Shotgun

3

It was a good October.

October is the best month anyway, but this October was a rare one. There had been only one rainy day at the very beginning of the month, and clear blue skies from then on, the breezes carrying just enough bite to make topcoats necessary, but never menacing, never threatening winter itself, even though it was just around the corner.

Carella had read somewhere that this city was the second sunniest city in America, Los Angeles being the first, and today he was ready to believe it. Miami had doubtless taken a fit, not to mention Palm Springs and perhaps Fresno, but there it was in black and white in a national magazine, this city was the second sunniest city in the United States, meaning that even when it was cold enough here to freeze you to the pavement, the sun was nonetheless shining.

The sun was shining brightly that Monday morning, October 28, when he and Bert Kling left the squadroom to head downtown. Kling was coatless and hatless, his blond hair gently stirring in the breeze that came in off the river to the north. Carella was wearing a tan trench coat and feeling like a private eye. Both men came down the station steps swiftly, Kling as tall as Carella, but broader and heavier, each walking with a brisk athletic stride, pausing on the sidewalk to look up at the magnificent blue sky, and grinning, and then walking swiftly and energetically and vigorously to where Kling had parked his car up the street.

“God, what a day!” he said. “Days like this, I feel like sleeping till noon and then going to the park and sleeping some more.”

“Yeah, it’s a beauty,” Carella said.

Kling started the car. Carella opened the window on his side and breathed deeply, and smiled.

They drove downtown with no sense of urgency. The sun was dazzling on the River Harb, the cliffs on the further shore rising in sheer magnificence against a flawless blue expanse of sky. A red and green tugboat lazed its way upstream, a foghorn bleated, a single gull dipped in gray and white arcs over the filigreed water. The men discussed business only once on the way downtown, and that was when Kling asked whether the FBI had got back to them yet on the prints found in the Leyden apartment. Carella said, No, they hadn’t, and then both men put the case out of mind again.

American Tractor & Machine was located on Bixby, two blocks west of Remington Circle. It was on the tenth floor of a steel and glass structure that reflected sky and sun in a dizzying multiwindowed whirl, making the building itself seem alive. An elevator whisked them aloft, polished aluminum doors opened soundlessly, and they found themselves in a lushly carpeted reception room, the AT&M logo prominently displayed behind a sleek walnut desk at which sat a pretty blonde receptionist wearing a miniskirt. The impression was hardly one of heavy machinery. The girl was petite, perhaps nineteen, with china-blue eyes that she batted first at Carella and then at Kling after seeing the wedding band on Carella’s hand.

“We’re detectives,” Carella said, and showed her the potsy. “We’d like to talk to Andrew Leyden’s superior.”

“Oh, yes, isn’t it terrible?” the girl said.

“Yes,” Carella said.

“Isn’t it?” she said to Kling, and batted her blue eyes again, the lashes incredibly long and probably fake, Carella thought.

“Yes,” Kling said. “Did you know Mr. Leyden?”

“Oh, yes, certainly,” the girl said, and then said, “Does that make me a suspect?”

“No, not necessarily,” Kling said, and smiled.

“I thought you might be going to investigate me or something,” the girl said, and then laughed, striving for a throaty undertone that she missed completely. “Are you going to investigate me?”

“Well, not right now,” Kling said.

Carella cleared his throat.

“Who was Mr. Leyden’s superior?” he asked.

“You’ll want to talk to Joe Witters, I guess,” the girl said. To Kling, she said, “My name’s Anne Gilroy, you can remember it by saying, ‘Gilroy was here.’ ”

“I thought it was Kilroy,” Kling said.

“Yes, it used to be. But that was before I arrived on the scene.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Do you?” she said.

“Yes, I think so, Miss Gilroy.”

“I’ll buzz Mr. Witters,” she said. “What did you say your names were?”

“Detectives Carella and Kling,” Carella said.

“Which of you is Carella?”

“Me,” Carella said.

“Which means you’re Kling,” Anne said.

“Yes.”

“How nice,” she said, and lifted the phone.

Carella cleared his throat again.

