The Interpretation Of Murder (36 page)
Read The Interpretation Of Murder Online
Authors: Jed Rubenfeld
'Have you lost your mind, Detective?'
asked Mayor McClellan behind the closed doors of the mayor's office Thursday
evening.
Littlemore had requested a crew of
men to go down to the Manhattan Bridge caisson to investigate the
malfunctioning window. He and I were seated across from the mayor's desk.
McClellan was now standing.
'Mr Littlemore,' said McClellan, who
had evidently inherited his father's military bearing, 'I promised this city a
subway, and I delivered it. I promised this city Times Square, and I delivered
it. I promised this city the Manhattan Bridge, and by God I'm going to deliver
it if it's the last damned thing I do in office. Under no circumstances is the
work on that bridge to be hindered - not by one single goddamned minute. And
under no circumstances is George Banwell to be interfered with. Do you hear
me?'
'Yes, sir,' said Littlemore.
'Elizabeth Riverford was murdered
four days ago and, so far as I can tell, all you've done since is lose her
blasted body.'
'Actually, I found a body, Your
Honor,' said Littlemore meekly.
'Oh, yes, Miss Sigel,' said
McClellan, 'who is now causing me more trouble than even Miss Riverford. Have
you seen the afternoon papers? It's all over them. How can the mayor of this
city allow a girl of good family to be found in a Chinaman's trunk? - as if I
were personally responsible! Forget about George Banwell, Detective. Find me
this William Leon.'
'Your Honor, sir, with all respect,'
said Littlemore, 'I think the Riverford and Sigel cases are connected. And I
think Mr Banwell is involved in both.'
McClellan folded his arms. 'You think
this Leon was not Miss Sigel's killer?'
'I think it's possible, sir.'
The mayor took a deep breath. 'Mr
Littlemore, your Mr Chong - the man you yourself arrested - confessed an hour
ago. His cousin Leon killed Miss Sigel last month in a jealous rage, after he
saw her with another Chinaman. The police have been to this other man's home,
where they found more letters from Miss Sigel. Leon strangled her to death.
Chong witnessed it. He even helped put the dead body into Leon's trunk. All
right? Are you satisfied?' 'I'm not sure, sir,' said Littlemore.
'Well, you'd better make yourself
sure. I want answers. Where is Leon? Was Miss Acton attacked last night or not?
Was she ever attacked at all? Do I have to do everyone's job? And let me tell
you one more thing, Detective,' said McClellan. 'If you or anyone else comes
running into my office yapping that Elizabeth Riverford was murdered by the one
man I know could not have killed her, I'm going to fire the lot of you. Do I
make myself clear?' 'Yes, sir, Your Honor, sir' was the detective's reply. We
were mercifully released. Out in the hallway, I said, 'So at least the mayor is
squarely behind us.'
'I didn't lose Miss Riverford's
body,' objected Littlemore, showing uncharacteristic spleen. 'What's come over
everyone? I've got a tiepin, the clay, an unexplained death on the guy's site,
he fits the coroner's description, he scares when he sees Miss Acton, she tells
us he attacked her, and we can't even go down and see what's blocking the guy's
underwater garbage chute?'
I made the obvious point that if
Banwell was out of town the night Elizabeth Riverford was murdered, he couldn't
have killed her.
'Yeah, but maybe he's got an
accomplice who did it,' replied Littlemore. 'Know anything about the bends,
Doc?'
'Yes. Why?'
'Because I know what I got to do,'
said Littlemore, whose limp had grown still worse, 'but I can't do it by
myself. Will you help me?'
When I heard the detective's
proposal, I initially thought it the most foolhardy plan I had ever heard. On
reflection, however, I began to think differently.
Nora Acton stood on the roof of her
house. A breeze stirred the fine wisps of hair dangling over her forehead. She
could see the whole of Gramercy Park, including the bench where, several hours
ago, she had sat with Dr Younger. She doubted she would ever sit there with him
again.
She could not bear to be inside her
house. Her father was locked in his study. Nora had an idea what he did in
there. Not work: her father had no work. Years ago, she had found her father's
secret cache of books. Revolting books. Outside, two patrolmen were once again
guarding the front and back doors. They had left the house this morning; now
they were back.
Nora wondered whether she would die
if she jumped from the roof. She thought not. The girl went back into her house
and down to the kitchen. She picked through a deep bottom drawer and found one
of Mrs Biggs s carving knives. She took it upstairs and placed it under her
pillow.
What could she do? She couldn't tell
anyone the truth, and she couldn't lie any longer. No one would believe her. No
one did believe her.
Nora did not intend the kitchen knife
for use on herself. She had no wish to die. She might, however, at least try to
defend herself if he came again.
Twenty-one
Littlemore worked the lock while I
stood behind him. It must have been about two in the morning. My job was to
keep a lookout, but I could see nothing in the blackness. Nor could I hear
anything over the mechanical roar that drowned out all other sound. I found
myself looking instead at the canopy of stars above us.
He had it open in less than a minute.
The elevator car was unexpectedly large. Littlemore pulled the door to, and we
were enclosed in the dimly lit cabin. Two gas flames threw enough light to
allow Littlemore to work the operating lever. With a lurch, the detective and I
began our slow descent to the caisson.
