The Fourth Deadly Sin (13 page)

There was more there than she had given them in her oral summary. The six paragraphs described very disturbed people who showed every evidence of being out of control. Any one of them seemed to have the potential for ungovernable violence Delaney sat back and gently tinked the rim of his highball glass against his teeth. He thought about Simon Ellerbee.

What was it like, he wondered, to spend your life working with people whose thought processes were so chaotic?

it was, he supposed, like being in a foreign country where all the natives were hostile, spoke a strange language, and even the geography of their world was terra incognita.

He imagined that any man who deliberately ventured into the alien land might suffer from bewilderment and disorientation. He’d have to clamp a tight hold on his own feelings to keep from being swept away by disorder.

Delaney remembered that cold, disciplined office of Dr. Simon Ellerbee. Now he could understand why a psychiatrist would want to work in rigidly geometric surroundings where parallel lines never met and hard edges reminded that arrangement and sequence did exist, and logic was not dead.

Isaac Kane had been going to the clinic every Wednesday. He was given endless tests. Sometimes, with the permission of his mother, he was handed pills or liquids to swallow. They made him do things with wooden blocks and photographed him on videotape. Then he would spend an hour with Dr. Simon.

Kane didn’t mind talking to the doctor. He was a nice, quiet man and really seemed interested in what Isaac had to say. In fact, Dr. Simon was about the only one who listened to Isaac; his mother wouldn’t listen, and other people made fun of the way he talked. There was so much Kane wanted to say, and sometimes he couldn’t get it out fast enough. Then he went, “Bub-bub-bub,” and people laughed.

But Dr. Simon stopped coming to the clinic, so Kane stopped, too. They tried to get him to continue coming in every Wednesday, but he just wouldn’t do it. They kept at him, and finally he had to hit some of them. That did the trick, all right, and they didn’t bother him anymore.

So now he could spend all his days at the Harriet J. Raskob Community Center on West 79th Street. The clinic had been painted all white-Isaac didn’t like that-but the Center was pink and green and blue and yellow. It was warm in there, and they let him work on his pastel landscapes.

The head of the Center, Mrs. Freylinghausen, sold some of Kane’s landscapes and gave the money to his mother. But she kept enough to buy him a wonderful box of at least a hundred pastel crayons in all colors and hues, an easel, paper, and panels. When he ran out of supplies, Mrs. Freylinghausen bought him more-Isaac wasn’t very good at shopping-and locked up all his property when the Center closed at 9:00 P.m.

Most of the people who came to the Center were very old, some in wheelchairs or on walkers. They were as nice to Isaac Kane as Mrs. Freylinghausen. But there were younger people, too, and some of them weren’t so nice. They mimicked Isaac’s “Bub-bub-bub” and they tripped him or pushed his elbow when he was working or tried to steal his chalks. One girl liked to touch him all over.

Sometimes they got him so mad that he had to hit them. He was strong, and he could really hurt someone if he wanted to.

One afternoon-Kane didn’t know what day it was-Mrs. Freylinghausen came out of her office with two men and headed for the corner where Isaac had set up his easel under a skylight. Both the men were big. The older wore a black overcoat and the other a dark green parka. Both carried their hats.

“Isaac,” Mrs. Freylinghausen said, “I’d like you to meet two friends of mine who are interested in your work. This gentleman is Mr. Delaney, and here is Mr. Boone.”

Isaac shook hands with both of them, leaving their palms smeared with colored chalk. They both smiled and looked nice. Mrs. Freylinghausen moved away.

“Mr. Kane,” Delaney said, “we just saw some of your landscapes, and we think they’re beautiful.”

“They’re okay, I guess,” Isaac said modestly. “Sometimes they’re not, you know, what I want. I can’t always get the colors just right.”

“Have you ever seen Turner’s paintings?” Delaney asked.

“Turner? No. Who is he?”

“An English painter. He worked in oil and watercolor. He did a lot of landscapes. The way you handle light reminds me of Turner.”

“Light!” Isaac Kane cried. “That’s very hard to do.” And then, because he wanted to say so much about light, he began to go “Bub-bub-bub …”

They waited patiently, not laughing at him, and when he got out what he wanted to say, they nodded understandingly.

“Mr. Kane,” Boone said, “I think we may have a mutual friend. Did you know Doctor Ellerbee?”

“No, I don’t know him.”

