Killer’s Wedge (87th Precinct), page 7
“It isn’t good,” Hawes said. “He needs a doctor.”
“How can I get a doctor?”
“Talk to her.”
“What good will that do?”
“For Christ’s sake, you’re in command here!”
“Am I?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Virginia Dodge has pounded a wedge into my command, Cotton, and split it wide open. As long as she sits there with her wedge—that damn bottle of soup—I can’t do a thing. Do you want me to kill everyone in this room? Is that what you want?”
“I want you to get a doctor for a man who’s been shot,” Hawes answered.
“No doctor!” Virginia called across the room. “Forget it. No doctor!”
“Does that answer you?” Byrnes wanted to know.
“It answers me,” Hawes said.
“Don’t be a hero, Cotton. There’re more lives in this than your own.”
“I’m not particularly dense, Pete,” Hawes said. “But what guarantee do we have that she won’t fling that bottle when Steve arrives anyway? And even if she doesn’t, what gives us the goddam right to sacrifice Steve Carella on our own petty selfish altars?”
“Would it be better to sacrifice every man in this room on Steve’s altar?”
“Stop that talking over there,” Virginia said. “Get on the other side of the room, Lieutenant! You, Shorty, over here! And you get in the corner, redhead.”
The men split up. Angelica Gomez watched them with an amused smile on her face. She rose then, her skirt sliding back over a ripe thigh as she did. Swiveling hip against hip socket, she walked over to where Virginia Dodge sat chastely with her gun and her bottle of nitroglycerin. Hawes watched them. He watched partially because he was mad as hell at the Skipper and he wanted to figure out a way of putting Virginia Dodge out of commission. But he watched, too, because the Puerto Rican girl was the most delicious-looking female he had seen in a dog’s age.
In his own mind, he didn’t know whether Angelica’s buttocks interested him more than did the bottle of nitro on the desk. As he toyed with various plans for the bottle of nitro, he also toyed with various fantasies concerning the blond’s explosiveness, and as he fantasized he found that Angelica Gomez was more and more delightful to watch. The girl moved with contradictory economy and fluidity, slender ankle cowing into shapely calf and knee, hip grinding, flat simplicity of belly, firm rounded thrust of breast, sweeping curve of throat and jaw, aristocratic tilt of nose. She seemed absolutely at home within the specified confines of her body. It was a distinct pleasure to watch her. She was perhaps the most unself-conscious female he had ever met. At the same time, he reminded himself, she had slit a man’s throat. A nice girl.
“Hey, ees that really a bom’?” Angelica asked Virginia.
“Sit down and don’t bother me,” Virginia answered.
“Don’t be so touchy. I only ask a question.”
“It’s a bottle of nitroglycerin, yes,” Virginia said.
“You gon’ essplode it?”
“If I have any trouble, yes.”
“Why?”
“Oh, shut up. Stop asking stupid questions.”
“You got a gun, too, hah?”
“I’ve got two guns,” Virginia said. “One in my hand, and another in my coat pocket. And a desk drawer full of them right here.” She indicated the drawer to which she had earlier added Willis’s gun.
“You minn business, I guess, hah?”
“I mean business.”
“Hey, listen. Why you don’ let me go, hah?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why you don’t let me walk out of here? You run the place, no? You hear the cop before, don’t you? He say you put a wedge here, no? Okay. I walk out. Okay?”
“You stay put, sweetie,” Virginia said.
“Por qué? What for?”
“Because if you walk out of here, you talk. And if you talk to the wrong person, all my careful planning is shot to hell.”
“Who I’m gon’ talk to, hah? I’m gon’ talk to nobody. I’m gon’ get the hell out the city. Go back Puerto Rico maybe. Take a plane. Hell, I slit a man’s throat, you hear? All thees snot-nose kids, they be after me now. I wake up dead one morning, no? So come on, Carmen, let me go.”
“You stay,” Virginia said.
“Carmen, don’ be…”
“You stay!”
“Suppose I walk out, hah? Suppose I jus’ do that?”
