Ed McBain_Matthew Hope 12 (18 page)

The walls of his office pretty much told the story of his life. Resting on a shelf was a boxing trophy he’d won while serving
in the United States Navy. Hanging on one of the walls were a pair of laminated front-page stories from the New York
Daily News
and Long Island’s
Newsday,
headlining the daring capture of two bank robbers in Mineola, Long Island, by a young police officer named Morris Bloom.
Hanging on another wall were several framed photographs of the detective squad he’d subsequently commanded up north, together
with a citation plaque from the Nassau County chief of detectives. On yet another shelf was a Snoopy doll his then-nineteen-year-old
son had given him on a Father’s Day some years back, the hand-lettered sign around its neck reading:
To the best bloodhound in the world. Love, Marc.
A framed picture of Bloom’s wife Arlene, a smiling dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty, rested on his desk alongside a humidor
of Cuban cigars he offered to rank but never smoked himself.

A heavyset man in his mid-forties, an inch over six feet tall and weighing either side of two hundred pounds, depending on
how many pizzas he’d had this week, he stood waiting for my first question. There was a look of ineffable sadness on his face,
as though he were certain my case was already a lost cause. But the look, exaggerated by shaggy black brows and soulful brown
eyes, was
always
there, a bad failing for a cop. Arms folded across his chest, he waited. He was a blunt, plainspoken man. I knew there’d
be no bullshit in this office today.

“Etta Toland says that you and Cooper Rawles were the first detectives to respond when the blues called in a homicide.”

“That’s right,” Bloom said.

“What time did you get to the boat, Morrie?”

“Twenty to one.”

“Can you tell me what you found?”

“Sector patrol car angle-parked into the walk running past the boats, I think it was Charlie Car, it’s in the report. Patrol
sergeant’s car was alongside it, also angle-parked. Coop and I were driving one of the squad’s sedans, we parked alongside
the sergeant’s car, his driver still behind the wheel. His name’s Brannigan, he’s supervisor in Sector Three. He took me to
where the victim’s wife…”

“Etta Toland.”

“Yeah, was sitting in this little sort of outdoor…I don’t know boats, Matthew, I don’t know
what
the hell you call it. A little outside area with a table and banquettes around it, what looked like banquettes.”

“The cockpit,” I said.

“I thought that was airplanes.”

“Boats, too. But different.”

“Anyway, she was sitting there alone, her hands in her lap, staring down at her hands…”

“Lights on, Morrie?”

“What?”

“In the cockpit.”

“Oh. Yeah. Why?”

“Just wondered. Go ahead.”

“Coop and I went to her, and he handled the questioning while I took notes. You get a feel whether the white guy or the black
guy should do the talking. I didn’t get a sense it would make any difference at all here. So he talked, and I wrote.”

“What’d she tell you?”

“How she’d gone on the boat around a quarter past midnight and found her husband dead downstairs. Coop asked her did she touch
anything and she said No, just the phone, and Coop asked did she call anyone but the police, and she said No, just the police.
So we all went downstairs to take a look.”

“Mrs. Toland, too?”

“No, no, she stayed upstairs in the cockpit, whatever. I went down with Coop and the M.E., who’d arrived by then.”

“What’d you find?”

“A dead man lying on his back on the far side of the bed, blood all over him. Looked like he took two in the face, which the
M.E. said either one could’ve been the cause of death. We later found another spent bullet. Because we were
looking
for it, Matthew. There were three ejected cartridge cases, you see. We figure the third bullet missed him entirely, maybe
it was the first one she fired, maybe her hand was shaking, who knows, you ought to ask her. Anyway, we later dug out the
bullet from the wall behind the bed, near the door to the bathroom. Your client must’ve pumped the slugs into him from two,
three feet away, very nice, Matthew.”

“And left the gun behind,” I said.

“Yeah, on the bed.”

“You think she shot him and then placed the gun neatly on the bed?”

“I just report the facts, Matthew. The S.A. decides what’ll play to the jury.”

“Does Folger think that’ll play, Morrie?”

“Gee, I guess not, since you say he’s already offered you a deal.”

