The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza

CHAPTER Six

Herbert and Wanda Colcannon had not stayed in Pennsylvania overnight after all. They had indeed driven out to Berks County, where they'd bred their beloved Bouvier to the chosen champion. Then they'd boarded Astrid overnight with the stud's owner, evidently a recommended procedure, and drove back to New York for dinner with business associates of Herbert's and an evening at the theater. After-theater drinks kept them out late, and they'd arrived home after midnight, intending to get a night's sleep and drive back to Pennsylvania first thing in the morning.

Instead, they had walked in on a burglary in progress. The burglars relieved Herbert of his cash and Wanda of the jewels she was wearing, then attempted to tie them up. When Herb protested, he got a punch in the mouth for his troubles. This provoked a voluble protest from Wanda, which earned her a couple of whacks on the head. Herb saw her fall and lie there motionless, and that was the last thing he saw, because that was when he got hit on the head himself.

When he came to he was tied up, and it took him a while to work his way loose. Wanda was also tied up, and she couldn't work her way loose because she was dead. She'd been hit on the head with something harder than her skull, and the fracture she'd sustained had proved fatal.

"That was your partner's doing," Sam Richler told me. He was the detective who seemed to be in charge of the case, and it was to him that Phil and Dan had turned me over upon arrival at police headquarters. "We know you're not violent by nature or habit, Rhodenbarr. You always used to work alone. What made you decide you needed a partner?"

"I don't have a partner," I said. "I don't even work alone anymore. I'm a legitimate businessman, I have a store, I sell books."

"Who was your partner? For Christ's sake, you don't want to protect him. He's the one put you in the soup. Look, I can see how it shapes. You retired, tried to make a go of it selling books"-he didn't believe this but was humoring me-"and this hard case talks you into trying one more job. Maybe he's got the place set up and he needs somebody with your talents to get around the locks. You figure you'll take one last job to keep you going while the store gets off its feet, and all of a sudden a woman's dead and your partner's off spending his money and you've got your head in the toilet. You know what you wanna do? You wanna pick your head up outta the bowl before somebody pulls the chain."

"That's a horrible image."

"You want a horrible image, I'll give you a horrible image." He opened a desk drawer, shuffled papers, came up with an eight-by-ten glossy. A woman, blond, wearing an evening gown, half sat against a wall in what looked to be the Colcannon living room. Her shoes were off, her ankles tied together, and her hands looked to be tied behind her back. The photo wasn't in color-which was just as well, thank you-but even in black and white one could see the discoloration right below the hairline where someone had struck her with something heavy. She looked horrible, all right; I had Carolyn's word that Wanda Colcannon was a beauty, but you couldn't prove it by this photograph.

"You didn't do that," Richler said. "Did you?"

"Do it? I can't even look at it."

"So give us the man who did. You'll get off light, Rhodenbarr. You might even walk with the right lawyer." Sure. "Thing is, we're certain to nail your partner anyway, with your help or without it. He'll run his mouth in a saloon and the right ear'll pick it up and we'll have him in a cell before it gets dark out. Or Colcannon'll find his mug shot in one of the books. Either way we get him. Only difference is if you help us you do your own self some good."

"It makes sense."

"That's just what it makes. Damn good sense. Plus you don't owe him a thing. Who got you in this mess, anyway?"

"That's a good question."

"So?"

"There's only one thing," I said.

"Oh?"

"I wasn't there. I never heard of anybody named Colcannon. I was nowhere near West Eighteenth Street. I gave up burglary when I bought the store."

"You're going to stick with that story?"

"I'm stuck with it. It happens to be the truth."

"We've got hard evidence that puts you right in that house."

"What evidence?"

"I'm not revealing that now. You'll find out when the time comes. And we've got Colcannon. I guess you didn't realize the woman was dead or you wouldn't have left him alive. Your accomplice wouldn't, anyway. We know he's the violent one. Maybe she was still alive when you left her. She could have died while he was unconscious. We don't have the medical examiner's report on that yet. But the thing is, see, we've got Colcannon and he can identify both you and your partner. So what's the point of sticking with your story?"

"It's the only story I've got."

"I suppose you've got an alibi to go with it?"

It would have been nice, but you can't have everything. "I sat home and watched television," I said. "Had a few beers, put my feet up."

"Just spent the whole night at home, huh?"

A little alarm went off. "The whole evening," I corrected. "After the eleven o'clock newscast I went out."

"And knocked over the Colcannon place."

"No. I had a late date."

