The McBain Brief (28 page)

Davis shoved the woman aside and started up the flight of steps, not looking back. There was a door at the top of the stairwell, and he rapped on it loudly. When he received no answer, he shouted, “I know you're in there! Open the goddamn door!”

The door opened instantly, and Davis found himself looking into the bore of a .22.

“Come in,” a woman's voice said softly.

“Where is she?” she asked.

“I'm afraid I had to tie her and gag her. She raised a bit of a fuss when she got here.”

He stepped into the room, and she closed the door behind him. Anne was lying on the bed, her hands tied behind her, a scarf stuffed in her mouth. He made a move toward her and the voice came from the doorway, cool and crisp.

“Leave her alone.”

“Why?” Davis said. “It's all over now, anyway.”

She smiled, but there was no mirth in her eyes. “You should have stayed out of it. From the very beginning.”

“Everybody's been telling me that,” Davis said. “Right from go.”

“You should have paid more attention to them, Mr. Davis. All this might have been avoided then.”

“All what?”

She did not answer. She opened the door again, and called, “It's all right, Mrs. Mulready. He's a friend of mine.” Then she slammed the door and bolted it.

“That takes care of her,” she said, the .22 steady in her hand. She was a beautiful woman with a pale complexion and blue eyes set against the ivory of her skin. She stared at Davis solemnly.

“It all seemed out of whack,” Davis said, “but I didn't know just where. It all pointed to Tony Radner and Alice Trimble, but I couldn't conceive of her as a murderess. Sure, I figured Tony led her into it. A woman in love can be talked into anything. But when I learned about Tony's accident here, a new Alice Trimble took shape. Not the gal who was talked into anything, and not the gal who'd do anything for love. This new Alice Trimble was a cold-blooded killer, a murderess who . . .”

Davis saw Anne's eyes widen. She struggled to speak.

“Anne,” he said, “tell me something. Was your sister a redhead?”

Anne nodded dumbly, and he saw the confused look that stabbed her eyes. It was then that he realized he'd unconsciously used the past tense in talking about her sister.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm sorry as hell, Anne.” He paused and drew a deep breath. “Alice is dead.”

It was almost as if he'd struck her. She flinched, and then a strangled cry tried to shove its way past the gag.

“Believe me,” he said, “I'm sorry. I . . .” He wiped his hand across his lips and then said, “I never thought to ask. About her hair, I mean. Hell, I had her picture and that was all I needed to identify her. I'm . . . I'm sorry, Anne.”

He saw the tears spring into her eyes, and he went to her in spite of the .22 that was still pointed at him. He ripped the gag from her mouth, and she said, “I don't understand. I . . . what . . . what do you mean?”

“Alice left you on the sixth,” he said, “to meet Tony Radner, allegedly to marry him. She didn't know about the trap that had been planned by Tony and Janet Carruthers.”

Anne took her eyes from Davis and looked at the .22 in the woman's hand. “Is . . . is that who . . .”

“Janet Carruthers,” Davis said, “who wanted to be free of her husband more than anything else in the world. But not at the expense of cutting herself off without a cent. So she and Tony figured it all out, and they started looking for a redhead who would take the hook. Your sister came along, starry-eyed and innocent, and Radner led her to the chopping block.”

Davis paused and turned to the redhead with the gun. “I can fill it in, if you like. A lot of guessing, but I think I'm right.”

“Go ahead,” Janet said. “Fill it in.”

