Sadie When She Died

2

On Monday morning, the sky above the River Harb was a cloudless blue. In Silvermine Park, young mothers were already pushing baby buggies, eager to take advantage of the unexpected December sunshine. The air was cold and sharp, but the sun was brilliant and it transformed the streets bordering the river into what they must have looked like at the turn of the century. A tugboat hooted, a gull shrieked and swooped low over the water, a woman tucked a blanket up under her baby’s chin and cooed to him gently. Near the park railing, a patrolman stood with his hands behind his back, and idly stared out over the sun-dappled river.

Upstairs, in the second-floor rear apartment of 721 Silvermine Oval, a chalked outline on the bedroom floor was the only evidence that a woman had lain there in death the night before. Carella and Kling sidestepped the outline and moved to the shattered window. The lab boys had carefully lifted, packaged, and labeled the shards and slivers of glass, on the assumption that whoever had jumped through the window might have left bloodstains or clothing threads behind. Carella looked through the gaping irregular hole at the narrow alleyway below. There was a distance of perhaps twelve feet between this building and the one across from it. Conceivably, the intruder could have leaped across the shaftway, caught the windowsill on the opposite wall, and then boosted himself up into the apartment there. But this would have required premeditation and calculation, and if a person is going to make a trapeze leap for a windowsill, he doesn’t dive through a closed window in haste and panic. The apartment across the way would have to be checked, of course; but the more probable likelihood was that the intruder had fallen to the pavement below.

“That’s a long drop,” Kling said, peering over Carella’s shoulder.

“How far do you figure?”

“Thirty feet. At least.”

“Got to break a leg taking a fall like that.”

“Maybe the guy’s an acrobat.”

“You think he went through the window head first?”

“How else?”

“He might have broken the glass out first, and then gone through.”

“If he was about to go to all that trouble, why didn’t he just open the damn thing?”

“Well, let’s take a look,” Carella said.

They examined the latch, and they examined the sash.

“Okay to touch this?” Kling asked.

“Yeah, they’re through with it.”

Kling grabbed both handles on the window frame and pulled up on them. “Tough one,” he said.

“Try it again.”

Kling tugged again. “I think it’s stuck.”

“Probably painted shut,” Carella said.

“Maybe he did try to open it. Maybe he smashed it only when he realized it was stuck.”

“Yeah,” Carella said. “And in a big hurry, too. Fletcher was opening the front door, maybe already in the apartment by then.”

“The guy probably swung his bag . . .”

“What bag?”

“Must’ve had a bag or something with him, don’t you think? To put the loot in?”

“Probably. Though he couldn’t have been too experienced.”

“What do you mean?”

“No gloves. Left prints all over the place. Got to be a beginner.”

“Even so, he’d have carried a bag. That’s probably what he smashed the window with. Which might explain why there was silverware on the floor. He could’ve taken a wild swing when he realized the window was stuck, and maybe some of the stuff fell out of the bag.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Carella said.

“Then he probably climbed through the hole and dropped down feet first. That makes more sense than just diving through the thing, doesn’t it? In fact, what he could’ve done, Steve, was drop the bag down first . . .”

“If he had a bag.”

“Every burglar in the world has a bag. Even beginners.”

“Well, maybe.”

“Well, if he had a bag, he could’ve dropped it down into the alley there, and then climbed out and hung from the sill before he jumped, you know what I mean? To make it a shorter distance.”

“I don’t know if he had all that much time, Bert. Fletcher must’ve been in the apartment and heading for the bedroom by then.”

“Did Fletcher say anything about glass breaking? About hearing glass?”

“I don’t remember asking him.”

“We’ll have to ask him,” Kling said.

“Why? What difference does it make?”

“I don’t know,” Kling said, and shrugged. “But if the guy was still in the aparment when Fletcher came in . . .”

“Yeah?”

“Well, that cuts it very close, doesn’t it?”

“He must’ve been here, Bert. He had to hear that front door opening. Otherwise, he’d have taken his good sweet time and gone out the kitchen window and down the fire escape, the way he’d come.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Kling nodded reflectively. “Fletcher’s lucky,” he said. “The guy could just as easily have waited and stabbed him, too.”

“Let’s take a look at that alley,” Carella said.

