Mitchell Smith (27 page)

“There was no use making a no-cause arrest, Lieutenant,” Ellie said.

“-It would just be kicked out. There wouldn’t have been any evidence!”

“So you say,” Leahy said. “-An’ I notice this guy is sayin’ nothin’ at all. If it was any but you two … I’d figure you for takin’, have your asses up on charges. -You understand me?” His blue eyes were bulging like a china pig’s, and he blinked twice, then again.

“What for?” Ellie said, wishing that Tommy would say something-at least back her up.

“You know what for,” Leahy said, quietly. ‘-You people were told who, what, where, and when. And you go out there and you come back with nothin’. -Now, I got to explain why,” and he looked up toward the floor above. “You uys left me holdin’ the shitty end-and I don’t even want to know why you did it.” Furious blink”—But I’ll tell you this-the next cops I send you Mr, you better bring those fuckers in on a fuckin’

plate!” The Lieutenant turned away, then turned back again. “—An’

right now, you two come in and listen to some bullshit on that whore thing. A fuckin’ waste of time, is what that is!” and marched away before them, back into his office.

“Tommy, come on, now,” Ellie said, softly, “for God’s sake. -You almost got us into trouble there.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry-but Jesus, speak up next time. . .

The closet office seemed packed with seven people in it-the three in front of the desk; Leahy just wedging himself behind it; Serrano-unseen before-leaning against the near wall; now Ellie and Nardone crowded in, closing the door behind them.

Sitting before the desk was a worried horse-faced man in an expensive brown-checked summer suit. He cut a glance at Ellie and Nardone as they came in, then looked back down at his lap. A short, thick-armed woman with heavy, shoulder-length black hair and narrow, dark green eyes, sat beside him; she wore a fine time-green challis dress, matching top, simple heavy gold jewelry. An attorney—one Ellie had never seen before, but unmistakable in his alert concern, his lack of anger, lack of fearsat on the other side of the woman, against the far wall.

“Listen,” Leahy said to the horse-faced man, “these officers”-he indicated Ellie and Nardone-“these officers are workin’ on the Gaither case.” He made a gentle encouraging gesture with his left hand. “Why don’t you just go over this for them-O.K.?”

The man looked up at Nardone, then Ellie, and stayed with her. “Miss .

. .” he said. “Officer … what happened is that I … associated with Miss Gaither.” He moved his long jaw sideways, left and right, as if imitating the animal he resembled. “I live in the same building.

I … heard some gossip. I heard about her.”

“Then he spoke to this prostitute in Gristede’s,” the short woman said; she had a voice unlike her looks, it was soft and treble as a girl’s.

“-And he arranged to ,associate’ with her. Twice. -He says twice. For two hundred dollars each time. -Isn’t that right?” she said to the man.

“Wasn’t it two hundred dollars each time? -She must have been crazy about you. She must have found you very attractive!”

,,No,” the man said, “I suppose she didn’t-but she was very nice.” He looked at Ellie, then looked away toward the little table with the coffeepot on it. “Then, I read about what had happened-and I thought I’d better come in. . . .”

“What an incredible wimp you are,” his wife said, and seemed to give out deadly rays as she sat.

“What’s your name?” Nardone said. “-You try to get her to do something’

she didn’t want? You smack her around a little? Warm her up? Get that juice going’?”

“That’s a laugh,” the man’s wife said.

“I never hurt her,” the man said, “I didn’t do anything like that.”

“There’s no need for questions of that sort,” the attorney said. “My client came voluntarily to reveal his limited knowledge-“

“Didn’t you hear me or something’?” Nardone said to the horse-faced man.

“-What the fuck is your name?”

“Barry,” the man said. “Barry Crowell. I’m in investment counseling.”

“And she did everythin’ you wanted-just like that?

Wasn’t anything’ she wouldn’t do for you? Nothin’ too dirty for her, huh?”

“She was very nice,” Crowell said. —I’m not ashamed of what I did.”

“Well, I got to tell you, Barry,” Nardone said, and went over to lean on Leahy’s desk beside Crowell’s chair, I, my opinion, a lot of these prostitutes are better off dead, you know? Lots of times, it’s a favor.

I mean it!

You know, when we found her, she was smilin’-like she was glad she went.

She looked peaceful.

“I don’t see what good-” the attorney said, but Nardone didn’t let him finish, “I know-and you know what that means, too, Barry.

