A Dog's Ransom (17 page)

“Yes, till tomorrow night,” Clarence said.

Fenucci was taking the belt with him also. “Now—what were you wearing last night? Can I see your closet?”

Clarence opened his closet door. There were three or four suits, odd jackets and trousers, pajamas and a shirt or two on hooks, shoes in semi-disorder on the floor. The oxblood shoes he had washed were on top on the left—on top of the shoes.

“What were you wearing last night?”

Clarence hesitated. “These trousers,” he said, indicating the ones he had on, Oxford grays. “And this sweater—over another sweater, I think.” He had on a V-neck gray sweater.

Fenucci didn’t seem interested in what other sweater he meant. He glanced at the clothes Clarence had on, then turned back to the closet. “Coat?”

“My raincoat,” Clarence said, and touched a dark green waterproof in his closet.

Fenucci pulled the raincoat out, looked at front and back and sleeves. “Shoes?”

“These shoes.” Clarence indicated the brown loafers he was wearing.

Fenucci nodded.

It wasn’t a thorough examination, Clarence knew. Fenucci was counting on the gun. Or maybe he already had his opinions from something Marylyn had said. A real examination would have meant taking Clarence’s whole wardrobe to the lab to test for bloodstains.

“You said Reynolds was a nice man, a gentleman. Civilized.” Fenucci smiled a little. “He couldn’t have hired someone to get at this guy, maybe?”

Clarence shook his head. “I don’t think he’s that type. Also he told me he wanted to forget about the whole thing. The dog was important to him—and the dog’s dead.”

“When did he say to you he wanted to forget the whole thing?”

Clarence remembered the conversation on Monday in Mr. Reynolds’s office. Clarence didn’t want to mention that visit, though Mr. Reynolds might mention it. “He said it to me after he knew his dog was dead.”

“Okay. Okay, Patrolman Duhamell. That’s all for now.” Fenucci went to the door. “You’re off till when?”

“Thursday night at eight, sir.”

“Reachable here?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t go out of town—for a few days.” Fenucci left, carrying the gun belt.

Clarence took a deep breath and listened to the footsteps of Fenucci fading on the stairway. Half his questions had been calculated, Clarence thought. “Reynolds couldn’t have hired someone to get at this guy?” Had Fenucci expected him to leap at that? Did Fenucci already have everything he needed? And what about the gun? Clarence had washed it well. But the lab tests were fantastic. It’d be yes or no. It was out of his control now. Fenucci might be on his way to see Marylyn or Mr. Reynolds, Clarence didn’t know, because Fenucci wouldn’t be the only man working on the case. Clarence picked up the telephone and looked at his watch: seventeen to eleven.

Marylyn answered, to Clarence’s enormous relief.

“Hello, darling. Clare, How are you?”

“Lousy. I’m just about to go out.”

“You’re alone?”

“Yes-s.” She sounded impatient and nervous.

“The cops—Homicide was just talking with me. Have they been to see you?”

“Yes. At seven they were here. Would’ve been here before but I was out all day.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told them,” Marylyn said, and her rather stiff tone continued, “that you were here all night.”

Clarence gave a shuddering sigh. “I said the same thing. Good God. Thanks.”

“You don’t have to thank me, it’s a pleasure.”

Silence for four or five awful seconds. She meant a pleasure to bollix the cops, to lie to them. “Are they coming to see you again?”

“I don’t know. Probably. But I’m not going to be here. I’m sick of them all. But—”

“But?—What, darling?”

“I gather it was you, right?” she said in a whisper.

He was pressing the phone hard against his ear. “You said the right thing.”

“I’ve got to go, Clare. I’m not spending the night here.”

“You’re afraid they’ll call you at night?”

“I’m just sick of this place, sick of seeing
fuzz
in it!” Now she sounded on the brink of hysteria.

He wanted to ask her where she was spending the night. Probably at Evelyn’s on Christopher. “Would you call me next? Because I won’t know where to reach you.—One more thing. I said I left your house around seven-thirty or eight in the morning.”

