First Deadly Sin Page 17

  She came up from the bed in shock, then fell back, her eyes filling with tears.

  “Edward! You didn’t?”

  “Yes. I wanted to spend more time with you. I thought it was the right decision at the time. But it didn’t go through. This is what happened …”

  He recounted his meeting with Deputy Inspector Thorsen and Inspector Johnson. He detailed their plan for Delaney to make an independent investigation of the Lombard homicide, in an effort to humiliate Broughton. As he spoke, he could see Barbara come alive. She propped herself on one elbow and leaned forward, eyes shining. She was the politician of the family and dearly loved hearing accounts and gossip of intra-Departmental feuding, the intrigues and squabbles of ambitious men and factions.

  Delaney told her how he had demanded a letter of authorization from a superior officer before he would agree to the Lombard investigation.

  “Barbara, do you think I did the wise thing?”

  “You did exactly right,” she said promptly. “I’m proud of you. In that jungle, the first law is ‘Save yourself.’ ”

  Then he told her about receiving the Commissioner’s letter, the authorization of indefinite leave of absence, and his most recent conversation with Thorsen.

  “I’m glad you recommended Dorfman,” she nodded happily. “I like him. And I think he deserves a chance.”

  “Yes. The problem is making a lieutenant even an acting commander of a precinct. And of course they can’t suddenly promote him without possibly alerting Broughton. Well … we’ll see what happens. Meanwhile, I’ll be getting copies of all the Operation Lombard reports tomorrow.”

  “Edward, it doesn’t sound like you have much to go on.”

  “No, not much. Thorsen says that so far Operation Lombard has drawn a blank. They don’t have any description of a possible suspect, how he killed, or why he killed.”

  “You say ‘he.’ Couldn’t it have been a woman?”

  “Possibly, but the probability percentages are against it. Women murder with gun, knife, and pistol. They rarely bludgeon. And when they do, it’s usually when the victim is asleep.”

  “Then you’re really starting from scratch?”

  “Well … I have two things. They don’t amount to much and I expect Chief Pauley has them too. Lombard was a tall man. I’d guess about six feet. Now look …” Delaney rose to his feet and looked around the hospital room. He found a magazine, rolled it up tightly, and gripped one end. “Now I’m the killer with a hammer, a pipe, or maybe a long spike. I’m striking down at the victim’s skull.” He raised the magazine above his head and brought it down viciously. “See that? I’ll do it again. Watch the position of my right arm.” Again he raised the magazine and brought it down in a feigned crushing blow. “What did you see?”

  “Your arm wasn’t extended. Your right arm was bent. The top of the magazine was only about six inches above your head.”

  “Correct. That’s the way a man would normally strike. When you’re hammering in a nail, you don’t raise your arm to its full length above your head; you keep your elbow bent the better to control the accuracy of the blow. You raise your arm just high enough to provide what you estimate to be sufficient force. It’s an unconscious skill, based on experience. To drive a carpet tack, you might raise a hammer only an inch or two. To drive a spike, you’d raise the hammer to your head level or higher.”

  “Was Lombard killed with a hammer?”

  “Ferguson says no. But it was obviously something swung with sufficient force to penetrate his brain to a depth of three to four inches. I haven’t seen Ferguson’s report yet.”

  “Could the killer be lefthanded?”

  “Could be. But probability is against it, unless the nature and position of the wound indicate otherwise, and then it might be due to the position of the victim at the moment of impact.”

  “There are so many possibilities.”

  “There surely are. Barbara, are you getting tired?”

  “Oh no. You can’t stop now. Edward, I don’t understand the significance of what you just showed me—how a man strikes with his elbow bent.”

  “Just that Lombard was about six feet tall. If the killer raised the weapon about six inches above his own head—which is about the limit any man would raise a tool or weapon before striking downward—and the puncture was low on Lombard’s skull (not so far down as to be in that hollow where the spine joins the skull, but up from that toward the crown of the skull), then I’d guess the killer to be approximately of Lombard’s height or maybe a few inches taller. Yes, it’s a guess. But based, it seems to me, on what little physical evidence is available. And I’ve got to start guessing somewhere.”

