Long Time No See (27 page)

“Yes,” Tataglia said wearily. “I understand it.”

“Third, if you
do
decide to answer any questions, the answers may be used against you, do you understand that?”

“Yes, yes,” Tataglia said, and actually yawned.

Carella thought,
We are going to get you, you little prick.

“You also have the right to consult with an attorney before or during police questioning—”

“My attorney is Colonel Loomis.”

“And to terminate the questioning at any time. Is all of that clear?”

“Yes, it is all perfectly clear,” Tataglia said.

“Good,” Carella said, and reached into his inside jacket pocket and took from it the letter he had found in the Harris safety deposit box. “Have you ever seen this before?” he asked.

“What is it?”

“I should really ask whether you’ve ever seen the
original
of this. This is a carbon copy. Have you ever seen the
original
of this?”

Tataglia took the letter and studied it. “No,” he said at last.

“It’s addressed to you,” Carella said.

“At Fort Lee, Virginia. I was transferred from there in September. This letter is dated November sixth.”

“Ah,” Carella said.

“May I see the letter, please?” Loomis said.

“Certainly,” Carella said, and handed it to him. “You never received this letter, is that right, Major?” he said.

“That’s right,” Tataglia said. “The Army isn’t always very good at forwarding mail,” he said, and smiled.

“What do you make of its contents?” Carella asked.

“Its contents?”

“Yes. You’re seeing it for the first time now…”

“I haven’t even read it,” Tataglia said.

“Oh, I thought you’d read it. Colonel Loomis, would you give him the letter, please?”

“I wouldn’t answer any further questions, if I were you,” Loomis said. “Mr. Carella, Mr. Stewart, I would like to suggest—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tataglia said, and took the letter from Loomis. “I have nothing to hide.”

Good
, Carella thought.
You’re just what we think you are, and we’re going to nail you to the wall.
He watched as Tataglia slowly and carefully read the letter. Finally, Tataglia looked up.

“Have you read it now?” Carella asked.

“Yes.”

“For the first time, right?”

“That’s right.”

“What do you think of it?”

“I have no idea what it means.”

“You don’t know what it means?” Carella said.

“That’s right.”

“It seems to me that Jimmy Harris is suggesting that you stuck a bayonet in Lieutenant Blake.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“Lieutenant Blake
was
killed, wasn’t he?”

“Of course he was.”

“But this isn’t
how
he was killed. He wasn’t killed the way Jimmy Harris suggests.”

“He was killed when a mortar shell exploded near him.”

“Ah,” Carella said.

“I told you that when you came to see me yesterday.”

“Yes, but Jimmy seems to have thought you stuck a bayonet in the lieutenant.”

“I have no idea what Jimmy thought or didn’t think. Jimmy is dead.”

“So he is. He seems to have thought the others
also
stuck bayonets in the lieutenant.”

“I repeat—”

“Because in his letter he says you and the others killed the lieutenant.”

“I don’t know what others you mean.”

“I would guess the men in Alpha Fire Team, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know what the letter means. I can only think Jimmy was crazy when he wrote it.”

“Ah?” Carella said. “You think he just invented all this, is that it?”

“I don’t know what he invented or didn’t invent. I only know that this is an obvious attempt at blackmail.”

“Then you didn’t stab Lieutenant Blake?”

“Of
course
I didn’t!”

“Excuse me,” Loomis said, “but I really feel the major should not answer any further questions. Major Tataglia, as your legal advisor—”

“I have nothing to hide,” Tataglia said again.

“What happened that day?” Carella asked.

“What day?”

“The day Lieutenant Blake got killed.”

“There was a mortar attack,” Tataglia said, and shrugged. “He was killed by an exploding mortar shell.”

“Was this before or after he ordered Alpha up the hill?”

“What hill?”

“Up the hill to attack the mortar emplacement.”

“I recall no such order.”

You’d been fighting with another gang all that month
—

Heavy fighting, man.

