There was no St. Marks Place between Third and Fourth Avenues.
I said, "Where?"
"Huh? Look, mister, I don't-"
"Wait a minute."
"Maybe I should get my mother. I-"
"What borough?"
"Huh?"
"Are you in Manhattan? Brooklyn? The Bronx? Where are you, son?"
"Brooklyn."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure." He sounded close to tears. "We live in Brooklyn.
What do you want, anyway? What's the matter, are you crazy or something?"
"It's all right," I said. "You've been a big help. Thanks a lot."
I hung up, feeling like an idiot. Street names repeated throughout the five boroughs. I'd had no grounds to assume she lived in Manhattan.
I thought back, replayed what I could of my earlier conversation with the woman. If anything, I might have known that she didn't live in Manhattan. "He's in Manhattan," she had said of her husband. She wouldn't have put it that way if she'd been in Manhattan herself.
But what about my conversation with Havermeyer? "Your wife's still in the East Village," I'd said, and he'd agreed with me.
Well, maybe he'd just wanted the conversation to end. It was easier to agree with me than to explain that there was another St. Marks Place in Brooklyn.
Still …
I left Blanche's and hurried west to the bookstore where I'd bought the book of poems. They had a Hagstrom pocket atlas of the five boroughs. I looked up St. Marks Place in the back, turned to the appropriate map, found what I was looking for.
St. Marks Place, in Brooklyn as in Manhattan, extends for only three blocks. To the east, across Flatbush Avenue, the same street continues at an angle as St. Marks Avenue, stretching under that name clear to Brownsville.
To the west, St. Marks Place stops at Third Avenue-just as it does at an altogether different Third Avenue in Manhattan. On the other side of Third, Brooklyn's St. Marks Place has another name.
Wyckoff Street.
Chapter 16
It must have been around three o'clock when I spoke with the boy.
It was between six thirty and seven by the time I mounted the stoop of his building on West 103rd. I'd found things to do during the intervening hours.
I rang a couple of bells but not his, and someone buzzed me in.
Whoever it was peered at me from a doorway on the third floor but didn't challenge my right to pass. I stood at Havermeyer's door and listened for a moment. The television was on, tuned to the local news.
I didn't really expect him to shoot through the door but he did wear a gun as a security guard, and although he probably left it in the store each night I couldn't be sure he didn't have another one at home. They teach you to stand to the side of a door when you knock on it, so I did. I heard his footsteps approach the door, then his voice asking who it was.
"Scudder," I said.
He opened the door. He was in street clothes and probably left not only the gun but the entire uniform at the store each night. He had a can of beer in one hand. I asked if I could come in. His reaction time was slow but at length he nodded and made room for me. I entered and drew the door shut.
He said, "Still on that case, huh? Something I can do for you?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'll be glad to help if I can. Meantime, how about a beer?"
I shook my head. He looked at the can of beer he was holding, moved to set it down on a table, went over and turned off the television set. He held the pose for a moment and I studied his face in profile.
He didn't need a shave this time. He turned slowly, expectantly, as if waiting for the blow to fall.
I said, "I know you killed her, Burt."
I watched his deep brown eyes. He was rehearsing his denial, running it through his mind, and then there was a moment when he decided not to bother. Something went out of him.
"When did you know?"
"A couple of hours ago."
"When you left here Sunday I couldn't figure whether you knew or not. I thought maybe you were going cat-and-mouse with me. But I didn't get that feeling. I felt close to you, actually. I felt we were a couple of ex-cops, two guys who left the force for personal reasons. I thought maybe you were playing a part, setting a trap, but it didn't feel like it."
"I wasn't."
"How did you find out?"
"St. Marks Place. You didn't live in the East Village after all. You lived in Brooklyn three blocks away from Barbara Ettinger."
"Thousands of people lived that close to her."
"You let me go on thinking you lived in the East Village. I don't know if I'd have had a second thought about it if I'd known from the beginning that you had lived in Brooklyn. Maybe I would have. But most likely I wouldn't. Brooklyn's a big place. I didn't know there was a St. Marks Place in it so I certainly didn't know where it was in relation to Wyckoff Street. For all I knew, it could have been out in Sheepshead Bay near your precinct. But you lied about it."
"Just to avoid getting into a long explanation. It doesn't prove anything."
"It gave me a reason to take a look at you. And the first thing I took a look at was another lie you told me. You said you and your wife didn't have any kids. But I talked to your boy on the phone this afternoon, and I called back and asked him his father's name and how old he was. He must have wondered what I was doing asking him all those questions. He's twelve. He was three years old when Barbara Ettinger was killed."
"So?"
"You used to take him to a place on Clinton Street. The Happy Hours Child Care Center."
"You're guessing."
"No."
"They're out of business. They've been out of business for years."
"They were still in business when you left Brooklyn. Did you keep tabs on the place?"
"My ex-wife must have mentioned it," he said. Then he shrugged.
"Maybe I walked past there once.
When I was in Brooklyn visiting Danny."
"The woman who ran the day-care center is living in New York.
She'll remember you."
"After nine years?"
"That's what she says. And she kept records, Burt. The ledgers with the names and addresses of students and their parents, along with the record of payments. She packed all that stuff in a carton when she closed the business and never bothered to go through it and throw out the things she didn't need to keep anymore. She opened the box today.
She says she remembers you. You always brought the boy, she said. She never met your wife but she does remember you."
"She must have a good memory."
"You were usually in uniform. That's an easy thing to remember."
He looked at me for a moment, then turned and walked over to the window and stood looking out of it.
I don't suppose he was looking at anything in particular.
"Where'd you get the icepick, Burt?"
Without turning he said, "I don't have to admit to anything. I don't have to answer any questions."
"Of course you don't."
"Even if you were a cop I wouldn't have to say anything. And you're not a cop. You've got no authority."
"You're absolutely right."
"So why should I answer your questions?"
"You've been sitting on it a long time, Burt."
"So?"
"Doesn't it get to you a little? Keeping it inside all that time?"
"Oh, God," he said. He went over to a chair, dropped into it. "Bring me that beer," he said. "Could you do that for me?"
I gave it to him. He asked me if I was sure I didn't want one for myself. No thanks, I said. He drank some beer and I asked him where he got the icepick.
"Some store," he said. "I don't remember."
"In the neighborhood?"
"I think in Sheepshead Bay. I'm not sure."
"You knew Barbara Ettinger from the day-care center."
"And from the neighborhood. I used to see her around the neighborhood before I started taking Danny to the center."
"And you were having an affair with her?"
"Who told you that? No, I wasn't having an affair with her. I wasn't having an affair with anybody."
"But you wanted to."