The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza (9 page)

“Y
ou’re not a suspect,” Ray assured me. “Nobody on the case even gave a thought to you. Then I went in this morning and I got the word on Crowe and the first person I thought of was you. ‘Here I just saw my old friend Bernie Rhodenbarr yesterday,’ I said to myself, ‘and here’s an old friend of his that turns up murdered, and one thing Crowe and the Colcannon woman got in common is they both died from a beatin’. ’So what I thought is you might know somethin’. What do you know, Bern?”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah. But what do you know besides that?”

We were in the same car we’d ridden in a day ago, and once again he was driving me to my store. I told him I hadn’t seen Abel Crowe since a friend and I had watched the fireworks from his living-room window almost a year ago.

“Yeah, that’s some view,” he said. “I dropped by on my way to your place just to see what I could see. What I could see was half of Jersey from the living-room window. That’s where they found the body, over by the window, all crumpled in a heap. You never saw him since the Fourth of July?”

“We may have talked a few times on the phone, but not recently. And I haven’t seen him since last July.”

“Yeah. What happened yesterday, a neighbor rang his bell around six, six-thirty in the afternoon. When he didn’t answer she got concerned and checked with the doorman, and he didn’t remember Crowe leavin’ the buildin’. An old man like that, you worry about his heart or maybe he had a fall, things like that. The guy was seventy-one.”

“I didn’t realize he was that old.”

“Yeah, seventy-one. So the doorman went upstairs, or more likely he sent somebody, the elevator operator or a porter or somebody, and they tried the door. But that didn’t do ’em any good because he had police locks like you got on your door. A different model, the kind with the bolt that slides across.”

“I know.”

“Oh, yeah? You remember his locks clear from last July?”

“Now that you mention it I do. The business I was in, you tend to pay attention to locks.”

“I’ll bet you do. What they did, they banged on the
door and tried to get an answer, and then they called the precinct and a patrolman was sent up, and what could he do? He tried to force the door and you can’t with a lock like that, and finally someone got the bright idea to call a locksmith, and by the time they found someone who would come and he finally got there and managed to open the lock it must have been close to ten o’clock.”

Indeed it must have. It wasn’t too much earlier than that when I last tried Abel’s number, and if they’d gotten in earlier some cop would have answered Abel’s telephone.

“They almost expected to find the old man lyin’ dead there,” he went on. “What they didn’t expect was to find him murdered.”

“There’s no question it was murder?”

“No question at all. The Medical Examiner on the scene said so, although you didn’t have to be a doctor to see it. It wasn’t one blow. Somebody hit him a lot of times in the face and over the head.”

“God.”

“Time of death’s a guess at this stage, but the ballpark figure is early afternoon yesterday. So you could have raced up there after I dropped you at the store, killed the old man, then raced back down to open up for business. Just a little lunch-hour homicide. Except that’s not your style an’ we both know it, plus I got a look at your face when I told you about Crowe bein’ dead, Bern, and you were learnin’ it for the first time.”

We caught a light at Thirty-seventh Street and he braked the car. “The thing is,” he said, “it’s a coincidence, isn’t it? Colcannon and now this, both hit on the head and both dead and not twenty-four hours apart. More like twelve hours.”

“Was Crowe’s apartment robbed?”

“It wasn’t taken apart. If anybody stole anything it didn’t show. I got there long after the lab crew came and went, but even so there wasn’t much of a mess. But maybe the killer knew where to look. Did Crowe keep large sums of cash around the apartment?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Sure you would, but we’ll let it pass. Maybe it was straight robbery and murder, with the killer forcing the old man to fork over the money, then killing him. Or maybe it was somebody with a reason to kill him, a motive. He have any enemies?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Maybe he cheated somebody and yesterday it caught up with him. He had a long life. You can make a lot of enemies in seventy-one years.”

“He was a nice man. He ate pastries and quoted Spinoza.”

“And bought things from people who didn’t own them.”

I shrugged.

“Who did the Colcannon job?”

“How would I know?”

“You had some connection there, Bern. And one way or another Colcannon ties into Abel Crowe.”

“How?”

“Maybe the old man set it up. Fences do that all the time, set up a place and get a burglar to knock it off. Maybe he did that and then there was an argument over the payoff. When Wanda Colcannon got killed maybe he decided there was more heat than he wanted to handle and he refused to buy whatever they stole, or wouldn’t pay the price that was set in advance. Something like that.”

“I suppose it’s possible.”

