The Burglar In The Closet

Chapter Ten

Every block in New York sports several fire hydrants spaced at intervals along the sidewalk. These have been installed so that the police won’t have to circle the block looking for a parking space. Ray pulled away from one of them and told me I’d just missed a couple of friends of his. “A couple of fellows in plainclothes,” he said. “Myself, I’m happy wearin’ the uniform. These two, you musta missed each other by a whisker. Maybe they were in the elevator while you was on the stairs.”

“There’s no elevator.”

“That a fact? Just plain bad luck you didn’t run into them, Bernie. But I guess you made their acquaintance yesterday. Here they missed you, and now they’ll come downstairs and find that I took a powder my own self. Not that they’ll be sorry to see me gone. They come here on their own, you know, in their own blue-and-white, and I tagged along and I had the feelin’ they wanted to tell me to get lost. You take a cop and put a business suit on him and he develops an attitude, you know what I mean? All of a sudden he thinks he’s a member of the human race and not your ordinary flatfoot. You want a smoke, Bernie?”

“I quit a few years ago.”

“Good for you. That’s strength of character is what it is. I’d quit myself if I had the willpower. What’s all this crap about your aunt teaching school in the Bronx?”

“Well, you know how it is, Ray.”

“Yeah, that’s the truth. I know how it is.”

“I was trying to impress this girl. I just met her fairly recently, and one of those cops must have recognized my name and I didn’t want her to find out I’ve got a criminal past.”

“A criminal past.”

“Right.”

“But that’s all behind you, that criminal past. You’re Stanley Straightarrow now.”

“Right.”

“Uh-huh.” He puffed on his cigarette. I rolled down my window to let some smoke out and some New York air in, a pointless exchange if there ever was one. He said, “How do you tie in with this Sheldrake character?”

“He’s my dentist.”

“I got a dentist. They say to see him twice a year and that’s plenty for me. I don’t hang out at his office, I don’t try slipping it to his nurse.”

“Hygienist.”

“Whatever. You a big fight fan, Bernie?”

“I get to the Garden when I can.”

“This used to be a real fight town. Remember when they had a Wednesday card at St. Nick’s Arena? And then you had your regular fights out at Sunnyside Gardens in Queens. You ever used to get out there?”

“I think I went two, three times. That was some years ago, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, years and years,” he said. “I love it that you showed Todras and Nyswander a ticket stub. Just happened to have it with you. Jesus, I really love it.”

“I was wearing the same jacket.”

“I know. If it was me and I was settin’ up an alibi I’d have the stub in a different jacket and I’d take ’em back to my apartment and rummage through the closet until I came up with the stub. It looks better that way. Not so obvious, you know?”

“Well, I wasn’t setting up an alibi, Ray. I just happened to go to the fights that night.”

“Uh-huh. But if you just happened to stop there on your way home to pick up a stub that somebody else just happened to throw away, well, that would be interestin’, wouldn’t it? That would mean you were tryin’ to set up an alibi before the general public knew there was anythin’ to need an alibi for. Which might mean you knew about Sheldrake’s wife gettin’ bumped while the body was still warm, which would be a damned interestin’ thing for you to know, wouldn’t it?”

“Wonderful,” I said. “The only thing worse than not having an alibi is having one.”

“I know, and it’s a hell of a thing, Bern. You get suspicious when you’ve had a few years in the Department. You lose the knack of takin’ things at face value. Here all you did was take in a fight card and it looks for all the world like I’m fixin’ to tag you with a felony.”

“I thought it was open and shut. I thought you people figured the husband did it.”

“What, the murder? Yeah, it looks as though that’s how they’re writin’ it up. A man kills his ex-wife and leaves his own personal scalpel in her chest, that’s as good as a signature, isn’t it? If it was my case I might think it was a little too good, the way that ticket stub in your pocket was a little too good, but it ain’t my case and what does an ordinary harness bull in a blue uniform know about something fancy like homicide? You got to wear a three-piece suit in order to be up on the finer points of these things, so I just keep my own nose clean and let the boys in suits and ties take care of the homicides. I mind my own business, Bernie.”

“And what’s your business exactly, Ray?”

“Now there’s another good question.” A light turned and he hung a right turn, his fleshy hands caressing the wheel. “I’ll tell you,” he said. “I think there’s a reason I’m still wearin’ a uniform after all these years on the force, and I think the reason’s I never been a subtle guy. My trouble is I notice the obvious first and foremost. I see a ticket stub happens to be in somebody’s pocket and what comes to mind is a planned alibi. And I look at the guy in question and he’s a fellow that’s spent his whole life liftin’ things out of other people’s houses, what comes to mind is a burglary. Here we got a burglar who went to some trouble settin’ hisself up with an alibi, and the next morning we find him in the office of the dentist who just cooled out his wife, and the morning after that one he’s tiptoein’ out of the dentist’s nurse’s bedroom, and I don’t know what a subtle plainclothes man would make of all that, but old Ray here, he gets right down to cases.”

