The Fourth Deadly Sin (37 page)

“I have a feeling that if we can pin the killing on Ronald Bellsey or Joan Yesell, there’s not going to be much hard evidence. All circumstantial. Would the DA take the case, knowing the chances of a conviction would be iffy?”Now you’re opening a whole new can of worms,” Thorsen said cautiously.

“Ordinarily I’d say no. But this homicide attracted so much attention that they might be willing to take a chance just for the publicity. They’re as eager for good media coverage as we are.”

Delaney nodded.

“Well, you might sound them out. Just to get their reaction.”

Thorsen stared at the other man fixedly.

“Edward, you think this Joan Yesell could be it?”

“At the moment,” Delaney said, “she and Ronald Bellsey are all we’ve got. Light a candle, Ivar.”

“One candle? I’ll set fire to the whole church.”

After the Deputy departed, Delaney returned to his study and called Suarez.

But the Chief wasn’t home. Delaney chatted a few minutes with Rosa, wishing her a Merry Christmas, and asked her to tell her husband that he had called-nothing important.

Then he went back to the stack of reports on Ronald Bellsey. According to Calazo, the subject was a prime suspect in four brutal beatings in the vicinity of Bellsey’s hangouts.

Add to that Delaney’s personal reactions to the man, and you had a picture of a thug who got his jollies by pounding on weaker men, including Detective Hogan. There was little doubt that Bellsey was a sadistic psychopath. The question remained: Was he a homicidal psychopath?

Uncertainties gnawed. Would a loco who derived pleasure from punishing another human being with his fists and boots resort to hammer blows to kill? If Ellerbee had been beaten and kicked to death, Delaney would have been surer that Bellsey was the killer.

He groaned aloud, realizing what he was doing: applying logic to a guy who acted irrationally. You couldn’t do that; you had to adopt the subject’s own illogic. Once Delaney did that, he could admit that Bellsey might use a ball peen hammer, an icepick, or kill with a bulldozer if the madness was on him.

Joan Yesell might be suicidal and depressed, but she didn’t seem to share Bellsey’s mania for wild violence. But who knew what passions were cloaked by that timid, subdued persona she presented to the world?

Outside: Mary Poppins; inside: Lizzie Borden.

Between the two of them, Delaney leaned toward Yesell as the more likely suspect, but only because her alibi had been broken.

He knew full well how thin all this was. If he wanted to be absolutely honest, he’d have to admit he was no closer to clearing the Ellerbee homicide than he had been on the evening of Thorsen’s first visit.

He looked at his littered desk, at the open file cabinet overflowing with reports, notes, interrogations: all those muddled lives. All that confusion of wants, fears, frustrations, hates.

He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and went lumbering into the living room where Monica sat reading the latest Germaine Greer book.

“What’s wrong, Edward?” she asked, peering over her glasses and catching his mood.

“We’re all such shitheads!” he burst out.

“Every one of us gouging our way through life fighting and scrambling. Not one single, solitary soul knowing what the fuck is going on.”

“Edward, why are you so upset? Because life is disordered and chaotic?”

“I suppose so,” he muttered.

“Well, that’s your job, isn’t it? Making sense of things.

Finding the logic, the sequence, the connecting links?”

“I suppose so,” he repeated.

“To make sense out of the senseless. Up at Diane Ellerbee’s place, I said detectives are a lot like psychiatrists -and so we are. But psychiatrists have dear old Doctor Freud and a lot of clinical research to help them. Detectives have percentages and experience-and that’s about it. And detectives have to analyze a dozen people in a single case. Like this Ellerbee thing … I feel like giving up and telling Ivar I just can’t hack it.”

“No,” she said, “I don’t think you’ll do that. You have too much pride. I can’t believe you’re going to give up.”

“Nah,” he said, kicking at the carpet.

“I’m not going to do that. It’s just that someone-the murderer-is playing with me, jerking me around, and I can’t stand that. It infuriates me that I can’t identify the killer. It offends my sense of decency.”

“And of order,” she added.

“That, too,” he agreed. He laughed shortly.

“Goddamn it, I don’t know what to do next!”

“Why don’t you have a sandwich,” she suggested.

“Good idea,” he said.

On that same evening, Detective Ross Konigsbacher was lounging on Symington’s long sectional couch. He was dragging on one of Vince’s homemade cigarettes and sipping Asti Spumante.

