The Fourth Deadly Sin (43 page)

He found what he was looking for in Jason’s report on Samuelson. Some years ago, the doctor had a breakdown and was out of action for about six months. The dates were carefully noted. God bless Jason Two.

Next, Delaney looked up the date of Diane and Simon Ellerbees’ marriage. Samuelson’s crackup had occurred about two weeks later. Now that was interesting. Nothing you could take to the bank, but interesting. Another little piece falling into place.

He was still pondering the significance of the Ellerbeesamuelson relationship when the phone rang. He picked it up, but before he had a chance to speak charles Parnell here,” the detective said, laughing.

“Oh, yes. Thank you for calling back. How’d you make out?”

“Struck gold. The guy had won his squash match-against someone he’s been trying to beat for years, so he was celebrating with dry martinis. Just high enough to talk more than he should have. Anyway, Ellerbee made out his will about five years ago. But the clause about his patients’ outstanding bills was a codicil added three weeks before he died. Any help?”

“It’s beautiful,” Delaney said.

“Thank you very much, and a Happy New Year to you and yours.”

“Same to you, sir.”

Another little piece of the puzzle: Ellerbee canceling Joan Yesell’s bills just three weeks before he was wasted-about the time, Delaney figured, the victim told his wife he wanted a divorce. Was he just being generous to his new love or did he have a premonition of his death?

Simon: “Diane, I want a divorce.”

Diane: “I’ll kill you!”

Delaney could believe that imagined dialogue; the lady was capable of it. The lady was also capable of lying glibly when it was required. He had asked her if she was surprised by the clause in her husband’s will about his patients’ bills. No, she had said, she wasn’t surprised, because she was aware of what was in his will. And that, Delaney figured, was worldclass lying.

Thinking of what all this meant, he trundled into the kitchen and pulled a long white apron over his heavy, threepiece cheviot suit. The apron had KISS THE COOK printed on the front. Then he set to work preparing dinner for his family.

Since it was Saturday night, they would have hot dogs with toasted rolls, baked beans with a chunk of salt pork and an onion tossed in for flavor, and both hot and cold sauerkraut.

By nine o’clock the Delaneys’ brownstone was jumping.

Peter and Jeffrey had arrived, bringing along a new board game called “Love at First Sight,” in which you threw dice to move from square one (Blind Date) to the winning square (Happy Marriage).

At about the same time the boys showed up, Boone and Jason arrived and were whisked into the study, the door firmly closed against the noisy gaiety in the living room.

““Tis the season to be jolly,” Delaney said ruefully.

“And they’re doing it right here tonight. Before you tell me how you made out, let me fill you in on what I’ve been doing.”

He told them why Diane had revised her statement about her husband’s mood swings in the past year and the fact that Simon added the codicil to his will just three weeks before his death. He also discussed Dr. Samuelson’s curious relationship with Diane.

“I called him,” he said.

“He agreed to see me tomorrow at ten. I think I’ll lean on him.”

“You want me to come along, sir?” Boone asked.

“No,” Delaney said.

“Thanks. But I think this better be a one-on-one. Also, he knows I have no official position; I’m just a friend of the family, so to speak. Maybe he’ll be a little more open and spill. You’ve got to realize that everything I’ve told you won’t make the DA lick his chops, but I think it’s all evidence that we’re heading in the right direction. Now let’s hear what you dug up today. You both look like canary-eating cats, so I hope it’s good news.”

“The first thing we did,” Boone said, “was to check the Manhattan garage where the Ellerbees kept their cars. It’s just a parking garage, no servicing and no repairs. I don’t think they even have a screwdriver in the place, let alone a ball peen hammer. So we drove up to Brewster. We went by the Ellerbee home. She had a crowd up there today, all women from what we could see. Maybe it’s her garden club or something.

Anyway, we stopped at a phone, and I called and got the houseman. I said I was from Al’s Garage, soliciting business.

He said, sorry, they dealt with May’s Garage and Service Station, and were perfectly satisfied. I thanked him, and we went over to May’s. It was that easy. Jose, you take it from there.”

“We find the owner,” Jason Two said, “a fat old tub named Ernest May. We flash our tin and ask him if he’s lost a ball peen hammer in the last three months or so. His jaw dropped a mile, and he looks at us like we’re from Mars or something.

