Ed McBain - The Last Brief

‘In the Bronx? How come?’

‘Well... oh, you’ll think this is silly.’

‘Let’s hear it, ma’m.’

‘Well, a Long Island plate is so much more impressive. I mean... well, we plan on moving there soon, anyway.’

‘And you went all the way to Nassau to get a plate?’

‘Yes.’

Andy coughed politely. ‘Well, maybe that’ll make it easier.’

‘Do you think you’ll find the car?’

‘We certainly hope so, ma’m.’

We found the car that afternoon. It was parked on a side street in Brooklyn. It was in perfect condition, no damage to the front end, no blood anywhere on the grille or bumper. The lab checked the tires against the skid marks. Negative. This, coupled with the fact that the murder car would undoubtedly have sustained damages after such a violent smash, told us we’d drawn a blank. We returned the car to the owner. She was very happy.

By the end of the week, we’d recovered all but one of the stolen cars. None of them checked with what we had. The only missing car was the Cadillac. It had been swiped from a parking lot in Queens, with the thief presenting the attendant with a ticket for the car. The M.O. sounded professional, whereas the car kill looked like a fool stunt. When another Caddy was stolen from a lot in Jamaica, with the thief using the same modus operandi, we figured it for a ring, and left it to the Automobile Squad.

In the meantime, we’d begun checking all auto body and fender repair shops in the city. We had just about ruled out a stolen car by this time, and if the car was privately owned, the person who’d run down Benson would undoubtedly try to have the damage to his car repaired.

The lab had reported finding glass slivers from a sealbeam imbedded in Benson’s shirt, together with chips of black paint. From the position of the skid marks, they estimated that he’d been hit by the right side of the car, and they figured the broken light would be on that side, together with the heaviest damage to the grille.

Because Andy still clung to the theory that the driver had been involved in something fishy just before he hit Benson, we checked with the local precinct squads for any possibly related robberies or burglaries, and we also checked with the Safe, Loft and Truck Squad. There’d been a grocery store holdup in the neighbourhood vicinity on the day of the hit and run, but the thief had already been apprehended, and he was driving an old Ford. Both headlights were intact, and any damage to the grille had been sustained years ago.

We continued to check on repair shops.

When the Complaint Report came in, we leaped on it at once. We glossed over the usual garbage in the heading, and skipped down to the DETAILS:

Telephone message from one Mrs. James Dailey, owner and resident of private dwelling at 2389 Barnes Avenue. Dispatched Radio Motor Patrol № 761. Mrs. Dailey returned from two-week vacation to find picket fence around house smashed in on Northwest corner. Tyre marks in bed of irises in front yard indicate heavy automobile or light truck responsible for damage. Black paint discovered on damaged pickets. Good tyre marks in wet mud of iris bed, casts made. Tyre size 7.69-15-4-ply. Estimated weight 28 pounds. Further investigation of tread marks disclosed tyre to be Sears, Roebuck and Company, registered trademark Allstate Tires. Catalogue number 95K01227K. Case still active pending receipt of reports and further investigation.

‘You can damn well bet it’s still active,’ Andy said. ‘This may be it, Mike.’

‘Maybe,’ I said.

It wasn’t. The tyre was a very popular seller, and the mail order house sold thousands of them every year, both through the mails and over the counter. It was impossible to check over-the-counter sales, and a check of mail-order receipts revealed that no purchases had been made within a two-mile radius of the hit and run. We extended the radius, checked on all the purchasers, and found no suspicious-looking automobiles, although all of the cars were big ones. There was one black car in the batch — and there wasn’t a scratch on it.

But Mrs. Dalley’s house was about ten blocks from the scene of the killing, and that was too close for coincidence. We checked out a car and drove over.

She was a woman in her late thirties, and she greeted us at the door in a loose housecoat, her hair up in curlers.

‘Police officers,’ I said.

Her hand went to her hair, and she said. ‘Oh, my goodness.’ She fretted a little more about her appearance, belted the housecoat tighter around her waist, and then said, ‘Come in, come in.’

We questioned her a little about the fence and the iris bed, got substantially what was in the Complaint Report, and then went out to look at the damage. She stayed in the house, and when she joined us later, she was wearing tight black slacks and a chartreuse sweater. She’d also tied a scarf around her hair, hiding the curlers.

The house was situated on a corner, with a side street intersecting Barnes Avenue, and then a gravel road cutting into another intersection. The tyre marks seemed to indicate the car had come down the gravel road, and then backed up the side street, knocking over the picket fence when it did. It all pointed to a drunken driver.

‘How does it look?’ she asked.

‘We’re working on it,’ Andy said. ‘Any of your neighbors witness this?’

‘No. I asked around. No one saw the car. They heard the crash, came out and saw the damaged fence, but the car had gone already.’

‘Was anything missing from your house or yard?’

‘No. It was locked up tight. We were on vacation, you know.’

‘What kind of a car does your husband drive, ma’m?’

‘An Olds. Why?’

‘Just wondering.’

‘Let’s amble up the street, Mike,’ Andy said. ‘Thank you very much, ma’m.’

We got into the car, and Mrs. Dailey watched us go, striking a pretty pose in the doorway of her house. I looked back and saw her wave at one of her neighbours, and then she went inside.

‘Where to?’ I asked Andy.

‘There’s a service station at the end of that gravel road, on the intersection. If the car came up that road, maybe he stopped at the station for gas. We’ve got nothing to lose.’

We had nothing to gain, either. They gassed up a hundred big black cars every day. They didn’t remember anything that looked out of line. We thanked them, and stopped at the nearest diner for some coffee. The coffee was hot, but the case sure as hell wasn’t.

It griped us. It really griped us.

Some son of a bitch had a black car stashed away in his garage. The car had a damaged front end, and it may still have had blood stains on it. If he’d been a drunken driver, he’d sure as hell sobered up fast enough — and long enough to realize he had to keep that car out of sight. We mulled it over, and we squatted on it, and we were going over all the angles again when the phone rang.

I picked it up. ‘Jonas here.’

‘Mike, this is Charlie on the desk. I was going to turn this over to Complaint, but I thought you might like to sit in on it.’

‘Tie in with the Benson kill?’

‘Maybe.’

‘I’ll be right down.’ I hung up quickly. ‘Come on, Andy.’

We went downstairs to the desk, and Charlie introduced us to a Mr. George Sullivan and his daughter Grace, a young kid of about sixteen. We took them into an empty office, leaving Charlie at the desk.

‘What is it, Mr. Sullivan?’ I asked.

‘I want better protection,’ he said.

‘Of what, sir?’

‘My child. Grace here. All the kids at the high school, in fact.’

‘What happened, sir?’

‘You tell him, Grace.’

The kid was a pretty blonde, fresh and clean-looking in a sweater and skirt. She wet her lips and said, ‘Daddy, can’t...’