Ten Plus One

18

The hospital was shrouded in a slow, steady drizzle that echoed the grayness of its walls. They arrived there at 1:00 A.M., parked the car, and then went to the admissions desk, where a nurse told them Mrs. Redfield was in Room 407.

“Has Mr. Redfield arrived yet?” Meyer asked.

“Yes, he’s upstairs,” the nurse said. “Mrs. Redfield’s doctor is with her, too. You’ll have to check with him before talking to the patient.”

“We’ll do that,” Carella said.

They walked to the elevator. Carella pressed the call button, and then said, “Redfield got here fast enough.”

“He was in the shower when I went up to the apartment to tell him his wife had been wounded,” Meyer said. “Takes a shower every night before going to bed. That explains the bathroom light going on.”

“What’d he say when you told him?”

“He came to the door in a bathrobe, dripping water all over the floor. He said, ‘I should have taken the dog down myself.’ ”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all. Then he asked where his wife was, and said he’d dress and get right over here.”

They took the elevator up to the fourth floor, and waited in the corridor outside Margaret’s room. In ten minutes’ time, a white-haired man in his sixties came out of Room 407. He looked at his watch and was hurrying toward the elevators when Carella stopped him.

“Sir?” he said.

The man turned. “Yes?”

“Sir, are you Mrs. Redfield’s doctor?”

“I am,” the man said. “Dr. Fidio.”

“I’m Detective Carella of the 87th Squad. This is my partner, Detective Meyer.”

“How do you do?” Fidio said, and he shook hands with the men.

“We’d like to ask Mrs. Redfield some questions,” Carella said. “Do you think she’s up to it?”

“Well,” Fidio said skeptically, “I just gave her a sedative. I imagine it’ll begin working any minute. If this won’t take too long...”

“We’ll try to keep it short,” Carella promised.

“Please,” Fidio answered. He paused. “I can appreciate the gravity of what has happened, believe me, but I wish you’d try not to overtax Margaret. She’ll live, but she’ll need every ounce of strength she can summon.”

“We understand, sir.”

“And Lewis as well. I know you’ve got to ask questions, but he’s been through a great deal in the past month, and now this thing with…”

“The past month?” Carella said.

“Yes.”

“Oh, worrying about Margaret, you mean.”

“Yes.”

“Well, we can understand the strain he’s been under,” Carella said. “Knowing a sniper was at large and wondering when…”

“Yes, yes, that too, of course.”

Meyer looked at Fidio curiously. He turned to Carella, and saw that Carella was also staring at the doctor. The corridor outside Room 407 was suddenly very silent.

“That too?” Carella said.

“What do you mean?” Meyer said instantly.

“What else was bothering him?” Carella asked.

“Well, the entire business with Margaret.”

“What entire business, Dr. Fidio?”

“I hardly think this is germane to your case, gentlemen. Margaret Redfield was shot and almost killed tonight. This other thing is a private matter between her and her husband.” He looked at his watch again. “If you’re going to question her, you’d better hurry. That sedative…”

“Dr. Fidio, I think we ought to decide what’s germane to the case, don’t you? What was troubling Lewis Redfield?”

Dr. Fidio sighed deeply. He looked into the detectives’ faces, sighed again, and then said. “Well…” and told them what they wanted to know.

Margaret Redfield was asleep when they entered the room. Her husband was sitting in a chair beside her, a round-faced man with sad brown eyes and a dazed expression on his face. A black raincoat was draped over a chair on the other side of the room.

“Hello, Mr. Redfield,” Carella said.

“Hello, Detective Carella,” Redfield answered. Behind his chair, rain stained the window, crawling over the glass, dissolving the pane in globs of running light.

“Dr. Fidio tells us your wife is going to pull through.”

“Yes, I hope so,” Redfield said.

“It’s no fun getting shot,” Meyer said. “In the movies, it all looks so clean and simple. But it isn’t any fun.”

“I don’t imagine it is,” Redfield said.

“I take it you’ve never been shot,” Carella said.

“No.”

“Were you in the service?”

“Yes.”

“What branch, Mr. Redfield?”

“The Army.”

“Did you see combat?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know how to use a rifle?”

“Oh, yes,” Redfield said.

“Our guess is you know how to use it pretty well, Mr. Redfield.”

Redfield looked suddenly alert. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“Our guess is you were an expert shot during the war, is that right, Mr. Redfield?”

“I was only fair.”

“Then you must have learned an awful lot since.”

“What do you mean?” Redfield asked again.