“How the hell did you know that he says. Well, it comes out that, yeah, a ball peen hammer turned up missing about three months ago. It was the only ball peen in the joint, and he had to go out and buy a new one. He can’t put an exact date on when he lost the hammer, but he figures it was early in October. Sergeant?”

“We asked him who had access to the tools in the garage,” Boone said, “and he showed us around. Hell, everyone had access to the tools; they were laying all over the joint. It could have been one of his mechanics, a customer waiting to have a car serviced, or maybe just a sneak thief. I wish we could have brought you more, sir, but that’s about it. At least we know there’s a ball peen hammer missing from a Brewster garage. Delaney pulled at his lower lip.

“This Ernest May-he knows Diane Ellerbee?”

“Oh, hell, yes,” the Sergeant said.

“She’s a good customer.

Brings in all her cars to gas up. And for tune-ups. He put in new plugs in that Jeep station wagon not too long ago. The way he talked, she’s at his place almost every weekend she’s up there, for this or that.”

Delaney nodded.

“You know where the ball peen hammer is right now?

Boone?

One guess.”

“At the bottom of that stream that runs through Ellerbee’s property.”

“Right,” Delaney said decisively.

“Under the ice. And getting silted over.”

“A search warrant?” Jason suggested.

“We could get some frogmen up there with grapples.”

Delaney shook his head.

“There’s not a judge in the country who’d sign a warrant on the basis of what we’ve got. We can’t tie her directly to boosting the hammer. We could scam it and send in frogmen claiming they were from some phony state environmental agency wanting to test the water or the streambed or some such shit. But even if they found the hammer, what good would it do us? Tainted evidence. And after being under running water for two months, would there be identifiable fingerprints or bloodstains? I doubt it.”

“Goddamn it!” Boone burst out.

“It’s there, I know it is.”

“You know it,” Delaney said, “and I know it, and Jason knows it. So what?

It’s not going to put Diane in the slammer.

“What does that mean, sir?” Jason said anxiously.

“We’re not going to bust her?”

“No,” Delaney said slowly, “it doesn’t mean that. But right now we have nothing that would justify arrest, indictment, or conviction. There’s got to be a way to destroy her, but at the moment I don’t know what it is.”

“You think if we brace her–2’ Boone said, “I mean really come on hard-she might crack?”

“And confess? Not that lady. You know what she’d say? “I don’t have to answer any of your questions.” And she’d be exactly right.

“Snookered,” Jason Two said.

“No,” Delaney said.

“Not yet.”

By midnight, the brownstone had emptied out: Boone and Jason gone, Peter and Jeffrey departed. The girls were up in their bedroom, doing their hair and giggling. Delaney made his nightly rounds, checking locks on doors and windows.

Then, wearily, he dragged himself to the master bedroom, slumped on the edge of his bed, and tried to get up enough energy to undress.

Monica was at the vanity, brushing her hair. He watched her a long time in silence, the pleasure of that sight restoring his strength.

“You want to tell me about it?” she asked without turning around.

“Sure,” he said, and related everything that had happened since he had first decided on Diane Ellerbee’s guilt.

“You can’t arrest her?” Monica said.

“Not on the basis of what we’ve got so far.”

“But you’re certain? Certain she did it?”

“I am. Aren’t you?”

“I guess,” she said, sighing.

“But it’s hard to admit it. I admired that woman.”

“I did, too. I still admire her-but for different reasons.

She thought this whole thing out very, very carefully. The only mistakes she’s made so far are little ones-nothing that could bring an indictment.”

“I must have missed something in her,” Monica said.

“Something that you saw and I didn’t.”

“It goes back to that conversation we had about beautiful women and how they think.”

She put her brush aside and came over to him. She stood in front of him in a peach-colored nightgown and matching peignoir.

“Turn around,” she said.

“What?”

“Sit sideways on the bed,” she ordered.

“Take off your tie and open your shirt and vest.”

He obeyed, and she began to massage the meaty muscles of his neck and shoulders. Her strong fingers dug in, kneading and pinching.

“Oh, God,” he said, groaning, “don’t stop. What do you charge by the hour?”

“On the house,” she said, her clever hands working.

“Tell me-how do beautiful women think?”