And now you were resting.

Yeah, and Lloyd told us to go on up.

What did he mean by that?

I told you. Upstairs.

“The lieutenant didn’t order Alpha up the hill?” Carella asked.

“I don’t know what hill you mean.”

“Where was the lieutenant’s command post?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Wasn’t it on the low ground? Near some bamboo?”

“I don’t remember.”

“This was the day you were promoted in the field, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but I don’t remember where the command post was.”

“Danny Cortez says it was near some bamboo at the bottom of a hill.”

“I don’t even know who Danny Cortez is.”

“He was in Bravo. The lieutenant ordered Bravo up the hill, and then he came down to get Alpha. He ordered Alpha up the hill, too, didn’t he?”

“No.”

“But the men refused to go, didn’t they?”

Damn straight, man. The boys told Lloyd to shove it up his ass. Then they all grabbed him, you know, pulled him away from Roxanne where they were standin’ there in the middle of the floor. Record still goin’, drums loud as anything. Guy banging the drums there.

“Isn’t that what happened?” Carella asked. His scalp was beginning to tingle. He understood it completely now. It had taken him a long time to see it, but now it was crystal-clear. He didn’t need Lemarre or Leider to explain what had happened that day. He
knew
what had happened. “Did you and the lieutenant struggle?”

“No, the lieutenant and I didn’t struggle.”

“Didn’t you tell him the men didn’t have to go up that hill if they didn’t want to? Didn’t you tell him they were tired?”

“I told him nothing of the sort.”

“But he was
there
, isn’t that right?”

“Where? I don’t know what you mean.”

“At the command post. He wasn’t killed
before
he got to the command post, was he?”

“I don’t…I don’t remember when he was killed. We…The mortar attack started when he was coming down the hill.”

There’s this post in the middle of the room, you know? Like you know, a steel post holdin’ up the ceiling beams. They push him up against the post. I got no idea what they fixin’ to do with him, he the president, they askin’ for trouble there.

“What was the lieutenant’s first name?” Carella asked.

“What?”

“Lieutenant Blake. What was his first name?”

“Roger.”

Roxanne’s cryin. They grab her. She fightin’ them now, she don’t want this to happen, but they do it anyway, they stick it in her, one after the other, all of them.

“Danny Cortez saw it,” Carella said. He was lying again. He didn’t give a damn. He wasn’t going to let this son of a bitch off the hook. If the courts reversed it later, the hell with it. He wasn’t going to let him get away now.

“I…I don’t know who Danny Cortez is.”

“Bravo Fire Team. I told you before. Bravo. He saw it while he was going up the hill. He looked down, and he saw you and the lieutenant struggling—”

“No,” Tataglia said.

“Saw you unsheathe your bayonet—”

“No.”

“And stab him.”

“No!” Tataglia screamed, and suddenly he put his face in his hands and began sobbing. “Oh, Jesus,” he said, “I didn’t want to…I didn’t do it for…I was trying to protect the men. They were tired, they…I was their sergeant, I was the one they trusted. He wanted them to…The enemy was up there with mortars, how could we possibly…Oh, Jesus. I told him they didn’t have to go if they were tired. We…He swung at me and I grabbed him and…we…we held him against a tree and I…I pulled my bayonet out of…out of…I stabbed him with it. The mortars were going everywhere around us, we…we all stabbed him. All of us but Jimmy. We all stabbed him. And then we…dragged him in the jungle and…and cut him…cut him…cut him up in pieces so it would look like the…the enemy did it.

“When I…when I got Jimmy’s letter, I…I tried to remember, it was so long ago, it was…Who could remember? I could hardly remember. But I knew he could ruin me…I knew he…I had to protect myself, I have a wife and family, I love them, I had to protect them. I knew if the Army started an investigation, it would all come out, somebody would crack. So I—he’d given me his return address, you know, on his letter, you know—so I…I found him and I…I killed him. And then I went to his apartment looking for the copy he said he had, the copy of the letter—I gave his wife a chance, I really did, I gave her a chance to give it to me, but she wouldn’t, so I…so I slit her throat with the same bayonet. The others—the lady with the accordion and the man I tried to kill last night—they were just so you’d think it was someone crazy.”

