Lady Killer

CHAPTER TWO

Detective Hawes read the letter, and then read it again. His first reaction was 'Crank'.

His second reaction was 'Suppose not?'

Sighing, he shoved back his chair and walked across squad-room. He was a tall man, six feet two inches in slipper socks, and he weighed one hundred and ninety pounds. He had blue eyes and a square jaw with a cleft chin. His hair was red, except for a streak over his left temple where he had once been knifed and where the hair had curiously grown in white after the wound healed. His straight nose was clean and unbroken, and he had a good mouth with a wide lower lip. His fists were huge. He used one of them now on the lieutenant's door.

'Come!' Lieutenant Byrnes shouted.

Hawes opened the door and stepped into the corner office. A rotating fan swept air across the lieutenant's desk. Byrnes sat behind the desk, a compact man in shirt sleeves, his tie pulled down, his collar open, the sleeves rolled up over his biceps.

'The newspapers say rain,' he said. 'Where the hell's the rain?' Hawes grinned. 'You bringing me trouble, Hawes?'

'I don't know. What do you think?' He put the letter on Byrnes's desk.

Byrnes read it rapidly. 'It never fails,' he said. 'We always get the cuckoos when the temperature's in the nineties. It drives them out of the woodwork.'

'Do you think it's a crank, sir?'

'How the hell do I know? It's either a crank, or it's legit.' He smiled. 'That's a phenomenal bit of deduction, isn't it? It's no wonder I'm a lieutenant.'

'What do we do?' Hawes asked.

'What time is it?'

Hawes looked at his watch. 'A little past eight, sir.'

'That gives us about twelve hours—assuming this is legit—to stop a potential killer from knocking off "the lady", whoever she is. Twelve hours to find a killer and a victim in a city of eight million people, with nothing more to go on than this letter. If it's legit.'

'It may be, sir.'

'I know,' Byrnes said reflectively. 'It may also be somebody's idea of a joke. Nothing to do? Time growing heavy on your hands? Write a letter to the cops. Send them off on a wild-goose chase. It could be that, Cotton.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Don't you think it's time you started calling me Pete?'

'Yes, sir.'

Byrnes nodded. 'Who's handled this letter, outside of you and me?'

'The desk sergeant, I imagine. I didn't touch the surface, sir… Pete… if you're thinking of latents.'

'I am,' Byrnes said. 'Who's on the desk?'

'Dave Murchison.'

'He's a good man, but I'll bet his prints are all over this damn thing. How was he to know what was inside the envelope?' Byrnes thought for a moment. 'Let's play it safe, Cotton. When we send this over to the lab, we'll shoot a copy of your prints, mine, and Dave's with it. It might save Grossman's boys a lot of time. Time looks like the one thing we can use.'

'Yes, sir,' Hawes said.

Byrnes picked up his phone, pressed the intercom button twice, and waited.

'Captain Frick,' a voice answered.

'John, this is Pete,' Byrnes said. 'Can you—?'

'Hello, Pete,' Frick said. 'Going to be a scorcher, huh?'

'Yeah,' Byrnes said. 'John, can you relieve Murchison at the desk for an hour or so?'

'I suppose so. Why?'

'And get a man set up with the roller and pad. I want some prints taken right now.'

'Who'd you pick up, Pete?'

'Nobody.'

'Well, whose prints do you want?'

'Mine, Hawes's, and Murchison's.'

'Oh, I see,' Frick said, completely bewildered.

'I'll need a squad car with a siren, and a man you can spare. I'll also want to question Murchison.'

'You sound pretty mysterious, Pete. Want to…?'

'We're coming down now to get printed,' Byrnes said. 'Will you be ready for us?'

'Sure, sure,' Frick said, mystified.

' 'Bye John.'

The three men were printed.

The prints and the letter were put together into a large manilla envelope, and the package was entrusted to a patrolman. The patrolman was instructed to drive directly to Headquarters downtown on High Street, using his siren all the way. He would deliver the package to Sam Grossman, the lieutenant in charge of the police laboratory there, and then he would wait while Sam's men photographed the letter. He would bring the photograph back to the 87th, where the detectives would study it while Grossman's laboratory technicians performed their various tests on the original. Grossman had already been called and informed that speed was essential. The patrolman knew this, too. When the squad car pulled away from the curb in front of the station house, the tyres were squealing and the siren was beginning its high wail.