“Sure. Alice met Tony as scheduled on the day they were to be married. He probably suggested a drink in celebration, drugged her, and then took her someplace to get her into some of your clothes. He drove her to the airport because your signature was necessary on the insurance policy. You insured Alice, who was now in Janet Carruthers' clothing, with Janet Carruthers' identification in case anything was left of her after the crash, for two hundred thousand dollars. And Janet Carruthers' beneficiaries were Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Radner. You knew that Nick would be on the DC-4, but outside of him, no one else on the plane knew what you looked like. It would be simple to substitute Alice for you. You left the airport, probably to go directly to City Hall to wait for Tony. Tony waited until Nick took a pilot up on a test, and
then he brought Alice to the plane, dumped her into her seat, with the bomb in her suitcase, and left to meet you. You got married shortly after the DC-4 took off. You used Alice Trimble's name, and most likely the identification—if it was needed—that Tony had taken from her. The switch had been completed, and you were now Mrs. Radner. You flew together to Las Vegas, and as soon as the DC-4 crashed, you made your claim for the two hundred G's.”

“You're right except for the drug, Mr. Davis. That would have been overdoing it a bit.”

“All right, granted. What'd Tony do, just get her too damned drunk to walk or know what was going on?”

“Exactly. Her wedding day, you know. It wasn't difficult.”

Davis heard a sob catch in Anne's throat. He glanced at her briefly and then said to Janet, “Did Tony know he was going to be driving into a pile of rocks?”

Janet smiled. “Poor Tony. No, I'm afraid he didn't know. That part was all my idea. Even down to stripping the brakes. Tony never knew what hit him.”

“Neither did all the people on that DC-4. It was a long way to go for a lousy hunk of cash,” Davis said. “Was Tony insured, too?”

“Yes,” Janet said, “but not for much.” She smiled. “Enough, though.”

Davis nodded. “One after the other, right down the line. And then you sent for Anne because she was the only living person who could know you were
not
Alice Trimble. And it had to be fast, especially after that picture appeared in the Las Vegas paper.”

“Was that how you found out?” she asked.

“Exactly how. The picture was captioned
Alice Radner
but the girl didn't match the one in the photo I had. Then I began thinking about the color of Alice's hair, which I knew was light, and it got clear as a bell.” He shook his head sadly. “I still don't know
how you hoped to swing it. You obviously sent for Anne because you were afraid someone would recognize you in Frisco. Hell, someone would have recognized you sooner or later, anyway.”

“In Mexico?” Janet asked. “Or South America? I doubt it. Two hundred thousand can do a lot outside of this country, Mr. Davis. Plus what I'll get on Tony's death. I'll manage nicely, don't you worry.” She smiled pleasantly.

Davis smiled back. “Go ahead,” he said. “Shoot. And then try to explain the shots to your landlady.”

Janet Carruthers walked to the dresser, keeping the gun on Davis. “I hadn't wanted to do it here,” she said, shrugging. “I was going to take Miss Trimble away after everyone was asleep. You're forcing my hand, though.” She opened a drawer and came out with a long, narrow cylinder. The cylinder had holes punched into its sides, and Davis knew a silencer when he saw one. He saw Janet fitting the silencer to the end of the .22 and he saw the dull gleam in her eyes and knew it was time to move. He threw back his coat and reached for the .38 in his waistband. The .22 went off with a sharp
pouff,
and he felt the small bullet rip into his shoulder. But he'd squeezed the trigger of the .38 and he saw her arm jerk as his larger bullet tore flesh and bone. Her fingers opened, and the silenced gun fell to the floor.

Her face twisted in pain. She closed her eyes, and he kicked the gun away, and then she began swearing. She kept swearing when he took her good arm and twisted it behind her back.

He heard footsteps rushing up the stairs, and then the landlady shouted. “What is it?
What is it?
”

“Get the police!” he yelled through the closed door. “Get them fast.”

“You don't know what you're doing,” Janet said. “This will kill my father.”

Davis looked over to where Anne sat sobbing on the bed. He wanted to go to her and clasp her into his arms, but there would be time for that later.

“My father . . .” Janet started.

“Your father still has Nick.” Davis said, “and his porcelain.” His shoulder ached, and the trickle of blood down his jacket front was not pleasant to watch. He paused and lifted his eyes to Janet's. “That's all your father ever had.”