Ahead of us, a UPS van had traffic tied up. Some of the other drivers around us were using their horns to ventilate their feelings. But Ray was in no hurry.

I said, “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“Well, what the hell, Bernie. Here we are, just you and me and a traffic jam, so let’s us get down to carpet tacks. The way I figure it, you decided the Sheldrake dame looked like an easy score. Maybe you kept your ears open when you were gettin’ your teeth drilled, or maybe you got hipped by the nurse that you been havin’ a romance with, one way or another, but you decided to drop over to Gramercy and open a couple of locks and see what was loose. Now maybe you were in and out before Sheldrake came callin’, but then how would you know you needed an alibi? No, I’ll tell you the way I figure it. You got there and opened the door and found her with her heart stopped. You took a minute to fill your pockets with pretty things and then you got the hell out, and on the way home you stopped at the Garden and picked a stub off the floor. Then first thing the next mornin’ you hopped over to Sheldrake’s office to keep in touch with what was happenin’ and make sure your own neck wasn’t on the block.”

“What makes you think something was stolen?”

“The dead woman had more jewelry than Cartier’s window. There’s nothin’ in the apartment but prizes out of Cracker Jack boxes. I don’t figure it walked away.”

“Maybe she kept it in a bank vault.”

“Nobody keeps it all in a bank vault.”

“Maybe Sheldrake took it.”

“Sure. He remembered to turn the place inside out and carry off all the jewels but he was so absentminded that he left his whatchacallit, his scalpel, he left it in her heart. I don’t think so.”

“Maybe the cops took it.”

“The investigatin’ officers?” He clucked his tongue at me. “Bernie, I’m surprised at you. You think a couple of guys checkin’ out a homicide are gonna stop to rob the dead?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

“Honestly? I think it’s a hell of a thing. But it didn’t happen this time because the downstairs neighbor was on hand when they cracked the Sheldrake woman’s door. You don’t steal when somebody’s watchin’ you. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

“Well, you don’t go ahead and commit a burglary if you have to step over a corpse to get to the jewels, Ray. And I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

“Maybe.”

“More than maybe.”

He gave his head a dogged shake. “Nope,” he said. “Maybe’s as far as I’d go on that one. Because you know what you got? You got the guts of a burglar, Bernie. I remember how cool you were when me and that crud Loren Kramer walked in on you over in the East Sixties, and there’s a dead body in the bedroom and you’re actin’ like the apartment’s empty.”

“That’s because I didn’t know there was a body in the bedroom. Remember?”

He shrugged. “Same difference. You got the guts of a burglar and all bets are off. Why else would you fix yourself an alibi?”

“Maybe I actually went to the fights, Ray. Ever think of that?”

“Not for very long.”

“And maybe I set up an alibi-which I didn’t because I really was at the fights-”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“-because I was working some other job. I’m not that crazy about jewels. They’re getting tougher and tougher to sell, the fences are turning vicious, you know that. Maybe I was out lifting somebody’s coin collection and I established an alibi just as a matter of course, because I know you people always come knocking on my door when a coin collection walks out of its owner’s house.”

“I didn’t hear nothin’ about a coin collection stolen the other night.”

“Maybe the owner was out of town. Maybe he hasn’t missed it yet.”

“And maybe what you robbed was a kid’s piggy bank and he’s too busy cryin’ to tell the cops about it.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe shit don’t stink, Bernie. I think you got the Sheldrake woman’s jewels.”

“I don’t.”

“Well, you gotta say that. That don’t mean I gotta believe it.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Yeah, sure. You spent the night with Sheldrake’s nurse because you didn’t have no better place to stay. I believe everything you tell me, Bernie. That’s why I’m still in a blue uniform.”

I didn’t answer him and he didn’t say anything more. We drove around for a while. The UPS truck had long since gotten out of the way and we were drifting in the stream of traffic, turning now and then, taking a leisurely ride around the streets of midtown Manhattan. If all you noticed was the weather, then you might have mistaken it for a nice fall day.

I said, “Ray?”

“Yeah, Bern?”

“There’s something you want?”

“There always is. There’s this book, they ran a hunk of it in the Post. Looking Out for Number One. Here’s a whole book tellin’ people to be selfish and let the other guy watch out for his own ass. Imagine anybody has to buy a book to learn what we all grew up knowin’.”

“What is it you want, Ray?”

“You care for a smoke, Bernie? Oh, hell, you already told me you quit. It bother you if I smoke?”

“I can stand it.”

He lit a cigarette. “Those jewels,” he said. “Sheldrake’s jewels that you took from her apartment.”

“I didn’t get them.”

“Well, let’s suppose you did. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Well,” he said, “I never been greedy, Bern. All I want is half.”