Killer's Wedge

CHAPTER 16

"I hated the old bastard, and I'm glad he's dead"

Alan Scott said.

He seemed to have lost all the shocked timidity with which he'd greeted Carella yesterday. They stood in the gun room of the old house, on the main floor, a room lined with heads and horns. A particularly vicious looking tiger head hung on the wall behind Alan, and the expression on his face now-as contrasted to his paleness yesterday-seemed to match that of the tiger.

"That's a pretty strong admission to make, Mr. Scott," Carella said.

"Is it? He was a vicious mean bastard.

He's ruined more men with his Scott Industries, Inc." than I can count on both hands. Was I supposed to have loved him?

Did you ever grow up with a tycoon?"

"No," Carella said.

"I grew up with an Italian immigrant who was a baker."

"You haven't missed anything, believe me. The old bastard's power wasn't quite absolute, but he had enough to make him almost absolutely corrupt. As far as I'm concerned, he was a big chancre dripping corruption. My father. Dear old dad. A murdering son of a bitch."

"You seemed pretty upset by his death yesterday."

"Only by the facts of death. Death is always shocking. But there was no love for him, believe me."

"Did you hate him enough to kill him, Mr. Scott?"

"Yes. Enough to kill him. But I didn't.

Not that I probably wouldn't have sooner or later. But I didn't do this job. And that's why I'm willing to level with you. I'll be damned if I'm going to get involved in something I had nothing to do with. You do suspect murder, don't you?

That's why you're hanging around so long, isn't it?"

"Well ..

"Come on, Mr. Carella, let's play it straight with each other. You know the old bastard was killed."

"I know nothing for sure," Carella said.

"He was found in a locked room, Mr. Scott.

In all truth, it looks pretty much like suicide."

"Sure. But we know it isn't, don't we?

There are a lot of clever people in this rotten family who can do tricks that'd make Houdini look sick. Don't let the locked room throw you. If somebody wanted him dead badly enough, that person would find a way of doing it. And making it look like suicide."

"Who, for example?"

"Me, for example," Alan said.

"If I'd ever decided to really kill him, I'd work it out, don't worry. Somebody just beat me to it, that's all" "Who?" Carella said.

"You want suspects? We've got a whole family full of them."

"Mark?"

"Sure. Why not Mark? He's been pushed around by the old bastard all his life. He hasn't said a word against him since the time he was fourteen. All that hatred building up inside while he smiled on the outside. And the latest slap in the face, sending Mark to that New Jersey rattrap where-when he finishes his cheap on-the job-training- he goes into the firm at the magnificent salary of fifteen thousand dollars a year. For the boss's son! Why, the old bastard pays his file clerks more."

"You're exaggerating," Carella said.

"All right, I'm exaggerating. But don't think Mark liked what the old bastard was doing to him. He didn't like it one damn bit. And David had his own reasons for killing dear father."

"Like what?"

"Like lovely Christine."

"What are you saying, Mr. Scott?"

"What does it sound like I'm saying?"

"You mean..

"Sure. Look, I'm playing this straight with you, Carella.

My hate is big enough to share, believe me.

And I don't want to see my neck stretched for something somebody else did, even if he deserved it."

"Then your father..

"My father was a lecherous old toad who kept Christine in this house by threatening to cut David off penniless if they left.

Period. Not nice, but there it is."

"Not nice at all. And Christine?"

"Try talking to her. An iceberg. Maybe she liked the setup, how do I know? At any rate, she knew who buttered her bread. And it was well-buttered, believe me."

"Maybe you all got together, Mr. Scott, to do the job. Is that a possibility?"

"This family couldn't get together to start a bridge game," Alan said.

"It's a wonder we managed to open that door in concert.

You've heard of togetherness? This family motto is 'apartheid."~ Maybe it'll be different now that he's dead-but I doubt it."

"Then you believe that someone in this house-one of your brothers, or Christinekilled your father?"

"Yeah. That's what I believe."

"Through a locked door?"

"Through a locked bank vault, if you will, with six inches of lead on every damn wall.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

"And there was a fat will here," Carella said.

Alan Scot did not smile.

"I'll tell you something, Detective Carella. If you work this from the motive angle, you'll go nuts.

We've got enough motive in this run-down mansion to blow up the entire city."

"How then, Mr. Scott, would you suggest that I work it?"

"I'd find out how somebody managed to hang the bastard through a locked door.

Figure out how it was done, and you'll also figure out who did it. That's my guess, Mr.

Carella."

"And, of course," Carella said, "that's the easiest part of detective work. Everyone knows that."

Alan Scott did not smile.

"I'm leaving," Carella said.

"There isn't much more I can do here tonight."

"Will you be back tomorrow?"

"Maybe. If I think of anything."

"Otherwise?"

"Otherwise it's a suicide. We've got motive, as you say, plenty of it. And we've got means. But, man, we sure are lacking in the opportunity department. I'm no genius, Mr. Scott. I'm just a working stiff. If we still suspect a homicide, we'll dump the case in the Open File." Carella shrugged.

