Ed McBain: Poison

Poison

Ed McBain

Published 1987. ISBN 0-241-11970-7

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

"This is some mess in here," Monoghan said.

"This is some stink in here," Monroe said.

The two Homicide detectives peered cautiously at the dead body on the carpet, and then circled around Hal Willis, who was also looking down at the corpse, hands on his hips. It was pretty easy to maneuver around Willis, as small as he was. Monoghan and Monroe, built like mastodons themselves, were both thinking they would not like to be partnered with any detective as small as Willis, a thin, wiry squirt who barely would have passed the five-foot-eight height requirement back in the old days, although nowadays you could be the size of a fire hydrant and you couldn't be discriminated against because of fair-hiring practices. You got some cops in this city, you could fit them in your vest pocket.

Monoghan and Monroe were both wearing dark suits with vests. They were wearing dark overcoats and dark fedoras. Their faces were ruddy from the bitter March cold outside. They were both holding handkerchiefs to their noses because of the stench of vomit and fecal matter in the apartment. It was difficult to take a step in here without putting your foot in a pile of vomit or shit. It was difficult to keep from vomiting yourself, in fact. Monoghan and Monroe hated sloppy cases. They preferred good old-fashioned stabbings or shootings. The place also stank of stale cigar smoke. There were butts in all the ashtrays, the victim must've smoked like a chimney.

The victim was lying alongside the bed, on his back, in his own vomit and shit. He was wearing only undershorts. The phone receiver was off the hook. Probably been trying to call somebody when he cashed in, Monroe figured. Either that, or he knocked the receiver off the hook when he collapsed. His blue eyes were wide open, the pupils dilated. His face was extremely pale. The assistant medical examiner was kneeling over him, feeling his hands for body warmth. He didn't seem any happier than anyone else in the room. Maybe even more unhappy in that he was closest to the body and its various excreted and regurgitated fluids. Two techs from the Photo Unit were busy taking their Po-laroids of the crime scene. Monoghan and Monroe, like a couple of softshoe dancers, took several steps backward, away from the corpse. They still had the handkerchiefs to their noses.

"Last time I saw something like this," Monoghan said, "this mess here, we had an old lady fell in the bathtub, starved to death there in the bathtub. There was shit all over the bathtub, the 911 boys had to scoop her out with a shovel."

"That was a disgusting case," Monroe said.

The assistant M.E. said nothing. He was thinking this one was pretty disgusting, too. He was wondering why he hadn't stayed in private practice out on Sands Spit. Frank O'Neill, M.D. He could still see the shingle in his mind, the neat white clapboard building behind it. Instead, this. Early Monday morning and a dead man lying in his own filth.

"So what do you think?" Willis asked.

"Poisoning?" O'Neill said, shrugging.

"Or maybe a heart attack," Monroe said.

"They drag us out the crack of dawn, some guy had a heart attack," Monoghan said.

"No, it wasn't a heart attack," O'Neill said.

It wasn't the crack of dawn, either. It was 9:20 A.M. by the victim's bedside clock. This was the first squeal Willis and Carella had caught today, an excellent way to start the week. Carella hadn't said much since he'd got here with Willis. The victim's cleaning lady had called the police when she came into the apartment to find her employer lying beside the bed in his own mess. The responding blues had phoned back to the Eight-Seven with a corpse. Carella and Willis had informed Homicide because at first glance and smell it didn't look like death from natural causes. In this city, homicides and suicides were investigated in exactly the same manner, and the appearance of Homicide detectives at the scene was mandatory, even though the case officially belonged to the precinct detectives. Carella still wasn't saying anything.

He was a tall man with dark hair and brown eyes slanted slightly downward, giving his face a somewhat Oriental cast. Monroe guessed Carella had played high school baseball; he looked like a ballplayer, moved like one, too. Monroe liked him somewhat better—but not much—than most of the cops at the Eight-Seven. The bulls up here took things too serious. Carella had a very serious look on his face now, an almost pained expression, as he stared down at the dead man on the carpet.

"So what do we say under cause?" Monoghan asked. "Poisoning?"

"Cause unknown," O'Neill said. "Until we do the autopsy."

"Cause is throwing up and shitting his pants," Monroe said, laughing.

"Cause is lack of toilet training," Monoghan said, laughing with him.

"Any idea when he died?" Willis asked.

"Not until autopsy," O'Neill said, and snapped his satchel shut. "Enjoy yourselves, lads," he said pleasantly, and started out of the room.

The black woman who'd discovered the body was clearly frightened. She had never had trouble with the police in her entire life, and she believed she had plenty of trouble now. None of it her doing, neither. She sat in a chair across the room watching the huddle of law enforcement officers around the body. Flashbulbs were popping everywhere. People with all kinds of equipment were going all over the room doing things. As the doctor—she guessed he was a doctor, he had a satchel—went out of the room, somebody said, "You through here?" and he nodded and waved his hand in dismissal. Somebody else began sprinkling some kind of powder around the body, outlining it.

"Try not to step in the shit," Monoghan said. "It may be evidence."

It was, in fact, evidence. The techs would be scooping it up, together with the vomit, for delivery to the lab on High Street. It was a messy case all around.

"You don't need us anymore, we'll be breezing along," Monroe said.

"You could maybe open some windows when the techs get through dusting," Monoghan offered.

Both men shrugged, put away their handkerchiefs and started for the door, passing a pair of 911 cops who came in with a stretcher, a rubber sheet, and a body bag.

"You got your work cut out for you," Monoghan said, and walked out.

They were through interrogating the cleaning lady in five minutes flat, convinced that her role in this was entirely innocent and in fact praiseworthy; she had discovered a dead body and had immediately called the police. During the course of the interview, she had identified her employer as Jerome McKennon; now as the tech boys went around the room dusting for latent fingerprints, vacuuming for hairs and fibers, collecting the noisome body fluids on the rug, Willis and Carella began seaching for evidence to corroborate the identification.

On the dresser opposite the bed, they found a wallet, a key ring, a comb and a handful of change. The wallet contained two fifty-dollar bills, a twenty, a five, and three singles. It also contained several credit cards and a driver's license which indeed identified the dead man as Jerome Edward McKennon. They searched the pockets of all the clothing hanging in the closet and found only a small penknife in the righthand pocket of one of the sports jacke'ts. They searched all the dresser drawers. There were no empty medicine bottles anywhere in the bedroom.

In the several drawers of a desk in a small study off the master bedroom, they found checkbooks imprinted with the name JEROME EDWARD McKENNON and the address here on Silvermine Oval, plus stationery with the name, address and telephone number. There seemed no doubt that the man who'd been carried out of the apartment in a body bag was Jerome Edward McKennon. They also found, in the top drawer of the desk, a personal telephone directory which they leafed through cursorily and then pocketed for further study back at the precinct.