"With anyone in particular?"

"With a woman."

"The kind of woman you can drop in on at eleven o'clock."

"It was more like midnight by the time I met her."

"She got a name?"

"Uh-huh. But I'm not going to give it unless I have to. She's my alibi for the whole night, because I was with her from around midnight through breakfast this morning, and I'll use her if I don't have any choice, but not otherwise. She's separated from her husband and she's got a couple of young children and she doesn't need her name dragged into this. But that's where I was."

He frowned in thought. "You didn't get home last night," he said. "We know that much."

"I just told you."

"Yeah. We checked your apartment around four-thirty and left it staked out and you never showed up. But that's not enough to make me believe in your secret divorced lady."

"Not divorced. Separated."

"Uh-huh."

"And you don't have to believe in her. Just put me in the lineup and let Colcannon fail to identify me. Then I can go home."

"Who said anything about a lineup?"

"Nobody had to. You brought me here instead of the precinct because this is where the mug shots are and you've got Colcannon looking through them. You haven't arrested me yet because he took a look at my picture and shook his head. Well, who knows, maybe I'm not photogenic, and it's worth letting him have a look at me in person, so that's why I'm here. Now you'll put me in a lineup and he'll say the same thing and I'll go back to my store and try to sell some books. It's hard to do much business when the store's closed."

"You really don't think he'll identify you."

"That's right."

"I don't get it," he said. He got to his feet. "Come on along," he said. "Let's take a walk."

We took a walk down the corridor and came to a door with frosted glass in the window and nothing written on it. "I'm not sure whether we want to bother with a lineup or not," he said, holding the door for me. "Whyntcha have a seat in here while I talk to some people and find out how they want to proceed?"

I went in and he closed the door. There was one chair in the room and it faced a large mirror, and Mrs. Rhodenbarr didn't raise no fools, so I knew right away why I was supposed to cool my heels in this particular little cubicle. What we were going to have was a oneman lineup, an unofficial lineup, and if it came out negative there wouldn't be a record of it to prejudice any case the State might decide to bring against one Bernard Grimes Rhodenbarr.

The mirror, I was bright enough to figure out, was of the one-way-glass variety. Herbert Franklin Colcannon would be positioned on the other side of it, where he could see me while I could not see him.

Fine with me.

In fact, I decided after a moment's reflection, it was more than fine with me, and the one thing I wanted to make sure of was that he got a good look at me, a good enough one to convince him once and for all that he had never seen me before. So I walked right up to the mirror, approaching it as if I thought it were indeed a mirror and nothing more. It was hard to repress the urge to make a face, but I squelched the impulse and adjusted the knot in my tie instead.

A funny thing about one-way glass. When you get close enough to it you can see through it. The vision you get is imperfect, because there's still a mirror effect and you get a sort of double image like a piece of twice-exposed photographic film, seeing what's in front of you and what's behind you at the same time. What I saw for a while was an empty room, and then I saw Richler bring in a man in a gray suit with a bandage on his head and a lot of swelling and discoloration around it.

He approached the mirror and stared at me, and I stared right back at him. It took an enormous effort of will to avoid winking or extending my tongue or rolling my eyes or doing something similarly hare-brained. Instead I took my time looking him over.

He wasn't terribly impressive. He was an inch or two below medium height and he looked to be about fifty-five. An oval face, slate-gray hair, a small clipped mustache with some white in with the gray. A snub nose, a small mouth. Eyes an indeterminate color somewhere between brown and green. If you saw him you'd guess banker first, tax lawyer second. He didn't particularly look like a man who'd just lost a glamorous wife and a $500,000 coin, but then he didn't look like a man who'd had either of them in the first place.

He looked at me and I looked at him, and he shook his head from side to side, solemn as an owl.

I don't think I smiled, not just then, but when he turned at Richler's touch and followed the detective out of the room I grinned like a Hallowe'en pumpkin. When Richler walked in a few minutes later I was sitting in the chair cleaning my fingernails with the blunt end of a toothpick. I looked up brightly and asked him if they were going to put me in a lineup.

"You're cute as a button," he said.

"Pardon me?"

"Straightening your goddamn tie. No, there's not going to be a lineup, Rhodenbarr. You can go home now."

"The police realize their mistake?"

"I don't think we made one. I think you pulled that burglary last night. I think you were upstairs goosing the wall safe while your partners were roughing up the Colcannons. That way he never got a look at you, and you think that's gonna save your neck. It's not. We'll still get your pals, and we've still got evidence against you, and you'll wind up taking twice the fall you'd take if you cooperated. But you're a wiseass and it's your funeral."

