Part 5 (1/2)

”All right.”

She removed a grayish fur coat from the closet and draped it across her shoulders. ”Don't get absent-minded and answer the phone if it rings. Or the buzzer downstairs.” She went out.

I made it to the bathroom on legs like overcooked spaghetti and had a shower. I found the safety razor, put in a new blade, and shaved. My face was gaunt, as if I'd lost ten pounds in the past four days. The puffy place on my jaw was better now and was hardly noticeable, but the eye was still discolored even though some of the swelling was gone. I put on the pajamas and robe she'd told me about and went out in the living room.

It was a large room, carpeted in gray, with a long picture window on the left. The rose-colored curtains were closed, but they let in a little light, and when I parted them slightly and looked out I saw the building faced a park. The weather had turned clear now, but it was sunset, and the bare trees looked cold. I turned away and switched on a light.

There was a screened fireplace of Roman brick beside the window, and the whole wall next to the bedroom was lined with books. Opposite the window, near the front door, was a long blond console that appeared to be a hi-fi system, and three watercolors in heavy, bleached wood frames. The sofa and chairs were lightweight and modern- There were two doors at the far end of the room. I went over and looked in the one on the left. It was a small study, lined solidly with books except for one window that was covered with dark green drapes. There was a desk that held a covered typewriter. A shaded lamp was suspended above it.

The other door led into a small dining room, and just beyond it was a long, rather narrow kitchen. I went in and switched on the light, feeling faint with hunger. The only thing edible in the refrigerator was a piece of cheese and half a bottle of milk. I ate a slice of the cheese and drank a gla.s.s of milk. Then I ransacked the cupboards. I found some vermouth and gin and an unopened can of salted peanuts. Locating a pitcher, I broke out some ice cubes, mixed a batch of Martinis, poured one, and put the rest in the refrigerator. Opening the can of peanuts, I carried them out into the living room.

Something dropped on the rug outside the door. It sounded like a newspaper. I put down the Martini and peanuts and listened for a moment. Then I peered out. The corridor was empty, and the evening paper was lying just under my feet. I s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and closed the door. Switching on a reading light at the end of the sofa, I took a sip of the Martini and spread it open. I was across two columns of the front page.

SEAMAN CONTINUES TO ELUDE DRAGNET

”Feb. 21 . . . Russell Foley, local seaman sought in connection with the slaying last Tuesday of police detective Charles L. Stedman, was still at large this afternoon in spite of an intensive search now going into its third day. Police are convinced he is still in the city, and all bus and railway terminals and the airport are being closely watched . . .”

The story went on with an account of the two times I'd been seen last night. The description was chillingly accurate, right down to the black eye. My apartment was being watched. If I stepped outside the next few days they'd have me within an hour. They were making a block by block search of all cheap hotels and flophouses. They knew I'd holed up somewhere or I'd have frozen to death last night. The police commissioner and Chief of Police were promising action. If they got their hands on me it was. going to be rough; I was a cop killer, and I'd been making a city's whole police force look silly for four days.

On the second page was a rehash of the fight and of the arrival of the police to find Stedman dead with the hunting knife in his throat. It was substantially the same as I'd pieced it together from Red's account and that on the radio, except that the patrolmen hadn't forced the door. The manager had let them in. There was no mention of anyone else at all. I was it. All they had to do was get their hands on me and the whole thing was solved. And all that was standing between me and them at the moment was a girl who was interested in me because she was bored.

Seven

The Martini made me dizzy and gave everything a gauzy effect. I didn't dare pour another; as weak and empty as I was, two would drop me on the floor. She came back in a little over an hour, carrying a large bag of groceries and looking excited. I tried to help her but she shook her head. We went out in the kitchen and unpacked the bag. It held the biggest double sirloin I had ever seen and some frozen french-fried potatoes and a half-gallon carton of milk among other things.

”I've got something to tell you,” she said, ”but first we start this food. Put my coat away, will you, Irish?”

I took it into the bedroom and hung it in the closet. When I returned she was putting the frozen potatoes in the oven and turning on the broiler. She broke out a box of frozen broccoli and put that on, then started some coffee. I leaned against the refrigerator and watched her. In the high heels she was nearly as tall as I was, and the way she dominated and sculptured a knit dress was something to see.

”I'm no cook,” she said, ”but I do think we have to let that steak sit awhile at room temperature.”

”Here,” I said. I opened the refrigerator and poured her a Martini. ”Tell me this news you've got.”

”Aren't you having one?” she asked.

”I already have. One more and you'll have to shoot that steak into my arm.”

We went into the living room. She kicked her shoes off and put her feet up on a ha.s.sock. The hardboiled gray eyes were alight with interest. ”It's about Purcell,” she said. ”He committed suicide. But he couldn't have.”

”That's what you went to the library for?”

She nodded. ”I've been going through the back files of the papers. Then I called a friend of mine on the Express Express. He's on the police beat and knew Purcell. Hand me my purse, will you, Irish?”

I got it for her. She took out a small notebook.