"You didn't strike me as being that kind of a man, Mr. Carella," Alan said.

"Which kind of a man?"

"The kind who gives up easily."

Carella stared at him for a long moment.

"Don't confuse the Open File with the Dead Letter department of the Post Office," he said at last.

"Good night, Mr. Scott."

When Teddy Carella walked into the squad room at two minutes past seven, Peter Byrnes thought he would have a heart attack. He saw her coming down the corridor and at first he couldn't believe he was seeing correctly and then he recognized the trim figure and proud wafic of Steve's wife, and he walked quickly to the railing.

"What are you doing?" Virginia said.

"Somebody coming," Byrnes answered, and he waited. He did not want Virginia to know this was Carella's wife. He had watched the woman grow increasingly more tense and jumpy since the pistol whipping of Meyer, and he did not know what action she might conceivably take against Teddy were she to realize her identity. In the corner of the room, he could see Hawes administering to Meyer. Badly cut, Meyer tried to peer out of his swollen eyes. His lip hung loose, split down the center by the unyielding steel of the revolver. Hawes, working patiently with iodine, kept mumbling over and over again, "Easy, Meyer, easy," and there was a deadly control to his voice as if he-as much as the nitro-were ready to explode into the squad room

"Yes, Miss?" Byrnes said.

Teddy stopped dead outside the railing, a surprised look on her face. If she had read the lieutenant's lips correctly "Can I help you, Miss?" he said.

Teddy blinked.

"Get in here, you," Virginia barked from her desk. Teddy could not see the woman from where she stood. And, not seeing her, she could not "hear" her. She waited now for Byrnes to spring the punch line of whatever gag he was playing, but his face remained set and serious, and then he said, "Won't you come in, Miss?" and-puzzled even more now-Teddy entered the squad room

She saw Virginia Dodge immediately and knew intuitively that Byrnes was trying to protect her.

"Sit down," Virginia said.

"Do as I tell you and you won't get hurt. What do you want here?"

Teddy did not, could not answer.

"Did you hear me? What are you doing here?"

Teddy shook her head helplessly.

"What's the matter with her?" Virginia asked ini patiently

"Damnit, answer me."

"Don't be frightened, Miss," Byrnes said.

"Nothing will happen to you if…" He stopped dead, feigning discovery, and then turned to Virginia.

"I t~… I think she's a deaf mute," he said.

"Come here," Virginia said, and Teddy walked to her. Their eyes locked over the desk.

"Can you hear?"

Teddy touched her lips.

"You can read my lips?"

Teddy nodded.

"But you can't speak?"

Teddy shook her head.

Virginia shoved a sheet of paper across the desk. She took a pencil from the tray and tossed it to Teddy.

"There's paper and pencil. Write down what you want here."

In a quick hand, Teddy wrote "Burglary" on the sheet and handed it to Virginia.

"Mmm," Virginia said.

"Well, you're getting a lot more than you're bargaining for, honey. Sit down." She turned to Byrnes and, in the first kind words she'd uttered since coming into the squad room she said, "She's a pretty little thing, isn't she?"

Teddy sat.

"What's your name?" Virginia asked.

"Come over here and write down your name.

Byrnes almost leaped forward to intercept Teddy as she walked to the desk again.

Teddy picked up the pencil and rapidly wrote "Marcia…" She hesitated. A last name would not come. In desperation, she finally wrote her maiden name-"Franldin."

"Marcia Franklin," Virginia said.

"Pretty name. You're a pretty girl, Marcia, do you know that? Can you read my lips?"

Teddy nodded.

"Do you know what I'm saying?"

Again, Teddy nodded.

"You're very pretty. Don't worry, I won't hurt you. I'm only after one person, and I won't hurt anybody unless they try to stop me. Have you ever loved anyone, Marcia?"

Yes, Teddy said with her head.

"Then you know what it's like. Being in love. Well, someone killed the man I loved, Marcia. And now I'm going to kill him.

Wouldn't you do that, too?"

Teddy stood motionless.

"You would. I know you would. You're very pretty, Marcia. I was pretty once until they took my man away from me. A woman needs a man. Life's no good without a man. And mine is dead. And I'm going to kill the man who's responsible.

I'm going to kill a rotten bastard named Steve Carella."

The words hit Teddy with the force of a pitched baseball. She flinched visibly, and then she caught her lips between her teeth, and Virginia watched her in puzzlement and then said, "I'm sorry, honey, I didn't mean to swear. But I… this has been…" She shook her head.

Teddy had gone pale. She stood with her lip caught between her teeth, and she bit it hard, and she looked at the revolver in the hand of the woman at the desk, and her first impulse was to fling herself at the gun. She looked at the wall clock. It was 7:08. She turned toward Virginia and took a step forward.

"Miss," Byrnes said, "that's a bottle of nitroglycerin on the desk there." He paused.

"What I mean is, any sudden movement might set it off. And hurt a lot of people."

Their eyes met. Teddy nodded.

She turned away from Virginia and Byrnes, crossing to sit in the chair facing the slatted railing, hoping the lieutenant had not seen the sudden tears in her eyes.