Kill as Directed

Seventeen

“Hi,” said Lieutenant Galivan.

“Hello, there,” said Dr. Brown.

“I was in the neighborhood, figured I’d drop in. Your girl here said you’d be back about two, so I waited. Nice and cool.”

“That’s air conditioning for you.”

“A boon to civilization.”

“Anything for me?” said Dr. Brown to his receptionist. He was trying to squeeze the package into invisibility.

“Yes, Doctor. You have three house calls to make.” She handed him three slips of paper. “And Mr. Murphy will be here at four-fifteen, and Frieda Copeland at four-thirty.”

“Busy all of a sudden,” smiled Dr. Brown. He glanced at the slips. “Any of these emergency?”

“No, Doctor.”

“Will you excuse me a moment, Lieutenant?”

“Sure thing,” said Lieutenant Galivan.

“I’ll be with you shortly.”

“Take your time, Doc.”

Harry closed his consultation room door behind him very softly. He placed the brown package in a cabinet and locked the cabinet. He hung away his jacket; took off his tie, shirt, undershirt. He went into the bathroom and stooped low over the sink and ran cold water on his head. Then he washed his torso and soaped and washed under his arms, dried himself and combed his hair and got into fresh linen and a fresh white jacket. He felt a great need for the jacket. The office jacket made him a doctor. It covered his sins.

He opened the door to the waiting room. “I feel better now, Lieutenant. Come on in.”

The tall, elderly detective ambled into the consultation room.

“Sit down.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” The lieutenant sat down and crossed his legs.

Harry sat down behind his desk. A desk makes all the difference, he thought.

“How’ve you been, Doc?”

“Fine,” said Harry. “Lieutenant, I don’t want to hurry you — certainly not if it’s important—”

“Oh, this won’t take long.”

“It’s just that I have some house calls to make, and my office hours in the afternoon are four to seven—”

“Anything crop up on the Lynne Maxwell thing, Doctor?”

“Nothing, or I’d have called you.”

The lieutenant nodded. “You know, we just came across a funny bit.”

“Oh?”

“We keep poking around when the file isn’t closed. You know that Mrs. Gresham you were with that night in the restaurant, with that lawyer-friend of yours?”

“Yes?” He could feel the sweat spring out of his skin again.

“Well, it turns out Mrs. Gresham knew Lynne Maxwell.”

“She did? I didn’t know that, Lieutenant.”

Galivan brought out his pipe. He did not fill it. He held it cupped in his hands. “Doctor, there’s no suspicion of murder in the Maxwell case. Just that bit about her winding up in your apartment dead, with no apparent explanation.”

“We’ve been all through that.”

“I understand your impatience. Sorry, but this is police talk now.”

“Oh?” He could hear his voice rising.

“Mrs. Gresham is your patient.”

“I told you that. She and her husband.”

“Very attractive woman.”

“I suppose so.”

“Married to an old man.”

He forced coldness back into his voice. “What’s the point, Lieutenant?”

“Doctor, you’re not going to like this question, but I’ve got to ask it. Is Mrs. Gresham anything more to you than a patient?”

He was not prepared for it. It was the last thing he had expected. Did Galivan know? Or was this a shot in the dark? A wrong answer now might come back to haunt him... afterward. He thought desperately.

Was it possible Galivan was having him followed? Possible, but unlikely. He was in the clear for the Maxwell girl’s death; he had had nothing to do with it; he was sure Galivan was convinced of that. He decided it was a safe gamble.

“You mean am I sleeping with her?”

Galivan laughed. “Are you?”

“No. However, we do have more than a doctor-patient relationship, as I think I told you. We’ve become friends as well. Why do you ask, Lieutenant?”

“We figured that if you and Mrs. Gresham were cosying up, you might have given her a key to your apartment. And since she knew Lynne Maxwell, that key might explain how the girl got in.”

“Well, it doesn’t. Because Mrs. Gresham doesn’t have a key to my apartment.” He felt confident now; it was true.

“How about her husband? Ever give him a key?”

“Lord, no. Why would I do that? I told you, Lieutenant — there’s no other key to my apartment.”

Galivan produced a pouch and filled his pipe. He took his time lighting it and puffed slowly. Between puffs he asked, “How long have you known Mrs. Gresham?”

“She’s been a patient of mine for... oh, a few months.”

“Kurt Gresham, too?”

“They came to me at the same time.”

“You didn’t know Mrs. Gresham before that?”

“No.”

“Mr. Gresham, either?”

“That’s right, Lieutenant.”

“How did they happen to come to you, Doctor?”

“I was recommended to them by Tony Mitchell.”

“You’ve known Mitchell a long time?”

“Since I was a kid. He knew my father. My father was a lawyer, too.”

“I know. So the four of you are buddy-buddies.”