I
said Look, all I want is the truth, Liz. I just want to know what the hell's going on. I can't walk in that squadroom tomorrow and not be able to take a stand on this. It's been going on too long up there, the guys talking behind my back. I got to be able to tell them they're wrong. Whatever you done or didn't do, that's
our
business. If it's true what they're saying, well then we'll have to talk it over. I don't know what we'll do if it's true, Liz, I just don't know. I know I love you. So if it's true, I guess we'll have to talk it over, find out how we can patch things up. I hope it isn't true, Liz. I love you so much, I . . . I just hope it isn't true. What I'm hoping is I can go in there tomorrow and tell the guys Look, I know what the rumble's been around here, I wasn't born yesterday. And I talked to my wife last night, and I've got the straight goods now, and if I ever hear anybody around here even
hinting
she's playing around, I'll personally break his arms and legs. That's what I'm hoping I can do tomorrow, Liz. But if it's true what they're saying, then I got to know that, too, so I can figure some way of handling it. You understand me, Liz? We been married twelve years now, we never had any trouble talking about anything before. I want
to talk about it now. I want your side of it. So you want to tell me about it, or what?

So she sat on the edge of the bed there, this was in our bedroom. I'd been home maybe ten minutes, I was still wearing the shoulder holster. I was in my shirt-sleeves and wearing the harness. So I took it off and hung it on the back of the chair, and still she didn't say anything, just sat on the edge of the bed there and stared at me. This was maybe a little after midnight, I'd been sitting that liquor store on Twelfth with O'Neill; the guy closed at eleven and I went straight home. She sat there staring at me, not saying anything, and then she took off her shoes, and stood up and walked barefooted to where I was standing by the dresser, and turned her back to me so I could lower the zipper on her dress. Then she said, “All you want is a confession.”

I said. “No, I don't want a confession, Liz. I just want to set things straight between us.”

She took off the dress, and carried it to the closet and hung it up. Then she went to the dresser in her bra and panties, and shook a cigarette loose from the package there, and searched around for a match, and got the cigarette going. She took an ashtray to the bed with her, and sat on the edge again, and let out a stream of smoke, and crossed her legs and said, “Tell me exactly what they're saying.”

I told her I'd pieced the thing together little by little—that was another thing, Liz. A detective isn't supposed to spend half his working day putting together facts on whether or not his wife is playing around behind his back. That liquor store, for one thing, it's been held up four times in the past six months, and we still ain't got a hint who's doing it. I'm supposed to be working on
crimes,
and not acting like a private eye looking for proof in a divorce action. Not that I'm talking divorce, Liz, I swear to God I'm
not even
thinking
divorce. If this is true, what they're saying, then we'll work it out someway, there's nothing we haven't yet been able to work out, we'll work this out, too.

So she said again, “Tell me exactly what they're saying.”

I told her I'd first got wind of it in the locker room one night. I was changing into my long johns because we had a stakeout later on, and I expected to be outside on a street corner. This wasn't the liquor store, this was that numbers runner we finally busted; this must've been last month sometime, when I first got wind of it. There were these two guys on the squad talking behind the lockers. They were talking about Harris, who'd got a court order to put in a wire downtown, and he was getting some very juicy conversations on that phone, conversations that had nothing to do with narcotics. The reason the wire was in there, I told her, was because the guy was suspected of running a dope factory, cutting and packaging shit for sale on the street. Now you either
know
all this, Liz, or you don't, I told her. Because if it's true what they're saying, then you've
got
to know the guy is in narcotics. He's a cheap gangster in narcotics. I don't know how you could've got involved with somebody like that, if it's true, but that's not the point. I don't care about that. If it's true, then we'll talk about it, and work it out. The point is that the guy was getting phone calls all day long from this woman, and it didn't take Harris long to figure out the woman's husband is a cop. This had nothing to do with Harris's case; he was just being
entertained
by all these conversations. Because here's a guy he's setting up for a bust if he gets anything good on the wire, and at the same time the guy is getting calls from a woman who's married to a cop, and who he's banging regularly when the cop's working. That was the first I heard of it, Liz. In the locker room there. The two guys talking about it while I changed into my long johns. The only name mentioned was Harris's, who was sitting
the wire. At the time, I didn't know the narcotics bum was a guy named Anthony Laguna, that's not his real name, that's what he goes by on the street, I guess you know his name, if the stories are true. I looked up his B-sheet, Liz, he's got a record going back to when he was seventeen, including one arrest for rape, which he got off with. Just the idea of your having anything to do with somebody like him, though I can't imagine how'd you'd ever have met a guy like him, well, just the idea . . . though I swear to God it never crossed my mind that first time I heard them talking in the locker room. All I knew was it was a cop's wife involved with this Laguna bum. That's what I told her.