“Doctor Simon Ellerbee?”

“Oh, Doctor Simon! Sure, I know him. He stopped coming to the clinic. What happened to him?”

Boone glanced at Delaney.

“I’m afraid I have bad news for you, Mr. Kane,” Delaney said. “Doctor Simon is dead. Someone killed him.”

“Gee, that’s too bad,” Isaac said. “He was a nice man. I liked to talk to him.”

He turned back to his easel, where a sheet of grainy paper had been pinned to a square of cardboard. He was working on an idyllic farm scene with a windmill, thatched cottage, a running brook. There were plump white clouds in the foreground and, beyond, dark menacing rain clouds. The rendition of shadows and the changing light saved the work from mawkishness.

“What did you talk to Doctor Simon about?” Delaney asked.

“Oh … everything,” Isaac said, working with a white chalk to get a little more glitter on the water’s surface. “He asked me a lot of questions.”

“Mr. Kane,” Boone said, “can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Doctor Simon?”

He turned to face them. They saw a rudely handsome young man clad in stained denim overalls, a red plaid shirt, tattered running shoes. His brown hair was cut short enough to show pink scalp. Dark eyes revealed nothing, but there was a sweet innocence in his expression.

“That’s the way some people are,” he said sadly. “They want to hurt you.”

“Do people hurt you, Mr. Kane?” Delaney asked.

“Sometimes they try, but I don’t let them. I hit them and then they stop. I don’t like mean people.”

“But Doctor Simon never hurt you, did he?”

“Oh, no-he was a nice man! I never-he would-we talked and—’ But then there was so much he wanted to say about Dr. Simon that he began to stutter again. They waited, but he had nothing intelligible to add.

“Well, we’ve got to get going,” Delaney said. “Thank you for giving us so much time.” He looked down at Kane’s ragged running shoes. “I hope you have boots or galoshes,” he said, smiling. “It’s snowing outside.”

“I don’t care,” Isaac said. “I just live around the corner. I don’t need boots.”

They all shook hands. Delaney and Boone headed for the doorway. A young girl with disheveled hair was propped up against the wall of the vestibule.

She looked at them with glazed eyes and said, “Oink, oink.” Out on the sidewalk, Boone said, “She had us pegged.”

“Stoned out of her skull,” Delaney said grimly.

They were double-parked on 80th Street. Boone had propped a Police officer on Duty card inside the windshield, and for once it had worked: He still had his hubcaps.

They got in, started the engine, turned on the wheezy heater, sat a few moments, shivering, and watched the wet snow drift down.

“Poor guy,” Boone observed. “Not much there.”

“No,” Delaney agreed. “But you never know. He seems to be quick with his fists when he thinks someone is out to hurt him.”

“How could Simon Ellerbee hurt him?”

“Maybe he asked one question too many. It’s possible.”

“What was the business about the boots and galoshes?”

Boone said.

“Those two sets of unidentified tracks on the Ellerbees’ carpet. “Jesus!” the Sergeant said disgustedly. “I forgot all about them.”

“Well, we still don’t know if Kane owns boots. All he said was that he wasn’t wearing them today. I think we better get back to my place, Sergeant.

Chief Suarez said he’d call at noon, and I have a feeling he’s a very prompt man.”

“You think he’s checking with Thorsen, sir?”

“Of course. If I was in Suarez’s place I’d say something like this: “Deputy, Delaney wants six more detectives. That’s okay with me, but I don’t want to give him any of the people working the case for me. It would hobble what we’re doing.

So I’d like to assign six new bodies to Delaney.”

“You think Thorsen will go for that?”

“Sure he will. He’s got no choice.”

With the holiday traffic getting heavier and the snow beginning to pile up, it took them almost a half-hour to get over to the East Side. Boone parked in front of the 251st Precinct house, leaving his on Duty card on display. Then they trudged next door to Delaney’s brownstone.

“How about a sandwich?” Delaney suggested. “We’ve got some cold roast beef, sweet pickle relish, sliced onions.

Maybe a little pink horseradish. How does that sound?”

“Just right,” Boone said. “A hot coffee wouldn’t go bad either.” Delaney spread old newspapers on the kitchen table and they ate their lunch hunched over that.

“Now let’s see …” Delaney said. “You told me that Suarez’s men have checked out four of the names on our list?”