“Mr. Redfield,” Meyer said, “where did you go tonight when your wife left the apartment with the dog?”

“I went into the shower.”

“Which shower?”

“What…what do you mean…the shower,” Redfield said. “The shower.”

“In your bathroom…or on the roof?”

“What?”

“It’s raining, Mr. Redfield. Is that why you missed killing her? Is that why you only hit her in the shoulder?”

“I don’t know what you…who are you…my wife, do you mean? Are you talking about Margaret?”

“Yes, Mr. Redfield. We are talking about your knowing your wife would take the dog down sometime before midnight. We are talking about your going up to the roof the moment she left the apartment, and crossing over to a building around the corner, and waiting for her to come around the block. That is what we are talking about, Mr. Redfield.”

“I…that’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Why, I…I was in the shower when it…when it all happened. I even came to the door in my bathrobe. I…”

“How long does it take to shoot someone, get back down to the apartment, and hop into the tub, Mr. Redfield?”

“No,” Redfield said. He shook his head. “No.”

“Yes, Mr. Redfield.”

“No.”

“Mr. Redfield,” Carella said, “we just had a chat with Dr. Fidio in the hall outside. He told us that you and Mrs. Redfield have been trying to have a baby since you were married two years ago. Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“He also told us that you came to see him at the beginning of April because you thought perhaps something was wrong with you, that you were the one who was responsible.”

“Yes,” Redfield said.

“Instead, Dr. Fidio told you that your wife, Margaret, had had a hysterectomy performed in November 1940, and that she could never have a child. Is that also true, Mr. Redfield?”

“Yes, he told me that.”

“And you didn’t know about it before?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Surely your wife must have a scar. Didn’t you ever ask her about it?”

“Yes. She said it was an appendectomy scar.”

“But when Dr. Fidio told you the real nature of the operation, he also told you about a party that had taken place in April 1940, and about your wife’s subsequent venereal—”

“Yes, yes, he told me,” Redfield said impatiently. “I don’t see what…”

“How old are you, Mr. Redfield?”

“I’m forty-seven.”

“Have you ever had any children?”

“No.”

“You must have wanted them pretty badly.”

“I…I wanted children.”

“But they made it impossible, didn’t they?”

“I…I…don’t know who you mean, what you mean.”

“The people who were at that party, Mr. Redfield. The ones who caused the hysterectomy, the ones—”

“I don’t know who those people were. I don’t know what you mean.”

“That’s right, Mr. Redfield. You didn’t know who they were. You only knew there had been a party following a production of The Long Voyage Home, and you properly assumed all the members of the cast had been to that party. What did you do? Find Margaret’s old theater program and just start going down the list?”

Redfield shook his head.

“Where’s the rifle, Mr. Redfield?” Carella said.

“Who was next on your list?” Meyer said.

“I didn’t do any of this,” Redfield said. “I didn’t kill any of them.”

“If that’s your raincoat,” Carella said, “you’d better put it on.”

“Why? Where are you taking me?”

“Downtown.”

“What for? I’m telling you I didn’t—”

“We’re booking you for homicide, Mr. Redfield,” Carella said.

“Homicide? I didn’t kill anyone, how can you…?”

“We think you did.”

“You thought Cohen did, too.”

“There’s one difference, Mr. Redfield.”

“What’s that?”

“This time we’re sure.”

It was 2:00 A.M. by the time they got back to the precinct. He tried to brazen it through at first, but he did not know a patrolman was going through his apartment while the detectives were questioning him in the squadroom. He refused to admit a thing. He kept repeating that he was in the shower when his wife was shot, he hadn’t known a thing about it until Meyer knocked on his door to report the shooting, and then he’d put on a robe and come to answer it. How could he have been on the roof? And when Cohen was killed on the precinct steps, he had been at work in his office, how could they hold him responsible for that death? True, no one had seen him after the time the office meeting broke up at 3:30, true, he could have left the office by the back stairs and come over to the precinct to wait for Cohen, but wasn’t that the wildest sort of speculation, by those rules anyone could be convicted of murder, he had nothing to do with any of this.

“Where were you on Friday, May fourth?” Carella asked.

“I was home,” Redfield answered.

“You didn’t go to work?”

“No, I had a cold.” He paused. “Ask my wife. She’ll tell you. I was home all day.”

“We will ask her, believe me, Mr. Redfield,” Carella said. “As soon as she’s able to talk to us.”

“She’ll tell you.”

“She’ll tell us you weren’t in Minneapolis, huh?”

“I’ve never been there in my life. I had nothing to do with any of this. You’re making a terrible mistake.”