“You get what the cop got.”
“Argh, you jus’ mean,” Angelica said, and she walked back to her chair and crossed her legs. She saw Hawes’s eyes on her, smiled at him, and then immediately pulled her skirt lower.
Hawes was not really studying her legs. Hawes had just had an idea. The idea was a two-parter, and the first part of the idea— if the plan was to be at all successful—had to be executed in the vicinity where the Puerto Rican girl was sitting. The idea had as its core the functioning of two mechanical appliances, one of which Hawes was reasonably certain would work immediately, the other of which he thought might take quite some time to work if it worked at all. The idea seemed stunning in concept to Hawes and, fascinated with it, he had stared captured into space and the focus of his stare had seemed to be Angelica’s legs.
Now, taking advantage of the girl’s presence near the first of the appliances, realizing that Virginia Dodge had to be diverted before he could execute the first part of his plan, he ambled over to where Angelica sat and took a package of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.
“Smoke?” he said.
Angelica took the proffered cigarette. “Muchas gracias,” she said. She looked up into Hawes’s face as he lighted the cigarette for her. “You like the legs, hah, cop?” she said.
“Yeah, they’re good legs,” Hawes agreed.
“They dam’ good legs, you bet,” Angelica said. “You don’ see legs like thees too much. Muy bueno, my legs.”
“Muy,” Hawes agreed.
Flatly, emotionlessly, Angelica Gomez said, “How you like to see the res’ of me?”
If the phone rings, Hawes thought, Virginia will pick it up. She’s listening in on conversations now, and she sure as hell won’t let one get by her, not with the possibility that it might be Steve calling. And if her attention is diverted by a phone call, that’d be all the time I’d need to do what I have to do, to get this thing rolling so that the big chance can be prepared for later on. Assuming she acts impulsively, the way people will when they’re…well, we’re assuming a lot. Still, it’s a chance. So come on, telephone, ring!
“I ask you a question,” Angelica said.
“What was the question?”
“How you like to see the res’ of me?”
“It might be nice,” Hawes said.
His eyes were glued to the telephone. It seemed to him that during the course of the day, the telephone usually rang with malicious insistence every thirty seconds. Someone was always calling in to report a mugging or a beating or a knifing or a robbery or a burglary or any one of a thousand offenses committed daily in the 87th. So why didn’t it ring now? Who had declared the holiday on crime? We can’t stand a holiday right now—not with Steve waiting to walk into a booby trap, not with Miscolo bleeding from a hole the size of my head, not with that bitch sitting with her bottle of nitro and her neat little .38.
“It be dam’ nice,” Angelica said, “an’ tha’s no bull. You see my bosom?”
“I see it.”
Come on, phone! He could hear Angelica’s words and they drummed in his ears, but his ears were straining for another sound, the shrill sound of the telephone, and the squadroom seemed to be an empty vacuum waiting only for that single sound.
“Iss my real bosom,” she said. “No bra. I got no bra on. You believe it?”
“I believe it.”
“I show you.”
“You don’t have to. I believe it.”
“So how ‘bout it?”
“How about what?”
“You talk to the others, you let me go. Then you come see me later, hah?”
Hawes shook his head. “No dice.”
“Why not? Angelica some piece,” Angelica said.
Hawes nodded. “Angelica some piece,” he agreed.
“So?”
“Number one. You see that lady sitting over there?” “Sí.”
“She’s not letting anyone out of here, some piece or not. Understand?”
“Sí. I mean when she iss gone.”
“If she is ever gone,” Hawes said. “And then I couldn’t let you go anyway because that man standing over there near the bulletin board is the lieutenant in charge of this squad. And if I let you go, he might fire me or send me to prison—or even shoot me.”
Angelica nodded. “It be worth it,” she said. “Believe me. Angelica some stuff, believe me.”
“I believe you,” Hawes said.
He did not want to leave the girl because he had to be in her vicinity when the telephone rang, if it rang, wouldn’t the damn thing ever ring? At the same time, he sensed that their conversation had reached a dead end, had come as far as it could possibly go. Stalling for time, he asked a timeless question.