Inside the precinct, in the detective squad-room, a cop named Dave Murchison was being questioned by Byrnes and Hawes.

'Who delivered the letter, Dave?'

'A kid,' Murchison said.

'Boy or girl?'

'Boy.'

'How old?'

'I don't know. Ten? Eleven? Somewhere around there.'

'What colour hair?'

'Blond.'

'Eyes?'

'I didn't notice.'

'How tall?'

'Average height for a kid that age.'

'What was he wearing?'

'Dungarees and a striped tee shirt.'

'What colour stripes?'

'Red.'

'That ought to be easy,' Hawes said.

'Any hat?' Byrnes asked.

'No.'

'What kind of shoes?'

'I didn't see his feet from behind the desk.'

'What did he say to you?'

'He asked if I was the desk sergeant. I told him I was. He handed me the letter.'

'Did he say who it was from?'

'No. He just handed it to me and said, "Here."'

'What then?'

'He walked out.'

'Why didn't you stop him?'

'I was alone with the desk, sir. I yelled for him to stop, but he didn't. I couldn't leave the desk, and nobody else was around.'

'What about the desk lieutenant?'

'Frank was having a cup of coffee. I couldn't stick with the switchboard and also go chasing a kid.'

'Okay, Dave, don't get excited.'

'I mean, what the hell, Frank wants a cup of coffee, that's his business. He only went upstairs to Clerical. How the hell were we supposed to know this would happen?'

'Don't get excited, Dave.'

'I'm not excited. I'm just saying there was nothing wrong with Frank getting a cup of coffee, that's all. In this heat you got to make allowances. A man sits behind that desk, he begins to—'

'Okay, Dave, okay.'

'Look, Pete,' Murchison said, 'I'm sorry as hell. If I'd known this kid was going to be important—'

'It's all right, Dave. Did you handle the letter much?'

Murchison looked at the floor, 'The letter and the envelope both. I'm sorry, Pete. I didn't think this would be—'

'It's all right, Dave. When you get back to the switchboard, turn on your radio, will you? Give a description of this kid to all the cars in the precinct. Get one car to cruise and alert every foot patrolman. I want the kid brought in as soon as he's located.'

'Right,' Murchison said. He looked at Byrnes. 'Pete, I'm sorry if I—'

Byrnes clapped him on the shoulder. 'Forget it,' he said. 'Get those calls out, will you?'

The maximum pay for a patrolman in the city that cradled the 87th Precinct was $5,015 a year. That is not a lot of money. In addition to that $5,015, the patrolman received $125 for the annual maintenance of his uniforms. That is still not a lot of money.

It becomes even less money when the various deductions are made every two weeks on payday. Four bucks comes out automatically for hospitalization, and another buck and a half is deducted for the precinct bed tax. This tax pays the salary of police widows who make up the dozen or so precinct beds that are used in emergencies when two shifts are on duty—and that are sometimes used by anyone wanting to catch a little shut-eye, emergency or no. Federal income tax takes another bite. The Police Benevolent Association, a sort of union for the law enforcers, gets its cut. The High Street Journal, the police publication, is usually subscribed to, hence another bite. If the cop has been decorated, he donates to the Police Honour Legion. If he's religious, he donates to the various societies and the various charities that visit the precinct each year. His pay check, after it has been divided and subdivided, usually comes to $130 every two weeks.

That amounts to sixty-five bucks a week no matter how you slice it.

If some cops take graft—and some cops do take graft—it may be because they're slightly hungry.

A police force is a small army, and as with any military organization, the orders must be obeyed no matter how ridiculous they may sound. When the foot patrolmen and the radio motor patrolmen of the 87th received their orders that morning of 24 July, they thought the orders were rather peculiar. Some shrugged. Some cursed. Some simply nodded. All obeyed.

The orders were to pick up a ten-year-old boy with blond hair who was wearing dungarees and a red-striped tee shirt.

It sounded simple.

At 9.15 a.m. the photograph of the letter came back from the lab. Byrnes called a meeting in his office. He put the letter in the centre of his desk, and he and three other detectives studied it.