'You sure you're okay?' Littlemore
asked me. One of the two blue flames was reflected in his eyes - and the other
in mine, I suppose. Nothing else was visible. The booming engines above us kept
up a deep steady beat, as if we were making our way down the aortic artery of a
gigantic bloodstream. 'It's not too late. We could still turn back.'
'You're right,' I said. 'Let's go
back.'
The elevator jerked to a halt. 'You
mean it?' Littlemore asked.
'No. I was joking. Come on, take us
down.'
'Thanks,' he said.
He reminded me of someone,
Littlemore, but I couldn't think whom. Then I remembered: when I was a child,
my parents took us to the country every summer - not Aunt Mamie's 'cottage' in
Newport, but a real cottage of our own near Springfield, with no running water.
I loved that little house. I had a best friend there, Tommy Nolan, who lived
year-round on a nearby farm. Tommy and I used to walk for miles and miles along
the wooden fences that separated the farms from one another. I hadn't thought
of Tommy for a long time.
'What do you think the mayor will do
to you when he finds out?' I asked.
'Fire me,' said Littlemore. 'You feel
that in your ears? Pinch your nose and blow out. That's how you clear. My dad
taught me.'
I had a different trick. Among the
many useless skills I possess is the knack for controlling by will the inner
ear muscles that open the eustachian tubes. The pace of the elevator was
agonizingly slow. We were barely moving at all. 'How long to get down?' I
asked.
'Five minutes, the guy told me,' said
the detective. 'Dad could stay underwater better than two minutes.'
'Sounds like you got on with him.'
'My dad? Still do. Best man I know.'
'How about your mother?'
'Best woman,' said Littlemore. 'I'd
do anything for her. Boy, I used to think if I could only find a girl like Mom,
I'd marry her in a heartbeat.'
'Funny you should say that.'
'Until I met Betty,' Littlemore said.
'She was Miss Riverford's maid. First time I ever saw her was - what, three
days ago? - and right away I'm crazy about her. Crazy crazy. She's nothing like
Mom. Italian. Kind of hot-tempered, I guess. She gave me a whack last night I
can still feel.'
'She hit you?'
'Yeah. Thought I was messing around,'
said the detective. 'Three days, and already I can't mess around. Can you top
that?'
'Maybe. Miss Acton hit me with a
steaming teapot yesterday.'
'Ouch,' said Littlemore. 'I saw the
saucer on her floor.'
A whistling noise commenced inside
the car, as the elevator displaced air in the shaft. The booming of the engines
on the surface was now more distant - a dull throbbing, more sensible than
audible.
'I had a girl patient a long time
ago,' I said. 'She told me - she told me - she wanted to have sex with her
father.'
'What?'
'You heard me,' I said.
'That's disgusting.'
'Isn't it?'
'That's about the most disgusting
thing I ever heard,' said the detective.
'Well, I -'
'Katie bar the door.'
'All right.'
My voice came out
much louder than I intended; the echo rang interminably in the elevator cabin.
'Sorry,' I said.
'No problem. It was my fault,'
Littlemore replied, although it wasn't.
It would have been inconceivable for
my father to snap like that. He never revealed what he felt. My father lived by
a simple principle: never willingly show pain. For a long time I thought pain
must have been the only thing he felt - because if there had been anything
else, I reasoned, he could have expressed it without violating his principle.
Only later did I understand. All feeling is painful, one way or another. The
most exquisite joy is a sting to the heart, and love - love is a crisis of the
soul. Therefore, given his principles, my father couldn't show any of his
feelings. Not only couldn't he show
what
he felt, he couldn't show
that
he felt.
My mother hated his uncommunicative
nature - she says it killed him in the end - but it was, oddly enough, the
thing about him I admired most. On the night he took his own life, his
comportment at dinner was no different from what it had ever been. I too
dissemble, every day of my life, reenacting by half my father's principle,
although I don't play the half of him half so well as he. Long ago I made up my
mind: I would speak what I feel, but never in any other way display emotion.
That's what I mean by
half.
Truth to tell, I don't really believe in
expressing one's feelings other than through language. All other kinds of
expression are forms of acting. They're all show. They are all seeming.
Hamlet says something similar. It's
practically the first thing he says in the play. His mother has asked him why
he still seems so downcast by his father's death. 'Seems, madam?' he replies.
'I know not "seems."' He then deprecates all outward expressions of
grief: the 'inky cloak' and 'customary suits of solemn black,' the 'fruitful
river in the eye.' These displays, he says, 'indeed seem, for they are actions
that a man might play -'
'My God!' I said in the dark. 'My
God. I've got it.'
'Me too!' Littlemore exclaimed, just
as eagerly. 'I know how he killed Elizabeth Riverford, even though he was out
of town. Banwell, I mean. She was
with
him. Nobody else knew. The mayor
didn't know. Banwell kills her wherever they were - okay? - then he brings her
body back to her apartment, ties her up, and makes it look like the murder
happened there. I can't believe I didn't get it before. Is that what you were
thinking?'
'No.'
'No? What was yours, Doc?'
'Never mind,' I said. 'Just something
I've been thinking about for a long time.'
'What was it?'
Inexplicably, I decided to try to
tell him. 'You've heard of "To be, or not to be"?'
'As in "that is the
question"?'
'Yes.'
'Shakespeare. Everybody knows that,'
said Littlemore. 'What's it mean? I always wanted to know.'
'That's what I just figured out.'
'Life or death, right? He's going to
kill himself or something?'
