New Hope for the Dead (8 page)

“Maybe he was waiting for a new wife. He could have gotten married again, you know.”

“Tell him, Ellita,” Henderson said. “Did he look like a married man to you?”

“No one would marry a bum like that. He’s a sick man, not a drunk, not talking to himself or anything like that, more like a man lost somewhere in his own thoughts.”

“Let’s go talk to him, Hoke,” Henderson said. “You know he’s guilty and so do I. If we can crack a case on our first day, Willie Brownley’ll shit his pants.”

“Okay. But let me look at the file for a minute.”

Everything in the file led to Captain Robert Morrow as a prime suspect. After dinner he had left his house, he said, to get a package of cigarettes. While he was at the 7/Eleven, he drank a cup of coffee, a large one, and talked to the Cuban manager. His house was only two blocks away, and he was gone for only twenty minutes—twenty-two minutes at most. When he returned home, he found his wife in the kitchen. Someone had taken his four-pound sledgehammer from the garage and hit his wife over the head with it while she was washing pots and pans at the sink. Death was instantaneous, with a hole in her skull big enough to hold an orange. From the way it looked, she hadn’t known what hit her. The sledgehammer, without prints, was on the floor beside her body. When he discovered her body, Captain Morrow had telephoned 911 and waited outside on the front lawn until the police arrived,
smoking two of the cigarettes from the package of Pall Malls he had bought at the 7/Eleven.

He had shown little or no emotion about his wife’s death, but he had explained that to Hoke and Henderson. “After two years in ’Nam, I don’t find the sight of a dead body particularly upsetting,” he had said.

He had understood his Miranda rights, but he talked freely anyway, without a lawyer present. “I didn’t do it,” he claimed. “If you charge me, I’ll get a lawyer, but I can’t see paying a lawyer who’ll just tell me to remain silent. I haven’t done anything to remain silent about.”

Hoke and Bill had talked to the neighbors, to the Morrows’ friends—they didn’t have many acquaintances—and Mrs. Morrow did not, apparently, have any enemies. Nothing had been stolen from the house, not even the three-thousand-dollar diamond ring that Mrs. Morrow had taken off her finger before washing the pots and pans. The ring was still on the counter right next to the sink.

What had bothered Hoke and Bill most, however, was why Captain Morrow had gone to the 7/Eleven to buy cigarettes. He had a carton of Pall Malls, with only two packs missing, in his dresser drawer. Also, there was a pot of coffee in the Mr. Coffee machine in the kitchen. The pot was half full, and the red light on the base of the coffee maker showed that it was still warm enough to drink. He had, for some reason, lingered in the convenience store, establishing an alibi with the manager before returning home. Two witnesses had seen him on his walk to the store and back, but that merely confirmed that he had been in the store.

The case had been frustrating. Hoke and Bill had talked to Morrow several times. At one point, Hoke had advised him to confess and to plead “post-Vietnam stress syndrome,” which would mean, in all probability, a lighter sentence or a commitment of a year or two to a psychiatric hospital.

“I didn’t do it,” Captain Morrow said. “And I don’t have
any stress problems. If I did, they wouldn’t have me flying a 707 back and forth to Rio.”

After the pilot passed the lie detector test, they had put the case away, pulling it out occasionally only to take another look at it. But there were no more leads, and it looked as though Captain Morrow had managed to get away with murder.

“Why not?” Hoke said. “It won’t hurt to talk to him again. Bill and I will do the talking, Ellita. But you check out a micro-cassette recorder from Supply and keep it in your purse. Just record everything that’s said, and don’t get too close to him. You got handcuffs, Bill?”

Bill nodded.

“I didn’t bring mine today. I didn’t think I’d need ’em.”

From the looks of Grogan’s rooming house, an ocher concrete-block-and-stucco two-story structure on Second Avenue, very few repairs, if any, had been made since Grogan had lost his city contract to run a halfway house. The unpainted concrete porch, almost flush with the cracked sidewalk, held two rusty metal chairs. They were occupied by two aging winos. There was no rail, and as soon as Hoke, Henderson, and Ellita stepped onto the porch, the winos stepped off the other end of the porch and started briskly down the street. Hoke wore high-topped, lace-up, double-soled black shoes, which gave him away as a cop if his face did not. Henderson usually reminded people of a high-school
football coach. Ellita, of course, although she wore sensible low-heeled black pumps, was not so obviously a police officer. Today she wore a red-and-white vertical-striped ballerina-length skirt with her cream-colored silk blouse.