And that was when the patrolman walked into the squadroom. Maybe Redfield would have told it all, anyway. It is a convention that they tell it all in the end, and besides, human beings will reach a point where hope is balanced against despair, where they see the scale slowly tilting against them. They recognize this point when it arrives, they stare at it with wise, discovering eyes, and they know there is nothing left for them. There is relief in confession. If there is any hope at all in despair, it is the hope of confession, so perhaps he would have told it all, anyway.

The patrolman walked directly to Carella’s desk. He put down the long leather case and said, “We found this at the back of his bedroom closet.”

Carella opened the case.

The rifle was a bolt-action Winchester Model 70.

“This your gun, Mr. Redfield?” Carella asked.

Redfield stared at the rifle and said nothing.

“These were on the shelf, behind his hats,” the patrolman said. He put the box of Remington .308 cartridges on the desktop. Carella looked at the cartridges, and then looked at Redfield, and then said, “Ballistics’ll give us the answer in ten minutes’ time, Mr. Redfield. You want to save us the trouble?”

Redfield sighed,

“Well?”

Redfield sighed again.

“Call Ballistics, Meyer,” Carella said. “Tell them a patrolman’s on his way down with a rifle. We want a comparison test made with the bullets and discharged shells we’ve got on—”

“Never mind,” Redfield said.

“You want to tell us about it?” Carella said.

Redfield nodded.

“Stenographer!” Carella yelled.

“I didn’t plan to kill any of them,” Redfield said. “Not at first.”

“Just a second,” Meyer said. “Miscolo, you got a stenographer coming?”

“You see,” Redfield said, “when Dr. Fidio told me about Margaret, I…I was shocked, of course, I thought…I don’t know what I thought…”

“Miscolo! Goddamnit!”

“Coming, coming!” Miscolo shouted, and he ran into the squadroom and began taking the confession himself, his open pad poised on his lap.

“Sadness, I suppose,” Redfield said. “I wanted a family, you see. I’m not a young man. I wanted a family before it was too late.” He shrugged. “Then…as I…as I began thinking about it, I guess I…I began to get…angry. My wife couldn’t have a baby, you see. She could never have a baby. Because of the hysterectomy. And they were responsible, you see. The ones who had done this to her. The ones who had been at that party Dr. Fidio described to me. Only, I…I didn’t know who they were.”

“Go on, Mr. Redfield.”

“I came upon the theater program by accident. I was looking for something in one of the closets, and I found the trunk, covered with dust, all covered with dust, and the program was inside it. So you see, I…I knew their names then. I knew the people who had done it to her, the ones who were at the party, and I…I began looking for them, not intending to kill them at first, but only wanting to see them, wanting to get a good look at the people who had…who had made it impossible for me to have children, my wife to have children. Then, I don’t know when, I think it was the day I found Blanche Lettiger, traced her to that dingy neighborhood, followed her, and she…she stopped me on the street and propositioned me, I think it was that day, seeing the filth she had become, and knowing the filth that had poisoned Margaret, I think it was that day I decided to kill them all.”

Redfield paused. Miscolo looked up from his pad.

“I killed Anthony Forrest first, not for any special reason, only because he was the one I decided to kill first, and maybe in the back of my mind I thought it would be better not to kill them in the order they appeared on the program, but just at random, you know, so it wouldn’t seem they were connected, just to kill them, you know, as if…as if there were no connection.”

“When did you decide to kill your own wife, Mr. Redfield?” Meyer asked.

“I don’t know when. Not at the beginning. After all, she’d been a victim of the others, hadn’t she? But then, I…I began to realize how dangerous my position was. Suppose a connection was made between the murder victims? Suppose you discovered all ten of them had been members of the same college drama group? Why, if I killed them all but allowed Margaret to live, well…well, wouldn’t you wonder about this? Wouldn’t you want to know why she alone hadn’t been killed? Of the entire group? My position was very dangerous, you see.”

“So you decided to kill her, too? To protect yourself?”

“Yes. No. More than that. Not only that.” Redfield’s eyes suddenly flared. “How did I know she’d really been such an innocent? Was she really a victim that night? Or had she gone along with the others willingly in their…their dirty…I didn’t know, you see. So I…I decided to kill her, too, along with the other ten. That was why I came here to talk with you. To throw off suspicion. I figured if I’d already been to the police to warn them of possible danger to Margaret, why, then, when she was actually killed, I wouldn’t be suspect, don’t you see? That was what I figured.”

“Were you in Minneapolis on May fourth, Mr. Redfield?”