“Look, Lieutenant,” said Dr. Brown. “The Greshams have become my most important patients. Kurt Gresham is a cardiac. When his old doctor retired, Mr. Gresham retained me on an annual basis at a very healthy fee. I don’t mind telling you he’s been a godsend to me. I wish I had a dozen patients like him... By the way, on the first of September he’s taking me to Europe with him for a couple months, as his personal physician. Don’t ask me if it’s going to pay me; it will. I’m getting twenty-five thousand dollars for those two months, and all expenses paid, to boot. I’m a young guy just starting out in practice, Lieutenant, and I’ve been pinching myself ever since I met Mr. Gresham. For some obscure reason he’s taken a shine to me, and I’m going to keep the old boy alive if I have to open him up and pump his heart with my bare hands every hour on the hour. Do you blame me? And have I been frank enough for you, Lieutenant? And will there by anything else before I make those house calls?”

Galivan rose. “Thanks, Doctor, I appreciate your frankness. You’ll buzz me if anything — anything at all — crops up on the Lynne Maxwell thing?”

“I most certainly will.”

“Sorry if I’ve held you up.”

“It’s all right, Lieutenant.”

When Galivan was gone, Dr. Harrison Brown sank back into his swivel-chair and put his hands flat on his desk to stop their trembling.

But he felt a sense of triumph. He had Galivan under control, anyway.

There was no time to open the package from Smith and Smith.

Those damn house calls.

He slipped out of his white coat and into his suit jacket and grabbed his bag and ran.

When he got back to his office he found four patients waiting for him. By the time he finished with the four, there were five more in the waiting room. He felt like smashing something at the irony of it.

It was eight o’clock before the office was empty and his evening receptionist had left and he could unlock the cabinet and take out Uncle Joe’s brother’s ashes. He cut the cord and tore off the wrapping paper. It revealed a heavy cardboard box, its cover secured with sealing tape. He ripped it off, holding his breath.

The box was full of wadded plain tissue paper. Nested among the wads were several oilskin-wrapped objects. He opened them.

He had not been swindled.

He was now in possession of a revolver, a silencer and a box of twenty-five cartridges.

The revolver was a new-looking .38 caliber Colt Police Positive Special with a blue finish and a checkered plastic stock. The serial number had been ground off and the ground-off place deeply treated with chemicals. The number was gone beyond resurrection. The silencer looked new, too; it had been similarly treated.

The revolver had been freshly oiled. He checked the cylinder chambers to make sure they were all empty and then tested for alignment. He pulled the hammer back to full cock and tried to turn the cylinder in each direction. Then he snapped the trigger and held it far back without releasing it, again twisting the cylinder in both directions. In neither test was there any play. The revolver was in perfect alignment. He adjusted the silencer to the muzzle; it was a good fit.

He opened the box of cartridges and took out six bullets and loaded the chambers. Then he put out the lights, felt his way to the window, pulled up the Venetian blind, opened the window noiselessly and leaned cautiously out into the darkness for a look. The wall of the building across the tradesmen’s alley was blank; he could see no one. He sighted up at a bright star and squeezed the trigger. There was a slight hiss as the gun went off; the kickback to the palm of his shooting hand felt good.

Harry shut the window, lowered the blind, made sure the vanes were shut; then he made his way back to the light switch and turned the lights back on.

He removed the silencer, put a fresh cartridge in the empty chamber, clicked on the safety lock; one full load was all he would need. He wrapped the revolver and the silencer in their oilskins, wrapped the oilskins in small hand towels, put them into the cabinet, locked the cabinet. He took a surgical scissors and cut the cord into short lengths, cut up the wrapping paper, cut up the rest of the tissue, cut up the cardboard box, cut up the oilskin in which the box of cartridges had been wrapped, then took all the bits and pieces to the apartment incinerator and fed them into the chute. He went back, counted the cartridges remaining in the ammunition box — there were eighteen — replaced the cover on the box and taped it tightly with surgical tape from his wall-dispenser.

Then he changed into his street clothes, put the box of cartridges in his pocket, switched off the lights, locked his office and got into his car.

He drove aimlessly for a while, keeping an eye on his rear-view mirror. When he was satisfied that he was not being tailed, he headed downtown.

He drove all the way to the tip of Manhattan Island.

He drove onto the ferry.

When the ferry was halfway across the bay, he got out of his oar and sauntered around the deck. There were only a few passengers at the rail, hone at the stern.

He planted his elbows on the rail at the stern. The taped box of cartridges was now in his hand.

He looked around. No one.

With a swift underhand flip he tossed the heavy little box well out into the ferry’s wake. He could not even see the splash in the foam.

“Sorry, Benny,” said Harry. “This is as close to the Atlantic as I can come.”