She put out the cigarette then, and carried the ashtray back to the dresser, and then she unclasped her bra and put it on the chair where the gun was hanging, and then she slipped out of her panties and walked naked to the bed. She fluffed up a pair of pillows against the headboard, and then she got on the bed and leaned back against the pillows and said, “What else did you hear?”

I told her the next thing I heard was that the cop with the horns was working out of our precinct. I figured at the time it was a patrolman; a guy with fixed shifts, you know, his wife could easily be playing around while he was on the four-to-midnight, or the graveyard or whatever. I mean, it was a perfect setup for a patrolman's wife, because while the poor stiff was out there walking his beat, he couldn't be checking up on her at the same time. So I figured it was a patrolman. There was, in fact, a lot of joking in the squadroom. About the guy being a patrolman, you know. Harris is giving us detailed reports on the juicy conversations Laguna and his broad are having, and by now we all know it's a cop in the precinct, and we figure it's a patrolman, it
has
to be a patrolman. Harris is complaining about he's not getting anything on the wire but sex talk. He's supposed to be setting up a narcotics bust, and
nobody's talking about dope, all they're talking about is screwing. This girl has got to be a nympho, Harris says, she calls the guy every ten minutes, describes in detail what she wants him to do to her next time she sees him. We're all feeling pretty sorry for the patrolman, whoever he is. But at the same time, we're making jokes about him. You know the kind of jokes go on in a squadroom, Liz, it's like the Army. It's like when I was in the Army.

Well, this goes on for a week or two, I forget how long, and then I figured either Laguna and the girl broke up, or else all the jokes are going stale because all at once nobody's talking about it anymore. Not even Jefferson, who used to be with Vice and who's got nothing but sex on his mind all the time, not even Jefferson is mentioning Harris and that hot wire he's sitting. Then I hear someplace, I forget where, I think it's in the john, I'm sitting in there and I hear two guys out at the sinks and one of them is saying the broad's name is Liz—Laguna's broad. They're saying whoever that patrolman is out there, he's got a wife named Liz who's putting the horns on him with a cheap thief. I still didn't, I swear to God, I
still
didn't make a connection, I never for a minute thought this was maybe
my
Liz. This was still some patrolman out there married to a Liz.

“Yes, some patrolman's wife,” she said.

Yes, I told her, that's what I thought at the time, that's what I thought when I first heard the name Liz mentioned, but then I put that together with the fact that nobody's talking about it in the squadroom anymore, leastways not when I'm around. So I singled out Harris one day, I found him there in the swing room, I said Hey there, Charlie, how's that wire doing? Harris said Oh, it's coming along, Duke, slow, but it's coming along. And I said You still getting those hot flashes from Laguna's broad? And Harris said Oh, you know how it is with these wires, you get all
kinds of shit on them except what you're looking for. So I told him about a wire I was sitting one time, where we had a phone booth on Third Avenue bugged because we knew it was a booth this torch used all the time—we were investigating an arson at the time. But we got all different kinds of people making calls in that booth, people besides the torch. And one time I was sitting the wire, and I heard a guy telling his wife he was calling from the office and he'd be working late that night, this is a call he's making from a
booth
on Third Avenue! And his wife says That's okay, darling, I'll look for you later, and he hangs up and the next minute places a call to his girlfriend and sets up a date. Harris and I had a good laugh over that one, and then I asked him whether it was true Laguna's broad was named Liz, and Harris said Yeah, he guessed that was true, and I said Liz
what?
Harris turned his eyes away and said he hadn't heard the girl using her last name.