We batted it around until we were at the curb in front of Barnegat Books. I’d glanced at the Poodle Factory as we drove by and Carolyn was open for business. I started to thank Ray for the ride but he interrupted me with a heavy hand on my shoulder.

“You know more than you’re lettin’ on, Bern.”

“I know it’s hard enough to make a living selling used books. It’s impossible if you never open the store.”

“There’s a killer out there,” he said. “Maybe that’s somethin’ you oughta remember. He killed the Colcannon woman and he killed Crowe, and I’d say that’s beginnin’ to make him look like one dangerous son of a bitch.”

“So?”

“So we’ll pick him up before too long. Meanwhile,
there’s that Colcannon loot floatin’ around, and who knows what else is up for grabs? And you always did have itchy fingers, Bern.”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“’Course you don’t. Just a couple of suggestions. If you know who did the killin’, or if you happen to get wind of it, I’m the person you tell. Got that?”

“Fair enough.”

“I’d like to bag whoever did it. Crowe was a nice old gentleman. The two times I met him, we never had anythin’ we could make stick, nothin’ that even came close, but he was a gentleman all the same. What he was, he was generous.” Free with a bribe, in other words. “And there’s another thing.”

“Oh?”

“There’s money in this, Bern. I keep gettin’ this sense of money, you know what I mean? I’d say I smell it, but that’s not it because it ain’t a smell, it’s a feel in the air. You know what I mean?”

“I know what you mean.”

“Like the feel right before it rains. So the thing is, Bern, if you’re out there and it starts rainin’ money, don’t forget you got a partner.”

C
arolyn came over around twelve-fifteen with a sack of carry-out from Mamoun’s. We had a felafel sandwich apiece and split a side order of roasted peppers. They made a nice mint tea there and we each drank a container of it. The stuff comes with the sugar already in it, and that reminded Carolyn of the sugar hangover she’d had the day before, and that reminded her of Abel, and she wondered aloud what he was having for lunch, what sort of yummy good he was ingesting even as we spoke.

“He’s not,” I said.

“How do you know?”

“He’s dead,” I said, and while she sat staring at me I told her what I had learned from Ray Kirschmann. He had told me to remember I had a partner, and I had indeed remembered, but somehow I hadn’t had the heart
to go straight to the Poodle Factory and ruin Carolyn’s day. So I’d opened the store instead, and dawdled in it, figuring it would be time enough when I saw her. Then she’d appeared with lunch and I had postponed the revelation so as to avoid ruining our appetites, and then, once the subject had come up, I’d blurted.

She listened all the way through, her frown deepening all the while. When I’d finished, and after we had spent a few minutes telling each other what a fine man Abel was and how obscene it was that he’d been murdered, she asked me who did it.

“No idea.”

“You think it was the same ones who murdered Wanda Colcannon?”

“I don’t see how. The police don’t suspect a link between the Colcannon burglary and Abel’s death. Ray does. He’s positive there’s a connection. But the only thing that connects Colcannon and Abel is us, and we’re not connected with either one of the murders. So there’s no real link between the house on West Eighteenth Street and the apartment on Riverside Drive, except that we took something from one place and left it at the other.”

“Maybe that’s the link.”

“The coin?”

She nodded. “Twelve hours after we left it with him he was dead. Maybe someone killed him for it.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who would even know he had it?”

“Somebody he was trying to sell it to.”

I thought it over. “Maybe. Say he got up yesterday morning and called somebody to come over and have a look at the coin. Guy comes over, has a look, likes what he sees. More than that—one look and he knows he has to own the coin.”

“But he can’t afford it.”

“Right. He can’t afford it but he has to have it, and he gets carried away and picks up something heavy. Like what?”

“Who knows? A bookend, maybe.”

A natural object for her to think of, given our surroundings. And, in those very surroundings, she had once picked up a bronze bust of Immanuel Kant which I’d been using as a bookend in the philosophy and religion section, only to bounce it off the skull of a murderer who’d been holding a gun on me at the time.

“Maybe a bookend,” I agreed. “He gets carried away, brains Abel with the bookend, puts the 1913 V-Nickel in his pocket, and away he goes. And on his way he locks up after himself.”

“Huh?”

“The doors were locked. Remember the police locks with the sliding bolts? The killer locked up after. Now I tend to do that after a burglary, picking the locks all over again, but who else do you know who does? And
what passionate numismatist would think to do it, let alone have the ability?”

“Why wouldn’t he just lock the door with Abel’s keys?”

“Oh,” I said.

“Did I say something wrong, Bern?”

“I would have thought of it myself sooner or later,” I said sullenly. “In another minute I would have thought of it.”