A black-and-white TV crackled in the living room, but although the set was on, no one was in the room to watch it. There were some battered chairs of wicker, and a low coffee table piled high with old
Sports Illustrated
and
Gourmet
magazines. There was a sign on the wall saying “Thank you for not smoking,” and there were no ashtrays in the room; nevertheless, there were more than a dozen cigarette butts ground into the scuffed linoleum floor.

The landlord was in the kitchen. He was sitting at a table by the window, overlooking a backyard that contained a wheelless 1967 Buick on concrete blocks, a discarded and cracked toilet, and a pile of tin cans. The backyard was enclosed by a wooden fence, but only the top third of the fence was visible because of the jungly growth of tall grass and clumps of wild bamboo. The proprietor, a gray-haired man in his mid-sixties, was eating a bacon-and-fried-egg sandwich.

Hoke showed the man his badge. “Are you Mr. Grogan?”

“You’re looking at him. Reginald B. Grogan. What can I do for you, Officer?”

“We’d like to talk to Captain Morrow.”

“No Captain Morrow here. People come and go, but I haven’t had a boat captain here since I lost the methadone people.”

“He’s an airplane captain. A pilot.”

“No pilots either. Never had one of them. People here now are mostly day laborers, although a couple are on Social Security. But no Morrow.”

Henderson showed Grogan the photograph of Captain Morrow but pulled it back when Grogan reached for it. “Your fingers are greasy. Just look at it.”

“You can’t eat a bacon-and-egg sandwich without getting a little grease on your fingers.” Grogan peered at the photo, squinting. “That looks something like Mr. Smith, but Mr. Smith’s a lot older than that.”

“Smith?” Hoke said.

“John Smith. Lives upstairs, last door on your right down the hall. Right across from the john.” Grogan bit into the sandwich, and a trickle of undercooked yolk ran onto his chin.

“Mind if we talk to him?” Hoke said. “We don’t have a warrant. We just want to talk to him.”

“Sure. Go ahead. I’m eating my second breakfast now, or I’d show you up. Besides, my fingers are greasy. But you can’t miss his room. It’s right across from the John. He’s paid up through Sunday, but I don’t know if he’s in or not.”

Upstairs, the house had been modified by plywood partitions to make ten small bedrooms out of four larger ones, but the bathroom at the end of the corridor had not been altered. Two dangling unshaded light bulbs, one of them lighted, illuminated the narrow corridor. The door to the room across from the bathroom was closed. Hoke tapped on the door. No answer. He tried the knob, then opened the unlocked door.

John Smith,
né
Robert Morrow, was sitting on the edge of a narrow cot. He was using a metal TV table as a desk, and was writing with a ballpoint in a Blue Horse notebook. He looked up when the three detectives entered the room, but there was no curiosity in his face or eyes. His disheveled gray hair needed cutting, and he hadn’t shaved in several days, but he wasn’t dirty. His khaki work pants and his blue work shirt were both patched, but they were clean. He tapped his right foot, and as he did so the upper part of the shoe moved but the sole did not, because it was detached from the upper. The room was about eight feet by four, and a four-drawer metal dresser, painted to look like wood, completed the furnishings. Because the room was at the
end of the building it had a window, and the jalousies were open. The tiny room was filled with light from the afternoon sun. With four people in the room, it was very crowded. Bill stood in the open doorway. Ellita moved to the dresser and leaned against it. Hoke smiled as he bent over and put out his right hand to shake Morrow’s. Morrow shook hands reluctantly.

“It’s good to see you again, Captain,” Hoke said. “Do you remember my partner, Sergeant Henderson? That’s Ms. Sanchez over there. She was talking to you earlier—”

“She was harassing me, and I had to leave my bench. But I’ve got no complaints against her. A man can’t just sit in his room all the time. But it’s quiet here in the daytime, so I usually work here anyway. If you don’t mind, I’d rather you’d all go away.”

