“Yes. He’s not at any of them.”
“But you still think he may have been in an accident.”
“I think he may be dead someplace,” Mrs. Ellingham said, and began weeping.
Brown was silent. He looked up at the patrolman.
“Mrs. Ellingham?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll try to get over there later today if I can, to get the information I’ll need for the Missing Persons Bureau. Will you be home?”
“Yes.”
“Shall I call first?”
“No, I’ll be here all day.”
“Fine, I’ll see you later, then. If you should hear anything meanwhile—”
“Yes, I’ll call you.”
“Good-bye, Mrs. Ellingham,” Brown said, and hung up. “Lady’s husband disappeared,” he said to the patrolman.
“Went down for a loaf of bread a year ago, right?” the patrolman said.
“Right. Hasn’t been heard from since.” Brown gestured toward the detention cage. “Who’s the prize across the room?”
“Caught him cold in the middle of a burglary on Fifth and Friedlander. On a third-floor fire escape. Jimmied open the window, and was just entering.”
“Any tools on him?”
“Yep. I left them on the bench outside.”
“Want to get them for me?”
The patrolman went out into the corridor. Brown walked over to the detention cage. The prisoner looked at him.
“What’s your name?” Brown asked.
“What’s yours?”
“Detective Arthur Brown.”
“That’s appropriate,” the prisoner said.
“I find it so,” Brown said coolly. “Now what’s yours?”
“Frederick Spaeth.”
The patrolman came back into the room carrying a leather bag containing a hand drill and bits of various sizes, a jimmy, a complete set of picklocks, several punches and skeleton keys, a pair of nippers, a hacksaw, a pair of brown cotton gloves, and a crowbar designed so that it could be taken apart and carried in three sections. Brown looked over the tools and said nothing.
“I’m a carpenter,” Spaeth said in explanation.
Brown turned to the patrolman. “Anybody in the apartment, Simms?”
“Empty,” Simms replied.
“Spaeth,” Brown said, “we’re charging you with burglary in the third degree, which is a felony. And we’re also charging you with possession of burglar’s instruments, which is a class-A misdemeanor. Take him down, Simms.”
“I want a lawyer,” Spaeth said.
“You’re entitled to one,” Brown said.
“I want him now. Before you book me.”
Because policemen are sometimes as confused by Miranda-Escobedo as are laymen, Brown might have followed the course pursued by his colleague Kling, who, the night before, had advised a prisoner of his rights even though cruising radio patrolmen had arrested him in the act. Instead, Brown said, “What for, Spaeth? You were apprehended entering an apartment illegally. Nobody’s asking you any questions, we caught you cold. You’ll be allowed three telephone calls after you’re booked, to your lawyer, your mother, your bail bondsman, your best friend, whoever the hell you like. Take him down, Simms.”
Simms unlocked the cage and prodded Spaeth out of it with his nightstick. “This is illegal!” Spaeth shouted.
“So’s breaking and entry,” Brown answered.
The woman in the apartment across the hall from 4C was taller than both Willis and Genero, which was understandable. Hal Willis was the shortest man on the squad, having cleared the minimum five-feet-eight-inch height requirement by a scant quarter of an inch. Built like a soft-shoe dancer, brown-haired and brown-eyed, he stood alongside Genero, who towered over him at five feet nine inches. Hal Willis knew he was short. Richard Genero thought he was very tall. From his father, he had inherited beautiful curly black hair and a strong Neapolitan nose, a sensuous mouth, and soulful brown eyes. From his mother, he had inherited the tall Milanese carriage of all his male cousins and uncles — except Uncle Dominick, who was only five feet six. But this lady who opened the door to apartment 4B was a very big lady indeed. Both Willis and Genero looked up at her simultaneously, and then glanced at each other in something like stupefied awe. The lady was wearing a pink slip and nothing else. Barefooted, big-breasted, redheaded, green-eyed, she put her hands on her nylon-sheathed hips and said, “Yeah?”
“Police officers,” Willis said, and showed her his shield.
The woman scrutinized it, and then said, “Yeah?”
“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” Genero said.
“What about?”
“About the young man across the hall. Lewis Scott.”
“What about him?”
“Do you know him?”
“Slightly.”
“Only slightly?” Genero said. “You live directly across the hall from him...”
“So what? This is the city.”
“Even so...”
“I’m forty-six years old. He’s a kid of what? Eighteen? Nineteen? How do you expect me to know him? Intimately?”
“Well, no, ma’am, but—”
“So that’s how I know him. Slightly. Anyway, what about him?”
“Did you see him at any time last night?” Willis asked.
“No. Why? Something happen to him?”
“Did you hear anything unusual in his apartment anytime last night?”
“Unusual like what?”
“Like glass breaking?”
“I wasn’t home last night. I went out to supper with a friend.”
“What time was that?”
“Eight o’clock.”
“And what time did you get back?”
“I didn’t. I slept over.”
“With your friend?”
“Yes.”
“What’s her name?” Genero asked.
“Her name is Morris Strauss, that’s her name.”
“Oh,” Genero said. He glanced at Willis sheepishly.
“When did you get home, ma’am?” Willis asked.
“About five o’clock this morning. Morris is a milkman. He gets up very early. We had breakfast together, and then I came back here. Why? What’s the matter? Did Lew do something?”
“Did you happen to see him at any time yesterday?”
“Yeah. When I was going to the store. He was just coming in the building.”
“What time was that, would you remember?”
“About four-thirty. I was going out for some coffee. I ran out of coffee. I drink maybe six hundred cups of coffee a day. I’m always running out. So I was going up the street to the A&P to get some more. That’s when I saw him.”
“Was he alone?”
“No.”
“Who was with him?”
“Another kid.”
“Boy or girl?”
“A boy.”
“Would you know who?” Genero asked.
“I don’t hang around with teenagers, how would I—”
“Well, you might have seen him around the neighborhood...”
“No.”
“How old would you say he was?” Willis asked.
“About Lew’s age. Eighteen, nineteen, I don’t know. A big kid.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Long blond hair, a sort of handlebar mustache. He was wearing a crazy jacket.”
“What do you mean, crazy?”
“It was like an animal skin, with the fur inside and the, you know, what do you call it, the pelt? Is that what you call it?”
“Go ahead.”
“The raw side, you know what I mean? The skin part. That was the outside of the jacket, and the fur was the inside. White fur. And there was a big orange sun painted on the back of the jacket.”
“Anything else?”
“Ain’t that enough?”
“Maybe it is,” Willis said. “Thank you very much, ma’am.”
“You’re welcome,” she answered. “You want some coffee? I got some on the stove.”