First Deadly Sin Read online

  Delaney sprang to his feet. He shook Langley’s little hand and bowed to the Widow. He introduced his wife to both. Barbara brightened immediately. She liked people, and she particularly liked people who knew what they were and could live with it.

  There was talk, laughter, confusion. Barbara insisted on being moved back to the bed, knowing Edward would want to talk to Langley privately. The Widow Zimmerman planted her monumental butt in a chair alongside the bed and opened her brown paper bag. Gefilte fish! And homemade at that. The two men stood by, nodding and smiling, as the Widow expounded on the nutritive and therapeutic qualities of gefilte fish.

  Within moments the good Widow had leaned forward over the bed, grasped one of Barbara’s hands in her own meaty fists, and the two women were deep in a whispered discussion of such physical intimacy that the men hastily withdrew to a corner of the hospital room, pulled up chairs, leaned to each other.

  “First of all, Captain,” the little man said, “let me tell you immediately that I have not identified the weapon that killed Frank Lombard. I went through my books, I visited museums, and I saw several weapons—antique weapons—that could have made that skull puncture. But I agree with you: it was a modern weapon or tool. Gosh, I thought about it! Then, last week, I was walking down my street, and a Con Edison crew was tearing up the pavement. To lay a new cable, I suppose. They do it all the time. Anyway, they had a trench dug. There was a man in the trench, a huge black, and even in this weather he was stripped to the waist. A magnificent torso. Heroic. But Captain. An ordinary pick. A wooden handle as long as a woodsman’s ax, and then a steel head with a pick on each side, tapering to a point. Much too large to be the Lombard weapon, of course. And I remembered you felt the killer carried it concealed. Extremely difficult to carry a concealed pick.”

  “Yes,” Delaney nodded, “if would be. But the pick idea is interesting.”

  “The shape!” Langley said, hunching forward. “That’s what caught my eye. A square spike tapering to a sharp point. More than that, each spike of the pick curved downward, just as your surgeon described the wound. So I began wondering if that pick, customarily used in excavation and construction work, might have a smaller counterpart—a one-handed pick with a handle no longer than that of a hatchet.”

  Delaney brooded a moment. “I can’t recall ever seeing a tool like that.”

  “I don’t think there is one,” Langley agreed. “At least, I visited six hardware stores and none of them had anything like what I described. But at the seventh hardware store I found this. It was displayed in their window.”

  He opened his brown paper bag and withdrew a tool: magician and rabbit. He handed it to Delaney. The Captain took it in his blunt fingers, stared, turned it over and over, hefted it, gripped it, swung it by the handle, peered at the head. He sniffed at the wood handle.

  “What the hell is it?” he asked finally.

  “It’s a bricklayer’s hammer,” Langley said rapidly. “Handle of seasoned hickory. Head of forged steel. Notice the squared hammer on one side of the head? That’s for tapping bricks into place in the mortar. Now look at the spike. The top surface curves downward, but the bottom side is horizontal. The spike itself doesn’t curve downward. In addition, the spike ends in a sharp, chisel point, used to split bricks. I knew at once it wasn’t the weapon we seek. But it’s a start, don’t you think?”

  “Of course it is,” Delaney said promptly. He swung the hammer in short, violent strokes. “My God, I never knew such a tool existed. You could easily split a man’s skull with this.”

  “But it isn’t what we want, is it?”

  “No,” Delaney acknowledged, “it isn’t. The spike doesn’t curve downward, and the end comes to a chisel edge about—oh, I’d guess an inch across. Mr. Langley, there’s something else I should have mentioned to you. This has a wooden handle. I admit Lombard might well have been killed with a wood-handle weapon, but my experience has been that with wood-handled implements, particularly old ones, the handle breaks. Usually at the point where it’s been compressed into the steel head. I’d feel a lot better if we could find a tool or weapon that was made totally of steel. This is just a feeling I have, and I don’t want to inhibit your investigation, sir.”