“No one drinks champagne anymore,” Symington had said.

“Asti Spumante is in.”

So the Kraut was feeling like a jet-setter, with his pot and in drink.

He was also feeling virtuous because he had filed a report clearing Vincent of any complicity in the murder of Dr. Simon Ellerbee. That had been his official duty. And, as he had anticipated, he had been rewarded by being shifted to a shit detail-spending eight hours that day sitting in a car outside the Yesells’ home waiting for Joan to come out. She hadn’t.

“A great meal, Vince,” he said dreamily.

“I really enjoyed it.”

“I thought you’d like the place,” Symington said.

“Wasn’t that smoked goose breast divine?”

When they had returned to the apartment after dinner, Vince had changed into a peach-colored velour jumpsuit with a wide zipper from gullet to crotch.

“And that silk underwear,” Konigsbacher remembered.

“Thank you so much. You’ve been so good to me, Vince. I want you to know I appreciate it.”

Symington waved a hand.

“That’s what friends are for. We are friends, aren’t we?”

“Sure we are,” the Kraut said. And because he felt himself hazing from the grass and all the booze they’d had that night, he figured he better make his pitch while he was still conscious.

“Vince,” he said, “I’ve got a confession to make to you. I know you’re going to hate me for it, but I’ve got to do it - “

“I won’t hate you,” Symington said, “no matter what it is.”

“You better hear me first. Vince, I’m a cop, a detective assigned to check you out on the Ellerbee kill. Here-here’s my ID.”

He fished out his wallet. Symington looked at the shield and card.

“Oh, Ross,” he said in a choked voice, “how could you?”

“It was my job,” the Kraut said earnestly.

“To get close to you and learn your movements the night of the murder. I admit that when I started, I really thought of you as a suspect.

But as I got to know you, Vince, I realized that you’re completely incapable of a vicious act of violence like that.”

“Thank you, Ross,” Symington said in a low voice.

“But,” Konigsbacher said, taking a deep breath, “you stated you had left the party at the Hilton about the time Ellerbee was killed.”

“Only for a little while,” Symington said nervously.

“Just to get a breath of air. I told you where I went, Ross.”

“I know, I know,” the detective said, patting one of Vince’s pudgy hands.

“But you can see how it complicates things.”

Symington nodded dumbly.

“It was a serious problem for me, Vince. I knew you were innocent. My problem was whether or not to report that you had left the Hilton. I worried about it a long time, and you know what I finally decided? Not to mention it at all. I just don’t think it’s important. I just stated that you were at the Hilton all evening and couldn’t possibly be involved. You’re cleared, Vince, completely cleared.”

“Thank you, Ross,” Symington said in a strangled voice.

“Thank you, thank you. How can I ever thank you enough?”

“We’ll think of something, won’t we?” the Kraut said.

Two days before Christmas, Edward Delaney, wearing hard homburg and lumpy overcoat, trudged through a mild fall of snow to buy a Scotch pine for the holidays. When he saw the prices, he almost settled for something skinnier and scrawnier.

But, what the hell, Christmas only comes once a year, so he bought the fat, bushy tree he wanted and lugged it home, dragged it into the living room, and got to work. He went up to the attic and brought down the old fashioned cast-iron Christmas tree stand with four screw clamps, and boxes and boxes of ornaments, some of them of pre-World War II vintage. He also carried down strings of lights, shirt cardboards wound with tinsel, and packages of aluminum foil icicles, carefully saved from more Christmases than he cared to remember.

He was trying a string of lights when Monica came bustling in, wearing her sheared beaver, burdened with two big shopping bags of store-wrapped Christmas gifts. Her cheeks were aglow with the cold and the excitement of spending money. She stopped in the doorway and stared at the tree, wideeyed.

,”Happy Chanukah,” he said, grinning.

“And a Merry Christmas to you, darling. Oh, Edward, it’s a marvelous tree!”

“Isn’t it,” he said.

“I’m not going to tell you how much it cost or it would spoil your pleasure.”

“I don’t care what it cost; I love it. Let me take off my coat and put these things away, and we’ll decorate it together.

What a tree! Edward, the fragrance fills the whole room.”

Turning the radio to WQXR and listening to Vivaldi, they spent two hours decorating their wonderful tree. First the strings of lights, then the garlands of tinsel, then the individual ornaments, then the foil icicles. And finally Delaney cautiously climbed the rickety ladder to put the fragile glass star on the top.

