Doug Allyn - v108 n03-04_1996-09-10

“With D’Amato’s knife in his heart,” I said. “Talk about your unexplained phenomena.”

There was a long silence. Bill frowned at Mark.

“That’s it?” he demanded. “What’s gonna happen?”

“Who knows? D’Amato won’t talk... it’s kind of perverse on his part, if you ask me... He’s so glad Tommy’s dead, and that his knife was the instrument, it’s like he doesn’t care now what happens... Though one of my sources in the department says that if charges are filed, D’Amato intends to plead innocent.”

“Which leaves us nowhere,” Bill said. “On the other hand, maybe they’ll charge the knife with murder — and get D’Amato as an accessory.” But no one was smiling.

Suddenly, a voice broke the silence.

“What does he look like?”

We all turned. It was Isaac, comfortably settled in the armchair, his cherubic face shining. Tell you the truth, I’d forgotten he was there.

“Look like?” Mark said, with some irritation. “Who? D’Amato?”

“No, no,” Isaac replied. “I mean George, that actor friend of Bill’s.”

“Oh yeah, the guy in the locker room,” I said.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Fred asked. He glanced warily at Mark, and then at me.

“Look, Uncle Isaac...” I must admit, I was somewhat embarrassed.

“I was just thinking,” Isaac went on, leaning back in his chair. “I mean, about that curious phenomenon of the locker room. I was wondering what George looked like...”

Bill shrugged. “Very handsome, in that hunky kind of way.”

“If you like that type,” Fred muttered.

“You see,” Isaac said, “this fellow George noticed that whatever locker he chose — even if each day he chose a different area of the locker room at random — another guy would show up, his stuff in the very next locker. In a sea of available lockers, the odds almost always favored this coincidence.”

“So?”

“So I just thought that coincidence — or even the collective unconscious, or a field of subatomic particles inclined to vibrate cooperatively — might be nudged along a little if George were a handsome man. Perhaps other men who might find him attractive would make it a point to pretend their locker was next to his.”

“But George said the guy would show up, open the locker next to his, and start taking his stuff out—”

“Or start putting it in, ” Isaac said, “in such a way that it looked as if he were taking it out. I did that once in high school — many, many years ago, as you can imagine — when I was attracted to this girl named Shirley. I opened the locker next to hers, claiming it was mine, and put a book in and took a book out, while we stood there talking. Of course, it was the same book. It’s really quite easy to do, especially if the locker door opens toward the girl, so her view is blocked as to the locker’s real contents.”

“Look, Isaac...” Mark tried to remain calm. “As interesting as that is, what we’ve been talking about is—”

Isaac sat forward, eyes crinkling. “Yes, I know. Very mysterious. Unexplained. Your classic locked-room murder... only in this case, it’s a closet.”

“Are you trying to say something, Uncle Isaac?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Just a question I have. I was wondering why Carla attacked Sergeant D’Amato.”

“She freaked out when she saw Tommy had been stabbed,” Mark answered. “She recognized the knife and wanted to kill him.”

“So I assume her fingerprints are on the knife.”

“Of course. From when she pulled it from Tommy’s body to attack D’Amato.”

“I’m afraid that’s where we disagree,” Isaac said, stroking his sideburn. “I think she grabbed the knife and attacked D’Amato in front of all of you to disguise the fact that her prints were already on the knife — from having stabbed Tommy.”

“What?!”

“But how? When?”

“When Tommy conveniently fell out of the closet, into her arms.”

“But D’Amato’s knife killed Tommy.”

“I know. She was holding it in her hand at the time.”

We were all talking at once. Isaac waved us down. “Look, what do I know? I wasn’t even there. Mark was.”

“That’s right,” he said. “And she couldn’t have planned it. I saw Tommy’s body fall out of the closet—”

“Did I say she planned it? Look...” Isaac ticked his thoughts off on stubby fingers. “Here’s a tough girl, angry at Tommy for cheating on her. D’Amato sweats her till she tells him where Tommy is. She’s probably feeling very mixed emotions — hurt, rage, a desire for revenge, guilt... But she’s a realist, too. What does she think Tommy’s going to do when he finds out she led D’Amato to the hideout?”

“So now you’re saying the murder was planned?”

“No,” he replied calmly. “I’m saying that the opportunity presented itself. I’m suggesting that when Tommy fell out of his hiding place, into her arms, in that darkened room, it would only take a moment’s thought for her to conceive of stabbing him... right there and then...”

“I get it,” Bill said excitedly. “Then screaming as his body hits the floor, as though in shock—”

Isaac shrugged. “Maybe in real shock... in horror at what she’d done... Who knows? But she kept her wits enough to know her fingerprints would be on the murder weapon.”

“So she pulled the knife from his chest and attacked D’Amato... thus creating the impression it was at that moment she first touched the knife...”

“Like George in the locker room, only in reverse,” said Isaac. “Pulling out the knife disguised the fact that she’d been the one who put it in.” Isaac folded his hands on his ample stomach.

“But how did she get the knife in the first place?” Mark asked.

“You said yourself, she ran from D’Amato’s car and joined the rest of you, clambering up the stairwell. In all that confusion, a girl with Carla’s street background and criminal record could certainly lift the knife from D’Amato’s belt.” He closed his eyes reflectively. “After all, she needed some kind of weapon — some way to defend herself in case things got nasty up there. Remember, she was playing a very dangerous game... both sides against the middle.” He smiled. “Moreover, she is a thief. Thieves do take things.”

Bill scratched his chin. “You might be onto something, Isaac. But there’s still one thing I don’t understand. How come Tommy fell out of his hidden closet? — He did fall, right, Mark?”

“Hell, yeah... kinda crumpled, pushing the door open as he fell. But if Isaac is right, he hadn’t even been stabbed yet...”

“So what happened to him?” Fred asked.

Isaac looked at Mark. “You said Tommy’d had the closet built for just such an emergency — small, flush with the wall, airtight seal... Tommy’s man said he’d seen him get in the closet at the first sign of trouble... and that the door never opened till Tommy fell out. That’s about ten minutes, right, Mark?”

“More like fifteen.”

“Well, fifteen minutes in a small, airtight compartment... I think Tommy merely passed out from lack of air, fell forward—”

“Pushing the door open as he fell,” I said excitedly. “Right into Carla’s arms...”

There was a long pause. Finally, Mark turned from Isaac to the rest of us. “Well, that makes as much sense as anything else.”

“Pardon me,” Isaac said. “But it makes more sense than anything else.”

Fred chuckled drily. “I think he’s got us there.”

Mark was on his feet, heading for the wall phone. “I’m gonna run all this past Vince... If he presses Carla hard enough, she might come clean.”