Ed McBain - Ten Plus One

“What’s that, Miss Moriarty?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh.” Carella paused. “Nothing at all?”

“Well, next to nothing, anyway. I couldn’t find the slightest bit of information on the two girls. I had home addresses for both of them here in the city, but that was twenty-three years ago, Mr. Carella, and when I called the numbers, the people who answered had never heard of Margaret Buff or Helen Struthers.”

“That’s understandable,” Carella said.

“Yes,” Miss Moriarty answered. “Then I called Mrs. Finch, who heads our alumni association, and asked her if she had any information on them. Apparently they had both come back to the college for the five-year reunion, but neither was married at the time, and they dropped out of the association shortly thereafter.” Miss Moriarty paused. “Reunions can be very frightening things, you know.”

“Did she know whether or not they’re married now?”

“She had not heard from either of them since that reunion.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” Carella said.

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“What about the man? Peter Kelby.”

“Again, I went over his records with a fine-tooth comb, and I called the phone number he had listed, and I spoke to a very irate man who told me he worked nights and didn’t like being awakened by a maiden lady in the middle of the day. I asked him if he was Peter Kelby, and he said he was Irving Dreyfus, if that means anything to you.”

“Nothing at all.”

“He said he had never heard of Peter Kelby, which didn’t surprise me in the least.”

“What did you do then?”

“I called Mrs. Finch. Mrs. Finch went through the records, and called back to tell me that apparently Peter Kelby had never graduated from Ramsey and therefore she could find nothing on him as an alumnus. I thanked her very much, and hung up, and then went back to my own records again. Mrs. Finch was right, and I chastised myself for having missed the fact that Peter Kelby dropped out of school in his junior year.”

“So you got nothing on him either, is that it?”

“Well, I’m a very persevering woman, Mr. Carella. For a maiden lady, that is. I discovered that Peter Kelby had been a member of a fraternity called Kappa Kappa Delta, and I called the local chapter and asked them whether or not they knew anything about his current whereabouts, and they referred me to the national chapter, and I called them, and the last known address they had for Peter Kelby was one he registered with them in 1957.”

“Where?”

“Minneapolis, Minnesota.”

“Did you try to reach him there?”

“I’m afraid the school authorities would have frowned upon a long-distance call, Mr. Carella. But I do have the address, and I will give it to you if you promise me one thing.”

“What’s that, Miss Moriarty?”

“I want you to promise that if I ever get a speeding ticket, you’ll fix it for me.”

“Why, Miss Moriarty!” Carella said. “Don’t tell me you’re a speeder!”

“Would I admit something like that to a cop?” Miss Moriarty asked. “I’m waiting for you to promise.”

“What makes you think I can fix a ticket?”

“I have heard it bruited about that one can fix anything but narcotics or homicide in this city.”

“And do you believe that?”

“Assault costs a hundred dollars on the line, I’ve been told. Burglary can be fixed for five hundred.”

“Where do you get your information, Miss Moriarty?”

“For a maiden lady,” Miss Moriarty said, “I get around.”

“I can arrest you for attempting to bribe an officer, and also for withholding information,” Carella said, smiling.

“What information? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Peter Kelby’s last-known address.”

“Who’s Peter Kelby?” Miss Moriarty said, and Carella burst out laughing.

“Okay, okay,” he said, “you’ve got my promise. No guarantees, you understand, but I’ll certainly try….”

“Have you got a pencil?” Miss Moriarty asked.

The telephone operator supplied Carella with a number listed to the address of Peter Kelby in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He asked her if she would try the number for him, and then he listened to a series of clickings and bongs and chimes on the line, and finally he heard the phone ringing on the other end, lo, those many miles away, and then a woman answered the phone and said, “Kelby residence.”

“May I speak to Mr. Kelby, please?” Carella said.

“Who’s calling, please?” the voice asked.

“Detective Stephen Carella.”

“Just a minute, please.”

Carella waited. He could hear a voice calling to someone on the other end, and then he heard someone asking “Who?” and the original voice saying, “A Detective Carella,” and then the sound of footsteps approaching the phone, and the sound of the phone being lifted from the tabletop, and then a different woman’s voice saying, “Hello?”

“Hello,” Carella said. “This is Detective Carella of the 87th Squad in Isola. I’m calling…”

“Yes? This is Mrs. Kelby speaking.”

“Mrs. Peter Kelby?”

“Yes, that’s right. What is it?”

“May I speak to your husband, please, Mrs. Kelby?” Carella said.

There was a long pause on the line.

“Mrs. Kelby?”

“Yes?”

“May I…?”

“Yes, I heard you.”

There was another pause.

Then Mrs. Kelby said, “My husband is dead.”

Which, of course, explained only one thing.

Peter Kelby had been shot to death on May 4. He had been killed while driving to the country club for a drink, as was his habit, after a long week of labor in the insurance office he headed. The Remington .308 slug had smashed through the windshield and entered his throat, and the automobile had swerved out of control and hit a milk truck going in the opposite direction. Peter Kelby was dead before the vehicles struck each other. But the murderer now had a few residual benefits to his credit, since there were two men in the cab of the milk truck and when Kelby’s car hit it, one of the men went through the windshield and had his jugular severed by a shard of glass, and the other wrenched at the wheel in an attempt to keep the truck on the road, and suddenly discovered that the steering shaft was pushing up into his chest. That was the last discovery he ever made, because he was dead within the next ten seconds.

The three deaths explained only one thing.

They explained why there had been no murders in the city between May 2, when Andrew Mulligan was killed, and May 7, when Rudy Fenstermacher was killed.

It is very difficult for someone to be in two places at the same time.

The woman walked into the squadroom at exactly 5:37, just as Carella and Meyer were leaving for home. Carella was in the middle of sentence containing a choice bit of profanity, the words “Now why the f—” stopping immediately in his throat when the woman appeared at the slatted rail divider.

She was a tall redhead, with a creamy pale complexion and slanted green eyes. She wore a dark-green suit that captured the color of her eyes and captured, too, the mold of her body, classically rounded, narrow-waisted, wide-hipped. She was pushing forty, but there was contained voluptuousness in the woman who stood at the railing, and Meyer and Carella—both married men—caught their breaths for an instant, as though a fantasy had suddenly materialized. Down the corridor, and behind the woman, Miscolo—who had caught a glimpse of her as she passed his open door—peeked around the jamb of the clerical office for a better look, and then rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.

“Yes, miss?” Carella said.