“They can’t face reality. Or at least not our reality. They live in a shimmering crystal globe. You know-those paperweights: a Swiss chalet scene.

You turn them upside down and snow falls. It’s a never-never land. Beautiful women live in it.

Admiration from all sides. The love of wealthy men. They don’t have to lift a finger, and their future is assured. All wants granted.”

“You think Diane was like that?”

“Had to be. Beauty is a kind of genius; you can’t deny it.

You got it or you don’t. Then along comes Simon Ellerbee, her teacher. He convinces her she’s got a good brain too. Not only is she beautiful, but she’s brainy. That crystal ball she lives in is now shinier and lovelier than ever.”

“Then he asks for a divorce?”

“Right! Oh, han, that feels so good. Up higher around my neck. Yes, her husband asks for a divorce. I’ll bet my bottom dollar it was the first failure in her life. A defeat. We all learn to cope with defeats and disappointments. But not beautiful women; they’re insulated in their crystal globes. It must have devastated her. The man who convinced her that she had a brain not only doesn’t want her brain anymore, but doesn’t want her. Can you imagine what that did to her ego?”

“I can imagine,” Monica said sadly.

“When someone hurts you, you hurt back: that’s human nature. But this was a cataclysmic hurt. And she responded in a cataclysmic way: murder. I told you that her reality was different from ours. When Simon asked for a divorce, he wasn’t only destroying her, he was demolishing her world.

And all for a little, plain, no-talent woman? If such things could happen, then Diane’s reality had no substance. You can see that, can’t you?”

“I told you,” Monica said, “you see more than I do.”

She moved away from him and began to turn down the blankets and sheet on her bed.

“Open the window tonight?” he asked her.

“Just a crack,” she said.

“It’s supposed to be below freezing by morning.”

He went in for a shower. Scrubbed his teeth, brushed his hair, climbed into his old-fashioned pajamas. When he came back into the bedroom, Monica was sitting up in her bed, back against the headboard.

“You don’t like me much tonight, do you?” he said.

“It’s not a question of liking you, Edward. But sometimes you scare me.”

“Scare you? How so?”

“You know so much about Diane. It all sounds so logical, the way you dissect her. What do you think about me?”

He put a palm softly to her cheek.

“That you’re an absolutely magnificent woman, and I hate to imagine what my life would be without you. I love you, Monica. You believe that, don’t you?”

“Yes. But there’s a part of you I’ll never understand. You can be so-so strict sometimes. Like God.”

He smiled.

“I’m not God. Not even close. Do you think Diane Ellerbee should get off scotfree?”

“Of course not.”

“Of course not,” he repeated.

“So the problem now is how she can be made to pay for what she did.”

“How are you going to do that, Edward?”

“I’m going to turn over her crystal globe,” he said coldly, “and watch the snow come down.”

He turned off the light and found his way to Monica’s bed.

She pulled the blankets up to their chins.

“Please don’t tell me that I scare you,” he begged.

“That scares me. “You don’t really scare me,” she said.

“It’s just the way you become obsessed with a case.”

“Obsessed? I guess so. Maybe that’s the way you’ve got to be to get anything done. I just don’t like the idea of someone getting away with murder. It offends me. Is that so awful?”

“Of course not. But sometimes you can be vindictive, Edward.”

“Oh, yes,” he readily agreed.

“I plead guilty to that.”

“Don’t you sympathize with Diane at all?”

“Sure I do. She’s human.”

“Don’t you feel sorry for her?”

“Of course,”

“But you’re going to destroy her?”

“Completely,” he vowed.

“But that’s enough about Doctor Diane Ellerbee. What about us?”

“What about us?”

“Still friends?”

“Come closer,” Monica said.

“I’ll show you.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, moving.

“Thank you, friend.”

Delaney prepared carefully for his meeting with Dr. Julius K. Samuelson: went over once again the biography Jason had submitted, reviewed his report on the first interrogation, read his notes on Samuelson’s comments and behavior during that visit to Brewster.

He had told Boone and Jason that he intended to lean on Dr. Samuelson. But in cops’ lexicon, there are varieties of leaning, from brutal hectoring to the pretense of sorrowful sympathy. In this case, Delaney decided, tough intimidation would be counterproductive; he might achieve more with sweet reasonableness-an approach Delaney characterized as the “I need your help” style of interrogation.