Westlake, Donald E - Novel 41 (4 page)

 
          
 
"Pretty straightforward case," said
the M.E. "On the surface, anyway. Our man here was poisoned, felt the effects
coming on, went to the typewriter to tell us who'd done it to him, and died. A
used glass and a small medicine bottle were on the dresser. We'll check them
out, but they almost certainly did the job."

 
          
 
"Did he manage to do any typing before he
died?" asked
Crawley
.

 
          
 
The M.E. shook his head. "Not a word. The
paper was in the machine kind of crooked, as though he'd been in a hurry, but
he just wasn't fast enough."

 
          
 
"He wasted his time," said
Crawley
. "The guy confessed right away."

 
          
 
"The one over there
with the patrolman?"

 
          
 
"Uh huh."

 
          
 
"Seems odd, doesn't it?" said the
M.E. "Take the trouble to poison someone, and then run out and confess to
the first cop you see."

 
          
 
Crawley
shrugged.
"You can never figure," he said.

 
          
 
"I'll get the report to you soon's I
can," said the M.E.

           
 
"Thanks, Doc. Come on,
Abe,
let's take our pigeon to his nest."

 
          
 
"Okay," said Levine, abstractedly.
Already it felt wrong. It had been feeling wrong, vaguely, ever since he'd
caught that glimpse of something in Perkins' eyes. And the feeling of wrongness
was getting stronger by the minute, without getting any clearer.

 
          
 
They walked back to Tanner and Perkins, and
Crawley
said, "Okay, Perkins, let's go for a
ride."

 
          
 
They walked back to Tanner.

 
          
 
"You're going to book me?" asked
Perkins. He sounded oddly eager.

 
          
 
"Just come along," said
Crawley
. He didn't believe in answering extraneous
questions.

 
          
 
"All right," said Perkins. He turned
to Tanner. "Would you mind taking my books and records back to the
library? They're due today. They're the ones on that chair. And there's a
couple more over in the stack of Al's records."

 
          
 
"Sure," said Tanner. He was gazing
at Perkins with a troubled look on his face, and Levine wondered if Tanner felt
the same wrongness that was plaguing him.

 
          
 
"Let's go," said
Crawley
impatiently, and Perkins moved toward the
door,

 
          
 
"I’ll be right along," said Levine.
As
Crawley
and Perkins left the apartment, Levine
glanced at the titles of the books and record albums Perkins had wanted
returned to the library. Two of the books were collections of Elizabethan
plays, one was the New Arts Writing Annual, and the other two were books on
criminology. The records were mainly folk songs, of the bloodier type.

 
          
 
Levine frowned and went over to Tanner. He
asked, "What were you and Perkins talking about before we got here?"

 
          
 
Tanner's face was still creased in a puzzled
frown. "The stupidity of the criminal mind," he said. "There's
something goofy here, Lieutenant."

           
 
"You may be right," Levine told him.
He walked on down the hall and joined the other two at the door.

 
          
 
All three got into the front seat of the
Chevy,
Crawley
driving again and Perkins sitting in the
middle. They rode in silence,
Crawley
busy driving, Perkins studying the complex array of the dashboard, with its
extra knobs and switches and the mike hooked beneath the radio, and Levine
trying to figure out what was wrong.

 
          
 
At the station, after booking, they brought
him to a small office, one of the interrogation rooms. There was a bare and
battered desk, plus four chairs.
Crawley
sat
behind the desk, Perkins sat across the desk and facing him, Levine took the
chair in a corner behind and to the left of Perkins, and a male stenographer,
notebook in hand, filled the fourth chair, behind
Crawley
.

 
          
 
Crawley
's
first questions covered the same ground already covered at ember's apartment,
this time for the record. "Okay," said
Crawley
, when he'd brought them up to date.
"You and Gruber were both doing the same kind of thing, living the same
kind of life. You were both unpublished writers, both taking night courses at
Columbia
, both living on very litde money."

 
          
 
"That's right," said Perkins.

 
          
 
"How long you known each other?"

