The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams

CHAPTER Twenty-two

I had a tense moment there, I have to admit it. Because all Harlan Nugent had to do was tell us to go home and pick up the phone to call his lawyer.

But what he said was, “That’s ridiculous. I never even knew the man. Why on earth would I kill him?”

“That’s a good question,” I said.

“And we were in London,” Joan Nugent put in. “Neither of us could have had anything to do with it. We were out of the country.”

“You left Wednesday evening,” I said. “Doll dropped the cards at Luke’s apartment on Monday. Sometime between then and when you left, Luke was up here and Harlan Nugent killed him. If I had to guess, I’d go with Tuesday afternoon.” I looked over at Ray. “How does that square with the estimated time of death?”

“No problem, Bernie.”

“I think you must be out of your mind,” Nugent said. “That man was never in this apartment on any of those days.” A shadow passed over his wife’s face, and for an instant it looked as though she was about to say something, but her husband’s hand settled on hers and the moment passed. He set his jaw. “I’ll repeat what I said before. You admitted it was a good question. Why on earth would I kill him?”

“It’s still a good question,” I said, “but I’ve got a couple of good questions myself. Why would a man take off all his clothes and lock himself in somebody else’s bathroom?”

“To take a shower,” Lolly Stoppelgard suggested.

“That would make sense if it was his own bathroom,” Carolyn volunteered, “but it wasn’t. Maybe he got all sweaty posing and he needed to wash up.”

“He was not here,” Harlan Nugent said.

“Or maybe he just needed to use the john, Bern. That wouldn’t get him in the tub, though, would it? Ray, has anybody checked if the shower worked in his apartment on the seventh floor? See, if he couldn’t take a shower at his own place—”

“Forget the shower,” I said. “The water wasn’t on and the body wasn’t wet.”

“Some men tend to lock themselves in the bathroom,” Lolly Stoppelgard said, with a glance at her husband. “Did they find any funny magazines in there with him?”

Time to grab the wheel again. “He would lock himself in the bathroom,” I said, “as a way of hiding. Once, years ago, back in the days when I still engaged in occasional acts of burglary—”

“Aw, Jesus,” Ray muttered.

“—I was an uninvited guest in an empty apartment when its occupant returned. I hid in the closet, though a bathroom would have done as well had one been close at hand. I couldn’t lock the closet, of course.” Someone else had locked the closet, with me in it, and when I managed to get out I found a corpse on the floor. I winced at the memory.

“Nor was I naked,” I continued. “Last week Ray Kirschmann asked me what kind of burglar takes off his clothes in the course of a burglary. No burglar I ever heard of, I told him, so—”

“He was posing,” Patience said. “That’s it, isn’t it?” She smiled at Joan Nugent. “He was posing for you, wasn’t he?”

“I’ve never painted nudes,” Joan Nugent said. “I don’t believe in it.”

“You don’t believe in it?”

“No, I don’t. I think we’ve had entirely too much of that sort of thing down through the centuries. My most recent painting of Luke was in harlequin garb. I assure you he was fully clothed.”

“Then he was changing,” Patience said. “He’d posed in costume, and—”

“Never in costume. When he posed for me he wore street clothes. I would sketch the lines of his body, and then I’d paint the harlequin costume in later. I didn’t need him for that.”

“But he was naked,” I said.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I’d remember that. I’m sure it’s not at all the sort of thing I would forget.”

“Joan,” Harlan Nugent said gently, “shut up.”

“You might have remembered,” I told her, “if you’d known what was going on. But you were unconscious. You’d been drugged.”

“Not a word, Joan,” Nugent said.

“If you’ll all follow me,” I said, leading the way to the studio or guest bedroom, as you prefer. “You were drugged, Mrs. Nugent, and you were unconscious. Your clothes were off. Luke Santangelo’s clothes were off as well, and he was attempting to—”

“Oh my God,” someone said.