'What do you make of it, Steve?' he asked. He asked Steve Carella first because of many reasons. To begin with, he thought Carella was the best cop on his squad. True, Hawes was beginning to shape up, even though he'd made a bad start shortly after his transfer to the precinct. But Hawes, in Byrnes's estimation, had a long way to go before he would equal Carella. Secondly, and quite apart from the fact that Carella was a good cop and a tough cop, Byrnes felt personally attached to him. He would never forget that Carella had risked his life, and almost lost it, trying to crack a case in which Byrnes's son had been involved. In Byrnes's mind, Carella had become almost a second son. And so, like any father with a son in the business, he asked for Carella's opinion first.

'I've got my own theories about guys who send letters like this,' Carella said. He picked up the photograph and held it to the light streaming through the windows. He was a tall, deceptively slender man, giving an impression of strength without the slightest hint of massive power. His eyes were slightly slanted and, together with his clean-shaven look, they gave him a high-cheeked, somewhat Oriental appearance.

'What's your idea, Steve?' Byrnes asked.

Carella tapped the photograph. 'The first question I ask is Why? If this joker is about to commit homicide, he sure as hell knows there are laws against it. The obvious way to do murder is to do it secretly and quietly and try to escape the law. But no. He sends us a letter. Why does he send us a letter?'

'It's more fun for him this way,' said Hawes, who had been listening intently to Carella. 'He's got a double challenge—the challenge of killing someone, and the challenge of getting away with it after he's raised the odds.'

'That's one way to look at it,' Carella said, and Byrnes watched the interplay between the two cops and was pleased by it. 'But there's another possibility. He wants to get caught.'

'Like this Heirens kid in Chicago, a few years back?' Hawes said.

'Sure. The lipstick on the mirror. Catch me before I kill again.' Carella tapped the letter. 'Maybe he wants to get caught, too. Maybe he's scared stiff of killing and wants us to catch him before he has to kill. What do you think, Pete?'

Byrnes shrugged. It's a theory. In any case, we still have to catch him.'

'I know, I know,' Carella said. 'But if he wants to get caught, then the letter isn't just a letter. Do you follow me?'

'No.'

Detective Meyer nodded. 'I get you, Steve. He's not just warning us. He's tipping us.'

'Sure,' Carella said. 'If he wants to get caught, if he wants to be stopped, this letter'll tell us just how to stop him. It'll tell us who and where.' He dropped the letter on Byrnes's desk.

Detective Meyer walked over to it and studied it. Meyer was a very patient cop, and so his scrutiny of the letter was careful and slow. Meyer, you see, had a father who was something of a practical joker. The senior Meyer, whose name was Max, had been somewhat startled and surprised when his wife had announced she was going to have a change-of-life baby. When the baby had been born, Max had played his little joke on humanity and incidentally on his son. He had given the baby the name of Meyer, which, added to the surname of Meyer, had caused the infant to emerge as Meyer Meyer. The joke had doubtless been a masterpiece of hilarity. Except perhaps to Meyer Meyer. The boy had grown up as an Orthodox Jew in a predominantly Gentile neighbourhood. The kids on the block had been accustomed to taking out their petty hatreds on scapegoats, and what better scapegoat than one whose name presented a ready-made chant: 'Meyer Meyer, Jew-on-Fire!' In all fairness, they had never put Meyer Meyer to the stake. But he had suffered many a beating in the days of his youth, and faced with what seemed to be the overwhelming odds of life, he had developed an attitude of extreme patience toward his fellow man.

Patience is an exacting virtue. Perhaps Meyer Meyer had emerged unscarred and unscathed. Perhaps. He was none the less completely bald. There are a lot of men who are completely bald. But Meyer Meyer was only thirty-seven years old.

Patiently, exactingly, he studied the letter now.

'It doesn't say a hell of a lot, Steve,' he said.

'Read it,' Byrnes told him

' "I will kill The Lady tonight at eight," ' Meyer quoted. ' "What can you do about it?" '

'Well, it tells us who,' Carella said.

'Who?' Byrnes asked.

' "The Lady",' Carella said.

'And who's she?'

'I don't know.'

'Mmmm.'

'It doesn't tell us how,' Meyer said, 'or where.'

'But it does give a time,' Hawes put in.

'Eight. Tonight at eight.'

'You really think this character wants to get caught, Steve?'

'I really don't know. I'm just offering a theory. I do know one thing.'

'What's that?'

'Until we get a report from the lab, we'd better start with what we've got.'

Byrnes looked at the letter.

'Well, what the hell do we have?'

'The Lady,' Carella answered.