“That’s right, sir. Just their whereabouts at the time of the homicide. As of this morning, they hadn’t gotten around to Otherton or Gerber.”

“We’ll have to double-check them all anyway. If we get the six new people, I want to assign one to each possible. But I want to question each of the patients personally. That means you or Jason Two will have to come with me to show your ID.”

“I talked to Jason. He says he’ll be finished with the biogs by tonight. He’ll call you.”

“Good. I want you there when he makes his report. We’ll hit Otherton this afternoon. We won’t call her first; just barge in. The other four we’ll have to brace in the evening or over the weekend. Sergeant, can you think of anything we should be doing that we’re not?”

Boone had finished his sandwich. He sat back, lighted a cigarette.

“I’d like to get a lead on that ball peen hammer,” he said.

“We didn’t ask Isaac Kane if he had one.”

“Don’t worry,” Delaney said. “We’ll be getting back to that lad again. I can’t see the two women owning a hammer like that-but you never know. We’ll have to lean on the four men. Maybe one of them is a do-it-yourself nut or does his own car repairs or something like that.”

“How do you get rid of a hammer?” Boone said. “You can’t burn it. The handle maybe, but not the head. And the first crew on the scene checked every sewer, catch basin, and garbage can in a ten-block area.”

“If I was the killer,” Delaney said, “I’d throw it in the river. Chances are good it’d never be found.”

“Still,” Boone said, “the perp might have–” But just then the phone rang, and Delaney rose to answer it. “I hope that’s Suarez,” he said.

“Edward X. Delaney here … Yes, Chief … Uh-huh.

That’s fine … Monday will be just right … Of course. Maybe you and I can get together next week … Whenever you say … Thank you for your help, Chief.”

He hung up and turned to Boone. “He didn’t sound too happy about it, but six warm bodies are coming in Monday morning. I’ll want you there; maybe you know some of those guys. More coffee?”

“Please. I’m just getting thawed.”

“Well, drink up. Then we’ll descend on Sylvia Mae Otherton. Sure as hell no woman with agoraphobia is going out on a day like this.”

She lived in an old battleship of an apartment house on East 72nd Street between Park and Lexington Avenues. Boone drove around the block twice, trying to find a parking space, then gave up. He parked in front of the marquee, and when an indignant doorman rushed out, the Sergeant flashed his shield and quieted him down.

The cavernous lobby was lined with brownish marble that needed cleaning, and the steel Art Deco elevator doors obviously hadn’t been polished in years. The carpeting was fretted, and the whole place had a musty odor.

“A mausoleum,” Delaney muttered.

There was a marble-topped counter manned by an ancient wearing an old-fashioned hearing aid with a black wire that disappeared into the front of his alpaca jacket. Boone asked for Miss Sylvia Mae Otherton.

“And who shall I say is calling?” the gaffer asked in sepulchral tones.

The Sergeant showed his ID again, and the white eyebrows slowly rose.

The lobby attendant picked up the house phone and punched a three-digit number with a trembling forefinger. He turned his back to them; all they could hear was murmurs.

Then he turned back to them.

“Miss Otherton would like to know the purpose of your visit.”

“Tell her we want to ask a few questions,” Boone said. “It won’t take long.”

More murmurs.

“Miss Otherton says she is not feeling well and wonders if you can come back another time.”

“No, we cannot come back another time,” Boone said, beginning to steam. “Ask her if she prefers to see us in her home or should we take her down to the station house and ask the questions there.”

The white eyebrows rose even farther. More murmurs.

Then he hung up the phone.

“Miss Otherton will see you now,” he said. “Apartment twelve-C.” Then, his bleary eyes glistening, he leaned over the counter. “Is it about that doctor who got killed?” he asked in a conspiratorial whisper.

They turned away.

“She was devastated,” he called after them. “Just devastated.”

“Damned old gossip,” the Sergeant said angrily in the elevator. “By tonight everyone in the building will know Otherton had a call from the cops.”

“Calm down,” Delaney said. “Everyone loves a gruesome murder-especially an unsolved one. They’d like to think the perp will get away with it.”

Boone looked at him curiously. “You really believe that, sir?”

“Sure,” Delaney said cheerfully. “It feeds their fantasies.

They can dream of knocking off wife, husband, boss, lover, or that pain in the ass next door-and walking away from it scotfree.” Boone pushed the buzzer at the door of apartment 12-C.