Leopold's Way (39 page)

“I'll only take a few minutes.”

“Oh, very well!” She unlatched the screen door. “A woman can't be too careful these days.”

Her house was a duplicate of the Vogel place across the street, though the decor carried out a more contemporary theme. “You were the first one over there after Katherine Vogel screamed, I believe.”

“That's right. Mr. Aarons was right behind me.”

“I was just talking to him. He said when you first saw the body you thought Mrs. Vogel had killed him.”

“I—that was in the heat of the moment. It didn't mean anything.”

“Sometimes the truth comes out in the heat of the moment.”

“That wasn't the truth. The boy on the next street killed him.”

“Why did you think it might have been Katherine Vogel?”

“I don't know.” She glanced away, searching for the right words.

“Mrs. Pearson, forgive me, but were you having an affair with Chester Vogel?”

“Certainly not!” Her eyes blazed with fury. “You're sounding just like her!”

“Yes?” He smiled slightly. “More words in the heat of the moment?”

She started to turn away, then faced him again. “All right, I'll tell you. Katherine Vogel thought we were having an affair. She accused him of it and warned me to stay away from him. But I swear to you, there wasn't a word of truth in it! She's a suspicious old bitch who minds everybody else's business. He told me once that she threatened to kill him if she caught him fooling around.”

The fury of her attack surprised Leopold. “Do you know if Vogel owned a gun of any kind?” he asked.

She nodded. “A target pistol. I saw it once. He kept it in the basement.”

“A .22?”

“I don't know that much about guns.”

Maybe, Leopold thought. Just maybe his hunch was beginning to pay off. “Thank you, Mrs. Pearson. You've been a big help.”

Upstairs the baby started to cry.

Leopold stopped for a sandwich and then drove over to the funeral parlor in the early evening. It was an imposing colonial structure in keeping with middle-class suburban architecture. Leopold was surprised to find Fletcher lingering near the doorway as if awaiting some call.

“I thought I should come over,” he explained. “I tried to get Mike to come, too, but he wouldn't.”

“It's a terrible thing for him,” Leopold said. His eyes were scanning the assembled mourners. “Is Linda Pearson's husband still around?”

“Dark blue suit. Straight ahead.”

Harry Pearson was tall and virile, if somewhat older than his youthful wife. When Leopold motioned him aside to ask about Katherine Vogel, he drew in his breath and answered with some anger, “This is hardly the place for it, Captain.”

Leopold glanced at the flower-draped coffin and agreed. “All right, let's go outside.”

It was still daylight as they strolled across the blacktopped parking area behind the building. Harry Pearson swatted at a mosquito and asked, “Now, what was it you wanted?”

“What were Mrs. Vogel's relations with her husband?”

“Good, as far as I know.”

“I've heard differently. I've heard she was suspicious of him, jealous of other women, and that she even threatened to kill him.”

He squinted at Leopold. “Have you been talking to my wife?”

“Among others.”

“Well, there's no truth in it. Katherine Vogel is a fine woman. A detective's son killed Chester, and there's nothing else you can make out of it.”

Lieutenant Fletcher came out the back door at that moment, and Leopold knew he'd heard Pearson's last sentence. Fletcher merely nodded and kept going to his car. Leopold watched him in silence and then said, “All right, Mr. Pearson. Sorry to have taken your time.”

He turned and followed Fletcher, catching him at the car. “Want to stop for a beer?”

Fletcher turned to him, his eyes pained. “Captain, I know what you're trying to do, believe me. But it's no good. We can't make a murder case out of this. Mike killed him, that's all there is to it.”

“Mike says he didn't fire any shots in that direction. I believe him, Fletcher.”

“Then what happened?”

“She heard the shooting, got her husband's target pistol out of the basement, and shot him through the window herself.”

“Without any neighbors seeing her?”

Leopold knew he was being unreasonable. “All right,” he agreed finally. “Let me talk to ballistics again in the morning.”

Fletcher managed a weak smile. “Sure, Captain. I appreciate everything you're trying to do. So does Carol.”

