Ed McBain - Cinderella

“He’s not my Mr. Nettington,” Matthew said.

“Admittedly on a bullshit violation, but sixty days ain’t hay when you’re an attorney and not a professional burglar, huh? Did Nettington know this tape existed?”

“Yes.”

“How did he know?”

“His wife told him.”

“She informed you of this?”

“No. He did.”

“What?” Rawles said.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Yesterday morning.”

“Said his wife had told him about the tape?”

“Yes.”

“You went to see him? I goddamn well told you to—”

“He came here,” Matthew said.

“For what purpose?”

“He wanted the tape.”

“So now Samalson’s office is busted into and the tape is gone.”

“Yes.”

“What time did she call you?”

“Who?”

“The Chinese lady.”

“Oh. Nine this morning, a little after nine.”

“To tell you somebody’d busted in, huh?”

“Words to that effect, yes.”

“So she called you.”

“Yes. She called me.”

“Why?”

“I think she didn’t like the condition of the files you returned.”

“What?”

“I think she feels you messed up her files.”

“We didn’t mess up any files,” Hacker said.

It was the first time he’d said anything. Matthew looked at him, surprised.

“All we done was Xerox ’em,” he said. “And bring ’em back to her. That’s all we done with her files.”

“She should’ve called us ,” Rawles said. “That was her obligation. Not a lawyer. There’s a burglary, you call the police.”

“That’s what I advised her to do. As soon as I got there.”

“No, not as soon as you got there,” Rawles said. “As soon as you found out the tape was gone.”

“As soon as I recognized the extent of the burglary. On the telephone, it didn’t sound—”

“Whatever it sounded like, you should’ve called us immediately,” Rawles said. “This is just another example of your running around us, doing things your own way, sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Maybe you’re not much impressed with homicide, but we are.”

“I can assure you—”

“You can assure me this is the end of your butting in, okay? That’s what you can assure me. Keep your fucking nose out of this fucking case from now on, okay?”

“Which is also a misdemeanor,” Matthew said.

“What?”

“I refer you to Chapter 847.04. Open Profanity. Whoever — having arrived at the age of discretion — uses profane, vulgar, and indecent language in any public place or upon the private premises of another is guilty of a second-degree misdemeanor. Punishable, as you mentioned earlier, by sixty days in jail.”

Rawles blinked.

“Yes,” Matthew said.

“I think you heard me,” Rawles said, recovering at once.

“Yes, I heard you,” Matthew said.

“Let’s go,” Rawles said to Hacker, and both men went off in a huff.

There was no question in May Hennessy’s mind that whoever had broken into the office was a pro. Whatever else Daniel Nettington could do well — and he seemed to be an ace in the sack — he did not seem to be the kind of man who could pick a lock without leaving a scratch anywhere on it. Moreover, and May had told this to the police, she wasn’t at all sure the Nettington tape was what the burglar was really after. May had worked too many cases with Otto not to recognize a possible smokescreen when she saw one. She had told this to Rawles and his freckle-faced partner. The Larkin file was missing, too, wasn’t it? Plus a dozen other files, some of them on cases only recently closed out. Not to mention seven or eight other tapes that could’ve got a lot of people in trouble with their spouses if somebody was looking to make trouble. So she had suggested to Rawles that he shouldn’t jump to conclusions when he heard the tape — which she was lucky to have the original of, and which was pretty hot and incriminating stuff — but should instead keep an open mind.

She had reported all this on the phone to Matthew not twenty minutes before Rawles and Hacker came barging in. Matthew doubted that Rawles was keeping an open mind. Rawles was smelling real meat, and Rawles was eager to close in. That was what Matthew sensed. That was why Rawles wanted him to keep out of the way. He didn’t want his case screwed up on any technicality. Rawles was going to find Nettington, sit him down, have him listen to the tape, and then ask a hundred questions about the burglary of Samalson’s office and incidentally the murder of Samalson himself.

Hacker and Rawles — both of whom had been cops for a good many years, Rawles in both Cleveland and Calusa — should have realized that honest people and thieves do things in different ways. If an honest person, for example, knew that there was something he needed or wanted in Otto Samalson’s office, he would simply go to the office and ask for it. A thief, on the other hand, doesn’t think that way. A thief thinks There is us and there is them, and they are the ones who are on our backs and keeping us from getting what we want and need, that is the way a thief thinks, so we will steal it from them . Even if it’s possible to get the thing by asking for it politely, the thief will steal it anyway. That is his nature. That is why honest people go around shaking their heads in bafflement over what thieves do. They can no more understand the psychology of the thief than they can the theory of relativity. Cops, however, are supposed to understand the psychology of the thief.

It was surprising, therefore, that it never once occurred to Hacker or Rawles — though it did occur to May — that perhaps they were dealing with a bona fide thief here and not an amateur like Nettington.

It never occurred to Matthew, either.

Matthew had a good excuse; he himself was an amateur.

Rawles and Hacker had no excuse at all, unless eagerness to close out a case could be considered an excuse.

Not understanding the way a thief’s mind works, Matthew concluded that an amateur like himself had broken into Otto’s office. But Nettington seemed too obvious a choice — the man wasn’t that stupid, was he? — and so Matthew, still thinking like an amateur, tried to think of any other amateur who might have wanted that tape desperately enough to have stolen it.

The only other amateur who came to mind was Carla Nettington.

You mean the police will be listening to that tape ?

And...

When can I hear it?

And...

I wish the goddamn police weren’t in this.

And...

Thank you very much, Mr. Hope, please send me your man’s report , and the tape, and of course your bill.

Carla’s words.

Eager to get that tape.

Worried about the police hearing it.

He went out to see her that afternoon.

It was still raining when he got to the old house on Sabal Key. He made a forty-yard broken-field run — skirting puddles and fallen palm fronds — from the Ghia to the front door, and then stood under an ineffective shingled portico that dripped gallons of water down the back of his neck while he rang the doorbell.

“Yes, just a minute!” Carla called from somewhere in the house.

He waited.

He was going to drown.

The door opened.

So did her eyes. Wide in surprise.

“May I come in?” he said.

“Yes, certainly,” she said. She was not happy to see him. Her voice and her body language told him that. Voice chilly and distant. The words saying “Yes, certainly,” the tone saying “Who the hell invited you?” Her body half-turned away from him as she stepped aside to let him in, her posture suggesting that she would have preferred showing him her back but was too polite for such blatant rudeness.