“I think I said ten. Tennish.”

“I don’t think it matters.”

“I’ve got to go.”

“Promise you’ll call me!”

“I’ll call you.” She hung up.

A
T THAT MOMENT
, a little before 11 p.m., Ed and Greta Reynolds were talking with a man from the Homicide Squad, a detective called Morrissey. A different detective had telephoned Ed in his office around 4 p.m., after speaking with Greta and getting his office number, to make an appointment with Ed at his apartment at seven, but Ed had said he had to meet his wife at a funeral parlor on Lexington Avenue: the mother of a friend had died, and he would not be free until after 10 p.m. Ed had been firm. Ed had supposed the police wanted to see him about some detail, a final check-up of some kind in regard to the Lisa business, because the detective had not said he was from Homicide. Lilly Brandstrum’s mother had died after a long illness, and Ed and Greta had spent a rather gloomy hour at the funeral home, followed by a gathering, mostly of Lilly’s mother’s friends, at Lilly’s apartment in the East 8os.

Ed and Greta had moved. Since the previous weekend, they had been in their new apartment on East 9th Street, in a building which they both found more cheerful than the Riverside Drive place.

Detective Fred Morrissey explained that Fenucci, who had spoken to Ed in his office, had had to be somewhere else at 11 p.m. “We have several men working on the same cases,” said Morrissey with a pleasant Irish grin. “All gathering pieces. It’s not much like Sherlock Holmes any more.”

Ed had smiled politely. Ed and Greta had not known about Rowajinski’s death until Morrissey told them. Barrow Street, Ed had only a vague idea where it was, west of here, on the other side of Seventh Avenue where streets had names and did not intersect at right angles. They got through the preliminary questions, one of them being where Ed had been last night, Tuesday, between 8 p.m. and the small hours of the morning? Last night he and Greta had intended to go to a film at the Art on 8th Street and hadn’t because Ed had had to read a manuscript until close to 1 a.m. He had been out at seven and again at midnight, briefly, to air the new pup, Juliette.

“I’ve never seen Rowajinski by the way,” Ed said.

“No? Not when he was in jail?” Morrissey knew about their dog and the ransom money.

“No, I could’ve seen him, but I didn’t care to. I wanted to forget the whole thing, frankly, because our dog was dead and that was that.” The murder was the final touch, Ed was thinking—sordid and depressing beyond words. Someone had had enough of Rowajinski, and small wonder.

“I see. You don’t possibly know of anyone who—Well, the point is, do you know of anyone who might’ve done it? I can imagine you don’t move in the same circles as this guy but—Morrissey grinned again.

“I don’t know of anyone,” Ed said. He looked at Greta who was sitting at the other end of the sofa, calm and attentive and silent.

“I have some notes here—about Patrolman Clarence Duhamell who helped you with the dog thing. You know Patrolman Duhamell?”

“Oh, yes,” said Ed.

“This Rowajinski was annoying his girlfriend—” Morrissey looked at his notes and came up with Marylyn’s name and address. “Patrolman Duhamell also went to Rowajinski’s room on Morton Street and roughed him up a little, told him to stop annoying his girlfriend. Do you know about that? Did Duhamell say—”

“No, I don’t know anything about it,” Ed said. “We don’t know Duhamell very well.” Ed was thinking, could it have been Clarence who killed the Pole? No, it wasn’t possible. Morrissey had said Rowajinski’s skull had been fractured in several places.

“It’s a funny story,” Morrissey said, “Rowajinski escaping once after Patrolman Duhamell found him, then Duhamell accused of letting him go for five hundred dollars. That’s according to Patrolman Duhamell’s precinct.”

“Yes,” said Ed cautiously, “we heard about that. Duhamell mentioned it. He told us he didn’t take it. It was never proven, was it?”

Morrissey consulted his notes before he spoke. “No. Says here accused by Rowajinski. Just accused. What do you think?—I never met Patrolman Duhamell.”