“I suppose you were on the daybed over there, or perhaps on the floor. Then there was the sound of your husband’s key in the lock, and seconds later he had thrown open the hall door and announced his presence. He’s a big, hearty man. I’m sure he tends to make his presence known.”

“Sometimes he’ll say, ‘Lucy, I’m home.’ Like Ricky Ricardo, you know. He does a good Cuban accent. Show them, darling.”

Harlan Nugent looked like a man trying to think of a reason to take the next breath.

“You walked in,” I said to him, “and found your wife unconscious, or at the very least out of her mind on drugs. You saw the bathroom door, closed. You tried the knob and it was locked.”

“And then what did I do?”

“You banged on the door, demanding that it be opened. Luke Santangelo was many things, most of them unsavory, but he was not entirely out of his mind. The last thing he was going to do was open the door.”

“Then I’d say we were at an impasse,” Nugent said, “since I’m hardly of a size to slither through the keyhole, and the door doesn’t have one anyway, does it?” He made a huge fist and gave the door a thump. “Pretty sturdy,” he observed, “but I suppose I could have knocked it down in extremis. Kicked it in, put my shoulder to it, that sort of thing. But didn’t I understand that it was still intact, indeed still locked, when the police were forced to break in?”

“I was wondering about that myself,” I said. I went over and tapped on the door, then flicked the switch alongside it. No lights went on or off. I opened the bathroom door and repeated the process, with the same results. “What have we here?” I said. “Doesn’t seem to do anything, does it?”

“I think it may control one of the baseboard outlets,” Nugent said. “What possible difference could it make?”

“I wonder,” I said, and whipped out my ring of burglar’s tools and began unscrewing the screws that held the switch plate in place. “Voilà,” I said at length, showing them all the rectangle devoid of the usual switchbox. “Once upon a time, this must have been a child’s bedroom. And after the child locked itself in the bathroom and couldn’t get out, perhaps for the second or third time, one of its parents resolved to make sure nothing of the sort ever happened again. Hence this little safety device.”

“Our children were grown when we moved here,” Joan Nugent said. “This room has always been my studio. And I’ve never locked myself in this bathroom. I hardly ever use this bathroom, and I rarely lock the door in the other bathroom, either.”

“Joan,” her husband said, “nobody cares. And you, sir,” he said to me. “What you’re suggesting makes no sense at all. Even if all the other nonsense you’ve suggested were true, which it is not, and even if I had known about this ancient passageway, which I did not, and even if I were sufficiently outraged to want to injure the villain, why would I leave him in the bathroom? If I went in there and killed him, why wouldn’t I get rid of the body?”

“Because you couldn’t get in the room.”

“Bernie,” Ray Kirschmann pointed out, “you just showed us how to do it. Remember?”

“Vividly,” I said. “But that’s not what Mr. Nugent did. Instead he got a gun from wherever he keeps that sort of thing, and he stuck the business end of it through the opening and shot Luke Santangelo right between the eyes. I don’t know if Luke was standing in the tub at the time. He may have tried backing away when he saw a gun poking through a wall at him, and who could blame him? But once he was shot the impact would have sent him reeling, and one way or another he wound up in the tub. He was dead, and the door was still locked.”

“So, Bernie? He reaches in like you did, unlocks the lock, an’ walks out with the stiff draped over his shoulder. Mr. Nugent here’s a big guy, the stiff was a wiry little punk, he wouldn’t have no trouble doin’ it. Your doctor didn’t say nothin’ about not doin’ any heavy liftin’, did he, Mr. Nugent?”

“Had any of this happened, Officer, I’d have done exactly what you’ve just said.”

I said, “Oh yeah? Let’s see you do it, Mr. Nugent.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Come on,” I said. “Show us how you’d have done it and we’ll all go home.”

“This is a farce,” he said. “Why should I dignify it by—”

“Oh, give it a rest,” I told him. “You’re too big. You’ve got forearms like a Bulgarian weightlifter. I don’t even know if you could get your hand through the opening, but you’d never get enough of your arm in to reach the lock. And why should you make a fool of yourself now by trying? You already tried once and found out it didn’t work.”

