Fred shook his head. “I can’t understand that,” he said. “How did you get so involved?”
“I was trying to get that nine hundred thirty dollars I was owed,” I said, “and Abbie wanted to do something to avenge her brother, since he was her last living relative.”
Doug said, “Did you get the money?” He held one of my markers.
“No,” I said. “They refused to pay off, in fact.”
“That’s too bad,” Doug said.
Fred said, “How can you think about money at a time like this, Doug? Chet, do they really want to kill you?” He couldn’t seem to get it into his head.
“Yes,” I said. “They really want to kill me. Abbie, too. Ask Sid.”
Fred turned his head and looked at Sid, who said, “Chet’s right.”
Fred said to him, “And it would help him if he found out who killed Tommy McKay?”
Sid shrugged. “It’s possible. I wouldn’t know about that.”
I said, “The funny thing is, I think I know who it is. And yet I don’t believe it.”
Everybody looked at me. Abbie said, “Who?” Leo said, “Why don’t you believe it?”
I answered Leo. I said, “One of the things I wanted to do here was throw this mess on the table and just watch reactions, see how different people acted. I figured maybe the killer would act different from everybody else, and I’d be able to spot him.”
Leo said, “And did he? Have you spotted somebody?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I don’t believe it. There’s something wrong somewhere.”
Abbie said, “For Pete’s sake, Chet, who is it?”
“It’s Fred,” I said.
37
Nobody said anything. Fred frowned, looking troubled and worried and sad but somehow not like a murderer, and everybody else looked alternately at him and at me.
Leo broke the silence at last. He said, “Why do you think it’s Fred?”
I said, “Because he jumped a mile when we came in here, and then covered it up by saying he thought Abbie was Cora. But Abbie doesn’t look at all like Cora, and Fred just saw Abbie four days ago and knew she might be coming back tonight. And because Cora didn’t call last Wednesday and I bet she doesn’t call tonight, and that’s because she knows what happened and she’s agreed to let Fred go on with his normal life as though nothing had happened, to cover up.”
Leo said, “That isn’t very much, Chet.”
“I don’t have very much,” I said, “I admit that. But I have a little more. When I started talking, everybody got excited. Everybody but Fred. Jerry accused Doug, Leo accused Jerry, Doug got mad, Leo accused Sid, everybody was full of questions and excitement and disbelief. Everybody but Fred. He just sat there and didn’t say anything for a long while. Until I made it clear that Abbie and I were now murder targets ourselves and the one who’d killed Tommy was indirectly responsible. Then he asked questions, hoping to get answers that would make it less tough. All he is is worried and troubled and sad, and everybody else is excited and irritated and surprised.”
Abbie said, “But why do you say it doesn’t seem right?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “There’s something that just doesn’t jibe. Fred’s reactions are wrong for him to be innocent, but somehow they’re wrong for him to be guilty, too. He should be tougher if he’s guilty. I don’t understand.”
Fred gave me a wan smile and said, “You’re pretty good, Chet. I don’t know how you did that, but you’re pretty doggone good.”
Jerry gaped at him. “You mean you did do it?”
“No,” Fred said. “I didn’t shoot Tommy. But I did shoot you, Chet, and God, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hit anybody, I aimed between you and Abbie. When I saw I’d hit you I almost died myself. Christ, I’ve always been a pretty good shot, I don’t know what went wrong.”
“That gun shoots off to the left,” I said. “You should have taken it out on a practice range for a while.”
“It must shoot way the hell to the left,” he said.
“It does,” Abbie said.
Sid said to him, “You took the gun out of my pocket?”
Fred nodded. “I was going through Chet’s and Abbie’s pockets,” he said. “I wanted to see if they had any clues or evidence or anything about the murder they weren’t telling us about. I felt the heavy thing in your pocket, and took a look, and there was the gun. I knew you had something to do with the underworld, so I figured it was your gun, and I swiped it. I didn’t know it belonged to you, Chet.”
“To me,” Abbie said. “Where is it?”
“In the Harlem River,” Fred said. “I thought I’d killed Chet for sure, so I got rid of that gun right away.”
I said, “But you didn’t kill Tommy.”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”
“Then why do all this other stuff? To cover up for the real killer? But who?”
Fred just smiled sadly at me.
We all stared at him, and it hit all of us simultaneously, and six voices raised as one to cry, “CORA!”
Fred nodded. “Cora,” he said. “Chet, you saw her right after she did it.”
I said, “I did not.”
“Sure you did. She was coming out of the building when you were going in.”
I frowned, drawing a blank, and suddenly remembered. “The woman with the baby carriage!”
“Sure,” he said. “Cora’s a smart woman, Chet. She saw you through the glass, and she didn’t want to be recognized, and there was a baby carriage in the hallway, so she figured that would make a good disguise, and with the two of you meeting in the doorway, you holding the door and the baby carriage in the way and all, her keeping her head down, she got away with it. She went right through and you never even noticed.”
I said, “A day or two later I saw a sign in the entranceway there about a stolen baby carriage, and I never connected it at all.”
Abbie, in an outraged tone, said, “Cora? I don’t even know who she is!”
“She’s Fred’s wife,” I said.
“But that isn’t fair,” she said. “How can I solve the murder if I don’t even know the murderer, if I never even met her? The woman never even put in an appearance!”
“Sure she did,” I said. “She walked right by me with a baby carriage.”
“Well, she never walked by me,” she insisted. “I say it isn’t fair. You wouldn’t get away with that in a detective story.”
I said, “Why not? Remember the story about the dog who didn’t bark in the night? Well, this is the same thing. The wife who didn’t phone in the night.”
“Oh, foo,” Abbie said, and folded her arms. “I say it isn’t fair, and I won’t have any more to do with it.”
Jerry said, “Never mind all that. Fred, why on earth would Cora do a thing like that?”
“You’re the one she punched in the nose,” Fred reminded him. “She’s a very violent woman, Cora. She’d been on Tommy’s back not to take any bets from me, and she found out we were still doing business, and she went down there to really let him have it, and she took the gun along to scare him. She wasn’t even sure she’d show it to him. But he apparently had something on his mind—”
“That’s an understatement,” I said. “His wife was running around with another man, and he was running around with another boss.”
“Well, anyway,” Fred said, “she showed him the gun. Then, instead of getting scared, he made a jump for her, and she started shooting.” To me he said, “It’s an old gun of mine, I’ve had it since I was in the Army. I do pot-shooting with it sometimes. That’s why I didn’t believe it when I saw I’d hit you the other night, because I knew I was a better shot than that.”