"I don"t think he did it all by himself."
"No, neither do I."
"I mean you can"t positively rule it out, because he could have found a way to tie himself up, and he could have managed to lose the pry bar and the tape and the twine. But I don"t think that"s what happened. I think he had help."
"I think you"re right."
"He makes arrangements with a couple of skells, says here"s a key to the front door, make it easy on yourselves, walk on in and go up three flights and bust into the fourth-floor apartment. Not to worry, there"s n.o.body home, there won"t be anybody home upstairs either. Make yourselves at home, dump the drawers, throw the books on the floor, and help yourselves to all the cash and jewelry you can find. Just so you"re ready to go at twelve-thirty or one, whatever time we get home from the party."
"And they walk home because he doesn"t want to get there too early."
"Maybe, or maybe they just walk home because it"s a nice night. Who knows? They get to the Gottschalks" floor and she says, "Oh, look, Ruth and Alfred"s door is open," and he shoves her through it and they grab her and knock her out and f.u.c.k her and kill her. Then he says, "Hey, a.s.shole, you don"t want to walk down the street middle of the night carrying a television set, you can buy ten TVs with what I"m paying you for this." So they leave the set, but they take the twine and tape and pry bar because maybe they can be traced. No, that"s bulls.h.i.t, how do you trace drugstore and hardware store s.h.i.t like that?"
"They take the stuff because that way we"ll know he couldn"t have done it himself, because how could the twine and tape walk out of there under their own power?"
"Right, okay. But first before they take anything out of there they knock him around a little, and they do some fairly impressive superficial damage, you"ll see photos we took of him in the file. Then they tie him up and tape him up, his mouth, and maybe they rip it halfway off for him so he"ll be able to make the call when it"s time."
"Or maybe they"ve got him tied loosely enough that he can get a hand free and do what he has to do and then slip it back under the twine."
"I was coming to that. Jesus, don"t I wish those blues had been a little slower to cut him loose."
I said, "Anyway, they clear out and he waits as long as he can and then calls 911."
"Right. I don"t see any holes in that."
"No."
"I mean, show me some other way it makes sense that he"s alive. They just killed her, she"s lying there dead, so why would they tie him up when it"s so much easier to kill him?"
"They already tied him up and taped his mouth before they did her."
"Oh, right, that"s his story. Even so, why leave him alive? He can ID the both of them all day long, and they"re already going to hang for doing her-"
"Not in this state."
"Don"t remind me, will you? Point is they"re already down for Murder Two for doing her, they don"t make it any worse for themselves by doing him while they"re at it. They got the pry bar, all they gotta do is. .h.i.t him a lick upside the head, as our little brown brothers would say."
"Maybe they did."
"Did what?"
"Hit him hard enough so that they thought he was dead. Remember, they just killed her, and maybe they didn"t plan on it, so-"
"You mean if he"s telling the truth."
"Right, playing devil"s advocate for a minute. They killed her unintentionally-"
"Just happened to get her panty hose accidentally wrapped around her throat-"
"- and they don"t exactly panic, but they"re in a hurry, they hit him a shot and he"s unconscious and they think he"s probably dead, that hard a shot with a steel bar ought to kill a man, and all they want to do is get the f.u.c.k out, they don"t want to take his pulse, see if he"s got enough breath left to fog a mirror."
"s.h.i.t."
"You see what I mean."
He sighed. "Yeah, I see what you mean. That"s why it"s an open file. The evidence is inconclusive and the facts we"ve got"ll support any theory you want." He stood up. "I want some coffee," he said. "Can I get you some?"
"Sure," I said. "Why not?"
"I don"t know why the coffee"s so bad," he said. "I really don"t. We used to have this machine, you know, coin-operated, and you can never get a halfway decent cup of coffee out of one of them. But we chipped in and bought one of these electric drip pots, and we use premium coffee, and it comes out tasting like this. I think there must be some law of nature, you"re in a station house, the coffee has to taste like s.h.i.t."
It didn"t taste that bad to me. He said, "If we ever clear this one, you know how it"ll happen."
"A snitch."
"A snitch hears something and pa.s.ses it on, or one of the geniuses steps on his c.o.c.k and we pick him up for something heavy, and he tries to do himself some good by ratting out his partner. And Thurman, a.s.suming we"re right and it was his game."
"Or even if it wasn"t."
"What do you mean?"
I said, " "She was alive and kicking when we left there, man. We put the pork to her but I swear she liked that part of it, an" we sure didn"t wrap no stockings around her neck. Musta been her husband, decided to get hisself an instant divorce." "
"Jesus, that"s just how they"d say it."
"I know. That"s what they"d say if Thurman was a hundred percent innocent. "Wasn"t me killed her, she was alive when I left." And it could even be true."
"Huh?"