The woman looking through the ground-floor window saw only two big men in overcoats, poking around on the alley floor. Both men were hatless. One of them had brown hair and slanty Chinese eyes. The other one looked younger but no less menacing, a big blond tough with hardly nothing but peach fuzz on his face, the better to eat you, Grandma. She immediately went to the telephone and called the police.

In the alleyway, unaware of the woman who peered out at them from between the slats of her venetian blinds, Carella and Kling studied the concrete pavement, and then looked up at the shattered second-floor window of the Fletcher apartment.

“It’s still a hell of a long drop,” Kling said.

“Looks even longer from down here.”

“Where do you suppose he’d have landed?”

“Right about where we’re standing. Maybe a foot or so over,” Carella said, and looked at the ground.

“See anything?” Kling asked.

“No. I was just trying to figure something.”

“What?”

“Let’s say he did land without breaking anything . . .”

“Well, he must’ve, Steve. Otherwise he’d still be laying here.”

“That’s just my point. Even if he didn’t break anything, I can’t believe he just got up and walked away, can you?” He looked up at the window again. “That’s got to be at least forty feet, Bert.”

“Gets longer every minute,” Kling said. “I still think it’s no more than thirty, give or take.”

“Even so. A guy drops thirty feet . . .”

“If he hung from the windowsill first, you’ve got to subtract maybe ten feet from that figure.”

“Okay, so what do we say? A twenty-foot drop?”

“Give or take.”

“Guy drops twenty feet to a concrete pavement, doesn’t break anything, gets up, dusts himself off, and runs the fifty-yard dash, right?” Carella shook his head. “My guess is he stayed right where he was for a while. To at least catch his breath.”

“So?”

“So did Fletcher look out the window?”

“Why would he?”

“If your wife is dead on the floor with a knife in her, and the window is broken, wouldn’t you naturally go to the window and look out? On the off chance you might spot the guy who killed her?”

“He was anxious to call the police,” Kling said.

“Why?”

“That’s natural, Steve. If the guy’s innocent, he’s anxious to keep in the clear. He calls the police, he stays in the apartment . . .”

“I still think he did it,” Carella said.

“Don’t make a federal case out of this,” Kling said. “I personally would like nothing better than to kick Mr. Fletcher in the balls, but let’s concentrate on finding the guy whose fingerprints we’ve got, okay?”

“Yeah,” Carella said.

“I mean, Steve, be reasonable. If a guy’s fingerprints are on the handle of a knife, and the knife is still in the goddamn victim . . .”

“And if the victim’s husband realizes what a sweet setup he’s stumbled into,” Carella said, “wife laying on the floor with a knife in her, place broken into and burglarized, why not finish the job and hope the burglar will be blamed?”

“Sure,” Kling said. “Prove it.”

“I can’t,” Carella said. “Not until we catch the burglar.”

“All right, so let’s catch him. Where do you think he went after he dropped down here?”

“One of two ways,” Carella said. “Either through the door there into the basement of the building. Or over the fence there at the other end of the alley.”

“Which way would you go?”

“If I’d just dropped twenty feet or more, I’d go home to my mother and cry.”

“I’d head for the door of the building. If I’d just dropped twenty feet, I wouldn’t feel like climbing any fences.”

“Not with the terrible headache you’d probably have.”

The basement door suddenly opened. A red-faced patrolman was standing in the doorway with a .38 in his fist.

“All right, you guys, what’s going on here?” he said.

“Oh, great,” Carella said.

Anyway, Marshall Davies had already done the work.

So while Carella and Kling went through the tedious routine of proving to a cop that they were cops themselves, Davies called the 87th Precinct and asked to talk to the detective who was handling the Fletcher homicide. Since both detectives who were handling the homicide were at that moment out handling it, or trying to, Davies agreed to talk to Detective Meyer instead.

“What’ve you got?” Meyer asked.

“I think I’ve got some fairly interesting information about the suspect.”

“Will I need a pencil?” Meyer asked.

“I don’t think so. How much do you know about the case?”

“I’ve been filled in.”

“Then you know there were latent prints all over the apartment.”

“Yes. We’ve got the I.S. running a check on them now.”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

“Maybe,” Meyer said.

“Do you also know there were footprints in the kitchen?”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“Yes, a very good one in the sink, probably left there when he climbed through the window, and some middling-fair ones tracking across the kitchen floor to the dining room. I got some excellent pictures, and some very good blowups of the heel—for comparison purposes if the need arises later on.”

“Good,” Meyer said.