“And then what did I do, Mr. Rhodenbarr?”

“You tidied up. You screwed the switch plate back where it belonged. You threw a blanket over your wife and let her sleep it off. When she woke up asking whatever happened to cool bland Luke, you said he must have left before you arrived. ‘I guess I must have dozed off,’ she said. ‘I guess you did at that,’ you said, ‘but don’t you think we ought to start packing? We’ve got a flight tomorrow evening.’ ”

“And I suppose I left the corpse in place and trotted off to London.”

“Why not? He wasn’t going anywhere. Your wife already said she hardly ever uses that bathroom. If she tried to get in there during the twenty-four hours before you left for the airport, she’d find the door locked. ‘Seems to be stuck,’ you could tell her. ‘Wood must have swelled over the summer. Have to get the super to look at it after we come back.’ ”

“You’re forgetting something.”

“Oh?”

“Our apartment was ransacked in our absence. Things tossed about, drawers emptied out, jewelry and other valuables taken. How does that fit in with your little scenario?”

“He’s got a point,” Ray said. “There was even a piece or two of jewelry found in the tub with the deceased.”

“I’m sure there was,” I said. “Right where Nugent tossed it when he faked the burglary?”

Nugent stared at me. “I faked the burglary? When did I do that, right after I kidnapped the Lindbergh baby?”

I shook my head. “I have a pretty good idea how you did it,” I said. “The only real question is when you tossed the jewelry in the tub. It was a nice touch, and I wonder if you were farsighted enough to do it right after you shot Santangelo or if you had to remove the switch plate a second time later on. I’d guess the latter. The killing was an impulse thing, wasn’t it? While the cover-up took some planning.”

“You must be out of your mind.”

“Here’s what I think,” I went on. “Late Tuesday night, while your wife was asleep, you realized what you had to do. You got some of her jewelry, came in here, undid the switch plate, tossed the jewels in the tub with the corpse, and closed up again. Then Wednesday the two of you were ready to fly to London. Maybe you were already down on the street loading the bags into the taxi when you contrived to remember something, one bag you’d conveniently left behind. ‘I won’t be a minute,’ you told your wife, and it wouldn’t have taken you much longer than that. Scoop up a few valuables, spill out a few drawers, and you’re on your way again. You’d already have disposed of whatever clothing Santangelo had removed before he, uh, did what he did. In a pinch you could have tossed them out the window, leaving them for the homeless to scavenge, but I suspect you found an even safer way.”

“And what did I do with the jewels?”

“Good question,” I said. “That necklace is a beaut, Mrs. Nugent. I’ve been admiring it all night. I don’t suppose it was one of the stolen pieces?”

“I had it with me in Europe.”

“I don’t know what you’re driving at,” Nugent said, “and I don’t think you do, either. The police have a full and precise inventory of everything that was taken. You can be assured that the pieces my wife is wearing are not on it.”

“I’m sure they’re not,” I said, “but it’s good to know about the inventory. Ray, I don’t suppose you happen to have a copy of it with you, do you?”

“I do, as a matter of fact.”

“And I do if he doesn’t,” said Nugent. “What possible difference can it make?”

“Well,” I said slowly, “if we found some of the pieces on that list here in this apartment, it wouldn’t look good for Mr. Nugent, would it?”

“If he took the stuff,” Ray said, “he wouldn’t leave it here. He ain’t stupid, Bernie.”

“I could hardly tuck it in my breast pocket and carry it to London and back,” Nugent said testily, “and I wouldn’t have had time to do anything else with it, would I?”

“That’s right,” I said. “You’d have had to stash it someplace on the premises. I know what you’re going to say, Ray. After the Nugents returned, he could have transferred the goodies to a safe deposit box.”

“Words right outta my mouth, Bernie.”