Greta spoke before Ed. “Oh, no. I don’t zink so. We don’t
know
, but Clarence is not like
zat
.”

Ed smiled, suddenly relieved of tension by Greta’s frank voice and her accent. “I doubt if he took a bribe. He’s pulling a fast one on us if he did.”

“A fast one? What d’y’mean?” Morrissey asked pleasantly.

Ed knew Morrissey was wondering if Clarence could have killed the Pole because Clarence had been annoyed by the Pole’s accusation, true or false. “I mean I don’t think he’s the type. He’s a nice young fellow, even idealistic. I don’t think he’d take a bribe for anything.” Especially in this case, since he hated Rowajinski, Ed wanted to say, but thought he had better not.

“Yeah,” said Morrissey, vaguely. “Um, you never possibly heard of anyone else this Rowajinski was writing letters to?”

Ed’s lips widened in a smile. “No. We certainly tried to find out during the time our dog was missing. We were trying to find Rowajinski himself then.”

“People don’t always report stuff. We’re looking for suspects, y’know.”

Ed knew.

Morrissey seemed to be finished. He stood up, putting his pen back in his pocket. “Thanks, Mr. Reynolds. You may hear from us again. I dunno. Good night, Mrs. Reynolds.”

“Good night,” said Greta. “And good luck.”

“That we always need!”

The door closed.

Ed let his arms sag and said, “Whoosh!” He drifted back to the living-room. “Well. What do you think of that?”

Greta slipped out of her shoes and picked them up. She was tired. “Oh, it was bound to happen.”

Ed put an arm around her and hugged her tightly for a moment. “What a day! Let’s go to bed with some hot tea. Or chocolate. Or a hot toddy! A funeral and a murder all at once!”

“Lilly’s very upset. She doesn’t show it but she’s very upset.”

Ed didn’t reply. The Rowajinski thing was on his mind. Ed knew it was on Greta’s mind too. He glanced at Juliette, who had been unusually quiet on the sofa the whole time. Juliette wagged her cropped tail and looked at him inquiringly.

“Dead,” Ed said, turning towards Greta. “Funny we didn’t hear about it.”

“Ach, we haven’t had the TV on for a couple of days.”

Ed thought of the newspapers, which he did see daily. But how important was Rowajinski’s demise? If it had been reported, he had missed it. What a wretch the man had been! And the money—Ed wasn’t interested in the money that remained owing to him, but the police had taken some of Rowajinski’s bank account and had returned three hundred dollars to him. Another five hundred was missing, and who cared? Burial, Ed supposed, would be at public expense. Ed started to say,
I can’t say I’m sorry he’s dead
. Instead, he looked at Greta and said, “I’ll pop out with mademoiselle. Let’s forget all about it, darling. Fix us a nice brace of toddies.”

“I wonder who—”

“I don’t give a damn who did it. He deserved it.”

18

C
larence telephoned Marylyn the next day, Thursday, and on the second try got her, at 3:30 p.m. She didn’t want to make a date. She had two urgent typing jobs.

“Marylyn—it’s important! Can’t you find five minutes? I’ll meet you out somewhere—near you.”

The desperate tone in his voice must have had some effect, because she agreed to meet him at O. Henry’s at five. It was on Sixth Avenue at West 4th.

Clarence wanted to telephone Edward Reynolds, but he thought he had better not. The Reynoldses might be annoyed if he telephoned, and they were probably annoyed already because the police had come to see them in regard to Rowajinski’s death. Mr. Reynolds would think he was interfering, obsessed by the one subject. Mr. Reynolds might even think he had done it, or might suspect it. This had occurred to Clarence earlier. Mr. Reynolds could easily say, “
Yes
, Clarence had provocation, and it wouldn’t surprise me if—” On the other hand, Clarence could more easily imagine Ed saying, “I hardly know Clarence Duhamell. I have
no
opinion. I want nothing to do with it.”

Clarence arrived early at O. Henry’s and managed to get a booth. When Marylyn came in, he stood up so she could see him. She was wearing a long jacket over faded blue jeans, and she walked towards him with her usual short, quick steps—which oddly always made him think of a squaw—not looking at him. Such had been the prelude to many a happy date, but Clarence was not sure about this one.

