The Fourth Deadly Sin (26 page)

“You have a lovely, lovely home, I wish the two of you would come up to Brewster soon and see our place. It’s not at its best in winter but Simon and I worked so hard to make it something special, I’d like to have you see it. Could you do that?”

“We’d be delighted,” Monica said promptly.

“Thank you.”

“Let’s wait for a weekend when no blizzards are predicted,” Diane Ellerbee said, laughing.

“The first good Saturday-all right?”

“We don’t have a car,” Delaney said.

“Would you object if Sergeant Boone and his wife drove us up?”

“Object? I’d love it! I have a marvelous cook, and Simon and I laid down some good wines. I enjoy having company, and frankly it’s lonely up there now. So let’s all plan on getting together.”

“Whenever you say,” Monica said.

“I’m sorry you have to leave so soon. Drive carefully.”

“I always do,” Dr. Ellerbee said lightly.

“Good night, all.”

Delaney locked and bolted the front door behind her.

“What an intelligent woman!” Monica said when he came back to the living room.

“Isn’t she, Edward?”

“She is that.”

“You’d like to see her Brewster home, wouldn’t you?”

“Very much. The Boones will.drive us up. We’ll make a day of it.”

“What she said about her husband changing-does that mean anything?”

“I have no idea.”

“She really is beautiful, isn’t she?”

“So beautiful,” he said solemnly, “that she scares me.”

“Thanks a lot, buster,” she said.

“I obviously don’t scare you.

“Obviously,” he said, and headed toward the study door.

“Hey,” Monica said, “I thought you weren’t going to work tonight.”

“Just for a while,” he said, frowning.

“Some things I want to check.”

Detective Benjamin Calazo was a month away from retirement and dreading it.

He came from a family of policemen.

His father had been a cop, his younger brother was a cop, and two uncles had been cops. The NYPD wasn’t just a job, it was a life.

Calazo didn’t fish, play golf, or collect stamps, He had no hobbies at all, and no real interests outside the Department.

What the hell was he going to do-move the wife to a mobile home in Lakeland, Florida, and play shuffleboard for the rest of his days?

The Ellerbee case seemed like a good way to cap his career. He had worked with Sergeant Boone before, and knew he was an okay guy. Also, Boone’s father had been a street cop killed in the line of duty. Calazo had gone to the funeral, and you didn’t forget things like that.

The detective had asked to be assigned to Isaac Kane for the reason he stated: His nephew was retarded, and he thought he knew something about handling handicapped kids. Calazo had three married daughters, and sometimes he wondered if they weren’t retarded when he was forced to have dinner with his sons-in-law-a trio of losers, Benny thought; not a cop in the lot.

His first meeting with Isaac Kane went reasonably well.

Calazo sat with him for almost three hours at the Community Center, admiring the kid’s pastel landscapes and talking easily about this and that.

Every once in a while Calazo would spring a question about Dr. Simon Ellerbee. Isaac showed no hesitation in answering, and the subject didn’t seem to upset him. He told the detective pretty much what he had told Delaney and Boone which didn’t amount to a great deal.

The boy didn’t display any confusion until Calazo asked him about his activities on the night of the murder.

“It was a Friday, Isaac,” Calazo said.

“What did you do on that night?”

“I was here until the Center closed. Ask Mrs. Freylinghausen; she’ll tell you.”

“Okay, I’ll ask her. And after the Center closed, what did you do then?”

“I went home.”

“Uh-huh. You live right around the corner, don’t you, Isaac? So I guess you got there around nine-five or so. Is that correct?”

Kane didn’t look at the detective, but concentrated on adding foliage to a tree in his landscape.

“Well, uh, it was probably later. I walked around awhile.”

“That was a very rainy night, Isaac. A bad storm. You didn’t walk about in that, did you?”

“I don’t remember!” Kane said, breaking one of his chalks and flinging it away angrily.

“I don’t know why you’re.asking me all these questions, and I’m not going to answer any more.

You’re just-” He began to stutter unintelligibly.

“All right,” Benny said mildly, “you don’t have to answer any more questions. I just thought you’d want to help us find out who killed Doctor Simon.”

Kane was silent.