  “You said you had two things, Edward. What’s the other?”

  “Well … I worked this out the morning of the murder. While I was on the scene. Just to satisfy my own curiosity, I guess. What bothered me most about the murder was why a man of Lombard’s size and strength, with his awareness of street crime, alone on a deserted street at midnight, why he would let an assailant come up behind him and chop him down without making any apparent effort to defend himself. Here’s how I think it was done …”

  He acted it out for her. First he was Lombard, in his overcoat, walking briskly around the hospital room, head, turning side to side as he inspected entrances and outside lobbies. “Then I see a man coming toward me from York Avenue. Coming toward me.” Delaney-Lombard, explaining as he performed, peeked ahead, watching the approaching figure. He slowed his steps, ready to defend himself or run to safety if danger threatened. But then he smiled, reassured by the stranger’s appearance. He moved aside to let the smiling stranger pass, and then …

  “Now I’m the killer,” Delaney told a wide-eyed Barbara. He took off his overcoat and folded it over his left arm. Beneath the coat, hidden, the rolled up magazine was grasped in his left hand. His right arm swung free as he marched briskly around the hospital room. “I see the man I want to kill. I smile and continue to walk quickly like a resident of the block anxious to get home.”

  Delaney-killer turned his head as he passed Lombard. Then his right hand swooped under the coat. The rolled-up magazine was transferred. At the same time Delaney-killer whirled and went up on his toes. Now he was behind the victim. The magazine whistled down. The entire action took a few seconds, no longer.

  “Then I bend over—”

  “Get him!” Barbara cried. “Edward, get him! Get him!”

  He straightened in astonishment, riven by the hatred and venom in her voice. He rushed to the bed, tried to take her in his arms, but she would not be comforted.

  “Get him!” she repeated, and it was a curse. “You can do it, Edward. You’re the only one who can do it. Get him! Promise me? It’s not right. Life is too precious. Get him! Get him!”

  And even after he calmed her, a nurse had been summoned, a sedative had been administered, Barbara was sleeping, and he left the hospital, still he heard that virulent “Get him! Get him!” and vowed he would.

  5

  XEROX COPIES OF THE Operation Lombard reports constituted a bundle of almost 500 sheets of typed papers, official forms, photostats, transcriptions of tape recordings, signed statements, etc. In addition, there was a separate envelope of more than 30 photo copies: Lombard in death and in life, his wife, mother, two brothers, political and business associates, and close friends. The dead man and his wife had been childless.

  Captain Delaney, impressed with this mass of material spread out on the desk in his study, and realizing the urgency with which Operation Lombard was working, set out to organize the documents into manila folders marked Physical Evidence, Personal History, Family, Business (Lombard had been an active partner in a Brooklyn law firm), Politics, and Miscellaneous.

  It took him almost two hours to get the material filed in some kind of rough order. Then he mixed a rye highball, put his feet up on the desk, and began reading. By two in the morning he had read every report and stared at every photo in every f
ile. He was doubly impressed with the thoroughness of Broughton’s investigation, but as far as first impressions went, Ivar Thorsen was right: there was nothing—no leads, no hints, no mysteries at all—except who killed Frank Lombard.

  He started his second reading, going slower this time and making notes on a pad of long yellow legal notepaper. He also set aside a few documents for a third reading and study. Dawn was lightening the study windows when he closed the final folder. He rose to his feet, stretched and yawned, put his hands on his hips and bent his torso backward until his spine cracked.

  Then he went into the kitchen and drank a large glass of tomato juice with a lemon wedge squeezed into it. He made a carafe of three cups of instant coffee, black, and carried that into the study along with a dry and stale bagel.