"I'm just a used-book dealer."

"Sure you are. What you can do right now is get the hell out of here. You're not bright enough to recognize it when someone's trying to give you a break. If you wake up in a couple of hours, give me a call. But you don't want to wait too long. If we get one of your partners first, he'll be the one turning state's evidence and what'll we need with you? You'll be the one doing the long time, and you weren't even there when the woman got killed, and what sense does that make? You sure you still don't want to come clean?"

"I already came clean."

"Yeah, sure. Get out, Rhodenbarr."

I was on my way out of the building when I heard a familiar voice speak my name. "If it ain't Bernie Rhodenbarr. Hang around No. 1 Police Plaza and you never know who you'll run into."

"Hello, Ray."

"Hello yourself, Bernie." Ray Kirschmann gave me a lopsided grin. His suit didn't fit him very well, but then his suits never do. You'd think with all the shakedown money he takes he could afford to dress better. "Beautiful mornin', huh, Bern?"

"Beautiful."

"Except it's past noon now. An' I see I won a little bet I made with myself. They're lettin' you go home."

"You know about it?"

"Sure. The Colcannon thing. I knew you didn't do it. When did you ever work with a partner? And when did you ever pull anything violent. Except"-and he looked reproachful-"for the time you hit me and knocked me down. You remember that, Bern?"

"I panicked, Ray."

"I remember it well."

"And I wasn't trying to hurt you. I was just trying to get away."

"Uh-huh. They still figure you're it, you know. Richler's got enough to hold you on. He thinks he'll have a stronger case in the long run if he doesn't slap you in a cell just yet."

We were standing on the pavement outside the redbrick structure, looking across the plaza at the central arch of the Municipal Building. Ray cupped his hands to light a cigarette, inhaled, coughed, took another drag. "Beautiful day," he said. "Just gorgeous."

"Why do they think I was involved in the Colcannon burglary?"

"Your M.O., Bern."

"You've got to be kidding. When did I ever turn a place upside down and leave a mess? When did I ever hurt anybody, or do anything but run like a thief if the owners came home while I was working? When did I ever get into a place by smashing a skylight? How does all that add up to my modus operandi?"

"They figure your partners were sloppy and violent. But they've got evidence that fits you like a glove."

"What do you mean?"

"Here's what I mean." He reached into his jacket pocket and came up with something that he dangled from thumb and forefinger. It was a Playtex Living Glove, but he held it as if it had died.

The palm had been cut out of it.

"That's your evidence?"

"Their evidence, not mine. It's on the sheet, Bern. 'Wears rubber gloves with palms excised.' I like that word, excised. That means you cut the palms out but they can't come right out and say so, you know?"

"For God's sake," I said. "Where did they find this?"

"Right outside of Colcannon's house. There's a garden there and that's where it was."

"Can I see it?"

"It's evidence."

"So was the glass slipper," I said, taking the glove from him, trying to force my hand into it. "And I must be one of Cinderella's ugly sisters because this thing doesn't fit. It doesn't even come close to fitting. They make these things in sizes, Ray, and this one's just not my size."

He took a close look. "You know somethin'? I think you're right."

I gave the glove back to him. "Take care of this. You might even tell them the glove's the wrong size. They can start looking around for a klutzy burglar with very small hands."

"I'll spread the word. You headin' back to the store now? I'll give you a ride."

"All part of the service?"

"Just that it's on my way. What the hell."

This time I got a ride in an unmarked car. We made small talk about the Mets' new third baseman, a possible garbage strike, and a shakeup in the Queens District Attorney's office. Crooks and cops always have plenty of things to talk about once they can get past the basic adversary nature of their relationship. The two classes actually have more in common than either of us would like to admit. Phil and Dan, who couldn't have looked more like cops unless they'd been in uniform, had looked like robbers to me when they came into my store.

Ray dropped me right in front of Barnegat Books, told me to take care, gave me a slow wink, and drove off. I started to open up, looked to see if he was gone, then said to hell with it and refastened the locks I'd opened. I had to do a few things that were more important than selling books.

I hadn't been part of the gang of burglars who'd killed Wanda Colcannon. Her husband hadn't merely failed to identify me. He'd given them a firm negative identification. And if the rubber glove was all they had, their evidence was a joke.

But Richler still thought I was involved.

And something funny, something I'd realized at the very end of the ride back to the store. Ray Kirschmann thought so, too.