“It’s just that you’re not used to the idea of locking and unlocking doors with a key.”

“Maybe.”

“Anyway, it’s interesting he thought of it. Most people would just get out of there and be satisfied with the lock that locks when you close the door.”

“The spring lock.”

“Right, the spring lock. But he must have wanted to keep the body from being discovered for as long as possible, and that mattered enough to him to make him take the trouble to find Abel’s keys.”

“Maybe he didn’t have to look for them.”

“Maybe. Even so—”

“Right,” I said. “But so what? We still don’t know anything much about him that we didn’t know before we went through all this, except that he’s reasonably clever and that he doesn’t let a little thing like murder throw him off-stride. I can’t see any reason to suspect either set of Colcannon burglars. The ones that got
there before we did were slobs. They would never know about Abel and they never would have been capable of getting into his apartment. They evidently stole a ton of stuff from the Colcannon house and they’ll have to fence it somewhere or other, but I can’t believe they tried to use Abel. Even if burglers like that knew him, he’d be all wrong for what they stole. They must have loaded up on silver and furs, all the things Colcannon didn’t keep in the safe, and Abel pretty much limited himself to stamps and coins and jewelry.”

“And the ones who got there after we did?”

“The ones who killed Wanda Colcannon? We have to assume they just dropped in because the broken skylight looked like an engraved invitation. What quirk of fate do you figure got them all the way to Riverside Drive?”

“I guess they’re out.”

“I guess so. And I guess the cops’ll have to work this one out for themselves, because I’m stumped. The best thing we’ve come up with so far is a homicidal numismatist who locks up after himself, and how many of those have you known in your life? I figure they’re in the same category as hen’s teeth and 1913 V-Nickels. I’m sorry he’s dead, dammit. I liked him.”

“So did I.”

“And I’m sorry Wanda Colcannon’s dead, even though I never met her. I’m sorry we got involved in
this mess in the first place, and if I’m glad of anything it’s that we’re out of it. I think it’s time I unlocked my own door again and tried selling a few books.”

“I better get back myself. I got a dog to wash.”

“Catch you later?”

“Sure.”

Five hours later we were continuing our conversation at the Bum Rap, she with a martini, I with Scotch and water. I’d had a long slow afternoon, the store full of customers who browsed endlessly without buying anything. On days like that it’s murder trying to keep up with the shoplifters, and I’m pretty sure a studious lank-haired young woman got away with a copy of Sartre’s
Being and Nothingness.
If she reads it, I figure that’s punishment enough.

“I just hope the police wrap up both killers in a hurry,” I told Carolyn. “We’re out of it for the moment, and if they close both cases we’ll stay out of it, and that would be fine with me.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Well, we
were
at Abel’s place the night before last, and if they really dig they might try showing my picture to the doorman, and he might remember me. I told Ray I haven’t been over there since July. There’s no law against telling a lie to a policeman, but it doesn’t make them look on you with favor. I’ve got an alibi, but I don’t know how well it’ll hold up.”

“What alibi?”

“Denise.”

“That’s for last night, Bern. We were at Abel’s the night before.”

“Denise is my alibi for both nights.”

“I hope she knows it.”

“We talked about it.”

“She knows about the Colcannon job?”

“She knows they suspected me. I told her I had nothing to do with the murder. I didn’t mention that I happened to burgle the place earlier.”

“Because she thinks you’re retired.”

“Something like that. At least she tells herself she thinks I’m retired. God knows what women think.”

“So the bony blabbermouth is your alibi. I wondered why you were seeing her last night.”

“That’s not why.”

“It’s not?”

“It’s not the only reason. I don’t know what you’ve got against Denise. She always speaks well of you.”

“The hell she does. She can’t stand me.”

“Well—”

“I don’t know what kind of an alibi she’ll make. She doesn’t strike me as the type to lie convincingly. I hope you won’t need her.”

“So do I.”

She signaled for another round of drinks. The waitress brought them to our table, and Carolyn’s eyes fol
lowed her as she walked away. “She’s new,” she said. “What’s her name, did you happen to notice?”

“I think someone called her Angela.”

“Pretty name.”

“I suppose.”

“She’s pretty, too. Don’t you think?”

“She’s all right.”

“Probably straight.” She drank some of her martini. “What do you think?”

“About the waitress?”

“Yeah. Angela.”

“What about her? Whether she’s straight or gay?”

“Yeah.”

“How should I know?”

“Well, you could have an impression.”