“And he could have,” I said, “but I don’t think he did. Why bother, since the cops had already been in and out of the place in his absence? I think he decided the jewels were perfectly safe right where they were. Now where would that be?” I looked thoughtfully at Harlan Nugent. “Someplace where your wife wouldn’t come upon them, because she thought the burglary was genuine. Some private space of yours. A den, say.” I led the way, and damned if they didn’t all follow me. “A locked desk drawer,” I said, having located just such a drawer. “Is this where you put the jewels, Mr. Nugent?”

“What a curious fantasy.”

“I don’t suppose you’d care to open the drawer for us?”

“Nothing,” he said, “would please me more.” He opened an unlocked drawer on the opposite side of the desk and rummaged through it. “Damn it to hell,” he said.

“Is something wrong?”

“I can’t find the fucking key.”

“How convenient.”

He cursed colorfully and imaginatively. If I’d been a key and somebody talked to me like that, I’d do whatever he wanted me to do. This key, however, remained elusive.

“Bern,” Carolyn said, God bless her, “since when did you ever need a key to open a lock? Use the gifts God gave you, will you?”

“Well, I can’t do that,” I said. “We’re guests in Mr. Nugent’s home, and it’s his desk and his drawer and only he knows what’s in it. I couldn’t possibly try to open it without his permission.”

He looked at me. “You can open a lock without a key?”

“Sometimes,” I said.

“Then for God’s sake do it,” he started to say, and then I think he finally got it, and that made it perfect. “Wait a moment,” he said. “Of course you have no legal right.”

“No, sir,” I said. “We’d need your permission.”

“Which if we don’t get it, the next step’d be a court order,” Ray added.

The big shoulders sagged. “There can’t be…I can’t imagine…go ahead, damn you, open the fucking thing.”

Guess what we found?

“I completely lost my head,” Harlan Nugent said. “Just as you said, I came home that Tuesday afternoon and found Joan sprawled naked on the daybed in her studio. She was unconscious, and in an awkward, unnatural position. I took one look at her and thought she was dead.”

“Oh, darling!”

“And there were these clothes piled on the floor, as if they’d been removed in a great hurry. Her clothes, and some male clothing as well. And my eye was drawn to the bathroom door, which was closed. It’s usually open when she paints.”

“When I use acrylics, I wash my brushes in the sink.”

“I tried the door, and of course I couldn’t open it. I shouted for whoever was inside to open the door. Of course he didn’t. If he had, I think I might have torn him limb from limb.”

“So you got your gun.”

“From the locked drawer. If I’d misplaced the key a little earlier, Santangelo might be alive.” He thought about it. “No,” he decided, “I’d have broken down the door and killed him. I was completely beside myself.”

“But you remembered a way into the bathroom.”

“The switch plate, yes. And I shot him. I don’t think I even knew who he was when I pulled the trigger. I didn’t care. He’d killed the only woman I ever loved, and he was damn well going to die for it. Then I would call the police and let them take over.”

“Instead, she came back to life.”

“Thank God,” he said. “She moved an arm, she was breathing, she was alive. I didn’t know what he’d done, whether he’d knocked her unconscious or drugged her or what—”

“He sometimes gave me these pills,” she said, “that made colors a lot richer. They had a very stimulating effect on my painting, but sometimes I would get very tired and have to lie down and take a nap.”

“The swine,” Nugent said. “I can’t say I’m sorry he’s dead. It’s hard to believe the world’s a poorer place for his having left it. But I wish I hadn’t killed him. It shook me badly.”

“That’s why you were so moody in London, darling.”

“I tidied up and tried to figure out what to do next. Then Joan awoke smiling and still a little groggy, asking when I’d come in and where Luke had gone. I said I just got in and he must have let himself out. When she turned in for the night I went out and draped his clothes on the gate of the church on Amsterdam Avenue. People leave clothing there all the time, and homeless people help themselves to it. I’ve left things there before, shirts with frayed collars, trousers that have gone shiny in the seat. I must say I’ve given away things of my own that were in better shape than what I hung on the gate that night. Dirty jeans gone at the knee, a sweater rank enough to gag a billy goat—”

“Luke was never a dresser,” Doll put in. “And he could get a little lax in the personal hygiene area.”

