Ed McBain - Goldilocks

“I haven’t yet been able to reach the bartender who was on duty last night, but I spoke to the owners this morning, nice couple, they told me the bar was relatively quiet last night, maybe a half-dozen people in there around the time Dr. Purchase says he was there. So chances are if I go around with a picture of him, or even run a lineup for the bartender or the fellow they’ve got entertaining there, one or the other’ll recognize him if he was really there. Meanwhile, I’m wondering why he lied to me. I guess you asked him did he have anything to do with those murders?”

“I asked him.”

“And I’m assuming he told you the same thing he told me, that he didn’t commit those murders.”

“That’s what he told me.”

“That’s what the wife said, too, the former wife. I went to see her this morning, she claims she was home all night last night. Only trouble is, none of the neighbors are able to say for sure whether she was or not. Oh yes, she can reel off all the television shows she watched, but anybody could’ve got those from the TV Guide . I’m telling you all this, Mr. Hope, because I don’t know what’s going on with the boy saying right off he did it. I’ll be questioning him in just a little bit now, soon as his father’s done in there, but in the meantime it looks like I’ve got a man who was maybe lying about where he actually was at the time of the murders, and a woman who says she was home when for all I know she was maybe—”

“You little son of a bitch.”

The voice was Jamie’s, the words came from behind the closed door to the captain’s office. A pained look came onto Ehrenberg’s face as he turned and began walking heavily toward the door, as though Jamie’s outburst was not entirely unexpected, but was nonetheless an additional problem that had to be dealt with. As he approached the door, Jamie shouted, “I’ll kill you!” and Ehrenberg responded to the threat instinctively and immediately. He seemed almost about to thrust his massive shoulder against the door in imitation of movie cops breaking into a suspect’s apartment. He grabbed the knob and did indeed use his shoulder, but only as a forceless battering ram, opening the door and throwing it wide, and then releasing the knob and rushing into the room, directly to where Jamie and Michael were struggling in front of the captain’s desk.

Jamie’s hands were on his son’s throat. His face was ashen, his mouth skinned back over his teeth, his eyes red with rage. Michael danced a jig at the ends of his father’s arms, stepping again and again onto the photographs of the black girl that had earlier been on the captain’s desk and were now strewn on the floor. His face was flushed, he was choking under the tightening pressure of his father’s fingers. Ehrenberg clamped his left hand onto Jamie’s shoulder and spun him back and away from his son. I thought for certain he was going to smash his fist into Jamie’s face. It seemed the logical one-two action, spin the man around with your left hand, hit him with your right. But instead of hitting him, Ehrenberg reached out with his right hand to grab hold of the lapels of Jamie’s leisure suit, his fist twisting into the material. Effortlessly, he pushed him back against the paneled wall. Very calmly he said, “Now let’s just relax, doctor.”

“I’ll kill him,” Jamie said.

“No, you’re not going to kill anybody,” Ehrenberg said.

“ Kill the bastard,” Jamie said.

Across the room, Michael was still gasping for breath. “You okay?” Ehrenberg asked, and Michael nodded. “Then I’d like to talk to you now, if that’s all right with you.”

“Yes,” Michael said. “Okay.”

“You monster ,” his father said.

The interview room was a five-by-eight rectangle with a small table and three armless chairs in it. There was a mirror, on the wall facing Michael. I suspected it was a two-way mirror, and asked Ehrenberg if it was. He readily admitted that it was, and then assured me that no photographs were being taken and that none would be taken until Michael was officially charged with a crime. He said this while fiddling with the tape recorder he’d carried from the squad room into the interview room. I knew that “interview” was a euphemism for “interrogation,” but I made no comment. I was fully cognizant of the fact that Michael Purchase was determined to make a statement to the police, and that if I said anything or did anything to annoy him he would simply ask me to leave. Moreover, I was thoroughly convinced that Ehrenberg had done nothing to jeopardize Michael’s constitutional rights, nor would he do so at any time during the interview, or interrogation, or whatever he chose to call it. I had the feeling he preferred the word “interview.” I had the feeling that everything about police work, and especially about this case, troubled him. I visualized him as an antiques dealer in some New England town. I visualized him as a man running a nursery someplace, selling potted hyacinths or gloxinias. The room was air-conditioned, but Ehrenberg was perspiring as he spoke a few test words into the recorder, played them back, and reset the machine for taping.

Into the microphone he said, “This will be a recording of the questions put to Michael Purchase and of his responses thereto made this first day of March at...” He looked at his watch. “...twelve twenty-seven P.M. in the Public Safety Building of the Calusa Police Department, Calusa, Florida. Questioning Mr. Purchase was Detective George Ehrenberg of the Calusa Police Department. Also present was Mr. Matthew Hope of the law firm of Summerville & Hope, Carey Avenue, Calusa, attorney for Mr. Purchase.”

He hesitated, looked briefly at Michael and me, as if to make certain he’d mentioned all the people sitting at the table, and then said, “I know you’ve previously been informed of your rights, Mr. Purchase, but I’d like to go over them again, for the record. In keeping with the Supreme Court decision in Miranda vs. Arizona , we are not permitted to ask you any questions until you are warned of your right to counsel and your privilege against self-incrimination. So first, you have the right to remain silent. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, I do,” Michael said.

He went through the rest of the obligatory recitation, making certain that Michael understood all of his rights, ascertaining that Michael was willing to have me present as his attorney, and then asking him his full name, soliciting from Michael the information that he was living at present on a boat called The Broadhorn , which was docked at Pirate’s Cove, and that a girl named Lisa Schellmann—

“Would you spell that, please?” Ehrenberg said.

“S-C-H-E-L–L-M-A-N-N.”

— was living with him, had been living with him for the past two months, in fact. He asked Michael how old he was, asked if Dr. James Purchase was his father, asked if Maureen was his stepmother and Emily and Eve his half sisters, and then took a deep breath and said, “Will you tell me, please, as best you can recall, what took place on the night of February twenty-ninth, that would have been last night, Sunday the twenty-ninth of February.”

“Where do you want me to begin?” Michael asked.

“Were you in the vicinity of Jacaranda Drive on Sabal Shores at any time last night?”

“I was, sir, yes, sir.”

“Where on Jacaranda?”

“At my father’s house.”

“At the home of Dr. James Purchase?”

“Yes, sir, my father.”

“Why did you go there?”

“To see him.”

“To see your father? Could you speak up, please? And into the mike, please.”

“Yes, sir, I’m sorry.”