Howard Engel - Getting Away With Murder

I walked back to the office. The first stage of the case was over. I would get a call from Wise, or from Mickey, telling me that there was a cheque coming of these days: payment to date for services described in the report, or maybe offering to let me live untroubled for a few years in lieu of payment. This was reaction time. Time for Wise to read and think of what to do next. Time for me to tidy my desk, remove the hair and fuzz from the mass of paper-clips, get my ring fixed, try to think of what I was going to do next to earn the second instalment of Abe Wise’s bounty. I thought of the coming weekend with Anna listening to paper after paper up at Secord at a conference. I thought of Hart and Julie, or Mickey and Vicky, Paulette and Lily, of Neustadt and Mary Tatarski. It was a rich cast, but they weren’t up to anything very interesting. Well, Neustadt had entered upon eternity and someone had seen to it that it looked like an accident. Staziak was going to phone me one of these days and tell me that person or persons unknown had turned the valve on the jack that was supporting Neustadt’s Buick. That made it murder. A murder, he’ll tell me without clues or witnesses, a murder without a future as far as he was concerned.

But what kind of murder was it? A murder that is committed without a weapon? Was it premeditated? How could it be? The victim was lying under his car, not in conflict with his killer. The killer could have come and seized the opportunity. This was a strange killing from any way you looked at it. I tried to imagine the picture. The killer came up the driveway where Neustadt was under his car with his tools around him. It was a quiet spot, a neighbourhood of houses. If the season had been summer, it could have been a set for “Leave It to Beaver.” The old man and his car. Small-town values. Do it yourself.

Neustadt didn’t talk to his killer, or if he did, he did it from under the car. If he sensed any danger, he would have run himself out on the creeper board he was lying on. It had casters in my picture and it would only have taken a moment to get out from under. No, this seemed to be a crime without conversation. The killer came up the walk, turned the valve and walked away without attracting any attention from the house or along the street.

And how did the murderer know about Neustadt’s practice of servicing his own car? Did he know that he changed his own oil? Must have. The major said he was a man of established habits. Then, it becomes clear, unless I’ve lost my way in this thing, the murder of Ed Neustadt was a well-plotted and well-researched act. The murderer knew where Neustadt lived, and that he would be under his car changing his oil on the first Sunday in March. He also knew that his jack was hydraulic.

And who was this murderer? One of the many people he sent away to Kingston for a nice long term? Somebody who felt that Neustadt’s zeal as a law officer was exaggerated? Someone with a long-standing grudge? This was not your usual murderer. Such a crime might have been hanging in the air for a long time waiting for all of the circumstances to be right. He had to be alone. There could not be any witnesses. It had to be the day of the oil change. Neustadt was a man of regular habits. Even on that chilly Sunday.

When the phone interrupted my reverie it was Whitey York, the lawyer who had been dunning Hart Wise. “Mr. Cooperman, I said I would be in touch with you.”

“That was a few days ago. But thanks for remembering. What’s the verdict?”

“I have talked to my client and he has decided not to deal. We intend to carry the matter through normal procedures and let the courts decide.”

“You’re really going to stick it to him?”

“That calls for interpretation, Mr. Cooperman. I just called to let you know.”

“Damn! When did you last speak with your client?”

“Early last evening. We discussed it thoroughly. I-”

“You haven’t talked to him today?”

“I left a message at his office just after nine-thirty, but-”

That’s where I hung up the phone and left the office in a hurry. In less than ten minutes I was parked down the street from Brighton Motors on Niagara Street. Inside, the salesmen, who were flying a paper airplane, told me that Gordon Shaw hadn’t been in since early morning. He had had a call and then left the office abruptly without leaving word where he might be reached.

Standing outside, I tried to imagine where he had gone. For him to have taken on Abe Wise in this direct way was foolish beyond belief. It would have been like me telling him to shove his proposition to me last Monday up the nearest city councillor’s drainpipe.

Yesterday’s overnight snow was already fading away. In spite of the cold, the snow couldn’t manage under the bright sun. The cars in Shaw’s lot, at the back where the old jail used to be, were still covered, blanketed for the most part, in white, but patches had melted or slipped off, heavy with moisture. One of the cars had lost more snow than the others. It was a stunning red Alfa Romeo. I went over to have a look. Through a line of big zeros written on the windshield, slumped in the driver’s seat, I saw Gordon Sawchuck, who did business under the name Shaw. Without opening the door, I could tell that he was dead, an opinion supported by the handle of a knife I could see a few inches away from that dirty old school tie he liked to wear. In the snow by the passenger side, I stepped on a piece of dark metal in the shape of an Indian’s head. I moved away from the car to do some private dry retching.

As a good citizen normally, I would have let the salesmen in on what I had found in the lot out back, and then I would have telephoned 911 to inform the authorities. But I did neither one. I didn’t know how long I could keep my client’s name out of an investigation. Technically, I wasn’t being a good Boy Scout, but any investigation that didn’t trip over Abe Wise’s name in the first half-hour wasn’t going anywhere with or without me. I knew that I would tell Pete Staziak as soon as I ethically could, but there is an unwritten law about snitching on your employer. Even when he’s the biggest crook in the country. Especially when he has just received your invoice.

I got back to my car without walking by the show windows. To anyone keeping track of my movements, and who knows, it could happen, I must have looked as guilty as hell as I crossed and recrossed Niagara Street.

In the Olds, I began rehearsing a speech to be addressed to Abe Wise. It reviewed the circumstances of my coming to work for him and went on to ask how he hoped to get away first with the murder of Ed Neustadt and then with the stabbing of Gordon Shaw. He would deny it, of course, and I would … what? Resign? Hello, Cooperman! Resigning isn’t an option. Remember? “We’re not talking ‘ifs’ here,” he said that night.

So, what was I going to do? Sit tight? Keep on looking for people who wanted to see Abe’s blood on the floor? It seemed a little distant and abstract for me. I needed to talk to somebody. Where was Anna when I needed her? Off hobnobbing with her fellow historians for the whole damned weekend. This was leading nowhere. Cooperman, don’t whine! Gordon Shaw is dead, not you. You don’t even come into this. Not directly. You went to see Shaw earlier this week and again today. The post mortem examination will show that he was dead some time before your second visit to the showroom. Again I could see Shaw’s eyes. They already had the dead look. He could have been killed a short time after he left his office. A call comes in: “Will you show me that Alfa Romeo in your yard? Give me a personal demonstration?”

I parked the Olds behind the Murray Hotel and went in for a haircut. It wouldn’t hurt being seen downtown and nowhere near Niagara Street. There were two men waiting for Bill Hall’s chair. I picked up a magazine and waited.