“Mr. Witters,” Anne said into the phone, “there are two gentlemen here from the police, they’d like to talk to you about Andy Leyden. Shall I send them in?” She listened, her blue eyes wide. “Yes, Mr. Witters. Fine,” she said, and hung up. “You can go right in. I’ll show you where it is.” She swung her legs from behind the desk, smiled, and stood up. The miniskirt ended some three inches above her knees. A wide red belt cinched her waist, a pink blouse billowed above it, long blonde hair trailed down her back to somewhere below her shoulder blades. She had seemed like nineteen while seated behind the desk, but her practiced walk as she preceded them down the long corridor, fierce little behind jiggling, caused Carella to revise his estimate to twenty-four or — five. Every now and then, she glanced back over her shoulder to make certain Kling was watching her. He was. At the door to Mr. Witters’s office, she paused, smiled at Kling, twisted the doorknob, and then stood in the doorway so that both detectives had to squeeze past her.

“Gentlemen,” Witters said, and watched Anne Gilroy as she stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her. “Nymphomaniac,” he commented abruptly, and then said, “I understand you’re here to ask some questions about Andy Leyden.”

“Yes, sir, we are,” Carella said.

“Well, my name’s Joe Witters, as I guess you already know. I haven’t got your names.”

“Carella.”

“Kling.”

Witters shook hands with both of them. He was a white-haired man in his middle fifties, his complexion florid, his eyes a speckled green. There were liver spots on the backs of his huge hands. Monogrammed gold links showed on each cuff of his shirt, and a monogrammed gold oval held his tie in place. He had a habit of wiping his cupped hand downward past his upper lip and over his chin, as though he were smoothing an invisible mustache and beard. His speech was Midwestern, his manner distant. He seemed terribly pressed for time, even though there was not a single scrap of paper on his desk.

“What do you want to know?” he asked.

“How long did Andrew Leyden work for American Tractor and Machine?”

“Close to ten years.”

“What sort of work?”

“Salesman,” Witters said.

“Was he on the road a lot?”

“That’s right.”

“How often?”

“Six months of every year, I’d say.”

“How much was he earning?”

“Thirty-five thousand. Plus expenses. Plus stock benefits.”

“He was high-salaried, then.”

“That’s right.”

“Was he a good salesman?”

“That’s right, one of the best.”

“Know anyone who might have wanted him dead, Mr. Witters?”

“Nope.”

“Did you like him?”

“Personally?”

“Yes, personally.”

“Not too much.” Witters paused. “I don’t like anyone too much, you want to know the truth.”

“What’s your position with American Tractor and—”

“Call it AT&M, not such a mouthful,” Witters said.

“AT&M,” Carella said.

“I’m executive vice president in charge of sales,” Witters said.

“And were you Leyden’s immediate superior?”

“Well, we have a sales manager, but he’s on the road right now, up in Canada.”

“Any rivalry between him and Leyden?”

“None that I was aware of.”

“Between Leyden and any of the other salesmen?”

“Always rivalry between salesmen,” Witters said. “That’s what makes for good sales. Don’t know any of them who’d want to kill each other, though. That’d be carrying rivalry a bit far, wouldn’t it?” He smiled abruptly. The smile vanished so quickly that neither Kling nor Carella was sure it had been there at all. Witters immediately passed his hand downward over his mouth and chin, as though anxious to wipe away any remnants of it.

“Leyden wasn’t up for another man’s job—”

“No.”

“... or after another man’s territory—”

“No.”

“... or edging anyone out of a promotion he—”

“No.”

“Nothing like that,” Carella said.

“Nothing like that,” Witters said.

“Would you say he got along well with his fellow workers?” Kling asked.

“I would say so, yes.”

“Any tension between him and any of the other men?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Was he fooling around with any of the girls in the office?”

“How do you mean?”

“You know.” Kling shrugged. “Fooling around.”

“No more than usual. They’re all nymphomaniacs anyway,” Witters said.

“By ‘no more than usual,’ Mr. Witters, exactly what—?”