Leopold nodded. They shook hands like two old friends who had just encountered each other briefly. Then Fletcher got into his car and drove away.

In the morning Leopold went down to ballistics and talked to Sergeant Wolfer, a grumpy little man who was an expert at what he did. “No chance for identification, Captain,” he said immediately. “The slug was too badly mashed.”

“But it was a .22, the same as Mike Fletcher was firing?”

“That's right—a .22 Long Rifle.”

“A rifle bullet?”

The little man sighed. “Come on, Captain! Do I need to lecture you on ballistics this morning? Most .22 rifles and target pistols use the same ammunition. The majority of target pistols made today can fire .22 Long Rifle slugs.”

Leopold persisted. “What about penetration? Mike's bullet would have traveled nearly three hundred yards.”

“The bullet in Vogel's head penetrated only about an inch—just far enough to get mashed and drive some bone splinters into his brain. I'm reading from the autopsy report now.”

“Is that consistent with a shot from Mike's gun?”

“Within reasonable limits. Maybe there was a little extra powder in the cartridge.”

“A .22 target pistol fired at close range would have penetrated deeper?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“Damn it, Wolfer, I'm trying to conduct an investigation!”

“And I'm trying to help you. Many things can cause a bullet to lose penetrating power. The cartridges might have been old and damp, for one thing. Or the bullet could have been fired through something.”

“Like a pillow, to deaden the sound of the shot?”

Wolfer nodded. “Like that.”

“If somebody had a target pistol down in the basement for a long time, with old ammunition, and brought it up and fired it through a pillow, would it penetrate about the same distance as a bullet from a .22 rifle fired nearly three hundred yards away?”

Sergeant Wolfer thought about it. “Maybe, maybe not.”

Leopold sighed and went back upstairs to his office. It was going to be that sort of day. Perhaps Fletcher was right. Perhaps he should forget the whole thing.

Young Mike Fletcher was waiting with his father in Leopold's office. “Captain, my dad wanted me to come see you,” he said with hesitation.

“Sure, Mike. What is it?”

“He told me what you're trying to do for me and all that, and I sure appreciate it, but—”

“But what?”

“Well, I told you I didn't remember shooting in that direction.”

“Yes?”

“It wasn't true, Captain. I do remember. I remember the exact shot that did it. One of the kids accidentally hit my arm, and my aim went way off. I remember praying that it wouldn't hit anyone. It was high and to the left, right toward Vogel's house.”

“I see,” Leopold said.

Fletcher cleared his throat. “I thought you should know, Captain.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Thanks again for what you tried to do for me,” Mike said.

Leopold nodded. He waited until the boy left and then he said, “Get me some coffee, will you, Fletcher? I missed you yesterday. Connie had to do my running for me.”

“Sure, Captain.”

When they were settled over coffee Leopold asked, “When's Vogel's funeral?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

Leopold sipped his coffee. It should have been over, but it wasn't. “Why did Mrs. Vogel glance at her wrist watch when I was there?”

“You're still on it, aren't you? Even after talking to Mike?”

“I just want to know why the time interested her so much at that moment, with her husband dead.”

“Maybe the time didn't interest her.”

“Why else does someone look at their watch?”

Fletcher thought about that. “To see if it's going?”

Leopold sat up straight. “Of course! Why didn't I think of that? I forgot to take my watch off on the pistol range one day, and when I was firing left-handed the shock of the recoil stopped it.”

“But why would a right-handed person fire a gun left-handed?”

“If she was holding something else in her right hand, Fletcher—something like a pillow to muffle the shot!”

“Captain—” Leopold got to his feet. “I'd better talk to Mrs. Vogel once more.”

She answered the door dressed in black and looking as grim and defensive as he remembered her. “Captain Leopold, isn't it? I understand you've been questioning my neighbors.”

“Only routine,” he said. “May I come in?”

“Routine when a detective's son shoots somebody?”

“May I come in?” he repeated.

“For a moment. I have to be leaving for the funeral parlor.”