  “Oh, it won’t, it won’t!” the little man cried, bouncing up and down on his chair in his excitement. “I agree, I agree! Steel would be better. But I haven’t told you everything that happened. In the store where I found this bricklayer’s hammer, I asked the proprietor why he stocked them and how many he sold. After all, Captain, how many bricklayers are there in this world? And how many hammers would they need? Look at that tool. Wouldn’t you judge that an apprentice bricklayer, buying a tool as sturdy as that, would use it for the rest of his professional career?”

  Delaney hefted the hammer again, swinging it experiment tally.

  “Yes,” he nodded, “I think you’re right. The handle might possibly break, but this thing could last fifty, a hundred years.”

  “Exactly. Well, the hardware store owner said—and it’s amazing how willing and eager men are to talk about their jobs and specialties—”

  “I know,” Delaney smiled.

  “Well, he said he stocked those hammers because he sold twenty or thirty a year. And not only to bricklayers! He sold them, he said, to ‘rock hounds’—a term, as he explained it, that applies to the people who search for precious and semiprecious stones—gemologists and others of their ilk. In addition, he sold a few hammers to amateur archeologists. I then asked if he knew of a similar hammer on which the spike, instead of ending in a wide chisel edge, came to a sharp, tapered point. He said he had heard of such a hammer but had never seen it—a hammer made especially for rock hounds, prospectors, and archeologists. And this hammer had a spike, a pick, that tapered to a sharp point. I asked him where it might be available, but he couldn’t say, except that I might try hobby and outdoor stores. What do you think, Captain?”

  Delaney looked at him. “First of all,” he said, “I think you have done remarkably well. Much better than I could have done.” He was rewarded by Langley’s beam of pleasure. “And I hope you will be willing to track this thing down, to try to find the rock hound’s hammer with a spike that curves downward and tapers to a point.”

  “Willing?” Christopher Langley shouted delightedly. “Willing?” And the two women at the bed, still speaking softly, broke off their conversation and looked over inquiringly.

  “Willing?” Langley asked in a quieter voice. “Captain, I cannot stop now. I never knew detective work could be so fascinating.”

  “Oh yes,” Delaney nodded solemnly, “fascinating.”

  “Well, I haven’t had so much fun in my life. After we leave here, Myra and I—”

  “Myra?” Delaney interrupted.

  “The Widow Zimmerman,” the old dandy said, casting his eyes downward and blushing. “She has several admirable qualities.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Well, I made a list of hobby shops from the Yellow Pages. We’re going to have lunch in the Times Square area, and then we’re going around to all the addresses I have and try to locate a rock hound’s hammer. Is that the right way, Captain?”

  “Exactly the right way,” Delaney assured him. “It’s just what I’d do. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t find it in the first four or five or dozen or fifty places you visit. Stick to it.”

  “Oh, I intend to,” Langley said stoutly, straightening up. “This is important, isn’t it, Captain?”

  Delaney looked at him strangely. “Yes,” he nodded, “it is important. Mr. Langley, I have a feeling about you and what you’re doing. I think it’s very important.”

  “Well,” Christopher Langley said, “then I better get to it.”

  “May I keep this hammer?”

  “Of course, of course. I have no use for it. I’ll keep you informed as to our progress.”

  “Our?”

  “Well … you know. I must take the Widow Zimmerman to lunc
h. She has been very kind to me.”

  “Of course.”

  “But I’ve told her nothing, Captain. Nothing. I swear. She thinks I’m looking for a rock hammer for my nephew.”

  “Good. Keep it that way. And I must apologize for my phone conversation this morning. I’m probably being overcautious. I doubt very much if my phone is being tapped, but there’s no point in taking chances. When you want to reach me from now on, just dial my home phone and say something innocuous. I’ll get back to you within ten or fifteen minutes from an outside phone. Will that be satisfactory?”

  Then the ex-curator did something exceedingly curious. He made an antique gesture Delaney had read about in Dickens’ novels but had never seen. Langley laid a forefinger alongside his nose and nodded wisely. Captain Delaney was delighted.