“But more important,” Davies said, “I got a good walking picture from the footprints on the floor, and I think we can assume it was the man’s usual gait, neither dawdling nor hurried.”

“How can you tell that?” Meyer asked.

“Well, if a man is walking slowly, the distance between his footprints is usually about twenty-seven inches. If he’s running, his footprints will be about forty inches apart. Thirty-five inches apart is the average for fast walking.”

“How far apart were the prints you got?”

“Thirty-two inches. He was moving quickly, but he wasn’t in a desperate hurry. The walking line, incidentally, was normal and not broken.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, draw an imaginary line in the direction the suspect was walking, and that line should normally run along the inner edge of the heelprints. Fat people and pregnant ladies will often leave a broken walking line because they walk with their feet spread wider apart . . . to keep their balance.”

“But this walking line was normal,” Meyer said.

“Right,” Davies said.

“So our man is neither fat nor pregnant.”

“Right. Incidentally, it is a man. The size and type of the shoe, and also the angle of the foot indicate that clearly.”

“Okay, fine,” Meyer said. He did not thus far consider Davies’ information valuable nor even terribly important. They had automatically assumed that anyone burglarizing an apartment would be a man and not a woman. Moreover, according to Carella’s report on the size of the footprint in the sink, it had definitely been left by a man—unless a female Russian wrestler was loose in the precinct. Meyer yawned.

“Anyway, none of this is valuable nor even terribly important,” Davies said, “until we consider the rest of the data.”

“And what’s that?” Meyer asked.

“Well, as you know, the bedroom window was smashed, and the Homicide men at the scene . . .”

“Monoghan and Monroe?”

“Yes, were speculating that the suspect had jumped through the window into the alley below. I didn’t think it would hurt to go downstairs and see if I could get some meaningful pictures.”

“Did you get some meaningful pictures?”

“Yes, I got some pictures of where he must have landed—on both feet, incidentally—and I also got another walking picture and direction line. He moved toward the basement door and into the basement. That’s not the important thing, however.”

“What is the important thing?” Meyer asked patiently.

“Our man is injured. And I think badly.”

“How do you know?”

“The walking picture downstairs is entirely different from the one in the kitchen. The footprints are the same, of course, no question but that the same person left them. But the walking line indicates that the person was leaning quite heavily on the left leg and dragging the right. There are, in fact, no flat footprints for the right foot, only scrape marks where the edges of the sole and heel were pulled along the concrete. I would suggest that whoever’s handling the case put out a physician’s bulletin. If this guy hasn’t got a broken leg, I’ll eat the pictures I took.”

A girl in a green coat was waiting in the lobby. Leaning against the wall, hands thrust deep into the slash pockets of the coat, she turned toward the basement door the instant it opened. Carella and Kling, followed by the red-faced patrolman (who was slightly more red-faced at the moment), came through the doorway and were starting for the street when the girl said, “Excuse me, are you the detectives?”

“Yes?” Carella said.

“Hey, listen, I’m sorry,” the patrolman said. “I just got transferred up here, you know, I ain’t too familiar with all you guys.”

“That’s okay,” Kling said.

“The super told me you were in the building,” the girl said.

“So, like excuse it, huh?” the patrolman said.

“Right, right,” Kling said, and waved him toward the front door.

“You’re investigating the Fletcher murder, aren’t you?” the girl said. She was quite soft-spoken, a tall girl with dark hair and large brown eyes that shifted alternately from one detective to the other, as though searching for the most receptive audience.

“How can we help you, miss?” Carella asked.

“I saw somebody in the basement last night,” she said. “With blood on his clothes.”

Carella glanced at Kling, and immediately said, “What time was this?”

“About a quarter to eleven,” the girl said.

“What were you doing in the basement?”

“My clothes,” the girl said, sounding surprised. “That’s where the washing machines are. I’m sorry, my name is Nora Simonov. I live here in the building.”

“So long, you guys,” the patrolman called from the front door. “Excuse it, huh?”

“Right, right,” Kling said.

“I live on the fifth floor,” Nora said. “Apartment 5A.”

“Tell us what happened, will you?” Carella said.

“I was sitting by the machine, watching the clothes tumble—which is simply fascinating, you know,” she said, and rolled her eyes and flashed a quick, surprising smile, “when the door leading to the backyard opened. The door to the alley. You know the door I mean?”

“Yes,” Carella said.