He descended, turned on the lights, and they stood back to observe the effect.

“Oh, God,” Monica said, “it’s so beautiful I want to cry.

Isn’t it beautiful, Edward?”

“Gorgeous,” he said, touching her cheek.

“I hope the girls like it. When are they coming?”

Detective Benjamin Calazo was not a cop who had just fallen off the turnip truck. He had been around a long time.

He had been wounded twice, and had once booted a drug dealer into the East River and let the guy swallow some shit before hauling him out.

Benny knew that some of the younger men in the NYPD regarded him with amused contempt because of his white hair and shambling gait. But that was all right; when he was their age he treated his elders the same way. Until he learned how much the gaffers could teach him.

Calazo was a good cop, serious about his job. He had witnessed a lot of crap, on the streets and in the Department, but he had never lost his Academy enthusiasm. He still believed what he was doing was important. The Sanitation guys, for instance-a lousy job but absolutely essential if the public didn’t want to drown in garbage. The same way with cops; it had to be done Most of the time Calazo went by the book. But like all experienced cops, he knew that sometimes you had to throw the book out the window. The bad guys didn’t follow any rules, and if you went up against them with strict adherence to regulations, you were liable to get your ass chopped off.

This Ronald Bellsey was a case in point. The detective knew that Bellsey was guilty of the attacks near his hangouts, plus the stomping of Detective Tim Hogan. Calazo also knew there was no way Bellsey could be racked up legally for his crimes. Not enough evidence to make a case.

So the choice was between letting Bellsey waltz away free or becoming prosecutor, judge, and jury himself. The fact that Bellsey had been going to a shrink to cure his violent behavior didn’t cut any ice with Calazo and he went about planning the destruction of Ronald Bellsey without a qualm. The fact that Calazo was completely fearless helped. If a guy like Bellsey could cow him, then his whole life had been a scam.

When headquarters had been in that old building on Centre Street, there had been a number of nearby shops catering to the special needs of cops: gunsmiths, tailors, guys who made shoulder holsters that didn’t chafe, and such esoterica as ankle holsters, knife sheaths, brass knuckles, and the like.

There was one place,that made the best saps in the world, any length and weight you wanted, rigid or pliable. Sixteen years ago Calazo had bought a beauty: eight inches long with a wrist thong. Made of supple calfskin and filled with birdshot, it was double-stitched, and in all the years he had used it, it had never popped a stitch. And it had done rough duty.

When he prepared to confront Ronald Bellsey, that beautiful sap was the first thing that went into Calazo’s little gym bag. He also packed handcuffs, a steel come-along, and two thick rolls of wide electrician’s tape. He had his .38 Special in a hip holster. He didn’t think he’d need anything else.

It was a Thursday afternoon, and Bellsey always got it off at three. Calazo arrived at Betty Lee’s fleabag hotel at 2:45 and called upstairs from the lobby to make sure the coast was clear. She gave him the okay.

I “You got it straight?” he asked her, taking off his fedora and overcoat.

“He knocks, you let him in, and I take over from there. Then you get lost.

Don’t come back for an hour at least. Two would be better. He’ll be gone by then.”

“You’re sure this will go okay?” she said nervously.

“Like silk,” Calazo said.

“Not to worry. You’re out of it.”

Bellsey was a few minutes late, but the detective didn’t sweat it. When the knock came, Calazo nodded at Betty Lee, then stepped to the side of the door.

“Who is it?” she called.

“Ronald.”

She opened the door. He came in. Hatless, thank God. The detective took one step forward and laid the sap behind Bellsey’s left ear. It was a practiced blow, not hard enough to break the skin, but strong enough to put Bellsey facedown on the carpet.

“Thank you, Betty,” Calazo said.

“Out you go.”

She grabbed up her coat and scampered away. Ben locked and chained the door behind her. He patted Bellsey down but found no weapons. The only thing he took was Ronald’s handkerchief, somewhat soiled-which was okay with Calazo.

It took a lot of lifting, pulling, hauling, but finally the detective pulled Bellsey up into a ratty armchair. He wound tape around his torso to keep him upright. He taped his ankles to the legs of the chair. Then he taped his forearms tightly to the arms. Bellsey would only be able to move his hands.