“Monoghan and Monroe?”
“Yes, were speculating that the suspect had jumped through the window into the alley below. I didn’t think it would hurt to go downstairs and see if I could get some meaningful pictures.”
“Did you get some meaningful pictures?”
“Yes, I got some pictures of where he must have landed—on both feet, incidentally—and I also got another walking picture and direction line. He moved toward the basement door and into the basement. That’s not the important thing, however.”
“What is the important thing?” Meyer asked patiently.
“Our man is injured. And I think badly.”
“How do you know?”
“The walking picture downstairs is entirely different from the one in the kitchen. The footprints are the same, of course, no question but that the same person left them. But the walking line indicates that the person was leaning quite heavily on the left leg and dragging the right. There are, in fact, no flat footprints for the right foot, only scrape marks where the edges of the sole and heel were pulled along the concrete. I would suggest that whoever’s handling the case put out a physician’s bulletin. If this guy hasn’t got a broken leg, I’ll eat the pictures I took.”
A girl in a green coat was waiting in the lobby. Leaning against the wall, hands thrust deep into the slash pockets of the coat, she turned toward the basement door the instant it opened. Carella and Kling, followed by the red-faced patrolman (who was slightly more red-faced at the moment), came through the doorway and were starting for the street when the girl said, “Excuse me, are you the detectives?”
“Yes?” Carella said.
“Hey, listen, I’m sorry,” the patrolman said. “I just got transferred up here, you know, I ain’t too familiar with all you guys.”
“That’s okay,” Kling said.
“The super told me you were in the building,” the girl said.
“So, like excuse it, huh?” the patrolman said.
“Right, right,” Kling said, and waved him toward the front door.
“You’re investigating the Fletcher murder, aren’t you?” the girl said. She was quite soft-spoken, a tall girl with dark hair and large brown eyes that shifted alternately from one detective to the other, as though searching for the most receptive audience.
“How can we help you, miss?” Carella asked.
“I saw somebody in the basement last night,” she said. “With blood on his clothes.”
Carella glanced at Kling, and immediately said, “What time was this?”
“About a quarter to eleven,” the girl said.
“What were you doing in the basement?”
“My clothes,” the girl said, sounding surprised. “That’s where the washing machines are. I’m sorry, my name is Nora Simonov. I live here in the building.”
“So long, you guys,” the patrolman called from the front door. “Excuse it, huh?”
“Right, right,” Kling said.
“I live on the fifth floor,” Nora said. “Apartment 5A.”
“Tell us what happened, will you?” Carella said.
“I was sitting by the machine, watching the clothes tumble—which is simply fascinating, you know,” she said, and rolled her eyes and flashed a quick, surprising smile, “when the door leading to the backyard opened. The door to the alley. You know the door I mean?”
“Yes,” Carella said.
“And this man came down the stairs. I don’t even think he saw me. The machines are sort of off to the side, you know. He went straight for the steps at the other end, the ones that go up to the street. There are two flights of steps. One goes to the lobby, the other goes to the street. He went up to the street.”
“Was he anyone you recognized?”
“What do you mean?”
“From the building? Or the neighborhood?”
“No. I’d never seen him before last night.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Sure. He was about twenty-one, twenty-two years old, your height and weight, well, maybe a little bit shorter, five-ten or eleven. Brown hair.”
Kling was already writing. “Notice the color of his eyes?” he said.
“No, I’m sorry.”
“Was he white or black?”
“White.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Dark trousers, high-topped sneakers, a poplin windbreaker. With blood on the sleeve and on the front.”
“Which sleeve?”
“The right one.”
“Any hat?”
“No.”
“Was he carrying anything?”
“Yes. A small red bag. It looked like one of those bags the airlines give you.”
“Any scars, tattoos, marks?”
“Well, I couldn’t say. He wasn’t that close. And he went by in pretty much of a hurry, considering.”
“Considering what?” Carella asked.
“His leg. He was dragging his right leg. I think he was hurt pretty badly.”
“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?” Carella asked.
“In a minute,” Nora said.
What they had in mind, of course, was identification from a mug shot. What they had in mind was the possibility that the I.S. would come up with something positive on the fingerprints that had been sent downtown. What they all hoped was that maybe, just once, it would turn out to be a nice, easy one—the Identification Section would send them the record of a known criminal, and they would pick him up without a fuss, and parade him in a squad-room lineup, from which Nora Simonov would pick him out as the man she had seen in the basement at 10:45 the night before, with blood on his clothes.
The I.S. reported that none of the fingerprints in their file matched the ones found in the apartment.
So the detectives sighed, and figured it was going to be a tough one after all (they are all tough ones, after all, they groaned, awash in a sea of self-pity), and did exactly what Marshall Davies had suggested: they sent out a bulletin to all of the city’s doctors, asking them to report any leg fractures or sprains suffered by a white man in his early twenties, five feet ten or eleven inches tall, weighing approximately 180 pounds, brown hair, last seen wearing dark trousers, high-topped sneakers, and a poplin windbreaker with bloodstains on the front and on the right sleeve.
And, just to prove that cops can be as wrong as anyone else, it turned out to be a nice, easy one, after all.
The call came from a physician in Riverhead at 4:37 that afternoon, just as Carella was ready to go home.
“This is Dr. Mendelsohn,” he said. “I have your bulletin here, and I want to report treating a man who fits your description.”
“Where are you located, Dr. Mendelsohn?” Carella asked.
“On Dover Plains Avenue. In Riverhead. 3461 Dover Plains.”
“When did you treat this man?”
“Early this morning. I have early office hours on Monday. It’s my day at the hospital.”
“What did you treat him for?”
“A bad ankle sprain.”
“No fracture?”
“None. We X-rayed the leg here. It was quite swollen, and I suspected a fracture, of course, but it was merely a bad sprain. I taped it for him, and advised him to stay off it for a while.”
“Did he give you his name?”
“Yes. I have it right here.”
“May I have it, sir?”
“Ralph Corwin.”
“Any address?”
“894 Woodside.”
“In Riverhead?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you, Dr. Mendelsohn,” Carella said.
“Not at all,” Mendelsohn said, and hung up.
Carella pulled the Riverhead telephone directory from the top drawer of his desk, and quickly flipped to the C’s. He did not expect to find a listing for Ralph Corwin. A man would have to be a rank amateur to first burglarize an apartment without wearing gloves, then stab a woman to death, and then give his name when seeking treatment for an injury sustained in escaping from the murder apartment.