  “Exactly,” he nodded.

  Then they were gone, waving goodby to Barbara and promising to visit her again. When the door closed behind them, Barbara and Edward looked at each other, then simultaneously broke into laughter.

  “I like her,” Barbara told him. “She asked very personal questions on short acquaintance, but I think it was from genuine interest, not just idle curiosity. A very warm, out-going, good-hearted woman.”

  “I think she’s after Langley.”

  “So?” she challenged. “What’s wrong with that? She told me she’s been very lonely since her husband died, and he’s all alone, too. It’s not good to be alone when you get old.”

  “Look at this,” he said, changing the subject hastily. “It’s a bricklayer’s hammer. This is what Langley’s come up with so far.”

  “Is that what killed Lombard?”

  “Oh no. But it’s close. It’s an ugly thing, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Evil-looking. Put it away, please, dear.”

  He put it back in the brown paper sack and placed it atop his folded overcoat, so he wouldn’t forget it when he left. Then he drew up a chair alongside her bed.

  “What are you going to do with the gefilte fish?” he smiled.

  “I may try a little. Unless you’d like it, Edward?”

  “No, thank you!”

  “Well, it was nice of her to bring it. She’s one of those women who think food solves all problems and you can’t be miserable on a full stomach. Sometimes they’re right.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re discouraged, aren’t you, Edward?”

  He rose and began to stalk up and down at the foot of her bed, hands shoved into his hip pockets.

  “Nothing is happening!” he said disgustedly. “I’m not doing anything.”

  “You’re convinced the killer is crazy?”

  “It’s just an idea,” he sighed, “but the only theory that makes any sense at all. But if I’m right, it means we have to wait for another killing before we learn anything more. That’s what’s so infuriating.”

  “Isn’t that hammer Langley brought a lead?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. But even if Lombard had been murdered with a hammer exactly like that, I’d be no closer to finding the killer. There must be hundreds—thousands!—of hammers exactly like that in existence, and more sold every day. So where does that leave me?”

  “Come over here and sit down.” She motioned toward the chair at the bedside. He slumped into it, took her proffered hand. She lifted his knuckles to her face, rubbed them softly on her cheek, kissed them. “Edward,” she said. “Poor Edward.”

  “I’m a lousy cop,” he grumbled.

  “No,” she soothed. “You’re a good cop. I can’t think of anything you could have done that you haven’t done.”

  “Operation Lombard did it all,” he said dispiritedly.

  “You discovered his driver’s license was missing.”

  “Oh sure. Whatever the hell that means.”

  After 30 years of living with this man, she was almost as familiar with police procedure as he. “Did they check license numbers of parked cars?” she asked.

  “Of course. Chief Pauley saw to that. The license number of every parked car in a five-block area was taken down on three successive nights. Then the owners were looked up and asked if they saw anything on the night of the murder. What a job that must have been! But Broughton has the manpower to do it, and it had to be done. They got nothing. Just like the questioning of residents in the neighborhood. Zero.”

  “Occam’s Razor,” she said, and he smiled, knowing what she meant.

  Several years ago he had come across the unfamiliar phrase “Occam’s Razor” in a criminologist’s report dealing with percentages and probabilities in homicide cases in the Boston area. Delaney trusted the findings since the percentages quoted were very close to those then current in New York: the great majority of homicides were committed by relatives or “friends” of the victim—mothers, fathers, children, husbands, wives, uncles, aunts, neighbors … In other words, most killings involved people who knew each other.

  In light of these findings, the Boston criminologist had stated, it was always wise for investigating officers to be guided by the principle of “Occam’s Razor.”

  Intrigued by the phrase, Delaney had spent an afternoon in the reading room of the 42nd Street library, tracking down Occam and his “Razor.” Later he told Barbara what he had discovered.