“Hey,” the detective said, “I’m getting hungry. How about you? There’s a fast-food joint on the corner. How’s about I pick up a couple of burgers and coffee for us and bring them back here?”

“Okay,” Isaac Kane said.

Calazo brought the food and they had lunch -together. An old lady wheeled up her chair and stared at the detective with ravenous eyes. He gave her his slice of dill pickle. He didn’t mention Ellerbee again, but got Kane talking about his pastels and-why he did only landscapes.

“They’re pretty landscapes,” Isaac explained “Not like around here. Everything is clean and peaceful.” Sure it is,” the detective said.

“But I notice you don’t put in any people.”

“No,” Kane said, shaking his head.

“No people. Those places belong to me.”

Calazo checked with Mrs. Freylinghausen. She confirmed that Isaac Kane came in every day and stayed until the Community Center closed at nine o’clock. The detective thanked her and walked around the corner to Kane’s home, timing himself. Even at a slow stroll it took less than two minutes.

Kane lived with his mother in the basement apartment of a dilapidated brownstone on West 78th Street. It was next to an ugly furniture warehouse with rusty steel doors for trucks and sooty windows on the upper floors. Both buildings were marred with graffiti and had black plastic bags of garbage stacked in front. Some of the bags had burst or had been slashed open.

Benjamin Calazo could understand why Isaac Kane wanted to draw only pretty places, clean and peaceful.

He walked cautiously down three crumbling steps to a littered doorway. The name over the bell was barely legible. He rang, and waited. Nothing. Rang again-a good long one this time. A tattered lace curtain was yanked aside from a streaky window; a gargoyle glared at him.

Calazo held his ID close to the window. The woman tried to focus, then she disappeared. He waited hopefully. In a moment he heard the sounds of locks opening, a chain lifted. The door opened.

“Mrs. Kane?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said in a whiskey-blurred voice.

“What the hell do you want?”

A boozer, he thought immediately. That’s all I need.

“Detective Benjamin Calazo, NYPD,” he said, “I’d like to talk to you about your son.”

“He ain’t here.”

“I know he’s not here,” Calazo said patiently.

“I just left him at the Center. I want to talk to you about him.”

“What’s he done now?” she demanded.

“Nothing, as far as I know.”

“He’s not right in the head. He’s not responsible for anything.”

“Look,” the detective said.

“Be nice. Don’t keep me standing out here in the cold. How’s about letting me in for a few questions? It won’t take long.”

She stood aside grudgingly. He stepped in, closed the door, took off his hat. The place smelled like a subway urinalonly the piss was eighty proof.

The half-empty whiskey bottle was on the floor, a stack of paper cups beside it.

She saw him looking.

“I got a cold,” she said.

“I been sick.”

“Yeah.

She tried a smile. Her face looked like a punched pillow.

“Want a belt?” she asked.

“No, thanks. But you go ahead.”

She sat on the lumpy couch, poured herself a drink, slugged it down. She crumpled the cup in her fist, threw it negligently toward a splintered wicker wastebasket. Bull’seye.

“Nice shot,” Calazo said.

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” she said, showing a mouthful of tarnished teeth.

“Is Mr. Kane around?” the detective asked.

“Your husband?”

“Yeah, he’s around. Around the world. Probably in Hong Kong by now, the son of a bitch. Good riddance.”

“Then you and your son live alone?”

“So what?”

“You on welfare?”

“Financial assistance,” she said haughtily.

“We’re entitled.

I’m disabled and Isaac can’t hold a job. You an investigator?”

“Not for welfare,” Calazo said.

“Your son goes to the Community Center every day?”

“I guess so.”

“Don’t you know?”

“He’s of age; he can go anywhere he likes.”

“What time does he leave for the Center?”

“I don’t know; I sleep late. When I wake up, he’s gone.

What the hell is all this about?”

“You’re not asleep when he gets home from the Center, are you? What time does he get here?”

She peered at him through narrowed eyes, and he knew she was calculating what lies she could get away with. Not that there was any need to lie, but this woman would never tell the truth to anyone in authority if she could help it.

She stalled for time by taking another shot of the booze, crumpling the paper cup, tossing it toward the wastebasket.

This time it fell short.

“No,” she said finally, “I’m not asleep in the evening. He gets home at different times.”