“Oh, you know. A feel here and there. I don’t think he was having an affair with anybody, if that’s what you mean.”

“Nothing like that,” Kling said.

“Nothing like that,” Witters said.

“By ‘nymphomaniacs,’ Mr. Witters, exactly what—?”

“All of them,” Witters said.

“Nymphomaniacs?” Carella said.

“Yes.”

“You mean—”

“Oh, these short skirts and tight blouses. All nymphomaniacs.”

“I see,” Carella said.

“I wonder if we could see Mr. Leyden’s office,” Kling said. “Go through his desk, look at his papers. There may be something there we can—”

“Well, I don’t know as you’ll find anything. He’s been on the road, you know, and it’s our policy to forward all of a salesman’s mail to wherever he may be.”

“What was his territory, Mr. Witters?”

“California, Oregon, Washington. State of.”

“When did he get back from his last trip?” Carella asked.

“Not supposed to be back,” Witters said.

“I beg your pardon, what—?”

“I said he wasn’t supposed to be back. Last we got from him was a wire from San Francisco saying he was moving on up to Portland on Monday. That’s today. So next thing is he gets killed in his own apartment on Saturday night, when he’s still supposed to be in Frisco.”

“When did he send this wire?”

“We got it before close of business last Friday.”

“And he said he was remaining in San Francisco for the weekend?”

“I can get you the wire, if you’d like to see it.”

“Yes, we’d like to see it,” Kling said.

Witters sighed and pressed a button on his intercom. “Gerry,” he said, “will you dig out the wire Andy Leyden sent us last week? Bring it right in when you’ve got it.” He clicked off, abruptly muttered, “Nymphomaniac,” and then wiped his hand over his mouth and chin again.

“Why do you suppose he came back so suddenly?” Carella asked.

“Beats me. He’d only been gone a month, still had Oregon and Washington to cover, don’t ask me why he hurried on back.” A knock sounded on the door. “Come in, come in,” Witters called, and the door opened. A mousy-looking woman of about forty, bespectacled, wearing a gray tweed suit, came into the room, walked awkwardly and self-consciously to the desk, handed the wire to Witters, smiled in embarrassment at both detectives, and hastily walked out again. The door whispered shut behind her.

“Nymphomaniac,” Witters said, and glanced cursorily at the wire. “Here,” he said. “This is it.”

Carella took the extended telegram:

“Is this usual?” Carella asked.

“Is what usual?”

“Do your salesmen usually keep you informed of their whereabouts?”

“Yes, of course.”

“By telegram?”

“Most of the men phone us every Friday afternoon. Andy generally sent telegrams.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Guess he didn’t like talking on the telephone.”

“Is this also usual? Asking the office to phone his wife and—”

“Oh, sure, they all do that.”

“Have any idea why he might have needed his checkbook?”

“Probably ran out of checks,” Witters said, and shrugged.

“I thought he had an expense account.”

“He did. Lots of places won’t take credit cards, though. In which case our men on the road are instructed to keep a record of what they spend. The firm, of course, makes good later. Checks are a handy way of keeping a record.”

“Mmm,” Carella said. He handed the telegram back to Witters. “And this was the last you heard from him, is that right?”

“That’s right,” Witters said.

“So you thought he was still in San Francisco.”

“Says right in the wire he’ll be holding there for the weekend.”

“And his wife thought he was in San Francisco, too, is that right?”

“Well, sure, I guess so. Asked us to call her, so I guess we took care of it, and I guess she assumed he was still out there. As I told you, he’d only been gone a month or so. Swing through California takes at least a month all by itself.”

“Do you suppose he called to let her know he was heading back?”

“Knowing Andy, he probably sent her a telegram,” Witters said, and smiled again, and again wiped the smile away with his hand.

“Mmm,” Carella said. “Well, could we look at his office now?”

“Sure, but you’re not likely to find much on his desk.”

“Perhaps in it.”

“Nor in it, neither. Andy Leyden’s office was pretty much his hat. He was a traveling man.”