“Was the gun on the bed the murder weapon?”

“That’s what Ballistics says.”

“You have a report?”

“We had it before we brought your client in.”

“Was the gun test-fired?”

“Of course.”

“What were the results?”

“The ejected cartridge cases and the bullet we recovered on the boat were fired from the .45 Colt automatic pistol we found
on the bed. The bullets the coroner removed from the victim’s head were
also
fired from that gun. It’s the murder weapon, Matthew, no question about it.”

“Have you traced the gun?”

“Purchased by one Brett Toland.”

“Uh-huh.”

“There’s more, Matthew.”

“Okay,” I said, and sighed.

“We took your client into custody around seven that morning. As permitted by Miranda, we…”

“Brought her here?”

“Yes.”

“Questioned her here?”

“Yes.”

“I’m assuming, since she was in custody…”

“Come on, Matthew.”

“Then she
was
made aware of her rights, correct?”

Bloom merely cocked a baleful eye at me.

“Okay, okay. I was just wondering why she didn’t call
me
right then. Put an end to it right then.”

“Said she didn’t need a lawyer, this was all ridiculous.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Even agreed to let us print her. Though I guess you know, under the Miranda guidelines we don’t
need
permission to take fingerprints. We asked solely as a courtesy.”

“And she said okay?”

“Said she was innocent.”

“She is.”

“They
all
are, Matthew. I have never met a guilty felon in my entire lifetime.”

“This one
is
innocent, Morrie.”

“Then why are her prints all over the murder weapon?”

I looked at him.

“Palm prints?” I said. “Fingerprints?”

“Both.”

“You still don’t have her at the scene. She left that boat at ten-thirty. She was home in bed by…”

“Not according to four eyewitnesses.”

“All eminently reliable. One of them is Toland’s loving wife, another one was on a moving boat in the dark, and the last two
were drunk and going back to their boat to smoke pot.”

“You don’t know that, Matthew.”

“It’s what they told me yesterday.”

“I guess you can prove…”

“The point is,” I said, plunging ahead regardless, “Lainie Commins wasn’t even
on
that boat when the murder took place. She got there at ten, drank a nonalcoholic drink, listened to what Toland had to say,
advised him that she’d talk it over with her lawyer, and left the boat at ten-thirty, without once budging from that cockpit.”

“Then what was her scarf doing downstairs?”

“What scarf?”

“A Gucci scarf. Tiny red anchors on a blue field.”

“Where’d you find…?”

“The master bedroom. Downstairs.”

“You don’t know it’s hers.”

“She identified it as hers.”

“I can’t believe…”

“That’s when we called in the state attorney, Matthew”

I was shaking my head.

“That’s when we charged her with first-degree murder.”

Still shaking my head.

“I’m sorry, Matthew,” he said. “But she did it.”

No, I was thinking.

“No,” I said.

But it looked a hell of a lot like yes.

“I didn’t kill him,” Lainie said.

“Lainie,” I said, “your fingerprints are on the gun.”

She was sitting in my chair behind my desk. I was pacing the floor of my office. My partner Frank was half-sitting, half-leaning
on the corner of my desk, his hands in his pockets, his shirtsleeves rolled to his forearms. He was wearing suspenders today.
He looked like Larry King interviewing a celebrity—except that Larry King had a fox face. Anyway, this was not a celebrity.
Not yet, anyway. This was merely a woman who’d been indicted for murder in the first degree. With the thumb and forefinger
of her left hand, she kept twisting the Victorian seal ring on her right pinky. The digital clock on my desk read 4:03
P.M.

“How do you know they have fingerprints?” she asked.

“Folger has a forensics report.”

“That’s impossible. They’re lying to you.”

“They know I’ll be seeing the report.”

“Even so.”

“How’d your fingerprints get on that gun?”

“Oh. Yeah,” she said. “Right.”

Frank and I both looked at her.

“Now I remember touching it,” she said. “The gun. When I asked Brett if it was loaded. I sort of put my hand on it. Ran my
hand over it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I’d never touched a gun in my life. I guess I wanted to see what it felt like.”

Frank raised his eyebrows.

