Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

“I came here because I live here,” I said. “George, I’d love to explain but there’s no time. I wish there were time but there isn’t.”

I took the revolver from my pocket and shot him in the face.

“The police werevery understanding,” I told Vivian. “They seem to think the shock of his ex-wife’s death unbalanced him. They theorize that he was driving by when he saw me leave my house. Maybe he saw Margaret at the door saying goodbye to me. He parked, perhaps with no clear intention, then went to the door. When she opened the door, he was overcome with desire. By the time I came back and let myself in and shot him it was too late. The damage had been done.”

“Poor George.”

“And poor Margaret.”

She put her hand on mine. “They brought it on themselves,” she said. “If George hadn’t insisted on that vicious prenuptial agreement we could have had a properly civilized divorce like everybody else.”

“And if Margaret had agreed to a properly civilized divorce she’d be alive today.”

“We only did what we had to do,” Vivian said. “It was a shame about his ex-wife, but I don’t suppose there was any way around it.”

“At least she didn’t suffer.”

“That’s important,” she said. “And you know what they say — you can’t break an egg without making omelets.”

“That’s what they say,” I agreed. We embraced, and some moments later we disembraced. “We’ll have to give one another rather a wide berth for a month or two,” I said. “After all, I killed your husband just as he finished killing my wife. If we should be seen in public, tongues would wag. In a month or so you’ll sell your house and leave town. A few weeks after that I’ll do the same. Then we can get married and live happily ever after, but in the meantime we’d best be very cautious.”

“You’re right,” she said. “There was a movie like that, except nobody got killed in it. But there were these two people in a small town who were having an affair, and when they met in public they had to pretend they were strangers. I wish I could remember the title.”

“Strangers When We Meet ?”

“That sounds about right.”

Traynor got thecall at a quarter to nine. The girl on the line was named Linda Haber and she was a secretary — the secretary — at Hofert & Jordan. The boss had been shot, she kept saying. It took Traynor close to five minutes to find out who she was and where she was and to tell her to sit down and stay put. She was still babbling hysterically when he hung up on her and pulled Phil Grey away from a cup of coffee. He said, “Homicide, downtown and west. Let’s go.”

Hofert & Jordan had two and a half rooms of office space in a squat redbrick building on Woodlawn near Marsh. There was a No Smoking sign in the elevator. Grey smoked anyway. Traynor kept his hands in his pockets and waited for the car to get to the fourth floor. The doors opened and a white-faced girl rushed up and asked them if they were the police. Grey said they were. The girl looked grateful.

“Right this way,” she said. “Oh, it’s so awful!”

They entered an anteroom, with two offices leading from it. One door was marked David Hofert, another marked James Jordan. They went through the door marked James Jordan. Linda Haber was trembling. Grey took her by an arm and eased her toward a chair. Traynor studied the scene.

There was an old oak desk with papers strewn over it; some papers had spilled down onto the floor. There was a gun on the floor a little to the left of the desk, and somewhat farther to that side of the desk there was a man lying facedown in a pool of partially dried blood, some of which had spattered onto the papers.

Traynor said, “Mr. Jordan?”

“Mr. Hofert,” the Haber girl said. “Is he—” She didn’t finish the question. Her face paled and then she fainted.

Some lab people came and took pictures, noted measurements, and made chalk marks. They had Hofert’s body out of the building in less than half an hour. Grey and Traynor worked as a team, crisp and smooth and efficient. Traynor questioned the secretary when she came to, then had the medical examiner give her a sedative and commissioned a patrolman to drive her home. Grey routed the night elevator operator out of bed and asked him some questions. Traynor called the man who did the legal work for Hofert & Jordan. Grey got a prelim report from the M.E., pending autopsy results. Traynor bought two cups of coffee from a machine in the lobby and brought them upstairs. The coffee tasted of cardboard, from the containers.

“Almost too easy,” Traynor said. “Too simple.”

Grey nodded.

“At six forty-five last night the Haber kid went home. Jordan and Hofert were both here. Jordan stayed until eight. From six at night until eight in the morning nobody can get in or out of the building without signing the register, and the stairs are locked off at the second-floor landing. You have to sign and you have to use the elevator. Jordan signed out at eight. Hofert never signed out; he was dead.”

“What was the time of death?”

“That fits, too. A rough estimate is twelve to fourteen hours. One bullet was in the chest a little below the heart. It took him a little while to die. Say five minutes, not much more than that. Enough time to lose a lot of blood.”

“So if he got shot between seven and eight—”

“That’s about it. No robbery motive. He has a full wallet on him. No suicide. He was standing up when he got shot, standing and facing the desk, Jordan’s desk. The Haber girl couldn’t have killed him. She left better than an hour before Jordan did and the sheet bears her out on that.”

“Motive?”

Traynor put his coffee on the desk. “Maybe they hated each other,” he said. “A little two-man operation jobbing office supplies. The lawyer says they didn’t make much and they didn’t lose much either. Partners for six years. Jordan’s forty-four, Hofert was two years older. The secretary said they argued a lot.”

“Everybody argues.”

“They argued more. Especially yesterday, according to the secretary. There’s a money motive, too. Partnership insurance.”

Grey looked puzzled.

“Twin policies paid for out of partnership funds. Each partner is insured, with the face amount payable to the survivor if one of them dies.”

“Why?”

“That’s what I asked the lawyer. Look, suppose you and I are in business together. Then suppose you die—”

“Thanks.”

“—and your wife inherits your share. She can’t take a hand in the running of the business. After I pay myself a salary there’s not much left in the way of profits for her. What she wants is the cash and what I want is full control of the business. Lots of friction.”

“Maybe I’d better live,” Grey said.

Traynor ignored him. “The insurance smooths things out. If you die, the insurance company pays me whatever the policy is. Then I have to use the money to buy your share of the business from your widow. She has the cash she needs, and I get the whole business without any cost to me. That way everybody’s happy.”

“Except me.”

“Hofert and Jordan had partnership insurance,” Traynor said. “Two policies, each with a face amount of a hundred grand. That’s motive and means and opportunity, so pat it’s hard to believe. I don’t know what we’re waiting around here for.”

They didn’t wait long. Half an hour later they picked up James Jordan at his home on Pattison. They asked him how come he hadn’t gone to his office. He said he’d worked late the night before and wasn’t feeling too well. They asked him why he had killed his partner. He stared at them and told them he didn’t understand what they were talking about. They took him downtown and booked him for murder.