It means the guy put her away knew what he was doin’.

And what he was doin’ was something’ just had to be done. It was for her good-for everybody’s good. -Right?

Let me tell you something’-takes quite a guy to see something’ tough like that, and get it done, and to hell with what people think.”

“Lieutenant,” the attorney said to Leahy, “-we’re not going to hold still for this sort of questioning.”

“What questioning?” Leahy said. “If you want, we can hold Mr. Crowell as a material witness—call Reedy in from the Post. They can take his picture. . . . Is that what you want? -You know, Counselor, best thing is just to cooperate here. Nobody’s going’ to push your client around.”

Nardone reached down and put his hand on Crowell’s shoulder. “-They don’t even know what we’re talkin’ about, do they?” He shook Crowell’s shoulder gently, as if he were waking him. “We’re talkin’ about a guy with the kind of guts … everybody’s going’ to wind up lovin’ that guy for doin’ what that poor woman really wanted.

What she needed done, so she’d go out clean–stop making’ everything so fuckin’ filthy. I can tell your wife doesn’t understand, here,” he said, ‘-but she will. A lot of guys do something’ special, it takes awhile for people to catch up to ‘em-you know? Everybody doesn’t get it, not right off. . . .”

Nardone bent over Crowell. “Let me ask you something’ -just for me, none of this official bullshit. Let me ask you something’. It wasn’t easy-was it, Barry? Took a lot out of you, took a lot of your strength, just to get it done… ?”

Crowell stared up at Nardone as if the detective were a cloud that had come drifting over him.

“No,” he said. “I didn’t-“

“But you tried, didn’t you. -At least you gave it a try.”

“No,” Crowell said. “-I never thought of it.”

“Ooooh … uh-oh, now you’re lyin’ to me, Barry. -You never even thought about it?”

“No. Really. -And I couldn’t have, anyway. I was on Long Island.”

“All last weekend, Sunday mornin’ and Monday, too? -All day? Hey, Barry-come on. It’s not summertime anymore.” Nardone counted on his fingers. “Gee, that’s a lot of time on Long Island, Barry. Didn’t you have to come into the office? -Just for a few hours? Take the train in?”

“No … no, I didn’t. I was in Southampton for five days! I was seeing clients. -I was there when that happened to her!”

“And what about you?” Nardone said to the man’s wife. “-You going’ to go to jail for a couple years to back up that bullshit?”

“All right, now-that’s enough,” the attorney said, and made to get up out of his chair.

“Relax, Counselor,” Nardone said, “-your clients came in here to cooperate, right? I mean if you want to take ‘em out of here, then take

‘ern out of here! An’ we’ll come get ‘ern later.” He put his hand back on Crowell’s shoulder. “-But Barry’s got some stuff to get off his chest … he’s been doin’ some things with this prostitute behind his wife’s back-and she’s mad and I don’t blame her-because it looks like that’s all there is to it … just some dirty stuff he wanted, and this woman would do it for money.” He squeezed Crowell’s shoulder gently, leaning over him. “But, what I think … is that Barry is not that kind of a guy. I think he had something’ else in mind all the time.

-Not that dirty stuff. I think he had something’ real serious on his mind all the time-and I’d like to hear about it, because this doesn’t look like a perverted guy to me.,)

“I’m not,” Mr. Crowell said. “It was just … lovemaking.”

“Poor woman,” his wife said. ‘-She should have charged three hundred.”

“We can just stop this right now, Lieutenant,” the attorney said to Leahy, who was leaning back in his chair, looking sleepy-and was; he’d had three cheeseburgers and a jumbo fries for lunch. A large Pepsi, too.

“-We can bring this to a close, I think. Mr. Crowell had some information to volunteer concerning this case-and only peripheral information at that-and he has done so.” He leaned over to pick up his briefcase.

“Bullshit,” Nardone said. “-He’s here, and you’re here, because he left his fingerprints all over a murdered lady’s apartment. I was in his shoes, I’d be up here, too, cooperatin’ my ass off!’-and walked back to the wall by Leahy’s only window, and leaned against it.

“He is here doing his goddamn duty as a citizen!” the attorney said,

“-at the cost of very considerable embarrassment, and damage to his marital relationship!”

“Calm down, Counselor,” Ellie said, “-there’s no problem here. If Mrs.

