and Caper delivered the goods. He handed over the negative and the prints. All of them. He was an old hand. It’s only in the late-late movies that the bad guys keep bleeding the sucker with the same bait. In real life, blackmail would disappear i
n a hurry if anyone tried it.” He shrugged expressively. “The very fact that this character’s pictures were still there seemed to indicate that maybe he hadn’t paid off as yet.”
Stanton still didn’t seem satisfied. “And from all this you figured that Caper was shot?”
“Well,” Clancy said with a touch of sarcasm, “of course he could have had a heart attack and fallen in front of that subway train—assuming we could figure out why a hackie would be in the subway in the first place—but there are a couple of things against that theory. One, there are two reliable witnesses who say he didn’t fall; and two, I can get a dozen people to swear Caper didn’t have a heart.”
The banter left his voice. “Actually, it wasn’t a bad way for the old guy to handle it. With even a little bit of luck he might have gotten away with it. I’ll bet they haven’t done a P.M. on a subway jumper in twenty years. If then.” He frowned and shook his head in a worried manner. “I just hope the old guy doesn’t talk too much and talk himself into real trouble. Personally, I think he rates a medal.”
Kaproski grinned. “From the Fifty-second Precinct, at least,” he said. “I’m going to feel lost not having to go out every other month and put the arm on old Caper …”
“What the old man should have done was arrange to knock Caper off in traffic,” Stanton said. “That would have made more sense. All you’d have looked for then, Lieutenant, would have been a bouquet of flowers to send to his funeral.”
“They all get cute,” Clancy said, and added fervently, “Thank God!”
Garcia stuck his head in the doorway, saw the conclave, hesitated a moment, and then joined it. His presence crowded the small room to capacity, and a little bit more. Clancy noted the red-rimmed eyes and weary face. Garcia fought down a yawn, rubbing his face. “I’m on my way home for some shut-eye, Lieutenant.”
“Did you pick up those two boys?”
“Yes, sir.” Garcia nodded. “They’re downstairs with their pal. I see you’ve got a whole new bunch of fresh customers down there. Busy day?”
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