  He consulted his notes and, sipping coffee, read for the third time Dr. Sanford Ferguson’s medical report. It was one of Ferguson’s usual meticulous autopsies; the eight-page statement included two sketches showing the outside wound in actual size and a profile outline of the human skull showing the location and shape of the penetration. It looked like an elongated isosceles triangle. The outside wound was roughly circular in shape, slightly larger than a quarter.

  The essential paragraph of the report was as follows:

  “The blow caused a penetrating wound, fracturing the right occipital bone, lacerating the dura, piercing the right occipital lobe. Laceration of the cerebellum caused hemorrhaging with resultant rupture into the posterior fossa and 4th ventrical causing acute compression of the brain stem with subsequent death.”

  Delaney made several additional notes on the autopsy report. He had questions he knew could only be answered in a personal interview with Ferguson. How he would explain to the doctor his interest in the Lombard homicide was a problem he’d face when he came to it.

  His other notes concerned the interviews with the widow, Mrs. Clara Lombard. She had been interviewed five times by three different detectives. Delaney nodded approvingly at Chief Pauley’s professionalism. It was standard detective procedure: you send three different detectives for the first three interviews. Then the three get together with their chief, discuss the subject’s personality, and select the detective who has established the closest rapport with her, the one she feels most simpatico with. He returns for the two final interviews.

  Delaney began to get a picture of the widow from the typed reports. (The first three were transcriptions made from tape recordings.) Mrs. Clara Lombard seemed to be a flighty, feather-brained woman, trying hard to appear devastated by the tragedy of her husband’s violent death, but still capable of infantile laughter, jokes of a dubious nature, sudden inquiries about insurance money, questions about probating the will, illogical threats of legal action against New York City, and statements that could only be construed as outright flirtation.

  Delaney wasn’t interested in all that; careful investigation showed that although Clara was a very social woman—a happy party-goer with or without her husband—she had no boyfriend, and no one, not even her women friends, even hinted she might have been unfaithful.

  The portion of her testimony that interested Delaney most was concerned with Frank Lombard’s wallet. That damned wallet irritated the Captain … its position near the body … the fact that it had been deliberately removed from the hip pocket … it was lying open … it was still full of money …

  To Delaney’s surprise, in only one interview had Mrs. Lombard been handed a detailed inventory of the wallet. This document was included in the Physical Evidence file. Clara had been asked if, to her knowledge, anything was missing. She had replied no, she thought all her late husband’s identification and credit cards were there, and the sum of money—over two hundred dollars—was what he customarily carried. Even two keys, one to his home, one to his office—in a “secret pocket” in the wallet—were there.

  Delaney didn’t accept her statement. How many wives could tell you exactly what their husbands carried in their wallets? How many husbands could list exactly what their wife’s purse contained? As a matter of fact, how many men knew exactly how much money they had in their own wallets? To test this, Delaney thought a moment and guessed he had fifty-six dollars in the wallet in his hip. Then he took it out and counted. He had forty-two—and wondered where his money was going.

  The only other Operation Lombard report that interested him was an interview with the victim’s grieving mother. Delaney read this transcription again. As he had suspected, Mrs. Sophia Lombard lived in a converted brownstone between the East River and the point where her son’s body had been found.

  Mrs. Lombard had been questioned—and very adroitly, Delaney acknowledged; that was Chief Pauley’s doing—on the circumstances of her son’s visits to her. Did he come every week? The same night every week? The same time every night? In other words, was it a regular, established routine? Did he call beforehand? How did he travel over from Brooklyn?

  The answers were disappointing and perplexing. Frank Lombard had no regular schedule for dining with his mother. He came to see her when he could. Sometimes two weeks, sometimes a month would elapse before he could make it. But he was a good boy, Mrs. Sophia Lombard assured her interrogator; he called every day. On the day he could come to dinner, he would call before noon so Mrs. Lombard could go out and shop in the markets along First Avenue for the things he liked.

  Lombard didn’t drive his car over from Brooklyn because parking space was hard to find near his mother’s apartment. He would take the subway, and a bus or taxi from the subway station. He didn’t like to walk on the streets at nights. He always left for his Brooklyn home before midnight.