“Yes. Oh, yes, I killed Peter Kelby.”

“Tell us about Cohen.”

“What do you want to know?”

“How you managed the timing on it.”

“That was risky. I shouldn’t have attempted it. But it worked, so maybe…”

“How, Mr. Redfield?”

“I left here at about one yesterday, and was back in my office by one-thirty. I dictated some letters to my secretary, and then attended a meeting at two-forty-five. I said it started at three, but it really started at two-forty-five and was over by three-fifteen. I left the office through the back stairs. My own private office has a back door opening on a corridor, you see, and I took the steps down…”

“No one saw you?”

“No.”

“Did you tell anyone you were leaving?”

“No. I thought of telling my secretary not to disturb me for the next hour or so, but then I decided against it. I thought if anyone started asking questions later, it would be better if everyone simply said they knew I was in the building somewhere, but not exactly where.”

“You did quite a bit of planning, didn’t you, Mr. Redfield?”

“I was murdering,” Redfield said simply.

“You realize you were murdering?”

“Of course I realize it!”

“Go on. What’d you do when you left the office?”

“I took a cab to my apartment. To get the rifle.”

“Is that where you usually stored it?”

“Yes. In the closet. Where your man found it.”

“Your wife never saw it?”

“Once.”

“Didn’t she ask you what you were doing with a rifle?”

“She didn’t know it was a rifle.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was in the case. I told her it was a fishing rod.”

“And she believed you?”

“I don’t think she has ever seen a rifle or a fishing rod. The gun was in its case. She had no way of knowing what was inside the case.”

“Go ahead. You went to pick up the rifle…”

“Yes. I took a cab. I was uptown in twenty minutes, and in another ten minutes, I was across the street, waiting in the park. Cohen came out at four o’clock, and I shot him.”

“Then what?”

“I ran south across the park, and took a cab on the other side.”

“Did you take the rifle back to the office with you?”

“No. I left it in a pay locker at Central Station.”

“And picked it up again on your way home last night?”

“Yes. Because I planned to kill Margaret last night, you see. The rain. I missed because of the rain.”

“Where’d you get the rifle, Mr. Redfield?”

“I bought it.”

“When?”

“The day I decided to kill them all.”

“And the silencer?”

“I made it from a piece of copper tubing. I was afraid it might injure the barrel of the rifle after a single firing, but it didn’t. I think I was lucky. Aren’t silencers supposed to ruin guns?”

“Mr. Redfield, you killed eight people, do you know that?” Carella said.

“Yes, I know that.”

“Why didn’t you adopt children, Mr. Redfield? You could have done that, you know. You planned all these murders, but you couldn’t see your way clear to going to an adoption agency! Why the hell…?”

“It never occurred to me,” Redfield said.

After the confession was typed and signed, after they led Redfield downstairs to the detention cells to await transportation downtown later in the morning, Carella picked up the phone and called Thomas Di Pasquale to tell him he could stop worrying.

“Thanks,” Di Pasquale said. “What the hell time is it?”

“Five A.M.,” Carella said.

“Don’t you ever sleep?” Di Pasquale said, and hung up.

Carella smiled and replaced the phone in its cradle. He did not call Helen Vale until later in the day. When he told her the good news, she said, “Oh, that’s wonderful. Now I can go away without that on my mind.”

“Away, Mrs. Vale?”

“For summer stock. The season starts next month, you know.”

“That’s right,” Carella said. “How could I forget a thing like that?”

“I want to thank you again,” Helen said.

“For what, Mrs. Vale?”

“For the patrolman,” she answered. “I really enjoyed having him.”

Cynthia Forrest came up to the squadroom that afternoon to pick up the material she had left, the old newspaper clippings, the report cards, the theater program. Bert Kling met her in the corridor as she was leaving.

“Miss Forrest,” he said, “I want to apologize for the way—”

“Drop dead,” Cynthia said, and went down the iron-runged steps to the street.

The three detectives were alone in the squadroom. May was dying, the long summer lay ahead. Outside on the street, they could hear the sound of a city rushing by, ten million people.

“I keep thinking about what you told me,” Meyer said suddenly.

“What was that, Meyer?”

“When we were leaving Etterman’s office, the German guy, the one whose son was shot down over Schweinfurt.”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“You said, ‘You can’t hate a people here and now for what another people in another time did.’ ”

“Mmm,” Carella said.

“Redfield hated them here and now,” Meyer answered.

The telephone rang.

“Here we go,” Kling said, and picked up the receiver.