“What kind of work are you doing?” Hoke said.

“You can remain silent if you want to,” Bill added. “What you say could even be held against you.”

“That’s right,” Hoke said. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”

“That’s a fact,” Bill said, loud enough for Ellita to get it on tape.

Hoke rubbed his chin. “If you’ve got enough money, you could have a lawyer present.”

“He doesn’t need any money, Hoke,” Bill said. “If he can’t pay, we can get him a lawyer free.”

“This is a benevolent state.” Hoke smiled. “The government will pay for a lawyer if you’re broke. Do you understand?”

“Why do I need a lawyer?” Morrow frowned. “I haven’t done anything illegal.”

“It’s just that we don’t know what you’re working on,” Hoke said. “Maybe it’s legal and maybe it isn’t.”

“My system,” Morrow said, compressing his lips, “isn’t for sale!” He closed his notebook and slid it under the slip-less pillow. He crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“It looks to me,” Hoke said, glancing around the room,
“like your system, whatever it is, isn’t working. You seem to be living under—what’s the term?—reduced circumstances, Captain. The last time we talked to you, about three years ago, you were living in a nice neighborhood with a swimming pool in your backyard.”

“That’s because they changed the wheels on me. My system is foolproof, but they got onto me and rigged the wheels.”

“When did you invent your system?” Bill asked from the doorway. “Before or after you killed your wife?”

“Before. Frances just didn’t understand, that’s all. I told her we could become millionaires within a year or so, but she wanted me to keep flying. She didn’t have faith in me. She wouldn’t let me resign from the airline, or even take an extended leave of absence. And she refused to sign the papers so I could sell the house.”

“We always wondered why you killed her, but could never come up with a motive,” Hoke said. “Let me take a look at your notebook for a moment. I promise not to use your system.”

“You can believe Sergeant Moseley, Captain Morrow,” Henderson said. “He’s got his own system.”

“He couldn’t understand mine anyway.” Morrow shrugged. “Even if I explained it, you still wouldn’t understand it. Look at the notebook all you like.” He handed Hoke the Blue Horse notebook.

Hoke paged through it. There were long columns of figures on each page, with the arabic numbers written as small as possible with a ballpoint pen. The numbers 36, 8, 4, and 0 were circled on each page.

“You’re right, Captain,” Hoke said, passing the notebook to Henderson. “It’s too complicated for me.” Henderson riffled through the pages, shook his head, and returned the notebook to Morrow.

“If we promise not to use it, will you explain some of it to us?” Hoke said.

“Do you promise?” Morrow narrowed his eyes.

Henderson raised his right hand, and so did Hoke.

“I promise,” Hoke said.

“Me, too,” Bill said.

Morrow pointed to Ellita. “What about her?”

“I won’t tell anyone either,” Ellita said, raising her right hand. “I promise.”

Morrow wet his lips. “It’s too complicated for a woman to understand anyway. Frances couldn’t understand it, and I tried my best to explain it to her.”

“Is that why you killed Frances?” Bill asked. “Because she was too dumb?”

“Frances wasn’t dumb!” Captain Morrow raised his voice. “She was a receptionist for a lawyer when I met her, and she had a high-school diploma. But mathematics are beyond a woman’s comprehension. They’re too emotional to understand arithmetic, let alone logarithms. Here, let me show you.” Morrow opened his notebook and pointed to the vertical columns of figures. “It’s not that hard to understand, not if you have the patience. Even you two men should be able to grasp the basics. You bet the eight and the four three times, then you bet thirty-six five times. Meanwhile, you watch the Oh, the house number. The Oh and the double-Oh are both house numbers, but the single Oh is the one you watch. If the Oh doesn’t come up during your first eight bets on the three numbers, then you start to play the Oh only, and double up until it hits. Four, eight, and thirty-six come up more often than any of the other numbers, and I can prove it by my notebook. So you’ll break even, or pull ahead a little while you wait for the Oh to miss eight times. After eight times, the Oh’s odds change, and it only takes a few turns of the wheel, doubling up, before it hits. Then, what you’ve done, you’ve made a nice profit for the day. If you play my system every day, betting with fifty-cent chips, you’ll earn about five hundred dollars a day. No one understands roulette any better than I do.”