Well, what I did then, I went into Clerical and checked out the records for all the uniformed cops in the precinct, where it lists their home addresses, you know, and the names of spouses and kids and so on. And I found out there are three guys whose wives' names are Elizabeth. Patrolmen, these guys. None of the detectives on the squad got a wife named Elizabeth. And then I checked the patrolmen's duty chart, this was last week, I checked the chart and found out which shifts these three patrolmen were working, and I began staking out their houses while they were working, and following around their wives wherever they went. I made excuses to O'Neill, I told him I was clearing up some deadwood in the files, following up on some burglaries, talking to witnesses again, stuff like that. He bought it because we're so backlogged now, he figured anything I could do to put a case in the open file, anything like that would give us a chance to catch up. So what I did was follow these women around and, well, I guess you know I'm an
experienced cop, I told her, and by the end of the week if any of those women were fooling around with a cheap hood, why then they were doing it at the laundromat or the supermarket because that's the kind of places they went to while their husbands were on the job. Or a movie with a girlfriend, if the guy was working nights. Or one of them went to a Bingo game at the church. They were clean, I told her. So it wasn't a patrolman's wife, Liz, it just wasn't. So it had to be somebody else.

Then tonight, O'Neill and I were heading out to the liquor store, we're riding in his old Chevy, and I said to him straight out, I said Johnny, you got to tell me what they're saying. Is it Liz they're talking about? Is it
my
wife who's playing around with this Laguna? And first O'Neill said it was all a bunch of bullshit, Harris was probably making the whole thing up to keep the squadroom clowns amused. I told him I didn't think Harris was making it up, and he said Well, even it it's true, there must be ten thousand women named Liz in this city, and I said Yeah, Johnny, but not all of them are married to a cop in our precinct. So he told me it was probably some poor fucking patrolman, and I said Johnny, it's not a patrolman, I checked. And he looked at me, he was driving the car, he just turned his head slightly to the side and looked at me, and I said Johnny, I think it's
me.
He turned his head back to the road then, and he said Well, Duke, I guess that's what they're saying.

She was still sitting there on the bed, propped up against the pillows, but there was a smile on her face now, as if I'd said something very comical, something she was going to deny in the next minute, set the whole thing straight by simply saying Well, this is ridiculous, Duke, you know I love you and would never in a million years get involved with another man. That's what I wanted to hear from her, and I guess I began feeling a little better the minute
I saw that smile. So I said Liz, all I'm asking for now is the truth. If it's as terrible as maybe it looks to be, we'll work it out. And if it's true, I don't know what, maybe I'll ask for a transfer, I just don't know what. But if it's a lie, then I've got to be able to go in there and face those guys down. That's all I'm asking, Liz. I'm asking you to help me with this thing, one way or another. I love you, Liz, and whatever the truth is, it's better we get it out in the open and deal with it. Now that's it Liz, and I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me now.

“You want a confession, right?” she said. She was still smiling.

“No,” I said, “I don't want a confession, I want to be able to talk about this, I want to be able to set things stright.”

“Okay,” she said, “you'll get a confession, if that's what you want. Okay?”

“I'm listening,” I said.

“It's true,” she said. “All of it is true.”

She was still smiling, I thought for a minute she was putting me on, I thought she couldn't be saying this was true, while smiling at the same time—it had to be a put-on. “I met him downtown six months ago,” she said. “It was raining. He offered me a lift in his car, and I got in. It was as simple as that.”