”Here we are,” she said. ”The official verdict was suicide, but the police have never been quite satisfied with it. Lanigan summed it up pretty well when he said he was a real cool cat. He was tough, in a civilized sort of way, one of the few college-educated men on the force, strictly on the make, but highly competent. He was a detective First Grade and was a cinch to make Sergeant the next time around. He'd been married for three years to a very nice girl. Good health and no difficult financial troubles that anybody knew anything about. Nothing crooked on his record. In his ten years on the force he'd had to kill two men, but I suppose that's the risk you take in being a police officer. Doesn't seem likely they would have bothered him. They were both men with long records, and dangerous, and in both cases he was exonerated.”

She paused and took a sip of the Martini. ”Now, the actual suicide. He lived in a housing development called Bellehaven, about six miles north of town-”

”I know where it is,” I said. ”Two- and three-bedroom houses, fifteen thousand dollars and up.”

She nodded. ”Then you know where the big shopping center is. I was just out there; that's where I bought the steak. Purcell's address was 2531 Winston Drive. That's the last street in the subdivision, and it parallels the edge of the shopping center. In fact, part of the supermarket parking area is directly behind the row of houses in that block.”

”Then you could park in the supermarket lot and go right into the back yard?”

She shook her head. ”Not easily. The whole area is lighted. And all the back yards are enclosed with six-foot basket-weave fences covered with Pyracantha. There are gates, but they have latches that can be secured from inside. And Purcell's was padlocked. You could climb the fences, of course, but in the early evening somebody in the parking lot would be almost certain to see you.

”It happened on the night of January twenty-eighth, a little over three weeks ago. Mrs. Purcell went to a movie with the wife of a next-door neighbor. She often did; Purcell cared nothing for movies. She left around eight and there was never any doubt Purcell was alive afterward. The neighbor came over about the same time and he and Purcell had a beer and watched a fight on television until a little after nine. And after he left, about nine-thirty, Purcell's boss, Lt. Shriver of the Robbery Detail, called him about something. He said Purcell sounded perfectly normal over the phone. And as nearly as they could tell afterward, that was only forty-five minutes before he killed himself. Neighbors on both sides heard the shot, and they placed it at approximately ten-fifteen. At the time they thought it was a car backfiring.

”The picture was a double feature, so it was ten after twelve when Mrs. Purcell returned home. She put the car in the garage, and the two women said goodnight. The neighbor woman had hardly got inside when she heard Mrs. Purcell scream and then run out of the house.

”The police were there within minutes. Purcell was slumped over his desk in the living room, shot through the temple with his own thirty-eight. The shoulder holster was where he always left it when he came home, hanging on a hook in the hall closet. The gun was lying on the rug beside his chair. They could get only partial prints off it, but they were all his. There was no sign of a struggle at all, and nothing to indicate anybody else had been there. The gate to the backyard was locked, and n.o.body in the block had seen anyone come or go from the front of the house. It couldn't have been an accident, because all his gun-cleaning equipment was put away in the kitchen. There was no note, but on the desk just under his face was a single sheet of white paper and a ballpoint pen, as if he'd started to write one and then changed his mind.”

It was baffling. ”What do you think?” I asked.

”That he was murdered.”

”Why?”

”Several reasons-one of which you don't know yet. In the first place, the back gate's being padlocked didn't mean anything. It could have been locked after he was killed. Suppose he'd stayed home because he was expecting a visitor-a woman? He'd have left it open for her.”

”But how would she leave afterward?”

”Take her chances and go right out the front. All she had to do was walk half a block, turn right at the next street, and she'd be back in the parking lot. After eleven p.m., the streets in those housing developments are pretty quiet.”

”All right. What else?”

”There's no such thing as a spur-of-the-moment suicide. When a man kills himself, whatever's behind it has been feeding on him considerably longer than forty-five minutes. A single man might keep it hidden, but Purcell was married, and his wife said there'd been nothing unusual in his behavior.”

”Yes, but d.a.m.n it, we're still just talking about Purcell. There's no connection with Stedman except that they were partners on the Robbery Detail.”

She gestured with the cigarette. ”And that they're both dead. Don't forget that. However, there's one more thing they had in common-the one you haven't heard yet. Remember, I said Purcell had killed two men in line of duty?”

”Yes?”

”One of them was actually killed by Purcell and and Stedman. On the twenty-second of December. See how your coincidence is stretching? In a little over a month Purcell commits suicide, and in less than three weeks after that Stedman is murdered.” Stedman. On the twenty-second of December. See how your coincidence is stretching? In a little over a month Purcell commits suicide, and in less than three weeks after that Stedman is murdered.”

I stared at her. ”Yes-but, look. The police must have checked into it. A coincidence as obvious as that.”

She nodded. ”To some extent, yes. But remember, it takes at least two of anything to make a coincidence, and you you killed Stedman. When you accept that, it falls apart.” killed Stedman. When you accept that, it falls apart.”

I got up and walked across the room and back. ”But, good G.o.d, they must have made some some effort to check out any other angles.” effort to check out any other angles.”