“How’d you get to be a hooker, Angelica?”
“I no’ hooker,” she said. “Really.”
“Now, Angelica,” he said chidingly.
“Well, sometimes,” she said. “But only to buy pretty clothes. I dress pretty, no?”
“Yes. Oh, yes.”
“Listen, you come see me, hah? We make it.”
“Honey,” he said, “where you’re going, they don’t make anything but license plates.”
“What?” she said, and the telephone rang.
The sound startled Hawes. He almost turned automatically to reach for the wall, and then he remembered that he had to wait until Virginia picked up the phone. He saw Byrnes start across toward the instrument on the desk nearest him. He saw Byrnes waiting for Virginia’s nod before he picked up the receiver.
The phone kept shrilling into the squadroom.
Virginia shifted the gun to her left hand. With her right hand, she picked up the receiver and nodded toward Byrnes. Byrnes lifted his phone.
“87th Squad, Lieutenant Byrnes.”
“Well, well, how come they’ve got the big cheese answering telephones?” the voice said.
Hawes edged toward the wall, backing toward it. Virginia Dodge was still partially facing him, so that he could not raise his hand. Then, slowly, she swiveled in the chair so that her back was to him. Swiftly, Hawes lifted his hand.
“Who is this?” Byrnes asked into the mouthpiece.
“This is Sam Grossman at the lab. Who the hell did you think it was?”
The thermostat was secured tightly to the wall. Hawes grasped it in one hand, and with a quick snap of his wrist raised the setting to its outermost reading.
On one of the mildest days in October, the temperature in the squadroom was now set for ninety-eight degrees.
Sam Grossman was a detective, and a lieutenant, and a very thorough man. A less thorough man in charge of a police laboratory might have allowed his call to wait until the morning. It was, after all, three minutes to six, and Grossman did have a family waiting at home to begin dinner. But Sam Grossman believed in laboratory work, and he believed in crime detection, and he believed that one went hand in hand with the other. Sam would never miss the opportunity to prove to his colleagues who did the actual legwork, that the laboratory was a vital part of detection, and that they should use the lab as often as possible.
“The ME gave us a look at the corpse, Pete,” he said into the phone now.
“What corpse?”
“The old man. Jefferson Scott.”
“Oh, yes. Carella working on that one?” Grossman said.
“Yes.”
Byrnes glanced across to Virginia Dodge. She had sat up straighter in her chair at mention of Carella’s name, and now she was listening intently to the conversation.
“He’s a good man,” Grossman said. “Is he out there at the Scott house now?”
“I don’t know where he is,” Byrnes said. “He might be. Why?”
“Well, if he is, it might be a good idea to get in touch with him.”
“Why, Sam?”
“The ME set the cause of death as strangulation. You familiar with the case, Pete?”
“I’ve read Carella’s report.”
“Yeah, well, the old guy was found hanging. No broken neck or anything like that. Strangulation. Looked like suicide. Remember that Hernandez case a while back—where it looked like the kid had hanged himself, but it was really an overdose of heroin? Remember that one?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we haven’t got exactly the same thing here. This guy died of strangulation, all right.”
“Yes?”
“But he wasn’t strangled by the rope. He didn’t hang himself.”
“What happened then?”
“We’ve discussed this thoroughly with the ME, Pete, and we’re pretty sure we’re right. The bruises on the victim’s throat indicate that he was strangled manually before that rope was placed around his throat. There are rope bruises and burns, too, but the majority of the bruises were left by human hands. We tried to get prints from the skin, but it didn’t work. We’re not always successful in getting prints from the skin of—”
“Then you think Scott was murdered?”
“Yeah,” Grossman said flatly. “We also did some tests on that rope he was hanged with. Same as that Hernandez kid. The direction of the fibers on the rope show that he didn’t jump down from that stool, the way it looked. He was hauled up. It’s a homicide, Pete. No question about it.”
“Mmm. Well, thanks a lot, Sam.”