“Well,” she said when she had sat down. “What’s the latest?”

“Nothing new today.” There was no report as yet re his gun.

Marylyn glanced around, as if expecting to see a cop watching them, or someone in plain clothes keeping an eye on them. Clarence had already looked around.

“Thank you, darling,” Clarence said.

She shrugged.

Clarence glanced up at a waiter who had arrived. “What’ll you have?” he asked Marylyn.

“Oh—a Coke.”

“Not a rum in it?”

“All right. A rum in it.” Her gray-green eyes glanced at the waiter, then she lit one of her Marlboros.

Clarence ordered a beer, and the waiter went away. Clarence had expected Marylyn to be more concerned, to be upset. He didn’t know what to make of her eyes that would not look at him. Did you know right away that I did it, he wanted to ask. “Did you hear it on the news? About the Pole?”

“Dannie heard it and called me up. Yesterday afternoon. He knew where I was working.”

So Dannie knew where she was working. And also about the Pole being a nuisance. Dannie probably knew more about Marylyn’s feelings now than he did.

“At least the fuzz last night wasn’t the wop cop. Some detective in plain clothes.”

It didn’t matter who it was, Clarence supposed. They all shared notes. Clarence refrained from asking was it Fenucci.

The waiter arrived, served them, and departed.

Marylyn relaxed a little, loosened her thick woolen muffler, and said, “What the hell happened Tuesday night?”

“Well—as soon as I left your place, I saw him. On Macdougal and he turned the corner into Bleecker. I thought he’d been hanging around in your street again, so I followed him with—with an idea of scaring him—but really scaring him. Then he began running because he saw me. He crossed Seventh and I started chasing him. He ran into a doorway. Then I hit him.” Clarence sat forward on the edge of the bench seat. There was a loud juke-box near, and they were whispering besides, hardly able to hear each other.

“Hit him with what?”

“With my gun. I was carrying my gun.”

Marylyn stared at him.

“I know it was with my gun,” Clarence said.

“Well, why shouldn’t you know it?”

“Because the rest is sort of vague. I don’t mean I blacked out. But I was in a rage. I don’t know if I spent three or four minutes there or just thirty seconds. I don’t even remember getting home. Just suddenly I was home. Afterward.” He was looking at Marylyn, who still stared at him in a shocked and puzzled way. “I didn’t mean to beat him up—so badly, when I went into that doorway. You know—one of those little houses on Barrow, far west. He didn’t even live there.”

“I
don’t
know. I only know, Clare, that I want out of this and now. I told the cops you were with me, sure, because I don’t give a—a—”

“All right.”

“—about this Pole or about the fuzz. I like lying to them. So it helps you, fine. But this is the end, Clare, the last of it.” Her eyes flashed, and she slapped her hand palm down on the table on the word “last.”

Clarence wanted to take her hand and didn’t dare. He wanted to say: there’s nothing to fear and we’re all glad the guy is dead, aren’t we? By all, he meant the Reynoldses also. They must be glad. But he couldn’t say a word.

“They asked me if you had your gun that night. I said no, I didn’t think so. I thought it was better to be casual about it than to say a definite “no,” as if I was trying to protect you.”

“Yep. Right,” Clarence said.

“I can see you’re worried.”

“Worried?” The idea of clues went swiftly through his head, but what clues, so far? “I know I’m a logical suspect. They know I didn’t like him. And I was even in the neighborhood that night.”

“Did anyone see you?”

“Leaving your place?” The juke-box—a gravely black voice—was in orgasmic agony at the end of a song. “I don’t think so. I don’t remember seeing anyone. Not the coffee-shop fellow, for instance.”

“And when you got home? Did anybody see you?”

“No.” Clarence felt better because of her concern. “Or rather—I dunno, darling, but I don’t think so.—Honey, the number of enemies that guy must’ve had! Think of that. How many people besides you, for instance, besides Mr. Reynolds, who must’ve hated his guts.”