Crowell’s going to swear her husband never came into the city-and, of course, we don’t find evidence he hired some people to murder this woman-well, then there’s no problem. If she commits perjury, she’s going to prison. That’s all this officer is saying. -You saying she won’t go to prison for lying about a murder in court?” Ellie sat on the edge of Leahy’s desk where Nardone had been, and said to Mrs. Crowell,

“I’m sure your attorney never said you wouldn’t go to prison for perjury if you lied under oath in this case? He didn’t tell you that, did he?”

Ellie leaned down and patted the green-eyed woman on the knee. She had round, fat knees. The dress material was heavy and smooth as old linen.

“-You see, you’d have to have knowledge of his whereabouts every hour you were out there. He never went shopping alone? Never went to the beach?

Never went to play tennis? Never left the house in the middle of the night-while you were asleep? -If you can swear all that under oath, then maybe you have no problem.” She patted the woman’s knee again.

“Mrs. Crowell has no problem in any case,” the attorney said.

“Is that what he’s been telling you?” Ellie said to the woman. “-That you’d have no problem, no matter what?”

The woman didn’t answer her. She didn’t look frightened; she looked tired.

“That is not what I told her,” the attorney said, “-and you better be pretty careful, or you’re going to find yourself defending a suit for damages to my professional-“

“That’ll be the day,” Ellie said. “That’ll be a first-a damages case over questions, and not a single statement to effect by me or this other officer.” She smiled at the woman. “-Are you satisfied you have the best representation you can afford … ?”

The green-eyed woman suddenly laughed-a trilling, high-pitched young girl’s laugh. -It made her face prettier, so Ellie could see why Crowell had loved her, married her so many years before. “I hate to say it,” the woman said, “but this jackass wasn’t really out of my sight much last weekend, and we had house guests-some people from Detroit, clients of Barry’s. The Shrellenbachs.

You can check with them-Michael and Dorothy Shrellenbach. -They’d love this!” She shook her head, revealing, under heavy black hair, gold seashells curled at the lobes of her ears. “I hate to say it, but he really didn’t have time to come into town and kill that poor creature.”

“Or have it done?” Ellie said. “-If she were threatening to tell you, for example . . . had a little blackmail going?”

“Not a chance, dear,” the woman said. “-Barry doesn’t know anybody who’d dream of arranging such a thing.

None of his friends are that interesting.” She reached over, took Crowell’s hand, and held it. “-He’s just a cowardly sneak.”

“Nothin’?” Leahy said, when the three were gone, Serrano gone before to block Reedy and the News man.

“Nothin’,” Nardone said. “-That guy never did anything.”

And will his prints show up on the report, after all?”

Ellie said.

“No way,” Leahy and Nardone said, almost together.

“Check with the phone company, anyhow,” Leahy said. “-See if the guy was callin’ people his wife didn’t know he knew. He could have made a couple calls from Long Island. Maybe did some investments for some wise guy owed him a favor. . . .”

“We’ll call the Detroit people, too-see what they have to say,” Ellie said.

“By the way, I don’t see any board out there on this Gaither thing,”

Leahy said.

“We’re using the machine,” Ellie said. “-We put everything we get on the computer.”

“Let me tell you something’-a pin board is going’ to give you a better look at what you got.”

“Maybe . Ellie said. “I guess we could put one up.”

“Do it. . O.K., enough of that shit,” Leahy said, and picked up a paper from his desk. “I got a letter here-guy’s too paralyzed to use the friggin’ phone-from that trooper commander upstate - ” Leahy’s lower lip, damp and raspberry red, protruded as he looked the letter over.

“-Says you have submitted an incomplete record of questions and replies from witness Bostwick, Charles W.”

“That moron,” Ellie said. “-Bostwick is an alcoholic!

He’s a mess. -He’s incontinent, for God’s sake! He ID’d one of those troopers as a Puerto Rican kid with a gravity knife! “

“Why don’t we send that witness up to Albany, send him to the commander up there-let him interview him?”

Nardone said.

Leahy smiled. “Oh-that’s a good one. Send the jerk up on a bus-I’ll give ‘em a call he’s comin’ up, they can meet him. Let him shit all over one of those fancy cars they like to drive a hundred up there in the woods.” He put the letter on his desk. “-Let me think about it-see can we afford the ticket for the jerk.”

“Bill the State guys—it’s their interview,” Nardone said.