He looked up suddenly. Tears were streaming from his eyes, his face was distorted and pained and plaintive.

“Did the dog really have rabies?” he asked.

So that was it.

They took Tataglia down and booked him for three counts of Murder One, and they threw in the attempted assault only because they knew the smoke screen would most certainly become part of the case when it was tried, and they didn’t want any loose ends kicking around. As for the rest of it, that was the Army’s business and the Army’s job. Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Loomis promised them he would set the wheels of military justice in motion the moment he got back to Fort Kirby. A full investigation into the murder of Lieutenant Roger Blake would be forthcoming, he said, and he was confident that
all
perpetrators would be brought before a convened court-martial. Carella thought it was interesting that he had used the word “perpetrators.”

He left the squadroom at twenty minutes to 11:00. The night was blustery and cold. He walked with his head ducked against a fierce wind, clutching against his chest a wrapped hamburger he’d asked Miscolo to send out for while Tataglia was being booked. The dog was asleep on the backseat of the car. Carella had left the window on the curb side open a crack, figuring no one would try boosting an automobile belonging to a cop, the information clipped to the turned-down visor: Police Department. He unlocked the front door now, pulled up the lock-knob on the rear door, and then opened it and leaned into the car. He still couldn’t remember the damn dog’s name. He’d have to ask Sophie Harris what the dog’s name was.

“Hey, boy,” he said. “Wake up.”

The dog blinked up at him.

“You want some hamburger?” Carella said, and opened the paper in which the hamburger was wrapped.

The dog blinked again.

“Miscolo sent out for it. It’s cold, but it’s very nice. Take a sniff.”

He extended his hand to the dog, the hamburger on his open palm. The dog sniffed at it. Then he took a tentative nibble.

“Good,” Carella said, and spread open the paper the hamburger was wrapped in, and put hamburger and paper on the seat beside the dog. By the time he came around to the driver’s side of the car, the hamburger was gone and the dog was licking the paper. Carella sat behind the wheel a moment before starting the car, looking through the windshield at the green globes of the station house ahead, the numerals “87” painted on each in white. He wondered if there was anything he’d forgotten to do, decided there wasn’t, and twisted the ignition key. It was his contention that when you finished your song and dance, the best thing to do was go home.

He went home.

Photograph © Dragica Hunter

Ed McBain was one of the many pen names of the successful and prolific crime fiction author Evan Hunter (1926–2005). Born Salvatore Lambino in New York, McBain served aboard a destroyer in the US Navy during World War II and then earned a degree from Hunter College in English and psychology. After a short stint teaching in a high school, McBain went to work for a literary agency in New York, working with authors such as Arthur C. Clarke and P.G. Wodehouse, all the while working on his own writing on nights and weekends. He had his first breakthrough in 1954 with the novel
The Blackboard Jungle
, which was published under his newly legal name Evan Hunter and based on his time teaching in the Bronx.

Perhaps his most popular work, the 87th Precinct series (released mainly under the name Ed McBain) is one of the longest running crime series ever published, debuting in 1956 with
Cop Hater
and featuring over fifty novels. The series is set in a fictional locale called Isola and features a wide cast of detectives including the prevalent Detective Steve Carella.

McBain was also known as a screenwriter. Most famously he adapted a short story from Daphne Du Maurier into the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s
The Birds
(1963). In addition to writing for the silver screen, he wrote for many television series, including
Columbo
and the NBC series
87th Precinct
(1961–1962), based on his popular novels.

McBain was awarded the Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement in 1986 by the Mystery Writers of America and was the first American to receive the Cartier Diamond Dagger award from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain. He passed away in 2005 in his home in Connecticut after a battle with larynx cancer.