“Why do you always say ‘Mr. Reynolds’ if you like him so much? Hasn’t he got a first name?”

Clarence smiled. Marylyn sounded suddenly like herself. “His name is Ed. Edward.—Marylyn, I adore you.”

“What’s going to happen to you?”

“Nothing. I’ll bet you nothing.” He reached for her hand that rested on the edge of the table.

She pulled her hand away and gave him a glance of apology. “I can’t stay long.”

Clarence sat back, silent, but he was thinking frantically: she
had
helped him, after all. Surely she didn’t hate him. “This should blow over in a few days. If they haven’t a clue, they haven’t a clue.” He thought of his gun.

“How did you get home that night? Taxi?”

“I think I walked.”

“You think?”

“I walked.” Clarence swallowed some beer. “I’ll call you in a day or so, darling. I know you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset. I don’t want to see any more pigs. And I’m not sure I should see you again.” She spoke firmly, not as if she were doubtful or even regretful. “I’d better go now.”

“You have to be somewhere?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t believe her. He paid and they walked out. Marylyn seemed to want to go westward on West 4th, the opposite direction of Macdougal.

“Don’t walk me, just leave me here,” she said.

Clarence, pained at leaving her, stopped watching her when she had taken half a dozen steps.

T
HAT EVENING,
M
ANZONI WAS GOING OFF DUTY
when Clarence arrived at the precinct house just before eight. Clarence suspected that Manzoni had lingered in order to see him. Manzoni was leaning against a wall, talking to another patrolman, and he had not yet changed out of uniform.

“Ah, Clarence,” said Manzoni. “How goes it? You heard about Rowinsk, I think.”

“Yes. Sure I did.” The patrolman with Manzoni was a curly-haired Irishman called Pat, who had always been friendly towards Clarence. Pat was smiling now, and Clarence said “Hi” to him. The gun, the gun at the lab was on Clarence’s mind, and he went into the Captain’s office—MacGregor was on duty now—to ask for another gun, or perhaps to hear the result from the lab.

“Ah, Dummell. Clarence,” MacGregor said. “Your gun just got back.” MacGregor had a pleasant expression on his face.

“Thank you, sir.” Clarence’s gun and belt, looking the same as ever, lay on a corner of the Captain’s desk.

“Take it.” MacGregor nodded towards the gun. “What do you think about our friend Rowinsk?”

“I heard about it yesterday.” Clarence picked up his gun and belt. “Homicide was asking me questions. As you see.” Clarence indicated his gun.

“You were in the Village that night.”

“Yes, sir. On Macdougal.”

“Any ideas who did it?”

“No, sir.”

A telephone rang. MacGregor was interested, and took it from the Desk Officer.

Clarence went to the locker room. MacGregor wouldn’t necessarily know, Clarence thought, if the lab had said anything about the gun. Homicide certainly knew where to find him. If they had found blood on the gun, they might simply let him finish his patrol tonight and speak to him later. Manzoni followed Clarence into the locker room, and to Clarence’s annoyance seemed to intend to stand there while Clarence changed.

“Who do you think knocked off the Pole?” Manzoni asked.

“I dunno. Could be a lot of people, I suppose.”

“Who, fr’instance?”

Clarence hung his trousers. Around them, ten or fifteen men were dressing or undressing, talking, paying no attention to him and Manzoni.

“You’re so often in his neighborhood. Did you get fed up and clobber him, Clarence?”

Clarence tried to smile as he stuffed the blue shirt into his trousers. “Aren’t you even closer on Jane Street?”

“I heard you spent the night with your girlfriend. All right. But did you take a walk?”

Clarence glanced in the little mirror on his door as he tied his tie. “Listen, Pete, stop meddling with me. You want to make the Homicide Squad? Go after Rowajinski’s killer. Down in the Village. Not me, chum.”

“Could you take a lie detector test?”

