A Stab in the Dark (12 page)

He pulled up a chair for himself, crossed his legs. He looked to be in his early thirties, five-eight or -

nine, pale complected, with narrow shoulders and a beer gut. He wore brown gabardine slacks and a brown and beige patterned sportshirt.

He had deep-set brown eyes, heavy jowls and slicked-down dark brown hair, and he hadn't shaved that morning. Neither, come to think of it, had I.

"About nine years ago," I said. "A woman named Susan Potowski."

"I knew it."

"Oh?"

"I hung up and I thought, why's anybody want to talk with me about some case nine or ten years old?

Then I figured it had to be the icepick thing. I read the papers.

They got the guy, right? They made a lap and he fell in it."

"That's about it." I explained how Louis Pinell had denied a role in the death of Barbara Ettinger and how the facts appeared to bear him out.

"I don't get it," he said. "That still leaves something like eight killings, doesn't it? Isn't that enough to put him away?"

"It's not enough for the Ettinger woman's father. He wants to know who killed his daughter."

"And that's your job." He whistled softly. "Lucky you."

"That's about it." I drank a little beer from the can. "I don't suppose there's any connection between the Potowski killing and the one I'm investigating, but they're both in Brooklyn and maybe Pinell didn't do either of them. You were the first police officer on the scene. You remember that day pretty well?"

"Jesus," he said. "I ought to."

"Oh?"

"I left the force because of it. But I suppose they told you that out in Sheepshead Bay."

"All they said was unspecified personal reasons."

"That right?" He held his beer can in both hands and sat with his head bowed, looking down at it. "I remember how her kids screamed,"

he said. "I remember knowing I was going to walk in on something really bad, and then the next memory I have is I'm in her kitchen looking down at the body. One of the kids is hanging onto my pants leg the way kids do, you know how they do, and I'm looking down at her and I close my eyes and open 'em again and the picture doesn't change. She was in a whatchacallit, a housecoat. It had like Japanese writing on it and a picture of a bird, Japanese-style art. A kimono? I guess you call it a kimono. I remember the color. Orange, with black trim.

He looked up at me, then dropped his eyes again. "The housecoat was open. The kimono. Partially open. There were these dots all over her body, like punctuation marks. Where he got her with the icepick. Mostly the torso. She had very nice breasts. That's a terrible thing to remember but how do you quit remembering? Standing there noticing all the wounds in her breasts, and she's dead, and still noticing that she's got a first-rate pair of tits. And hating yourself for thinking it."

"It happens."

"I know, I know, but it sticks in your mind like a bone caught in your throat. And the kids wailing, and noises outside. At first I don't hear any of the noise because the sight of her just blocks everything else.

Like it deafens you, knocks out the other senses. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes."

"Then the sound comes up, and the kid's still hanging on my pants leg, and if he lives to be a hundred that's how he's gonna remember his mother. Myself, I never saw her before in my life, and I couldn't get that picture out of my head. It repeated on me night and day. When I slept it got in my nightmares and during the day it would come into my mind at odd moments. I didn't want to go in anyplace. I didn't want to risk coming up on another dead body. And it dawned on me finally that I didn't want to stay in a line of work where when people get killed it's up to you to deal with it. 'Unspecified personal reasons.' Well, I just specified. I gave it a little time and it didn't wear off and I quit."

"What do you do now?"

"Security guard." He named a midtown store. "I tried a couple of other things but I've had this job for seven years now. I wear a uniform and I even have a gun on my hip. Job I had before this, you wore a gun but it wasn't loaded. That drove me nuts. I said I'd carry a gun or not carry a gun, it didn't matter to me, but don't give me an unloaded gun because then the bad guys think you're armed but you can't defend yourself. Now I got a loaded gun and it hasn't been out of the holster in seven years and that's the way I like it. I'm a deterrent to robbery and shoplifting. Not as much of a deterrent to shoplifting as we'd like.

Boosters can be pretty slick."