As Witters had promised, there was nothing they could use in Andrew Leyden’s desk. His office was at the far end of the corridor, a tiny cubicle painted beige and set between the Mailing Room and the Records Office. A large window faced the street, an air conditioner in its lower half. A brown-chalk drawing of a woman’s head, a Picasso print, was framed and hanging on the wall opposite the desk. A cartoon clipped from a magazine was pinned to a bulletin board near the light switch. It showed a woman talking to a salesman on her doorstep, and the caption was, “Don’t you dare try to sell brushes to me, Harry. I’m your wife!” The word “brushes” had a line drawn through it, and over it someone had lettered in the word “tractors.” In the same handwriting, lettered in over the name “Harry,” someone had written “Andrew.”

Leyden’s desk was made of metal, painted green, completely utilitarian and hardly aesthetic. A picture of his wife was on the left-hand corner of the desk, alongside the telephone. It had been taken prior to a wedding or a ball, and Rose Leyden was wearing a low-cut evening gown. A beauty spot clearly showed just above her left breast, an inch or so higher than the top of her gown. She was smiling stiffly at the photographer. A blotter was the only other thing on the desk. Carella automatically checked it for any mirror writing that might have been left on it, but the blotter seemed new, with only a single inkstain in one corner. The top drawer of the desk contained paper clips and a memo pad and several pencils and an eraser. An AT&M order form was at the back of the drawer. The three side drawers of the desk contained, in sequence: telephone directories for Isola, Calm’s Point, and Riverhead; four lined yellow composition pads; a pair of scuffed loafers; a paperback copy of Hawaii; a calendar, the top leaf of which still read September 3; and a half-full box of chocolates. That was it. They thanked Mr. Witters for his time and his courtesy and went down the corridor again toward the elevators. Anne Gilroy looked up as they approached her desk.

“In case I think of anything,” she said to Kling, “how can I reach you?”

“Are you liable to think of anything?” Carella asked.

“Who knows?” Anne said, and smiled at Kling.

“Here’s my card,” Kling said, and fished it from his wallet.

“Bertram,” she said, reading the card. “I don’t know a single person in the entire world named Bertram.”

“Well, now you do,” Carella said.

“Yes,” she said, still looking at Kling. “Now I do.”

When they got back to the squadroom, Andy Parker told them the FBI had sent a teletyped report on the fingerprints dispatched to them last Saturday. They had nothing on Rose or Andrew Leyden, and they had also come up negative on the wild prints. This meant that the killer, whoever he was, had no police record, nor had he ever served in the armed forces of the United States. It also meant, for whatever such information was worth at the moment, that the killer had probably never held a government job either, since most government agencies required fingerprints of their employees. By twelve noon that Monday, it looked as though the case was not going to be such a pushover.

The shotgun found in the dead man’s hands had been a 12-gauge pump type fitted with a barrel for 2 ¾-inch shells. Its capacity was six shells. Two of those had been blasted into the face of Rose Leyden, and another two into the face of her husband. A spent cartridge case, unejected, had been found in the receiver of the gun. Two unfired shells were below, waiting to be pumped into the chamber. The shells were 12-gauge Remington Express with Number 2 shot, the largest shot available. Two such loads fired into anyone’s face at close range were entirely capable of causing complete destruction. The police laboratory had identified the weapon for Carella and also provided him with a manufacturer’s serial number. At ten minutes after 12:00 that Monday, he called the manufacturer’s representative in the city, gave him the serial number of the gun, and asked if he could tell him which retail outlet had sold it. The man on the phone asked him to wait a moment, and then came back to the phone and said he would have to look it up, and could he call Carella back? Carella gave him the number at the squadroom, and then sent out for a Western on a hard roll. He had finished the sandwich and was drinking his second cup of coffee when the telephone rang.

“87th Squad, Carella,” he said.

“Mr. Carella, this is Fred Thiessen.”

“Hello, Mr. Thiessen,” Carella said. “Did you come up with anything?”

“Yes, I have. Let me just check that serial number again, may I? I don’t want to make any mistakes on this.”

“It was A-37426,” Carella said.