  “Occam was a fourteenth century philosopher,” he reported. “His philosophy was ‘nominalism,’ which I don’t understand except that I think he meant there are no universal truths. Anyway, he was famous for his hard-headed approach to problem solving. He believed in shaving away all extraneous details. That’s why they call his axiom ‘Occam’s Razor.’ He said that when there are several possible solutions, the right one is probably the most obvious. In other words, you should eliminate all the unnecessary facts.”

  “But you’ve been doing that all your life, Edward.”

  “I guess so,” he laughed, “but I call it ‘Cut out the crap.’ Anyway, it’s nice to know a fourteenth century philosopher agrees with me. I wish I knew more about philosophy and could understand it.”

  “Does it really bother you that you can’t?”

  “Nooo … it doesn’t bother me, but it makes me realize the limitations of my intelligence. I just can’t think in abstractions. You know I tried to learn to play chess three times and finally gave up.”

  “Edward, you’re more interested in people than things, or ideas. You have a very good intelligence for people.”

  Now, in the hospital room, when Barbara mentioned Occam’s Razor, he knew what she meant and smiled ruefully.

  “Well,” he said, rubbing his forehead, “I wonder if old Occam ever tried solving an irrational problem by rational means. I wonder if he wouldn’t begin to doubt the value of logic and deductive reasoning when you’re dealing with—”

  But then the door to the hospital room swung open, and Dr. Louis Bernardi glided in, olive skin gleaming, his little eyes glittering. A stethoscope was draped about his neck.

  He offered Delaney a limp hand, and with the forefinger of his left hand lovingly caressed his ridiculous stripe of a mustache.

  “Captain,” he murmured. “And you, dear lady,” he inquired in a louder voice, “how are we feeling today?”

  Barbara began to explain that her feet continued to be swollen uncomfortably, how the rash had reappeared on the insides of her thighs, that the attack of nausea had seemed to worsen with the first injection of the antibiotic.

  To each complaint Bernardi smiled, said, “Yes, yes,” or “That doesn’t bother me.”

  Why should it bother you, Delaney thought angrily. It’s not happening to you, you little prick.

  Meanwhile the doctor was taking her pulse, listening to her heart, gently pushing up eyelids to peer into her staring eyes.

  “You’re making a fine recovery from surgery,” he assured her. “And they tell me your appetite is improving. I am so very happy, dear lady.”

  “When do you think—” Delaney began, but the doctor held up a soft hand.

&
nbsp; “Patience,” he said. “You must have patience. And I must have patients. He!”

  Delaney turned away in disgust, not understanding how Barbara could trust this simpering popinjay.

  Bernardi murmured a few more words, patted Barbara’s hand, smiling his oleaginous smile, then turned to go. He was almost at the door when Delaney saw he was leaving.

  “Doctor,” he called, “I want to talk to you a minute.” He said to Barbara, “Be right back, dear.”

  In the hall, the door of the room closed, he faced Bernardi and looked at him stonily. “Well?” he demanded.

  The doctor spread his hands in that familiar bland gesture that said nothing. “What can I tell you? You can see for yourself. The infection still persists. That damned Proteus. We are working our way through the full spectrum of antibiotics. It takes time.”

  “There’s something else.”

  “Oh? What is that?”

  “Recently my wife has been exhibiting signs of—well, signs of irrationality. She gets a curious stare, she seems suddenly withdrawn, and she says things that don’t make too much sense.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Well, a little while ago she wanted some children’s books. I mean books she owned and read when she was a child. She’s not under sedation, is she?”

  “Not now, no.”

  “Pain-killers? Sleeping pills?”

  “No. We are trying to avoid any possibility of masking or affecting the strength of the antibiotics. Captain, this does not worry me. Your wife has undergone major surgery. She is under medication. The fever is, admittedly, weakening her. It is understandable that she might have brief periods of—oh, call it wool-gathering. He! I suggest you humor her insofar as that is possible. Her pulse is steady and her heart is strong.”

  “As strong as it was?”

  Bernardi looked at him without expression. “Captain,” he said softly—and Delaney knew exactly what was coming—“your wife is doing as well as can be expected.”