Clarence buttoned his tunic. “Any time.” At least he didn’t feel ruffled just then. Maybe his pulse was a bit faster, but it was from annoyance with Manzoni. There was a difference.

Clarence walked in for the briefing. His patrol partner that night was a fellow younger than Clarence named Nolan. Nolan didn’t mention the Rowajinski affair. He talked about a forthcoming prize fight. He had a bet on it. Clarence’s ring number was 45, and when he called in at 11:45, there was a message for him. Detective Morrissey of Homicide wanted to see him tomorrow morning, and would he be at his apartment?

“Yes,” Clarence said.

Morrissey would be there between eleven and twelve.

When Clarence went off duty at 4 a.m., Captain Smith was at the desk. Nothing was said to Clarence about any message from the lab, so Clarence didn’t know what to believe about his gun.

CLARENCE’S MOTHER TELEPHONED
the next morning at eleven. “I hope I haven’t waked you, Clary . . . A policeman was here to see us yesterday. In the evening, because they wanted to see Ralph, too. What’s it all about? This man with the Polish name. He was murdered and you knew him?”

“Well, I didn’t know him. I arrested him. He kidnapped a man’s dog. Mother, he’s a—”

“You never mentioned it.”

“I didn’t think it was very important.”

“The detective said you disliked him. He led us to think it was personal. Said the man had been annoying Marylyn.”

“That’s true. He annoyed other people, too.” Clarence, still in bed, had raised himself on one elbow.

“You had nothing to do with his killing, did you, Clary? The man said you spent the night at Marylyn’s—Tuesday.” Her voice was tense.

Clarence felt a sudden impatience, embarrassment. “That’s true but—”

“Who do you think killed him?”

“I don’t know!”

“Well—what’re they doing to you, Clary? And why?”

“Nothing, Mother. Naturally they question a lot of people. What was the detective’s name?”

“Morrissey. He left his card with us.”

His mother made him promise to telephone her tonight before he went on duty, whether anything had happened or not.

Clarence got out of bed at once and made coffee. Naturally they had put questions to his parents. Had their son seemed upset on Wednesday when he visited them? What had he ever said about Rowajinski? Nothing. Nothing at all. But Clarence hated the lying, especially to his parents. The enormity of what he had done, in their eyes, he could not begin to estimate.

M
ORRISSEY ARRIVED JUST BEFORE NOON
. He was a husky, brown-haired fellow, barely thirty, with a smiling manner and huge hands that could probably knock a man out with a backhand blow.

“Have a seat,” Clarence said.

Morrissey removed his topcoat and sat down. He had his pen and notebook ready. “Well, you know what this is about, because Detective Fenucci talked with you, I understand.”

“Yes.”

“We’re trying to find the man who killed Kenneth Rowajinski Tuesday night. And it seems you knew Rowajinski.” Morrissey looked pleasantly at Clarence.

Clarence sat down on the foot of his bed. “I suppose you heard about the kidnapped dog, Edward Reynolds’s dog. That’s how I met Rowajinski.”

“Oh, yes, I saw the Reynoldses—Wednesday night it was. Now, number one, where were you Tuesday night?”

“I was staying with my girlfriend on Macdougal Street. Marylyn Coomes.”

“Yes.” Morrissey glanced as his notes. “What time did you arrive there?”

“About ten.”

“Did you see Rowajinski on the street then? How’d you get to your girlfriend’s?”

“The subway. No, I didn’t see him. I wasn’t looking for him.”

“Rowajinski could’ve been killed before nine p.m. Just before. It’s possible. Where were you before you went to Macdougal?”

“Home. Here. Marylyn wasn’t in before nine-thirty or so. I was calling her from here till I knew she was in.”

“Did you go out during the evening?”

“No, we stayed in.”

“Then what?”

“Then I slept there.”

“And then? What time did you leave?”

Repetition. To see if he gave the same answers. “Around eight, I think.”

Morrissey’s brows went up. “Your girlfriend says around ten. I have it here.”

“It was earlier. She didn’t completely wake up when I left. She’s a late sleeper.”