“The thing is,” Grossman said, “if you think Carella’s over at that Scott house, I’d contact him right away.”
“I don’t know if he’s there,” Byrnes said.
“Well, if he is. Because if he is, one of the people in that house is a murderer with pretty big hands. And I like Steve Carella.”
David Scott sat with his hands clenched in his lap. His hands were square and flat and covered with light bronze fuzz that curled along their backs. The same blondish bronze hair decorated the top of David’s crew-cut head. Behind him, far out on the river, the tugboats pushed their mournful night sound onto the air.
It was 6:10 P.M.
Before him sat Detective Steve Carella.
“Ever argue with the old man?” Carella asked.
“Why?” David said.
“I’d like to know.”
“Christine has already told me a little about you and your ideas, Mr. Carella.”
“Has she?”
“Yes. My wife and I keep no secrets from each other. She told me your mind is working along certain channels that I, for one, find pretty damn objectionable.”
“Well, I’m awfully sorry you find them objectionable, Mr. Scott. Do you find homicide objectionable, too?”
“That’s exactly what I meant, Mr. Carella. And I’d like to tell you this. We’re the Scott family. We’re not some slum foreigners living in a crawly tenement on Culver Avenue. We’re the Scotts. And I don’t have to sit here and listen to idle accusations from you because the Scotts have lawyers to take care of tinhorn detectives. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to call one of those lawyers right now and—”
“Sit down, Mr. Scott!” Carella barked.
“Wh—?”
“Sit down, and get off that goddamn high horse! Because if you feel like calling one of those Scott lawyers you mentioned, you can damn well do it from the crawly squadroom of the 87th Precinct, which is where I’ll take you and your wife and your brothers and anybody else who was in this house when the old man allegedly hanged himself.”
“You can’t—”
“I can, and I will! Now sit down.”
“I—”
“Sit down!”
David Scott sat.
“That’s better. I’m not saying your father didn’t hang himself, Mr. Scott. Maybe he did. Suicides don’t always leave notes, so maybe your father is a legitimate suicide. But from what I’ve been able to gather from Roger—”
“Roger is a servant who—”
“Roger told me that your father was a very jolly man who was interested in life and living. He had not seemed depressed over the past few weeks, and in fact he’s very rarely known him to be depressed. Your father was a wealthy man with a giant corporation going for him, and holdings in sixteen of the forty-eight states. He’s been a widower for twelve years, so we can’t assume his suicide was caused through remorse for his dead wife. In short, he seemed to be a happy man with everything in the world to live for. Now suppose you tell me why a man like that would want to take his own life.”
“I’m sure I don’t know. Father wasn’t much in the habit of confiding in me.”
“No? You never talked to him?”
“Yes, of course I talked to him. But never intimately. Father was a cold person. Very difficult to know.”
“Did you like him?”
“I loved him! He’s my father, for God’s sake.”
“Which might, in modern psychiatric terms, be a good reason for hating him.”
“I’ve been seeing a lay analyst for three years, Mr. Carella. I’m well acquainted with psychology. But I did not hate my father. And I certainly had nothing to do with his death.”
“Getting back…Did you ever quarrel with him?”
“Yes. Of course. Fathers and sons always have little squabbles, don’t they?”
“Ever been up in that den of his?”
“Yes.”
“Were you up there yesterday afternoon?”
“No.”
“Not at all?”
“No. Not until we discovered the door was locked.”
“Who discovered that?”
“Alan. He went up to get the old man, and the old man didn’t answer. He tried the door, and it was locked. Then he called the rest of us.”
“How did he know it was locked?”
“It wouldn’t budge. Not an inch. How else would we know it was locked? We all tried to open it, and it wouldn’t move. Then we all tried together, and it still wouldn’t move. Obviously, it was locked from the inside. And obviously, if you’re hinting—with about the subtlety of a steam locomotive—at foul play, I should think you’d take that locked door into consideration. It would have been impossible for anyone to have killed Father, got out of the room, and then locked the door from the outside. Absolutely impossible.”