“A-37426,” Thiessen said, “Yes, that’s what I’ve got. Well, I checked our invoices for the month of August, which was when that series must have gone out to retailers. We’re already shipping the 376s, in this area at least, so I figured this must have been August or so.”

“Was it?”

“Yes. We shipped that gun — it’s our 833K, by the way — together with a .410 gauge single-shot, and two bolt-action repeaters. This was on August fourth.”

“To whom did you ship it?”

“Oh, yes, we also shipped our new 20-gauge model, with the selective choke tube, on the same date.”

“To whom, Mr. Thiessen?”

“The shipment went to Paramount Sporting Goods.”

“In Isola?”

“No, sir. In Newfield. Across the river, in the next state.”

“Would you have the address handy?”

“Yes, it’s 1147 Barter.”

“Well, thank you very much, Mr. Thiessen, you’ve been very helpful.”

“Was one of our guns used in a crime?”

“I’m afraid so,” Carella said.

“We’d appreciate it if our company name wasn’t mentioned to the press.”

“We don’t generally release that kind of information anyway, Mr. Thiessen.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Carella said again, and hung up.

The fact that the shotgun had been purchased in the town of Newfield, across the river, seemed to indicate that the murderer knew at least something about gun laws. For whereas these laws varied widely throughout the US of A, making it possible for hunters (or sometimes murderers) to buy weapons either here or there with relative ease, the law in the city for which Carella and Kling worked was quite stringent. It required that anyone wishing to possess or purchase a rifle or a shotgun needed a permit, and it specifically denied such permit to:

(1) Anyone under the age of eighteen, or

(2) Anyone who had been convicted of a felony or a misdemeanor, or

(3) Anyone who had been confined to a hospital for mental illness, alcoholism, or drug addiction unless now declared sound by a specialist in psychiatric medicine, or

(4) Anyone who suffered from any physical defect that would make it unsafe for him to handle such weapons, or

(5) Anyone who was a mental defective or a habitual drunkard or a narcotics addict, or

(6) Anyone who had been dishonorably discharged from the military service by reason of an action found constituting a felony or a misdemeanor.

Moreover, application for a permit had to be accompanied by two photographs taken within thirty days prior to filing, and fingerprinting of the applicant was mandatory.

It was a tough law, and a good law.

In the town of Newfield, however, across the river, you could buy a rifle or a shotgun over the counter of any store selling them, so long as you had the money necessary to complete this act of commerce. If you chose to carry the weapon back across the river and into the city, the law required that application for a permit be made within forty-eight hours and that the gun be left at your resident precinct until you could produce the proper permit and registration certificate. But if you had bought a shotgun in Newfield and intended to shoot two people in the face, it is doubtful that you would even consider registering the gun once you got back to the city.

Paramount Sporting Goods was in the downtown section of Newfield, in a triangular-shaped business area bordered by Chinatown, the railroad marshaling yards, and an Italian ghetto. The owner of the shop was a pleasant moon-faced man named Abe Feldman. When they walked in, he was assembling an order for a high-school football team, assorting jerseys according to size, stacking shoulder pads and mouthpieces, his counter covered with all the plastic armor needed in that warlike game. Carella and Kling introduced themselves, and Feldman immediately looked worried.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “What happened?”

“This has nothing to do with you, Mr. Feldman. We’re investigating a murder, and—”

“Oh, my God!” Feldman said.

“... we have reason to believe the murder weapon was purchased in your store. I wonder—”

“Oh, my God!” he said again.

“... I wonder if you’d be able to dig out your sales slips—”

“When was it?” Feldman asked.

“Well, the gun was shipped to you on August fourth, so it would have to be anytime after that.”

“August?”

“Yes.”

“I already got my slips for August and September put away.”

“Would they be difficult to get at?”

“Well, I got them in the back. There’s such a chazerai back there, believe me, I hate to go in there sometimes.”

“Well, this—”

“Also, you caught me right in the middle. I got a whole football team here I’m trying to get ready.”

“Well, this is a murder case,” Kling said gently.

