Ed McBain - Three Blind Mice

Your junkie burglar went for the windows. All he knew was crack, man. Got to get the crack, man. Smash, grab, got to get the crack. Even if he knew how to pick a lock or loid a door, which he didn’t, he couldn’t waste time fooling around with such things. Easier to smash the window with a brick or a hammer, climb on in, take all the shiny stuff, and split to the crack house.

Your sophisticated burglar knew locks and alarms. There wasn’t a door he couldn’t open or an alarm he couldn’t circumvent. Break a window? No way. Everybody knew the sound of breaking glass. Guy asleep in his bed five miles away, snoring to beat the band, he hears breaking glass he jumps up in bed, knows right away something’s happening, reaches for the phone. You broke a window, it was like banging a pair of cymbals together, announcing to the world at large that a burglary was in progress. Your sophisticated burglar went in and out through doors . Warren had once read a book with that title. Doors. About a burglar. He forgot who wrote it.

Here at the Leeds farm, you didn’t have to be any kind of burglar to get in. A two-year-old kid still learning to walk could get into this house. Not a single one of the windows was locked. The front door and the two other doors on the entrance side of the house had Mickey Mouse locks on them, the kind with the little buttons you pushed in to lock them, what you usually saw on the inside of a bathroom door, worthless against forced entry. The sliding doors on the back of the house were equipped only with thumb locks fitted to their handles. You could open them from the outside with a screwdriver. Warren was looking for tool marks that would conclusively show forced entry, but he knew he wouldn’t find any. You didn’t need tools to get into this place. All you needed was determination. And not much of that, either.

He was trying a door he’d missed at the side of the house…

More damn doors.

… twisting the knob, unsurprised when the door opened without the slightest re—

“Help you?” the voice behind him said.

Warren turned.

He was looking at a very big, very good-looking white man in bib overalls and high-topped work shoes. Six feet two inches tall, he guessed. Two hundred and twenty pounds at least. Twenty-six, twenty-seven years old, in there. Bulging biceps showing where his short-sleeved blue denim shirt ended. Tattoo of a mermaid on his right forearm, all bare-breasted and scaly-bottomed. Shock of red hair hanging on his forehead. Glittering green eyes. A wide grin on his face. The grin was not friendly, but it was reasonable. It was saying a thief had been caught in the act. Maybe it was even saying a nigger had been caught in the act. Sometimes you couldn’t tell from grins alone, however reasonable they appeared. Not down here, anyway, where everyone was oh so friendly and polite.

“Mrs. Leeds knows I’m here,” Warren said at once.

“I’ll bet she does,” the man said.

“My name is Warren Chambers, I work for Matthew Hope, the lawyer who’s defending Mr. Leeds.”

The man kept looking at him, still grinning reasonably.

“Ask your boss,” Warren said.

“I will. Want to come along with me?”

The look added. Or I’ll break your arm .

Like two old buddies out for a short morning stroll, they ambled around to the back of the house together. Not half an hour earlier, Warren had talked to Jessica Leeds on the terrace here. She’d been having her morning coffee at a round glass-topped table overlooking the pool. Wearing a jungle-green nylon wrap, short nightgown under it. Barefooted. Legs crossed. She’d offered him a cup of coffee. He’d politely declined, saying he wanted to get to work right away. That was when he thought he’d be busy with tool marks. That was before he learned the house was a cracker box. Mrs. Leeds was no longer at the table. Even the breakfast things were gone.

“I spoke to her right here,” Warren said.

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m a private investigator,” Warren said. “Let me show you my license.”

“I’d sure like to see it,” the man said.

He watched Warren as he fished into his side pocket. His look said. You’d better not pull a knife or anything. All Warren pulled was a wallet. He opened it, found his plastic-encased ID card, and showed it to the guy in the overalls. The card, together with a class-A license to operate a private investigative agency in the state of Florida, had cost him a hundred bucks and was renewable each year at midnight on the thirtieth day of June. He had also posted a five-thousand-dollar bond for the privilege of being allowed to investigate and to gather information on a wide range of matters, public or private. The guy in the overalls seemed singularly unimpressed.

“Why were you going in the house?” he asked evenly.

A field nigger’s supposed to stay in the fields, his look said. Only a house nigger’s allowed to go in the house.

“I wasn’t going in the house,” Warren said. “I was trying the door. May I have that back, please?”

The guy in the overalls handed the card back.

“Why were you trying the door if you weren’t going in the house?” he asked reasonably. His reasonable grin was back, too. Warren was already figuring out his defense. With somebody this size, you went immediately for the balls.

“I’m checking for forced entry,” he said.

“Uh-huh.”

“We’re trying to find out if someone got in here on the night of the murders.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Look, get Mrs. Leeds, will you? She’ll straighten this out in a…”

“Oh, I’m sure she will. But I think maybe I ought to get the cops instead, don’t you?”

“Sure, do that,” Warren said, and sighed heavily.

“Ned?”

Her voice. Our Lady of Redemption. Calling from inside the house.

“What’s the trouble, Ned?”

“No trouble at all,” he called over his shoulder.

Ned. Perfect name for an asshole in bib overalls. What’s the trouble, Ned? No trouble at all. Just going to break this man’s arm, is all.

“Mrs. Leeds?” Warren called. “Can you please come out here a minute?”

Silence from within.

Had she forgotten the private investigator was here?

Had she mistaken him for someone here to cut back the palms? Do your trees, lady? Ten bucks a tree? Well, okay then, my second price is six-fifty.

“Just a moment,” she said.

They waited.

Ned grinning.

Warren looking out over the fields.

It did not take a moment, it took more like ten moments. When finally she appeared, she was wearing tailored jeans and an emerald-green T-shirt that echoed the color of her eyes. Green was the lady’s color, Warren guessed. He also figured that the reason she’d taken so long was that she’d been dressing. But she was still barefooted. And there was no bra under the thin cotton shirt.

“Did you need some help?” she asked him.

Paraphrasing what young Ned here had asked not ten minutes ago.

“Ned thinks I’m a burglar,” Warren said.

“Oh?”

She seemed amused.

Green eyes twinkling, smile forming on her lips.

“Saw him trying the side door,” Ned said.

“I knew he was here, Ned.”

“Well, just thought I’d make sure,” he said, and shrugged. “Strange man trying a door to the house.”

Strange black man was what he meant.

“This is Warren Chambers,” Jessica said. “Ned Weaver.”

“Delighted to meet you,” Warren said, but did not offer his hand. Neither did Weaver.

“Warren’s trying to find out if anyone broke into the house,” Jessica explained.

“Tell me, Mrs. Leeds,” Warren said, “do you ever lock any doors around here?”