Ed McBain: The House That Jack Built

“Except for the defense cuts on the palms of the hands, it was a very neat stabbing,” Bloom said. “Straight to the heart and goodbye, Charlie.”

He seemed not to notice the stink in the morgue.

Matthew wished it would start raining here in the morgue. Wash away the stink. The stink was compounded of three parts bodily gasses to one part chemicals. Even here in the refrigerator room, the stink seeped through. Matthew wanted to hold a handkerchief to his nose, but he thought Bloom might consider that unprofessional.

“The knife matches the other ones on the kitchen rack, same set,” Bloom said. “A chefs knife. Ten-inch blade, very effective.”

A weapon of convenience. Which meant the killer had not gone to the house with the express purpose of committing murder. Which lent credence to Ralph Parrish’s claim that the killer had gone there in search of something. But what? And why kill?

“Accused’s fingerprints on the knife,” Bloom said.

Reeling off the facts tonelessly. Big man with a nose broken more than once, hands of a street fighter, shambling gait, cadences of the Big Apple in his speech, New York City to Nassau County to Calusa, a policeman for half his life. Just the facts, ma’am.

“Victim’s blood all over him, same type, no question about it. Tested positive for AIDS, by the way, did you know that?”

“No,” Matthew said.

“The way it looks to the S.A., and the Sheriffs Department, and us, is Parrish was still pissed off the next morning, starting arguing with his brother all over again, stabbed him in anger. The best you can hope for, Matthew, is Murder Two. You can prove there was no premeditation, you got a shot at Murder Two. Otherwise, your man fries.”

No emotion in his voice. Your man fries. The Indiana farmer fries. The farmer who, for the past God knew how many years had been supporting his only brother, keeping him in style down here where the sun always shone (except in February). Kept him in luxury in a house he himself had paid for, prime beachfront property on Whisper. Presumably accepted — or at least ignored — his brother’s homosexuality until that night last week when he’d expressed revulsion for it… And killed him?

“I loved my brother,” Ralph Parrish had told him.

And Matthew believed it.

The good guys and the bad guys.

Detective Morris Bloom was one of the good guys. On the wrong side this time, or at least on the opposing side, in that the Calusa PD. was running routine witness checks for the S.A.’s office even though the crime had been committed outside the city limits. Whisper Key was Calusa County. The Sheriffs Department had responded. The Sheriff’s Department had made the arrest.

“You take the wrong cases,” Bloom said.

He looked sad saying it. Matthew was his friend.

“You know about the man in black,” Matthew said. “Running off after Parrish came downstairs. Parrish mentioned him during the Q and…”

“Sure,” Bloom said. Dismissal in a single word.

“And you surely know there was a man dressed in black at the party.”

“We already talked to him.”

“Ishtar Kabul?”

Warren had given him the name last night.

“His street name,” Bloom said. “His square handle is Martin Fein. He’s Jewish.” He shook his head. He was wondering how a nice Jewish boy could have become homosexual. In Bloom’s old neighborhood, nice Jewish boys didn’t grow up to be fags. Not many of them grew up to be cops, either, but that was because in New York you had to be Irish to rise above the rank of captain. Or, nowadays, black. You were Jewish, it was better to aspire to the rabbinate. Or better yet, become an accountant.

“Matthew,” Bloom said, “your man had the murder weapon in his hand…”

“He pulled it out of his brother’s chest.”

“Stupid thing to do, don’t you think?”

“But he did it.”

“So he says. Which is how the blood got all over his clothes.”

“That’s right.”

“No, Matthew, that’s wrong. Nobody is so stupid that he finds somebody on the floor with a knife in his chest and he pulls the knife out. Nobody. Unless he’s been living on Mars and has never seen a movie or a television show. Your man argued with his brother the night before, there are twelve witnesses who are willing to swear they almost came to blows. The argument flared again the next…”

“One of those twelve witnesses was a man in black.”

“What is this, a mystery story?” Bloom asked. “There are no mysteries in police work, Matthew, there are only crimes and the people who commit them. No strangers in black running up the beach into the swirling mists, no…”

“But there was.”

“According to Parrish. Parrish is the only one who saw this mysterious man in black.”

“Kabul was at the party. And he was wearing black.”

“And he was also in bed with a lady…”

Bloom cut himself short.

“Okay, I gave you his alibi,” he said. “You probably could’ve got it from the S.A., anyway, if you’d asked him. Kabul is clean, believe me. The lady swore up and down that she was with him at seven o’clock on the morning of the murder.”

“A lady, huh?”

“A lady, yes. You never heard of bisexuals, Matthew?”

“Her name wouldn’t be Christie Hewes, would it?”

Bloom blinked.

“You know this already, huh? The S.A. told you?”

“No, the S.A. didn’t tell me.”

I was in bed with a lady named Christie Hewes.

Kabul’s initial alibi to Warren last night. Lied to the police and tried to lie to Warren as well. The only difference was that the police had been ready to accept the lie because they already had their killer. Warren hadn’t been ready to accept anything ; he was working to prove that Ralph Parrish had not committed murder.

“I assume you’ve got a statement from Miss Hewes,” Matthew said.

“In a sworn deposition.”

“Then I guess Kabul is clean,” he said.

“Sure. You know what you’ve got here?” Bloom asked, and looked down at the body on the stainless-steel drawer. “You’ve got a queer who was living high off the hog on his brother’s money. A faggot cocksman. Brought charges of gay-bashing against one of his own lovers last September, a real sweetheart, Jonathan Parrish. You’ve got a straight brother from…”

“Tell me about the gay-bashing,” Matthew said.

“Sure,” Bloom said.

September seventh of last year. The Monday night ending the Labor Day weekend. Complaint call clocked in at a quarter to eleven. Calusa PD. responded leisurely at eleven twenty-four. Scandal’s, the gay bar over the Greek restaurant in Michael’s Mews.

The responding uniformed cop — in Calusa, the blues rode solo — angled the car into the curb where a tall blond man stood at the gate to the Mews, holding the wrist of a sultry-looking woman wearing a purple dress, purple high-heeled ankle-strapped shoes, a purple leather shoulder bag, and a frizzied blonde wig. The blond man was bleeding from a cut over his left eye. The woman in the purple dress kept trying to pull away from him, but he held tightly to her wrist. It was a hot and humid night. The woman was sweating through her clingy purple dress. Big blotchy stains around the armpits. More stains between her abundant breasts. The police officer recorded the temperature as ninety-six degrees Fahrenheit, perhaps in corroboration of the woman’s appearance.

At first, the blond man — who identified himself as Jonathan Parrish, the person who’d placed the call to the police — claimed only that the sultry, sweating woman in the purple dress had stolen his wallet. He told the police officer that he’d been “chatting her up at the bar” (Parrish’s words) when the topic of conversation suddenly turned to sex. The woman in the purple dress told him she was a working girl who got a hundred bucks a throw, and Parrish took out his wallet and put it on the bar, and the next thing he knew the woman excused herself to go to the “loo” (Parrish’s word again) and lo and behold, his wallet was gone. When she came back to the bar stool some five minutes later, he accused her of the theft. When she denied any knowledge of the missing wallet, Parrish immediately called the police. He now wanted the responding cop to search both the woman and the restroom, because if the wallet wasn’t in her handbag or else tucked in her bra or her panties, then it was surely inside the toilet tank someplace.