"I can imagine."

"It's dull work. I like that. I like knowing I don't have to walk into somebody's kitchen and there's death on the floor. I joke with other people on the job, I hook a shoplifter now and then, and the whole thing's nice and steady. I got a simple life, you know what I mean? I like it that way."

"A question about the murder scene."

"Sure."

"The woman's eyes."

"Oh, Christ," he said. "You had to remind me."

"Tell me."

"Her eyes were open. He stabbed all the victims in the eyes. I didn't know that. It was kept out of the papers, the way they'll hold something back, you know? But when the detectives got there they saw it right away and that cinched it, you know, that it wasn't our case and we could buck it on up to some other precinct. I forget which one."

"Midtown South."

"If you say so." He closed his eyes for a moment. "Did I say her eyes were open? Staring up at the ceiling. But they were like ovals of blood."

"Both eyes?"

"Pardon?"

"Were both of her eyes the same?"

He nodded. "Why?"

"Barbara Ettinger was only stabbed in one eye."

"It make a difference?"

"I don't know."

"If somebody was going to copy the killer, they'd copy him completely, wouldn't they?"

"You'd think so."

"Unless it was him and he was rushed for a change. Who knows with a crazy person, anyway? Maybe this time God told him only stab one eye. Who knows?"

He went for another beer and offered me one but I passed. I didn't want to hang around long enough to drink it. I had really only had one question to ask him and his answer had done nothing but confirm the medical report. I suppose I could have asked it over the phone, but then I wouldn't have had the same chance to probe his memory and get a real sense of what he'd found in that kitchen. No question now that he'd gone back in time and seen Susan Potowski's body all over again. He wasn't guessing that she'd been stabbed in both eyes. He had closed his own eyes and seen the wounds.

He said, "Sometimes I wonder. Well, when I read about them arresting this Pinell, and now with you coming over here. Suppose I wasn't the one walked in on the Potowski woman? Or suppose it happened three years later when I had that much more experience? I can see how my whole life might have been different."

"You might have stayed on the force."

"It's possible, right? I don't know if I really liked being a cop or if I was any good at it. I liked the classes at the Academy. I liked wearing the uniform. I liked walking the beat and saying hello to people and having them say hello back. Actual police work, I don't know how much I liked it. Maybe if I was really cut out for it I wouldn't have been thrown for a loop by what I saw in that kitchen. Or I would have toughed it out and gotten over it eventually. You were a cop yourself and you quit, right?"

"For unspecified personal reasons."

"Yeah, I guess there's a lot of that going around."

"There was a death involved," I said. "A child. What happened, I lost my taste for the work."

"Exactly what happened with me, Matt. I lost my taste for it. You know what I think? If it wasn't that one particular thing it would have been something else."

Could I say the same thing? It was not a thought that had occurred to me previously. If Estrellita Rivera had been home in bed where she belonged, would I still be living in Syosset and carrying a badge? Or would some other incident have given me an inevitable nudge in a direction I had to walk?"

I said, "You and your wife separated."

"That's right."

"Same time you put in your papers?"

"Not too long after that."

"You move here right away?"

"I was in an S.R.O. hotel a couple blocks down on Broadway. I stayed there for maybe ten weeks until I found this place. Been here ever since."

"Your wife's still in the East Village."

"Huh?"

"St. Marks Place. She's still living there."

"Oh. Right."

"Any kids?"

"No."

"Makes it easier."

"I guess so."

"My wife and sons are out on Long Island. I'm in a hotel on Fifty-seventh Street."

He nodded, understanding. People move and their lives change.

He'd wound up guarding cashmere sweaters. I'd wound up doing whatever it is I do. Looking in a coal mine for a black cat, according to Antonelli. Looking for a cat that wasn't even there.

When I got back to my hotel there was a message from Lynn London. I called her from the pay phone in the lobby and explained who I was and what I wanted.