  Did Mrs. Clara Lombard ever accompany her husband to his mother’s home for dinner?

  “No,” Mrs. Sophia Lombard said shortly. And reading that reply, Delaney smiled, understanding the discord that must have existed in that family.

  Delaney replaced the reports in their folders, and put all the Operation Lombard file in a small safe in the corner of the study. As he well knew, an experienced “can man” could be into that in one minute flat. And two inexperienced thieves could carry it out between them to sledge it open later.

  His eyes were sandy and his bones ached. It was almost seven a.m. He dumped the cold coffee, went upstairs, undressed and rolled into bed. Something was nagging at his mind, something he had read in the Operation Lombard reports. But that had happened to him frequently: a lead sensed but not recognized. It didn’t worry him; he tried not to think about it. He knew from experience that it would come to him eventually, sliding into his mind like a remembered name or a tune recalled. He set the alarm for eight-thirty, closed his eyes and was instantly asleep.

  He arrived at the precinct house a little after nine a.m. The Desk Sergeant was a policewoman, the second of her rank in New York to be assigned to such duty. He went over to the log with her, and asked questions. She was a tall, powerfully built woman with what he termed to himself, without knowing why, a thunderous body. In truth, he was intimidated by her, but could not deny her efficiency. The book was in order; nothing had been neglected that could have been done—a sad, sad list of drunks, missing persons, beaten wives, stolen welfare checks, mistreated children, burglaries, Peeping Toms, prostitutes, dying oldsters, homosexuals, breaking-and-entering, exhibitionists … People. But the moon was full, and Delaney knew what that meant.

  He climbed the creaking wooden steps to his office and, on the landing, met Detective Lieutenant Jeri Fernandez who was, or had been, in command of detectives assigned to the 251st.

  “Morning, Captain,” Fernandez said glumly.

  “Good morning, lieutenant,” Delaney said. He looked at the man sympathetically. “Having a rough time, aren’t you?”

  “Oh shit!” Fernandez burst out. “Half my men are gone already. The others will be gone within a week. Okay, that’s one thing. But the paper work! All our open cases have to be transferred to the proper unit covering this precinct. Jesus, it’s a mess.
”

  “What did you get?”

  “I drew a Safe, Loft and Truck Division in midtown,” Fernandez said disgustedly. “It covers four precincts including the Garment Center. How does that grab you? I’m second in command, and we’ll be getting dicks from all over Manhattan. It’ll take us at least a year to set up our snitches. What great brain dreamed up this idea?”

  Delaney knew how Fernandez felt. The man was a conscientious, efficient, but unimaginative detective. He had done a good job in the 251st, training his men, being hard when he had to be hard and soft when he had to be soft. Now they were breaking up his crew and farming them out to specialized divisions. And Fernandez himself would now be number two man under a detective captain. He had a right to his anger.

  “I would have guessed Broughton would have grabbed you for Operation Lombard,” Delaney said.

  “Not me,” Fernandez said with a sour grin. “I ain’t white enough.”

  They nodded and separated. Delaney went on to his office, marveling how quickly a man’s prejudices and record spread throughout the Department. More fool Broughton, he thought; Fernandez could have been a big help. Unimaginative he might have been, but when it came to dull, foot-flattening routine, he was excellent. The important thing was to know how to use men, to take advantage of their particular talents and the best in them.

  The moment he was at his desk he called the hospital. The head floor nurse told him his wife was down in the lab, having more X-ray plates taken, but she was doing “as well as can be expected.” Trying to conceal his distaste for that particular phrase, Delaney thanked her and said he’d call later.

  Then he called Dr. Sanford Ferguson and, unexpectedly, was put through to him immediately at his office.

  “That you, Edward?”

  “Yes. Can we get together?”

  “How’s Barbara?”

  “Doing as well as can be expected.”

  “I seem to recognize the words. Is it about Barbara you want to see me?”