“This is murder right here,” Feldman said, indicating the equipment covering the counter top. “All right, come on. If you can stand it, I can stand it.”

The back of Feldman’s shop was a monument to disorder. Cartons were heaped haphazardly upon other cartons, hockey sticks were stacked in corners, ice skates and boxing gloves hung from nails and pegs, skis and poles leaned dangerously against the walls, fishing poles wobbled overhead on wooden slats, boxes of ping-pong balls and jackknives teetered menacingly, dust covered everything.

“Oh boy, what a mess,” Feldman said. “Every time I come back here, I get an ulcer. August, you said?”

“Or anytime since.”

“Oh boy,” Feldman said. “August, August, where the hell is August?”

He blew dust off a box of fishing flies, put it back on a shelf that contained athletic supporters, reached for another box, blew dust from it, shook his head, said, “No, that’s July,” and picked up yet another box. “What the hell is this?” he asked of no one, nodded, said, “BB pellets,” put the box back on the shelf alongside a box of hockey pucks, lifted another large box, and said, “September. You want to start with September?”

“Why not?” Carella said.

“Where the hell am I going to put this?” Feldman said, looking around. He found a large carton containing baseball bats, rested the box on it, and lifted the lid. The box was crammed full of sales slips, thirty or forty of which fell to the dusty floor when he raised the lid.

“There must be ten thousand slips in this box alone,” Feldman said.

“Well, not that many,” Carella said, and smiled.

“All right, five thousand, who’s counting?”

“Do you record serial numbers when you sell a gun?” Kling asked.

“Every time,” Feldman said. “That’s the law in this state.”

“For pistols, it is,” Carella said. “How about shotguns?”

“No, I don’t record no serial numbers on shotguns.” Feldman looked worried again. “I’m not required to do that, am I?”

“No, but—”

“No, I don’t do that,” Feldman said. “Why? You got a serial number?”

“Yes.”

“It won’t do you no good here,” Feldman said, and shook his head.

“How about the model number? Would you write that on your invoice?”

“Sure I write the model number. Besides, I won’t sell any kind of a gun to somebody I don’t know. Unless he gives me his name and address.”

Carella nodded. Kling gave Feldman the manufacturer’s name and the model number of the shotgun — 833K — and the three men began wading through the sales slips. There were exactly 527 slips in the box; Kling counted them. Not one of them recorded a sale for a model 833K shotgun.

“So it must have been August,” Carella said.

“Just our luck,” Feldman said. He was a determined little man, and he seemed to have entered into the spirit of the chase now, anxious to find the sales slip, anxious to be of assistance in bringing a murderer to justice. Busily, he searched the crowded, dusty backroom for the missing box of August sales slips. At last, he found it buried under six boxes of tennis balls on the bottom shelf against the far wall.

Kling began counting again as they went through the August slips. They reached 212 when Feldman said, “Here we go.”

They looked at the slip.

“See?” Feldman said. “There’s his name and address. I take everybody’s name and address when I don’t know who it is I’m selling a gun to. You never know when some nut is going to shoot the President, am I right?”

The name on the sales slip was Walter Damascus. The address listed was 234 South Second Street. The price of the gun was $74.95, plus the 5 percent sales tax, and the 2 percent city sales tax.

“Would you have sold more than one of these models?” Kling said.

“In August, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“No, how could I? I only got one in the shipment.”

“Then this is the man who bought it,” Carella said.

“Sure, it must be.”

“Sounds like a phony name,” Kling said. “Damascus.”

“Did you ask him for identification, Mr. Feldman?” Carella asked.

“Well, no, I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“I never do.”

“When you sell a stranger a gun, you take his name and address—”

“Yes.”

“... but you don’t ask for identification?”

“No.”

“Well, what good is that?” Carella asked.

“I never thought of it,” Feldman said, and shrugged. “I’m not required to ask them for anything, you know. You can buy a rifle or a shotgun anywhere you want to in this state without a license, without nothing. I just ask them their name and address as a precaution, you understand me? Just in case some nut is buying the gun, you know what I mean?”

“Yes, we know what you mean,” Carella said.