“I got rid of the gun as well. I’d bought it to protect our home from prowlers, and, in a manner of speaking, it had done its job. I dropped it down a storm drain.”

“An’ then you burglarized yourself,” Ray said, “an’ lit out for London.”

Nugent frowned. “I swear I don’t remember that part,” he said. “Is it possible for a man to do a thing like that and forget it entirely?”

“Darling, you were under a strain,” his wife said.

“I’ve always prided myself on my memory,” he said. “And it’s not like forgetting a telephone number.”

“You did bring two of the bags down, Harlan. And then you went up for the other two, while I waited in the lobby.”

“That’s when I must have done it,” he said. “I could have sworn—”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. And what earthly difference does it make? I’ve already admitted to murder. That’s a far more serious offense than making a false report of a crime.” He heaved a great sigh. “Well,” he said, “I suppose I’ll call my attorney now. And then you’ll want to follow the form and read me my rights, won’t you?”

There was a silence, and I started counting to myself. One. Two. Three. Four….

“Let’s not be too hasty here,” Ray Kirschmann said. “Before we get all caught up in anythin’ official, let’s see what we’re lookin’ at here.”

Someone asked him what he meant.

“Well, where’s our evidence? You made an admission just now in front of a roomful of people, but none of that’s admissible in court. Any lawyer’d just tell you to retract it, an’ that’s the end of it. Far as physical evidence goes, what we got’s a lot of nothin’. There’s a switch plate with no switch box behind it, provin’ somebody coulda been shot in a locked room, but so what?

“An’ as for you, young lady,” he said to Doll Cooper, “we got no doubt in my mind, an’ prolly not a lot in anybody else’s either, that you had somethin’ to do with the disappearance of those baseball cards. But we ain’t got the cards, an’ you ain’t got ’em either, an’ my best guess is they been sold an’ split up an’ changed hands three times already, an’ nobody’s ever gonna see ’em again. This gentleman here, Mr. Gilmartin, he might have a bone to pick with you, on account of it’s his cards you walked off with. If he insists on pressin’ charges, well, I think it’ll get kicked for lack of evidence, but I’d have to take you in.”

“I don’t want to press charges,” Marty said. “I just hope Miss Cooper might narrow her range in the future and limit her acting to stage and screen. She would seem to have a considerable talent, and it would be a shame to see it diluted.”

“You know,” Doll said, “you’re a gentleman, you really are. I’m sorry I took the cards from you. I was playing a part, that’s exactly what I was doing, and I think I fooled myself into thinking it gave me a dramatic license to steal. It’s corny to say this, but I may have actually learned a lesson tonight.”

Carolyn gave me a “get her” look, but the speech seemed to go over well with everybody else.

“So that’s that,” Ray said. “Brings us back to you, Mr. Nugent. What we keep comin’ back to is there’s no evidence, an’ I also gotta say the deceased don’t sound like no great loss. Of course there’s also the matter of makin’ a false report to an insurance company, claimin’ a loss when there was no loss.”

“That bothered me,” Nugent admitted. “The idea of making an actual profit on the man’s death. But once the burglary was a matter of record I could hardly fail to put in a claim.” He thought for a moment. “I could tell them I made a mistake. The jewelry actually turned up.”

“You sure you want to do that, Mr. Nugent? You sorta call attention to yourself that way. You’re in this deep, the shortest way’s straight ahead.” He put a companionable hand on the big man’s shoulder. “Far as makin’ a profit on all of this, believe me, sir, you got nothin’ to worry about. The rest of you folks, I’m thinkin’ maybe you all oughta clear outta here about now. The show’s over, an’ me an’ Mr. Nugent here need a little privacy to work out some of the details on how we’re gonna keep this whole matter private an’ personal.”