“And this man came down the stairs. I don’t even think he saw me. The machines are sort of off to the side, you know. He went straight for the steps at the other end, the ones that go up to the street. There are two flights of steps. One goes to the lobby, the other goes to the street. He went up to the street.”

“Was he anyone you recognized?”

“What do you mean?”

“From the building? Or the neighborhood?”

“No. I’d never seen him before last night.”

“Can you describe him?”

“Sure. He was about twenty-one, twenty-two years old, your height and weight, well, maybe a little bit shorter, five-ten or eleven. Brown hair.”

Kling was already writing. “Notice the color of his eyes?” he said.

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Was he white or black?”

“White.”

“What was he wearing?”

“Dark trousers, high-topped sneakers, a poplin windbreaker. With blood on the sleeve and on the front.”

“Which sleeve?”

“The right one.”

“Any hat?”

“No.”

“Was he carrying anything?”

“Yes. A small red bag. It looked like one of those bags the airlines give you.”

“Any scars, tattoos, marks?”

“Well, I couldn’t say. He wasn’t that close. And he went by in pretty much of a hurry, considering.”

“Considering what?” Carella asked.

“His leg. He was dragging his right leg. I think he was hurt pretty badly.”

“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?” Carella asked.

“In a minute,” Nora said.

What they had in mind, of course, was identification from a mug shot. What they had in mind was the possibility that the I.S. would come up with something positive on the fingerprints that had been sent downtown. What they all hoped was that maybe, just once, it would turn out to be a nice, easy one—the Identification Section would send them the record of a known criminal, and they would pick him up without a fuss, and parade him in a squad-room lineup, from which Nora Simonov would pick him out as the man she had seen in the basement at 10:45 the night before, with blood on his clothes.

The I.S. reported that none of the fingerprints in their file matched the ones found in the apartment.

So the detectives sighed, and figured it was going to be a tough one after all (they are all tough ones, after all, they groaned, awash in a sea of self-pity), and did exactly what Marshall Davies had suggested: they sent out a bulletin to all of the city’s doctors, asking them to report any leg fractures or sprains suffered by a white man in his early twenties, five feet ten or eleven inches tall, weighing approximately 180 pounds, brown hair, last seen wearing dark trousers, high-topped sneakers, and a poplin windbreaker with bloodstains on the front and on the right sleeve.

And, just to prove that cops can be as wrong as anyone else, it turned out to be a nice, easy one, after all.

The call came from a physician in Riverhead at 4:37 that afternoon, just as Carella was ready to go home.

“This is Dr. Mendelsohn,” he said. “I have your bulletin here, and I want to report treating a man who fits your description.”

“Where are you located, Dr. Mendelsohn?” Carella asked.

“On Dover Plains Avenue. In Riverhead. 3461 Dover Plains.”

“When did you treat this man?”

“Early this morning. I have early office hours on Monday. It’s my day at the hospital.”

“What did you treat him for?”

“A bad ankle sprain.”

“No fracture?”

“None. We X-rayed the leg here. It was quite swollen, and I suspected a fracture, of course, but it was merely a bad sprain. I taped it for him, and advised him to stay off it for a while.”

“Did he give you his name?”

“Yes. I have it right here.”

“May I have it, sir?”

“Ralph Corwin.”

“Any address?”

“894 Woodside.”

“In Riverhead?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, Dr. Mendelsohn,” Carella said.

“Not at all,” Mendelsohn said, and hung up.

Carella pulled the Riverhead telephone directory from the top drawer of his desk, and quickly flipped to the C’s. He did not expect to find a listing for Ralph Corwin. A man would have to be a rank amateur to first burglarize an apartment without wearing gloves, then stab a woman to death, and then give his name when seeking treatment for an injury sustained in escaping from the murder apartment.

Ralph Corwin was apparently a rank amateur.

His name was in the phone book, and the address he’d given the doctor was as true as the day was long.

They kicked in the door without warning, fanning into the room, guns drawn.

The man on the bed was wearing only undershorts. His right ankle was taped. The bedsheets were soiled, and the stench of vomit in the close, hot room was overpowering.

“Are you Ralph Corwin?” Carella asked.

“Yes,” the man said. His face was drawn, the eyes squinched in pain.

“Police officers,” Carella said.

“What do you want?”

“We want to ask you some questions. Get dressed, Corwin.”

“There’s nothing to ask,” he said, and turned his head into the pillow. “I killed her.”