He followed her into the living room, carefully avoiding the stains on the white rug. He noticed that the window had been repaired, with the fresh pane of glass still bearing the window company's sticker. He walked close enough to see the name: Empire Glass Company.

“They fixed it this morning, if that's what you're looking at.”

“Fast work.” His eyes had gone to the wall opposite the window, to a spot that had been hidden behind the chair on his previous visit. He could see a mark as if something had chipped the paint.

“Since when are city police concerned with a suburban crime, Captain Leopold?”

He ignored her question as he examined the wall. “Mrs. Vogel, I'll admit this started out only as a hunch, but it's getting to be more than that now. Mike Fletcher's bullet could have broken your window and hit the wall right here, leaving this mark before it fell, spent of all power, to the rug.”

“That mark was caused a month ago when I tipped over a table while cleaning.”

“I think you saw your opportunity, Mrs. Vogel, and you took it. Perhaps your husband even kidded about how the bullet could have killed him if he'd been sitting in his favorite chair. Somehow you kept him from phoning the police right away, maybe saying you'd call the boy's parents first. Then you went down to the basement and got out his old .22 target pistol.”

“Chester got rid of that long ago.”

He ignored the interruption and went on. “You shot him through the head with it, muffling the sound with a pillow held in your right hand. Later, while I was here, you glanced at the wrist watch on your left hand to make sure the pistol's recoil hadn't stopped it.”

“Captain, if you repeat those charges I'll sue you for every cent you own!”

“That isn't much,” Leopold said with a grim smile. “I'm only concerned about the boy, Mrs. Vogel. I don't want him going through life thinking he killed a man.”

“Get out of my house. I've listened to you long enough.”

Leopold felt a wave of helplessness wash over him. There was no way to prove it, no way even to prove to himself that his hunch was the truth. “What about the chair? You moved it to line up with the bullet hole in the wall, and now you've moved the chair back.”

“Is it a crime to move one's furniture around?”

“Where's the broken window?”

“The glass company took it. There's no plot, Captain. It's all in your mind—every bit of it!”

And perhaps it was. That was the damnable part of it—perhaps she was right. “All right,” he said finally. “I'll be going.”

She followed him to the door and slammed it behind him. He stood on the stoop for a moment, feeling old, and then started down the walk to his car. At least he could check on the glass. If he was going to do anything about Katherine Vogel, he'd need the windowpane to line up the bullet hole with the mark on the wall.

He drove over to the Empire Glass Company, a low cinder-block building in a nearby shopping plaza. The man at the counter remembered the Vogel job. “Sure, I replaced it just this morning.”

“She said you took the old window,” Leopold told the man. “Did you?”

“Yeah, it's in the back. Heck, the bullet hole was just in one corner. We can cut it up for small panes.”

“I think I'll want that window,” Leopold said. Then another thought struck him. “When did Mrs. Vogel call you to fix it? She didn't waste any time, did she?”

“No, the call came in day before yesterday, just after it happened, I guess. Only it was the guy that called, not her.”

Something churned in Leopold's stomach. “Guy? What guy?”

“The husband, Mr. Vogel. The one that died. I talked to him myself.”

“You're telling me it was Chester Vogel who called to report the broken window?”

“Sure.”

Leopold spoke very quietly. “But how could he have done that if he was killed by the same bullet that broke the window?”

The man shrugged. “I didn't read the details. I just knew he was dead.”

“I think you'd better come with me,” Leopold said. “Right now.”

When Katherine Vogel opened the door Leopold said simply, “I just found out what your husband was doing while you were in the basement looking for his target pistol.”

Her eyes went from Leopold to the repairman. Leopold could see from her sagging face that it was all over.

(1973)

I
T STARTED AS A
simple case, without a hint of ghosts or impossibilities—Lieutenant Fletcher's case, really, with Captain Leopold along only because he'd been working late that night and Grant Tower was on his way home. The time was 9:25 and downtown was deserted except for the usual street people. Some of them were standing around outside the 20-story building—which qualified as a Tower in Leopold's city—when their car pulled up, and for a wild moment Leopold feared the one closest to him might ask for his autograph.