“But she wasn’t gone for more than a few minutes.”
“The back door of this building is practically at the foot of Debbie’s backyard. How long does it take to cross the garden, run up three flights and dial a telephone number?”
“Francis Street and Woodland. He’s right. They’re next to one another and both about the same distance down the block.”
“Debbie had used the short cut many times before when she went to visit Larry. And, I’m sorry to say, Ruth, that Larry used it when he visited your sister.”
“You’ll never make me believe you,” Ruth said, holding on to her sister to show the strength of her belief. “You have no proof, no rationale, nothing but malice. Why do you hate us, Mr. Cooperman?” Ruth said this so simply that Staziak looked at me with the same question.
“I don’t hate anybody, Mrs. Geller. I don’t like the things I’ve come across, but after being in the divorce business for so long, I’m used to unpleasant surprises. I’m sorry for the hurt in all this. I wanted to hurt you least of all, because they took advantage of you from the start. Nathan was aware that something was going on. That’s why he was killed. That’s what he wanted to talk to Pia about the night he was murdered. She got there just after Debbie had stabbed him, before she had even left the studio. That gave her an idea. So she left the lighter, which she had found earlier in the day. She didn’t know, and couldn’t have known, that Pia noticed the loss and arranged to have it picked up.
“In one way you’re right, Ruth, I don’t have a lot of proof. But I do have this.” Here I pulled the desk away from the wall and showed where Steve Tulk had installed a second telephone, and where I’d hidden the phone that Larry had been using.
“Two telephones? In an office this size? I don’t get it.”
“Well, Mr. Tepperman, I wanted to trap the murderer. I told that story back at Debbie’s house, knowing that the phone up here in the office was a newly installed one. It was put in today as a matter of fact. There was nothing on the redial memory, nothing important anyway. But this other phone, hidden back of the desk, is the one Larry used. It’s the one I used too that day I talked to you, Ruth. When I questioned you about getting a call from Nathan, you threw me for a loop. You answered the phone, therefore it followed that Larry had called you. You said that maybe I had the facts but wasn’t reading them right. You were dead on. It took me a long time to get the idea that you were visiting Debbie when I called not your house but Debbie’s. Larry placed that call to your sister to say that he had finished burning all his papers and was ready to make a dash to Toronto International with her, after making a short stop to pick up his suitcase with the diamonds at the Bolduc building site on Geneva.”
Tepperman was whispering to the rabbi, but the rest of the people in the room, including Kogan, were waiting, looking like they had just felt the floor tremble. “I know we don’t have a lot of proof. Much of what we’ve got is circumstantial. But we do know for a fact that someone from Debbie’s house crossed the garden and came into this office alone less than an hour ago. She may have thought she was unobserved, but there was a witness. Kogan, do you see the person who came to this office before we came as a group?”
“I do,” said Kogan like he was under oath. “That’s her with her arm on Mrs. Geller.”
“You’re pointing at Mrs. Debbie Geller, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Since I had Mr. MacIntyre’s keys to this building, I made use of them. Kogan was in the office across the way which has a glass panel in the door.”
“I thought she saw me once,” said Kogan. “She looked right at me. You forgot to mention,” Kogan said, “that when I called a few minutes ago and asked for Sergeant Staziak, I used the other phone and the redial button.” Kogan looked like he had more of his adventure to share with us, when he was interrupted by Debbie Geller making a sudden move. I missed the first part, I was looking at Kogan. So were the rest of us, including the hefty cop that Staziak had assigned to the possibilities of the night, as he called them.
“Look out!” Rabbi Meltzer was shoved out of the way, and Debbie darted past the uniformed man to the corridor. She was on the stairs before the rest of us, except the rabbi, knew what was going on.
“Carswell, catch her! Don’t let her get away!” Carswell was in a better position to get her than the rest of us. We all had to take turns going through the narrow office door. By the time I got to the stair landing, she had reached the first floor. I stumbled on the first half of the second flight and almost crashed down the rest of the steps. I grabbed the rail and nearly pulled my arm out of its socket breaking my fall. When I got up, I looked behind me. I was the only one in hot pursuit. Cool at the top of the stairs, Staziak was looking down at me.
“Pete, for God’s sake, she’s getting away!” Pete walked down towards me and helped me test the foot that had let me down. “Pete, are you crazy? She’s got a car in the driveway!” Staziak beamed at me. “It’s all taken care of; I’ve got a man on each of the doors. She’s going nowhere.”
“But what the hell were you yelling at Carswell for?”
“I lost my cool, Benny. Have you ever lost your cool?”
Half an hour later, with the exception of Debbie Geller, who had been taken back to Niagara Regional, warned and booked, and her sister Ruth, who was upstairs sedated, we were all back in her living-room drinking Debbie’s rye when Staziak returned from Niagara Regional. He reported that she was in good hands, and a doctor had given her something to help her get through the night. He further announced that he was no longer officially on duty. So Sid fixed him a rye with water. I was working on a weak rye with ginger ale while my right ankle was using up all of the remaining ice-cubes in the house. Pia had made an attempt at first aid with the ice wrapped in a dishtowel. To protect the rug, my foot was sitting in a shallow basin with the melt-waters. Pia was sitting near by just to check on the patient.
When we left 44 Woodland Avenue, Ruth went downtown with Pete. She returned after a few minutes, when she found that there was little she could do after getting in touch with a lawyer. Irving Bernstein, Larry’s old friend from Osgoode Hall days, had agreed to defend Debbie, at least until Debbie’s own wishes were known. I thought of Irving, and wondered if he was still wearing his ring from law school the way Larry was.
“I hope you haven’t been shooting your mouth off while I was gone, Benny. I want to hear your version of what you think was going on in this town.”
“For you, Pete, I’ve got a cleaned-up version all prepared.”
“Good, that way we’ll know it’s a load of sheep-dip from the beginning and not have to wait till the end.”
“You don’t have to wait at all.” I said, calling his bluff. “I’d as soon listen as talk any day.” There was a protest from Saul Tepperman, who had been trying to explain things to Rabbi Meltzer, without much success.
“You’re not going to get out of it that way,” said Pete settling down in a chair near Sid Geller. “We want a full confession, don’t we, people?” For a minute, Pete reminded me of an old music teacher who plied his trade in the public-school system. He called the pupils “people” as though it was his private joke and we weren’t people at all, just little horrors with bad pitch. I don’t know why I thought of Mr. C. Lawson Raven and his “Now, people, pay attention.”
“You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to, Benny. You should have a doctor look at your foot in the morning if the swelling hasn’t gone down.” Pia was being very helpful, but I suspected that this was a bad time for everybody. Here we were in Debbie’s house, drinking her booze and about to talk about why she’d killed three men. I was glad about my foot. I could have been like the rabbi or Kogan, just sitting and waiting.