“Where’d you play roulette?” Hoke said. “Nassau?”

“Aruba. After I sold my house I moved to Aruba and rented a little beach house. I just rented it. I could’ve bought it, but I didn’t. Sometimes, when the wheel wasn’t right—it’s dry in Aruba, but there’s more humidity some days than others, and humidity affects the wheel, you see—I’d fly over to Curaçao. I’d play the casinos there. But I liked Aruba best. I had a housekeeper, and learned enough
Papiamento
to tell her what I wanted for lunch and what to get at the store. I got up late, swam some, ate lunch, took a nap, and then had another swim. Then I would eat dinner at one of the hotels, and play in the casino till midnight. I put in a six-hour working day, and my system worked fine. When I won five hundred, I quit for the day. Otherwise, on slow days, when I only won two or three hundred, I still quit after putting in six hours of play. After six hours, it’s hard to maintain your concentration, you see.”

“You must’ve made a lot of money,” Bill said.

“I did. But then something happened. What I think is they got onto me and changed the wheels or something. I started to lose, but it wasn’t my system’s fault. My system’s foolproof. All you need is concentration and patience. One mistake, one bet on the wrong number out of sequence, and it won’t work. And that’s what I don’t understand. I never varied from it. Before I took my leave of absence from the airline, I’d already tested the system in Nassau, in San Juan, and in Aruba, you see. I’d fly deadhead down there and spend a weekend in the casinos. It never failed me, and that’s what I tried to explain to Frances. I
hated
flying. Flying a plane’s the most boring job in the world, and roulette was our ticket out. But Frances just couldn’t understand.”

“But your wife was two months pregnant,” Hoke said. “Maybe she wanted the security your job offered her?”

Morrow snorted. “‘There is no security,’ General Douglas MacArthur once said, ‘there’s only opportunity.’ Besides,
I told her there’d be no problem in Aruba with the baby. It would be just as easy to get an abortion in Aruba as it was in Miami. Or, if she wanted to, I told her, she could have her abortion in Miami, and then join me later in Aruba.”

Ellita started to cry. She didn’t make a sound, but tears rolled down her cheeks. Hoke and Bill looked at her, and then at each other.

“Excuse me,” Ellita said, breaking in sharply. “But I’ve got to go to the bathroom across the hall. Would you guys mind waiting till I get back before you go on? I don’t want to miss any of this conversation, and I … I think your system’s brilliant, Captain Morrow.”

Captain Morrow smiled, and got to his feet. “Not at all.” He sat down again as Ellita left the room and closed the door behind her.

“Did you lose it all, Captain?” Hoke asked.

Morrow nodded. “I think we’d better wait for the little lady. She said she didn’t want to miss anything.”

“Sure.” Hoke nodded. Henderson broadened his metal-studded smile, and then offered Morrow a cigarette.

“No thanks. I don’t smoke.”

Ellita opened the door, and took her place against the dresser. “Thanks for waiting,” she said.

Morrow nodded and pursed his lips. He looked blankly at Hoke.

“Did you lose all the money?” Hoke said.

Morrow nodded. “Except for a thousand dollars I left here in Miami. I’ve been living on that. They wouldn’t extend my leave of absence, so next week I’ve got to find another flying job somewhere and get requalified. Then, when I get another stake together, I’m going to Europe. But this time I won’t stay so long in one place. I’ll go to Monte Carlo for a few days, and then to Biarritz. The system works on any roulette table, so long as they don’t change the wheel.”

“You won’t have to go back to flying again, Captain,”
Henderson said, unhooking his handcuffs from his belt. “We’re going over to the station now, and then, after we get your confession typed and you sign it, about eight years from now—it takes about eight years for all the appeals, right, Hoke?”

“About eight years.” Hoke nodded.

“About eight years from now,” Bill went on, “they’ll burn your gambler’s ass in the electric chair.”

Bill handcuffed Morrow’s hands and pushed him toward the doorway. Ellita snapped her purse closed.

“Can I have my notebook?” Morrow asked.

“Sure.” Hoke picked up the notebook, unbuttoned the top button of the pilot’s shirt, and dropped the notebook in.