 
          
 
"About six months. We met at
Columbia
, and we took the same subway home after
class. We got to talking, found out we were both dreaming the same kind of
dream, and became friends. You know. Misery loves company."

 
          
 
"Take the same classes at
Columbia
?"

 
          
 
"Only one.
Creative Writing, from Professor Stonegell."

 
          
 
"Where'd you buy the poison?"

 
          
 
"I didn't. Al did. He bought it a while
back and just kept it around. He kept saying if he didn't make a good sale soon
he'd kill himself. But he didn't mean it. It was just a kind of gag."

           
 
Crawley
pulled at his right earlobe. Levine knew, from his long experience with his
partner, that that gesture meant that
Crawley
was
confused. "You went there today to kill him?"

 
          
 
"That's right."

 
          
 
Levine shook his head. That wasn't right.
Softly, he said, "Why did you bring the library books along?"

 
          
 
"I was on my way up to the library,"
said Perkins, twisting around in his seat to look at Levine.

 
          
 
"Look this way," snapped
Crawley
.

 
          
 
Perkins looked around at
Crawley
again, but not before Levine had seen that
same burning deep in Perkins' eyes. Stronger, this time, and more like
pleading. Pleading? What was Perkins pleading for?

 
          
 
"I was on my way to the library,"
Perkins said again. "A1 had a couple of records out on my card, so I went
over to get them. On the way, I decided to kill him."

 
          
 
''Why?" asked
Crawley
.

 
          
 
"Because he was a pompous ass," said
Perkins, the same answer he'd given before.

 
          
 
"Because he got a story accepted by one
of the literary magazines and you didn't?" suggested
Crawley
.

 
          
 
"Maybe.
Partially.
His whole attitude.
He
was smug. He knew more than anybody else in the world."

 
          
 
"Why did you kill him today? Why not last
week or next week?"

 
          
 
"I felt like it today."

 
          
 
"Why did you give yourself up?"

 
          
 
"You would have gotten me anyway."

 
          
 
Levine asked, "Did you know that before
you killed him?"

 
          
 
"I don't know," said Perkins,
without looking around at Levine. "I didn't think about it till afterward.
Then I knew the police would get me anyway — they'd talk to Professor Stonegell
and the other people who knew us both and I didn't want to have to wait it out.
So I went and confessed."

 
          
 
"You told the policeman," said
Levine, "that you'd killed your best friend."

           
 
"That's right."

 
          
 
"Why did you use that phrase, best
friend, if you hated him so much you wanted to kill him?"

 
          
 
"He was my best friend.
At least, in
New York
.
I didn't really know anyone else, except
Professor Stonegell. Al was my best friend because he was just about my only
friend."

 
          
 
"Are you sorry you killed him?"
asked Levine.

 
          
 
This time, Perkins twisted around in the chair
again, ignoring
Crawley
. "No, sir," he said, and his eyes
now were blank.

 
          
 
There was silence in the room, and
Crawley
and Levine looked at one another.
Crawley
questioned with his eyes, and Levine
shrugged, shaking his head. Something was wrong, but he didn't know what. And
Perkins was being so helpful that he wound up being no help at all.

 
          
 
Crawley
turned to the stenographer. "Type it up formal," he said. "And
have somebody come take the pigeon to his nest."

 
          
 
After the stenographer had left, Levine said,
"Anything you want to say off the record, Perkins?"

 
          
 
Perkins grinned. His face was half-turned away
from
Crawley
, and he was looking at the floor, as though
he was amused by something he saw there. "Off" the record?" he
murmured. "As long as there are two of you in here, it's on the
record."

 
          
 
"Do you want one of us to leave?"

 
          
 
Perkins looked up at Levine again, and stopped
smiling. He seemed to think it over for a minute, and then he shook his head.
"No," he said. "Thanks, anyway. But I don't think I have
anything more to say. Not right now anyway."

 
          
 
Levine frowned and sat back in his chair,
studying Perkins. The boy didn't ring true; he was constructed of too many
contradictions. Levine reached out for a mental image of Perkins, but all he
touched was air.