“I don’t,” I said. “All I’ve noticed is what she plays on the jukebox. Fall in love with her and you’ll spend the rest of your life listening to country and western. You’ll have Barbara Mandrell coming out of your ears. Could we forget about Angela for a minute?”

“You could. I’m not sure I can. Yeah, sure, Bern. What is it?”

“Well, I was thinking about Abel. About the murderous coin collector who did him in.”

“And?”

“And I don’t believe it,” I said. “The timing’s no good. Say he goes to sleep right after we leave, gets up first thing in the morning and calls a collector. The guy
comes over almost immediately, kills Abel and leaves. That’s about how it would have had to happen, and Abel wouldn’t work it that way. He’d have wanted to turn it over quickly, but not that quickly. First he’d want to convince himself the coin was genuine, and didn’t he say something about x-raying it? He’d have done that first, and he’d have waited to see what kind of heat the Colcannon job generated, and if the theft of the V-Nickel was reported in the press. That would help determine the price he could charge for it, so he wouldn’t sell it until he had the information. I don’t think his murder had a damned thing to do with that coin, because I don’t think anyone in the world outside of you and me had the slightest idea that he had it. Nobody followed us there. Nobody saw us walk in. And we didn’t tell anybody anything. At least I didn’t.”

“Who would I tell? You’re the only person who knows I ever do anything besides groom dogs.”

“Then someone had another reason for killing Abel. Maybe it was a straight and simple robbery. Maybe somebody else tried to sell him something and they argued. Or maybe it was someone from his past.”

“You mean Dachau? Someone he knew in the concentration camp?”

“It’s possible, or maybe someone from his more recent past. I don’t know much about him. I know Crowe’s not the name he was born with. He told me once that his name was originally Amsel, which means
blackbird in German. From blackbird to crow is a simple leap. But another time he told me the same story except the name wasn’t Amsel, it was Schwarzvogel. That means blackbird, too, but you’d think he’d remember which one of the words was his original name. Unless neither was.”

“He was Jewish, wasn’t he?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then what was he doing in Dachau?”

“You know the rye-bread ads? ‘You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s.’ Well, you didn’t have to be Jewish to go to Dachau. Abel told me he was a political prisoner, a Social Democrat. That may have been the truth, or he could have landed there for some ordinary crime—receiving stolen goods, for instance. Or maybe he was gay. That was another good way to get to Dachau.”

She shuddered.

“The thing is,” I went on, “I don’t know a hell of a lot about Abel’s past. It’s possible nobody does. But he could have made an enemy along the way. Or it could have been a robbery or a disagreement or any damned thing. If he
was
gay, for example, maybe he brought a hustler home and got killed out of simple meanness, or for the money in his wallet.”

“It happens all the time. Do you really think he could have been gay, Bern? He kept trying to marry the two of us off. If he was gay himself, wouldn’t he
have been quicker to pick up on the fact that I’m not your standard marriage material?” She finished her drink. “And isn’t the whole thing too much of a coincidence? His death and Wanda’s death, one right after the other?”

“Only because we’re the link between them. But we’re not connected with their deaths, and we’re the only link between them otherwise, you and I and the nickel. And that’s no link at all.”

“I guess not.”

I made interlocking rings on the tabletop with the wet bottom of my Scotch glass. “Maybe I’m just telling myself this because it’s what I want to believe,” I said. “Except that I’m not altogether sure I want to believe it anyway, because of where it leads.”

“You just lost me.”

“The nickel,” I said. “The 1913 V-Nickel, the Colcannon nickel, the one we could have taken $17,500 for if we hadn’t picked pie in the sky instead.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“If he wasn’t killed for the nickel,” I said, “and if he was murdered by some clown who didn’t even
know
about the nickel, don’t you see what that means?”

“Oh.”

“Right. The nickel’s still there.”

I spent the evening at home. Dinner was a can of chili with some extra cumin and cayenne stirred in to pep it
up. I ate it in front of the television set and kept it company with a bottle of Carta Blanca. I caught the tail end of the local news while the chili was heating. There was a brief and uninformative item about Abel, nothing about the Colcannon burglary. I watched John Chancellor while I ate, and I sat through half of
Family Feud
before I overcame inertia sufficiently to get up and turn it off.

I tidied up, stacked a mix of jazz and classical music on the record player, settled in with the latest
Antiquarian Bookman,
a magazine consisting almost exclusively of dealers’ lists of books they wish to acquire for resale. I scanned the ads lazily, making a mark now and then when I found something I remembered having in stock. Several of the marks I made were for books presently reposing on my bargain table, and if I could sell them to someone who was actively seeking them I could certainly get more than forty cents apiece for them.