Эд Макбейн: Lady, Lady, I Did It!

“That’s the last one,” Meyer said. “One of them was still alive when they got here. Don’t know how long he’ll be that way. The ME thinks his spine was shattered.”

“How many altogether?” Byrnes asked.

“Four. Three dead.”

“Was... was Kling’s girl...?”

“Yeah. Dead when they got here.”

Byrnes nodded briefly. Before he went into the bookstore, he said, “Tell O’Brien he’s supposed to be in that barbershop. Tell the others to go home; we’ll call them if we need them. Whose squeal is this, Meyer?”

“It came in about a half hour before relief. You want us to stay on it?”

“Who relieved?”

“Di Maeo, Brown, and Willis.”

“Where’s Di Maeo?”

“Back at the squad, catching.”

“Tell Willis and Brown to stick around. Did you have anything important for tonight?”

“No. I’d like to call Sarah, though.”

“Can you stay around for a while?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks,” Byrnes said, and he went into the shop.

The bodies were gone. Only their chalked outlines remained on the floor and on the bookstalls. Two men from the police laboratory were dusting the shop for latent prints. Byrnes looked around for Carella and then thought of something. He went quickly to the door of the shop.

“Willis!” he said.

Hal Willis moved away from the men on the sidewalk. He was a small man, barely clearing the five-foot-eight height requirement for policemen. He walked with graceful precision, a smallboned man who had devoted half his life to the study and practice of judo, a man constantly aware of weight and balance, an awareness that showed in every move he made. He came up alongside the lieutenant and said, “Yeah, Pete?”

“I want you to get over to the hospital. Take Brown with you. See if you can get anything from that man who’s still alive.”

“Right, Pete.”

“He’s in a bad way,” Byrnes said. “A dying declaration is admissible in court — remember that.”

“Yeah,” Willis said. “Which hospital?”

“Meyer knows. Ask him.”

“Anything else?”

“Not for now. If they won’t let you see him, raise a stink. Call me at the squad if you get anything. I’ll be there.”

“Right.”

Byrnes went into the shop again. Steve Carella was sitting on a high stool in one corner of the shop. His hands, clasped together, were dangling between his knees. He was staring at the floor when Byrnes approached him.

“Steve?”

He nodded.

“You all right?”

He nodded again.

“Come on.”

“What?”

“Come on; snap out of it.”

Carella raised his head. His eyes were dead. He looked straight at Byrnes, and straight through him.

“This is a lousy rotten job,” he said.

“All right, it’s—”

Martin Fennerman is owner and operator of The Browser, a bookstore located at address above. Home address 375 Harris Street in Riverhead. Fennerman is forty-seven years old, divorced; two children living with remarried wife, Olga (Mrs. Ira) Trent in Bethtown. Fennerman has owned and operated bookshop at above location for twelve years. Store was held up in 1954, thief apprehended, see D.D. Report #41 F-38, sentenced Castleview, released good behavior January, 1956, returned to home in Denver, respectably employed there.

Mr. Fennerman states as follows:

The shop is open every day but Sunday. He comes to work at nine in the morning, closes at six except on Saturday when he stays open until eight P.M. Except for the holdup in 1954, he has never had any trouble at this location, even though neighborhood is not ideal for bookshop. There were seven people in the shop this evening when the killer entered. Mr. Fennerman keeps count of the people as they come in. He sits behind a high counter just inside the entrance doorway, checks out purchases as customers leave. There is a cash register on the counter, paper bags for wrapping purchases under the counter. Fennerman’s system of keeping count was designed to avoid petty theft, he says. In any case, there were seven people in the store when the killer came in. Fennerman says this was at five-ten P.M. One of stray bullets shattered clock on rear wall of shop, stopping it at five-seven P.M. According to Fennerman, the killer began shooting the moment he entered the shop, so E.T.A. would be five-five or five-six.

The man was tall, perhaps six feet, perhaps more. He was wearing a tweed overcoat, a gray fedora, sunglasses, black gloves. Fennerman especially remembers the black gloves. He thinks the overcoat may have been blue, but he is not certain. The killer came into the store with his hands in his pockets, stopped just beyond the cash register, pulled his hands from his pockets, and began firing. He carried two guns. He kept shooting into the aisle of the shop until both guns were empty, Fennerman says, and then turned and ran out. He said nothing to Fennerman and nothing to any of the patrons. The four people he shot were standing in the aisle running back from the cash register. The other three people in the store were in the other aisle, to the left of the entrance. Fennerman says none of them even knew what was happening until it was all over. One of the women fainted as the killer ran out. Names and disposition of the seven people in the store at time of killing follow, exclusive of Fennerman.

Claire Townsend   D.O.A.

Anthony La Scala   D.O.A.

Herbert Land    D.O.A.

Joseph Wechsler   Hospitalized — Neck Wound

Myra Klein      Hospitalized — Shock

Barbara Deering   Returned to residence

James Woody    Returned to residence

“I don’t want it, I don’t want it,” Carella said, his voice rising. “I want to go home and touch my kids and not have blood on my hands.”

“All right—”

“I don’t want the stink of it!” Carella shouted.

“Nobody does! Snap out of it!”

“Snap out of what? Of seeing that poor damn girl laying twisted and broken and bleeding on the floor? Of Bert holding her in his arms, covered with blood, and rocking her, rocking her... Jesus Christ!”

“Nobody asked you to be a cop,” Byrnes said.

“You’re goddamn right, nobody asked me! Okay. Okay! Nobody asked.” His eyes had filled with tears. He sat on the high stool with his hands clasped tightly together, as if he were clinging to his sanity with them. “Bert kept... kept saying her name over and over again, rocking her. And I touched her arm and tried to... to let him know I was there. Just there, do you know? And he turned to me, but he didn’t know who I was. He just turned to me and asked, ‘Claire?’ As if he was asking me to deny it, to tell him that this... this dead person he held in his arms wasn’t his girl, do you know, Pete? Pete, do you know?” He began sobbing. “Oh, that son of a bitch, that rotten son of a bitch.”

“Come on,” Byrnes said.

“Leave me alone.”

“Come on, Steve, I need you,” Byrnes said.

Carella was silent.

“I can’t use you this way,” Byrnes said.

Carella sighed deeply. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. He put the handkerchief back into his pocket, his eyes avoiding Byrnes’s, and he nodded and got off the stool, and then he sighed again.

“How... how’s Bert?” he asked.

“Meyer sent him home.”