* * *
That night I called Pete from a phone booth in the lobby of the library. I had the idea that my own phone might not be safe. I was paranoid, I’m sure, but I thought that it wouldn’t hurt to play it safe. Pete was home. I inquired after Shelley, his wife, and his kid, who always beat me at chess, and finally his damned fish to get his full attention. Then: “Okay, Pete, tell me about Ed Neustadt. It may help me in something I’m working on.”
“He was a nut and a son of a bitch and a first-rate fellow officer. Which version are you looking for?”
“Spare me the praise. I got that this afternoon.”
“Yeah, Ed and Major Patrick went back a long way. Their families went camping up near Bancroft. Some trailer camp. They used to go to hangings together.”
“What? The families?” For a moment I imagined a scene from The Oxbow Incident.
“No, Benny, just Major Patrick and Neustadt. The major was the default clergyman. If the prisoner didn’t send for the clergy of his choice, they’d send for Major Patrick. They really believed that eye-for-an-eye stuff. Oh, I don’t blame the major. He was just doing his job, but Ed Neustadt just liked to be there. He liked to watch and then talk about it afterwards. He made me sick. Oh, the two of them were quite a pair.”
“Is that what you mean by his being a nut-case?”
“It’s a start. You couldn’t penetrate him, Benny When he had an idea in his head, no amount of evidence to the contrary could make him see reason. Once he had it in mind that you were guilty, he’d not rest until you were put away.”
“Are you saying that he was a conscientious officer dedicated to his work, Pete?”
“You know goddamned well I’m not! He was Captain Bligh on Church Street, Benny. There was no sense of fairness or mercy in the man. No sense of when enough’s enough. He was a bully, that’s what he was, a bully and a sadist. I’m not saying that I’m glad he’s dead, but, hell, I’m sure glad he isn’t in charge of the day room any longer. Ask Chris when he gets back from Cyprus. Oh, he made my life hell for years. Everybody’ll tell you that. No, that’s not right. They’ll all say he was the salt of the earth. And that’s the memory that’s being enshrined. For his widow’s sake. For his daughter’s.”
“Tell me about his accident, Pete. I didn’t read the account in the paper.”
“He was fixing his car in his front driveway.”
“Heart attack?”
“No, Benny. The jack holding the Buick up somehow released while he was trying to take the nut off the oil pan and the car came down on his chest. He was smashed up pretty bad. Must have been fast, though.” Neither of us said anything for a minute. We both listened to the rock music that was somehow playing on our line as though from far away.
“What makes a jack come down like that, Pete? Don’t you have to ratchet them down bit by bit? Or did it fall over?”
“This was hydraulic like you see in garages. He went in for all the professional equipment. You should see his garage; looks like a car repair shop.”
“That kind of jack doesn’t ratchet down a stop at a time?”
“Can do. But mainly you release the valve and the car settles back to the driveway, or whatever.”
“Pete, ‘how does an accident like that happen?”
“Damn it, Benny! I’m getting the same ideas you’re getting and I don’t have any better answer than you do.”
“What if somebody had it in for Neustadt?”
“I hear you.”
“If you were under your car and I came along and knew my business, there’s not a lot you could do about it, is there?”
We were quiet again for a few moments. The rock music had gone and had been replaced by distant voices, high-pitched women’s voices, talking rapidly many miles away from Grantham.
“I’m going to look into this thing, Benny. I don’t think anybody around here gave it a thought. I’ll look at the report and see what has to be done.”
“I’ll be hearing from you, then?” I asked.
“The hell you will. This is police business. Internal. I won’t even tell the Inspector about this until I’ve got something I can hold in my hand.” I asked him about our friend Savas’s holiday in Cyprus and speculated on the date of his return. Neither one of us could get very interested in that. Savas in the flesh was a formidable presence, but off at the eastern end of the Mediterranean he wasn’t enough to keep the conversation going. So I hung up, just in time to see Phil, the hood I’d socked from my bed yesterday in my pre-dawn kidnapping, busy pretending not to be busy watching me from the coffee stand. He hadn’t noticed that the stand was shut up for the tight. A good man can never find the cover he needs when he wants it.
Walking home, I thought that the tidiest solution to the problem of Neustadt’s death was this: Abe Wise, that long-lived crook, was living at this moment because he hired more than one man to look after his business for him. Ex-wife Lily was right. If Wise’s enemy was the retired deputy chief, then someone would have been told to do something about it. It seemed an easy enough task to walk up a driveway, release a valve while asking street directions.
But, if Wise was responsible for Neustadt’s death, why would he draw attention to himself by going to the funeral? He told me that his attendance at the funeral was just a device to help blacken Neustadt’s name. That was a joke, wasn’t it? There was no figuring Wise out. That was the only sure thing I got out of my walk.
Anna was waiting for me when I got in. Big surprise. Twice in one week! Once again, I tried to interest her in taking a short vacation in the middle of term. It wasn’t on for a number of reasons. The one I liked best was “because you’re not coming.” It was an honest attempt, but I didn’t get very far trying to argue with her.
FOURTEEN
The next morning I hoped that things would look better. The view from my window was not reassuring: more dull, cold weather. But the car across the street had become a steadying sign of continuity. Today was linked to yesterday and the rude awakening of the morning before that by that black Toyota. I recognized that there was a time when I had never heard of Abram Wise. That had become, in my imagination, a golden time, something to be likened to the Garden of Eden.
Anna had left hot, fresh coffee on the counter for me. I showered, shaved and dressed thinking of it. While actually drinking the coffee, I started thinking about Ed Neustadt and his Old Testament sense of justice and fair play. But Pete had suggested more than that. He spoke of a kind of craziness, some sort of sadistic fascination. That was getting me a long way from who was trying to kill Abe Wise, but I couldn’t get rid of the notion that it was important.
How could the case of a hard cop, recently dead, have anything to do with my job? If Neustadt had been the threat, then he had been rubbed out. From my point of view as a hireling of Abe Wise, the threat was over and my time as a minion of this arch-crook was about to be terminated. If I was being careful before, now I would have to be doubly careful, because Wise might find it easier to pay me off with a bullet behind the ear rather than with negotiable paper.
With the night-time hours I’d put in yesterday and the day before, I thought I would open the office late on this, the third day of the job. As a matter of fact, I’d decided to finish the pot of coffee and read McStu’s book from cover to cover. And that is what I did.
The story began as the Second World War came to an end. Sergeant Joseph Tatarski was demobilized with the called-up men in his regiment at Camp Niagara, a few miles from here. After being away from home for most of the war, Joe returned to his wife, Anastasia, his daughters, Margaret and Mary, and young son Freddy. All went well until Joe surprised a burglar one night in 1946. There was a fight and Joe was hit over the head and killed. The burglar escaped, leaving a sack of silver-plated wedding presents behind. The investigating officer, young Corporal Ed Neustadt, made a routine report to his sergeant.