“Lainie,” I said, “you told me you got to the boat at a little before ten, and left half an hour later.”

“That’s right. That’s exactly what I did.”

“Folger has the security guard seeing you go aboard at a few minutes past ten…”

“That’s exactly right…”

“…and he’s got another witness coming in on a sailboat at ten forty-five, and spotting you and Brett Toland drinking at the
cockpit table.”

“No, he’s wrong about the time. I left the boat at ten-thirty.”

“Did you see that sailboat coming in?”

“Yes, but it was before I left the boat.”

“Were you still there at eleven?”

“No. I was home by eleven.”

“Folger has two witnesses who heard shots at eleven-forty.”

“I was already home by then.”

“Shots coming from the saloon. Three shots.”

“I didn’t go down to the saloon at all. Brett and I sat in the cockpit all the while I was there.”

“Then you couldn’t have been below, firing the shots they heard.”

“I couldn’t have been
anywhere
on the boat. Not at eleven-forty. I was home by eleven.”

“Your fingerprints were on the gun,” Frank reminded her.

“I told you how they got on the gun.”

“How’d your scarf get down there in the master cabin?” he asked.

Good old Frank. Straight New Yorker style. No bullshit.

“I told the police all about that,” Lainie said.

“How come you never mentioned it to me?” I asked.

“I told you that Brett asked
everybody
to take their shoes off.”

I saw the faint flicker of disapproval that flashed in Frank’s eyes. He knew, as I knew, but apparently Lainie did not know,
that the word “everybody” was singular and that she should have said “his shoes” or “her shoes,” but certainly not “their
shoes.” Or perhaps she knew the correct construction and was merely trying to avoid saying “
his
shoes” lest she fall into a sexist-pig trap. Besides, what did her
shoes
have to do with her scarf?

“You didn’t tell me he asked you to take off your shoes,” I said.

“I told you he asked
everybody
to take off their shoes.”

Again.

“Because of his precious teak decks,” Lainie said.

“You told me he asked a state senator’s
wife
to take off her shoes. “You didn’t mention anything about
your
shoes.”

“Well, I must have forgotten. He asked me to take them off.”

“How could you have forgotten something the police had already questioned you about?”

“Because I told them exactly what happened and I thought that was that. Brett asked me to take them off, and he carried them
below when he went looking for the Perrier.

“The scarf, too?” Frank asked.

Lainie looked at him.

“He took my shoes
and
my scarf, yes,” she said.

“Why’d he take the scarf?” Frank asked.

“Because I didn’t need it. It was a warm night.”

“So he carried it below, together with your shoes.”

“Yes.”

“When did he ask you to take off your shoes?” I asked.

“When I reached the top of the gangway.”

“Asked you to take them off…”

“Yes.”

“…and then took them from you and carried them below.”

“Not right that minute. He carried them below when he went looking for the Perrier.”

“Did he ask you for the scarf, too?”

“No, I handed him the scarf. Because I didn’t need it.”

“What time did you leave the boat, Lainie?”

“Around ten-thirty.”

“At any time before that, did Brett Toland offer you a cash settlement to drop your suit?”

“No. Never. Who told you that?”

“Do you know a man named Bobby Diaz?”

“Of course I do. How would
he
know what Brett told me?

“Was he present at a meeting last September, during which Brett Toland mentioned his idea for a cross-eyed bear?”

“Never. There was never such a meeting. The idea for the bear was
mine.
”

“And you’re sure Brett didn’t offer you a cash settlement last Tuesday night?”

“I’m positive.”

“And you’re equally certain you left the boat at ten-thirty?”

“Yes.”

“Drove out of the parking lot at ten-thirty?”

“Yes.”

“Then Etta Toland couldn’t possibly have seen you driving out at a little after midnight.”

“I was home asleep by midnight.”

“Then you weren’t racing out of that parking lot at a little past midnight, is that right?”

“I told you. I was home asleep.”

“Did you drive home barefooted?” Frank asked.

“No, I put on my shoes before I left the boat.”

“Went below to put them on?”

“No, Brett went down to get them for me. I was never anywhere on that boat except the cockpit.”