She said, "My father hired you? It's funny he didn't say anything to me. I thought they had the man who killed my sister. Why would he suddenly-well, let's let it ride for now. I don't know what help I could be."

I said I'd like to meet with her to talk about her sister.

"Not tonight," she said briskly. "I just got back from the mountains a couple of hours ago. I'm exhausted and I've got to do my lesson plans for the week."

"Tomorrow?"

"I teach during the day. I've got a dinner date and I'm going to a concert after that. Tuesday's my group therapy night. Maybe Wednesday? That's not terribly good for me either. Hell."

"Maybe we could-"

"Maybe we could handle it over the phone? I don't really know very much, Mr. Scudder, and God knows I'm beat at the moment, but perhaps I could deal with, say, ten minutes' worth of questions right now, because otherwise I honestly don't know when we could get together. I don't really know very much, it was a great many years ago and-"

"When do you finish your classes tomorrow afternoon?"

"Tomorrow afternoon? We dismiss the children at three fifteen, but-"

"I'll meet you at your apartment at four."

"I told you. I have a dinner date tomorrow."

"And a concert after it. I'll meet you at four. I won't take that much of your time."

She wasn't thrilled, but that's how we left it. I spent another dime and called Jan Keane. I recapped the day and she told me she was in awe of my industriousness. "I don't know," I said. "Sometimes I think I'm just putting in time. I could have accomplished the same thing today with a couple of phone calls."

"We could have handled our business over the phone last night,"

she said. "As far as that goes."

"I'm glad we didn't."

"So am I," she said. "I think. On the other hand, I was planning on working today and I couldn't even look at clay. I'm just hoping this hangover wears off by bedtime."

"I had a clear head this morning."

"Mine's just beginning to clear now. Maybe my mistake was staying in the house. The sun might have burned off some of the fog.

Now I'm just sitting around until it's a reasonable hour to go to sleep."

There might have been an unspoken invitation in that last sentence.

I probably could have invited myself over. But I was already home, and a short and quiet evening had its appeal. I told her I'd wanted to say how I'd enjoyed her company and that I'd call her.

"I'm glad you called," she said. "You're a sweet man, Matthew." A pause, and then she said, "I've been thinking about it. He probably did it."

"He?"

"Doug Ettinger. He probably killed her."

"Why?"

"I don't know why. People always have motives to kill their spouses, don't they? There was never a day when I didn't have a reason to kill Eddie."

"I meant why do you think he did it."

"Oh. What I was thinking, I was thinking how devious you would have to be to kill someone and imitate another murder. And I realized what a devious man he was, what a sneak. He could plan something like that."

"That's interesting."

"Listen, I don't have any special knowledge. But it's what I was thinking earlier. And now he's doing what? Selling sporting goods? Is that what you said?"

I sat in my room and read for a while, then had dinner around the corner at Armstrong's. I stayed there for a couple of hours but didn't have very much to drink. The crowd was a light one, as it usually is on a Sunday. I talked to a few people but mostly sat alone and let the events of the past two days thread their way in and out of my consciousness.

I made it an early night, walked down to Eighth Avenue for the early edition of Monday's News. Went back to my room, read the paper, took a shower. Looked at myself in the mirror. Thought about shaving, decided to wait until morning.

Had a nightcap, a short one. Went to bed.

I was deep in a dream when the phone rang. I was running in the dream, chasing someone or being chased, and I sat up in bed with my heart pounding.

The phone was ringing. I reached out, answered it.

A woman said, "Why don't you let the dead bury the dead?"

"Who is this?"

"Leave the dead alone. Let the dead stay buried."

"Who is this?"

A click. I turned on a light and looked at my watch. It was around one thirty. I'd been sleeping an hour, if that.

Who had called me? It was a voice I'd heard before but I couldn't place it. Lynn London? I didn't think so.

I got out of bed, flipped pages in my notebook, picked up the phone again. When the hotel operator came on I read off a number to him. He put the call through and I listened as it rang twice.