“A knife?” Bill asked, his voice a whisper.
Mark nodded, eyes narrowing. “Carla takes one look at it and yells up at D’Amato, ‘You bastard! You killed him!’ Before anyone could stop her, she pulls the knife from Tommy’s body and lunges at D’Amato! It takes me and Vince to restrain her, Vince finally knocking the knife loose... We all stand there, staring at it on the floor. Even stained with blood, there was no mistaking the pearl handle. It was D’Amato’s knife.”
“What?” Fred and I exchanged looks.
“Yeah. It was his knife that killed Tommy Slick. I glanced instinctively at his belt, where he keeps the knife — it was gone.
“So Vince says to him, ‘How’d ya do it, D’Amato?’ But D’Amato just keeps staring down at Tommy, his face hard as stone.”
Mark sat back, took off his glasses.
“What happened?” I asked.
Mark shrugged. “Homicide and Internal Affairs are all over it. Vince figures D’Amato did it, but nobody can dope out how.”
“What does D’Amato say?”
“ ‘Prove it,’ is all he says. ‘Maybe my knife wanted to kill the bastard more’n I did.’ ”
“He’s crazy,” said Bill.
“Not so crazy,” Fred replied. “I mean, if he did it, how did he do it?” He turned to Mark. “You say this hidden closet was closed the whole time?”
“Like a drum. Apparently Tommy had had it constructed as a hiding place just in case of a raid or something... a little one-man bunker, just for him.”
Bill looked thoughtful. “Maybe somebody else stabbed him... ya know, earlier, before you guys got there...”
“Vince thought of that. Like maybe one of the other perps on the scene... Tommy goes in to hide, leaving his two men to shoot it out with the cops. So one of the gang stabs him. The only problem is, where did he get D’Amato’s knife to do it with?”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “We’re making this way too complicated. You said D’Amato grilled Carla for two whole days. What if she spilled the beans earlier? What if he got the hideout’s address from her, goes over earlier in the day, gets Tommy alone and stabs him, and stashes him in the secret closet?”
“How would he know about it?” Fred asked. “Unless Tommy conveniently told him, just before getting stabbed.”
“Carla told him about it,” I said. “So D’Amato kills Tommy, getting revenge for his dead partner—”
“And where were Tommy’s two men while this was going on, out getting a pizza?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Anyway, D’Amato comes back, then he radios for backup and does the big raid charade. Meanwhile, Tommy’s already dead.”
“Interesting theory,” Mark said, smiling. “Stupid, but interesting. For one thing, the coroner puts the time of death at roughly when we broke in there. And, hell, I saw the knife in his chest — that wound was fresh.”
“Okay, let’s be logical,” Fred said. “It was nighttime, gloomy... probably the lights were shot out anyway...”
“That’s right,” Mark said. “And it all happened kinda fast.”
“So who’s to say D’Amato didn’t somehow get into the room ahead of you, the cops, and Carla... It would just take seconds to slip the knife through a door slot, killing Tommy in that hidden closet.”
“I’m telling you, that closet was airtight,” Mark replied. “Built flush with the wall, so that you couldn’t even see a door without looking closely. I didn’t see it until it fell open and Tommy tumbled out. — Besides, we all got into that room about the same time. I don’t believe D’Amato could’ve stuck a knife through the doorjamb, even if he’d known where it was.”
“Then what are we left with?” Bill asked.
Mark smiled. “D’Amato’s knife magically left his belt, found its way into a sealed hidden closet, and stabbed Tommy Slick to death. This in a matter of seconds, in front of witnesses.”
“I still think one of Tommy’s men did it,” said Bill. “Didn’t you say one guy was down but the other one was trying to go out the window when you broke in?”
“That’s right. But according to him, Tommy jumped into his special hiding place as soon as the shooting started. The guy swears Tommy was in there the whole time — he never came out, and nobody went near the door — until Tommy fell out dead...”
“With D’Amato’s knife in his heart,” I said. “Talk about your unexplained phenomena.”
There was a long silence. Bill frowned at Mark.
“That’s it?” he demanded. “What’s gonna happen?”
“Who knows? D’Amato won’t talk... it’s kind of perverse on his part, if you ask me... He’s so glad Tommy’s dead, and that his knife was the instrument, it’s like he doesn’t care now what happens... Though one of my sources in the department says that if charges are filed, D’Amato intends to plead innocent.”
“Which leaves us nowhere,” Bill said. “On the other hand, maybe they’ll charge the knife with murder — and get D’Amato as an accessory.” But no one was smiling.
Suddenly, a voice broke the silence.
“What does he look like?”
We all turned. It was Isaac, comfortably settled in the armchair, his cherubic face shining. Tell you the truth, I’d forgotten he was there.
“Look like?” Mark said, with some irritation. “Who? D’Amato?”
“No, no,” Isaac replied. “I mean George, that actor friend of Bill’s.”
“Oh yeah, the guy in the locker room,” I said.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Fred asked. He glanced warily at Mark, and then at me.
“Look, Uncle Isaac...” I must admit, I was somewhat embarrassed.
“I was just thinking,” Isaac went on, leaning back in his chair. “I mean, about that curious phenomenon of the locker room. I was wondering what George looked like...”
Bill shrugged. “Very handsome, in that hunky kind of way.”
“If you like that type,” Fred muttered.
“You see,” Isaac said, “this fellow George noticed that whatever locker he chose — even if each day he chose a different area of the locker room at random — another guy would show up, his stuff in the very next locker. In a sea of available lockers, the odds almost always favored this coincidence.”
“So?”
“So I just thought that coincidence — or even the collective unconscious, or a field of subatomic particles inclined to vibrate cooperatively — might be nudged along a little if George were a handsome man. Perhaps other men who might find him attractive would make it a point to pretend their locker was next to his.”
“But George said the guy would show up, open the locker next to his, and start taking his stuff out—”
“Or start putting it in,” Isaac said, “in such a way that it looked as if he were taking it out. I did that once in high school — many, many years ago, as you can imagine — when I was attracted to this girl named Shirley. I opened the locker next to hers, claiming it was mine, and put a book in and took a book out, while we stood there talking. Of course, it was the same book. It’s really quite easy to do, especially if the locker door opens toward the girl, so her view is blocked as to the locker’s real contents.”
“Look, Isaac...” Mark tried to remain calm. “As interesting as that is, what we’ve been talking about is—”
Isaac sat forward, eyes crinkling. “Yes, I know. Very mysterious. Unexplained. Your classic locked-room murder... only in this case, it’s a closet.”
“Are you trying to say something, Uncle Isaac?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Just a question I have. I was wondering why Carla attacked Sergeant D’Amato.”