"Say it was a crime of opportunity. The Thurmans come home, walk in on a robbery in progress. The skells rob them and beat him up and rape her because they"re animals, so why not act like it? Then they leave, and Thurman gets a hand free, and his wife"s unconscious and he thinks she"s dead-"
"But she"s not dead, but it gives him an idea-"
"- and her panty hose is right there on the bed next to her, and next thing you know it"s around her neck and this time she really is dead."
He thought about it. "Sure," he said. "Could be. The medical examiner set the time of death at around one o"clock, which squares with Thurman"s story, but if he did her right after they left and then stalled a while, the time he was supposed to be unconscious and then struggling to free himself, well, that would all fit."
"Right."
"And n.o.body could implicate him. They could say she was alive when they left, but that"s something they"d say anyway." He finished his coffee and threw the Styrofoam cup at the wastebasket. "f.u.c.k this," he said. "You can go around and around. I think he did it. Whether he planned it or it fell in his lap, I think he did it. All that money."
"She inherited better than half a million, according to the brother."
He nodded. "Plus the insurance."
"He didn"t say anything about insurance."
"It"s possible n.o.body told him. They took out policies payable to each other shortly after they were married. Hundred-thousand-dollar straight life, double indemnity for accidental death."
"Well, that sweetens it a little," I said. "Raises the ante by two hundred kay."
He shook his head.
"Am I figuring wrong?"
"Uh-huh. She got pregnant in September. Soon as they found out, he got in touch with his insurance agent and raised the amount of their coverage. A baby coming, increased responsibilities. Makes sense, right?"
"What did he raise it to?"
"A million on his own life. After all, he"s the breadwinner, his income"s gonna be tough to replace. Still, her role"s important, so he boosted her coverage to a half mil."
"So her death-"
"Meant an even million in insurance, because they still had the double-indemnity clause, plus all of her property that he"ll inherit. Round it off, call it a total of a million and a half."
"Jesus."
"Yeah."
"Jesus Christ."
"Yeah, right. He"s got means and motive and opportunity, and he"s a heartless little f.u.c.k if I ever saw one, and I couldn"t find a shred of evidence to show that he"s guilty of a single f.u.c.king thing." He closed his eyes for a moment, then looked up at me. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Do you use the dental floss?"
"Huh?"
"Aspirin and dental floss, you said that"s all you"ve got in your medicine chest. Do you ever use it?"
"Oh," I said. "When I remember. My dentist nagged me into buying it."
"Same here, but I never use it."
"Neither do I, really. The good news is we"ll never run out."
"That"s it," he said. "We got a f.u.c.king lifetime supply."
Chapter 4.
That evening I met Elaine Mardell in front of a theater onForty-second Street west ofNinth Avenue. She was wearing tight jeans and square-toed boots and a black leather motorcycle jacket with zippered pockets. I told her she looked great.
"I don"t know," she said. "I was trying for off-Broadway, but I think I may have achieved off-off-Broadway."
We had good seats down front, but the theater was too small to have any bad seats. I don"t remember the t.i.tle of the play, but it was about homelessness, and the playwright was against it. One of the actors, Harley Ziegler, was a regular at Keep It Simple, an AA group that meets evenings atSt. Paul the Apostle, just a couple of blocks from my hotel. In the play Harley was a wino who lived in a cardboard packing case. He gave a convincing performance, and why not? A few years ago he"d been playing the role in real life.
We went backstage afterward to congratulate Harley and ran into half a dozen other people I knew from meetings. They invited us to join them for coffee. Instead we walked ten blocks up Ninth to Paris Green, a restaurant we both liked. I had the swordfish steak and Elaine ordered linguini al pesto.
"I don"t know about you," I said. "It seems to me you wear a lot of leather for a heteros.e.xual vegetarian."
"It"s one of those wacky little inconsistencies wherein lies the secret of my charm."
"I was wondering about that."
"Now you know."
"Now I know. There was a woman killed half a block from here a few months ago. She and her husband interrupted burglars in their downstairs neighbors" apartment and she wound up raped and murdered."
"I remember the case."
"Well, it"s my case now. Her brother hired me yesterday, he thinks the husband did it. The couple whose apartment it was, the downstairs neighbors, he"s this Jewish lawyer, retired, lots of dough, and she didn"t have any furs stolen. You know why?"
"She was wearing them all at once."
"Uh-uh. She"s an animal-rights activist."
"Oh yeah? Good for her."
"I suppose. I wonder if she wears leather shoes."
"Probably. Who cares?" She leaned forward. "Look," she said, "you could refuse to eat bread because yeast give their lives to make it. You could pa.s.s up antibiotics because what right do we have to murder germs? So she wears leather but she doesn"t wear fur. So what?"
"Well-"
"Besides," she said, "leather"s neat and fur"s tacky."
"Well, that settles it."
"Good. Did the husband do it?"
"I don"t know. I walked past the building earlier today. I can point it out to you later, it"s on our way if I walk you home. Maybe you"ll pick up some vibrations, solve the case just by walking past the murder site."
"But you didn"t."
"No. He had a million and a half reasons to kill her."
"A million and a half-"