“Like what?”

“After nine o’clock.”

“How much after nine?”

“Different times.”

“Now I’ll tell you what this is about,” the old gumshoe said tonelessly. “This is about a murder, and if you keep jerking me around, I’m going to run your ass down to the drunk tank so fast your feet won’t touch the ground. You can dry out with all those swell people in there until you decide to answer my questions straight. Is that what you want?”

Her face twisted, and she began to cry.

“You got no right to talk to me like that.”

“I’ll talk to you any goddamned way I please,” Calazo said coldly.

“You don’t mean shit to me.” He swooped suddenly, grabbed her bottle of whiskey, headed for the stained sink in a kitchenette so malodorous he almost gagged.

She came to her feet with a howl.

“What are you doing?”

she screamed.

“I’m going to dump your booze,” he said.

“Then go through this swamp and break every fucking jug I can find.”

“Please,” she said, “don’t do-1 can’t-the check isn’t due for-I’m an old woman. What do you want to hurt an old woman for?”

“You’re an old drunk,” he said.

“An old smelly drunk. No wonder your son gets out of the house every day.” He held the whiskey bottle over the sink.

“What time does he get home at night?”

“At nine. A few minutes after nine.”

“Every night?”

“Yes, every night.”

He tilted the bottle, spilled a few drops.

She wailed.

“Except on Fridays,” she said in a rush.

“He’s late on Fridays. Then he comes home at ten, ten-thirty-like that.”

“Why is he late on Fridays? Where does he go?”

“I don’t know. I swear to God I don’t.”

“Haven’t you asked him?”

“I have, honest to God I have, but he won’t tell me.”

He stared at her a long time, then handed her the whiskey bottle. She took it with trembling claws, hugged it to her, cradling it like an infant.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Mrs. Kane,” Detective Calazo said.

Outside, he walked over to Broadway, breathing deeply, trying to get rid of the stench of that shithouse. It wasn’t the worst stink he had ever smelled in his years on the Force, but it was bad enough.

He found a sidewalk telephone kiosk that worked and called his wife.

“I’m coming home for dinner, han,” he reported, “but I’ll have to go out again for a while. You want me to pick up anything?”

“We’re having knockwurst,” she said.

“There’s a little mustard left, but maybe you better get a new jar. The hot stuff you like.”

“Okay,” he said cheerfully.

“See you soon.”

That night, warmed by a good solid meal (knockwurst, baked beans, sauerkraut), Calazo was back at 79th Street and Broadway by 8:30. He drove around, looking for a parking space, and ended up pulling into the driveway of the warehouse next to the Kanes’ brownstone, ignoring a big sign: NO PARKING OR STANDING AT ANY TIME.

He locked up carefully and walked back to the Community Center, taking up his station across the street. He trudged up and down to keep his feet from getting numb, but never took his eyes off the lighted windows of the Center for more than a few seconds.

The Medical Examiner had said that Simon Ellerbee had died at 9:00 P.m. But that was an estimate; it could be off by a half-hour either way. Maybe more.

So if Isaac Kane had left the Community Center at nine o’clock on that Friday night, he could have made it across town to East 84th Street, bashed in Ellerbee’s skull, and been home by 10:00, 10:30. Easily. Benny Calazo didn’t think the boy did it, but he could have.

The lights in the Center began to darken. Calazo leaned against a mailbox, chewing on a cold cigar, and waited. A lot of people came out, one on crutches, two using walkers. Then Isaac appeared.

The detective crossed the street and tailed him. It didn’t take long. Isaac went directly home. Calazo got into his parked car and watched. He sat there until 10:30, freezing his buns. Then he drove home.

That was on a Wednesday night. The detective spent Thursday morning and afternoon checking out Kane at the clinic where he had met with Dr. Ellerbee. They wouldn’t show him Kane’s file, but Calazo talked to several people who knew him.

They confirmed that Isaac was usually a quiet, peaceable kid, but had occasional fits of uncontrollable violence during which he physically attacked doctors and nurses. Once he had to be forcibly sedated.

On Thursday night, Calazo went through the same drill again: tailing Kane home from the Community Center, then waiting to see if he came out of the brownstone again. Nothing.