“Good,” he said, being careful to avoid false heartiness. “Eddie will be up next week. What about Liza?”
“No, Edward. Not in her condition. Not yet.”
“All right. Shall I call your friends?”
“I’ll do it. Most of them I want to see call me every day. I’ll tell them I’d like to see them. You know-two or three a day. Not everyone at once.”
He nodded approvingly and looked down at her smiling. But her appearance shocked him. She was so thin! The tubes and jars were gone, her face was flushed with the familiar fever, but the frailty was what tore his heart. She who had always been so active, strong, vibrant…Now she lay flaccid and seemed to strain for breath. The hand he was not holding picked weakly at blanket fluff.
“Edward, are you eating all right?”
“Fine.”
“Sticking to your diet?”
“I swear.”
“What about sleep?”
He held out a hand, palm down, then turned it over, then flipped it back and forth a few times.
“So-so. Listen, Barbara, there’s something I must tell you. I want to-”
“Has something happened? Are the children all right?”
“The children are fine. This doesn’t concern them. But I want to talk to you for about an hour. Maybe more. It won’t tire you, will it?”
“Of course not, silly. I’ve been sleeping all day. I can tell you’re excited. What is it?”
“Well…four days ago-actually early in the morning following your operation-there was a homicide in my precinct.” He described to her, as concisely and completely as he could, the discovery and appearance of Frank Lombard’s body. Then he went on to tell her how important it was to solve Lombard’s murder in view of the man’s public criticism of the Department, and how the current reorganization of the Detective Division hampered efficient handling of the case. Then he described his private talk with Deputy Commissioner Broughton.
“He sounds like a horrible man!” she interrupted.
“Yes…Anyway, the next day I filed for retirement.”
She came up from the bed in shock, then fell back, her eyes filling with tears.
“Edward! You didn’t?”
“Yes. I wanted to spend more time with you. I thought it was the right decision at the time. But it didn’t go through. This is what happened…”
He recounted his meeting with Deputy Inspector Thorsen and Inspector Johnson. He detailed their plan for Delaney to make an independent investigation of the Lombard homicide, in an effort to humiliate Broughton. As he spoke, he could see Barbara come alive. She propped herself on one elbow and leaned forward, eyes shining. She was the politician of the family and dearly loved hearing accounts and gossip of intra-Departmental feuding, the intrigues and squabbles of ambitious men and factions.
Delaney told her how he had demanded a letter of authorization from a superior officer before he would agree to the Lombard investigation.
“Barbara, do you think I did the wise thing?”
“You did exactly right,” she said promptly. “I’m proud of you. In that jungle, the first law is ‘Save yourself.’”
Then he told her about receiving the Commissioner’s letter, the authorization of indefinite leave of absence, and his most recent conversation with Thorsen.
“I’m glad you recommended Dorfman,” she nodded happily. “I like him. And I think he deserves a chance.”
“Yes. The problem is making a lieutenant even an acting commander of a precinct. And of course they can’t suddenly promote him without possibly alerting Broughton. Well…we’ll see what happens. Meanwhile, I’ll be getting copies of all the Operation Lombard reports tomorrow.”
“Edward, it doesn’t sound like you have much to go on.”
“No, not much. Thorsen says that so far Operation Lombard has drawn a blank. They don’t have any description of a possible suspect, how he killed, or why he, killed.”
“You say ‘he.’ Couldn’t it have been a woman?”
“Possibly, but the probability percentages are against it. Women murder with gun, knife, and pistol. They rarely bludgeon. And when they do, it’s usually when the victim is asleep.”
“Then you’re really starting from scratch?”
“Well…I have two things. They don’t amount to much and I expect Chief Pauley has them too. Lombard was a tall man. I’d guess about six feet. Now look…” Delaney rose to his feet and looked around the hospital room. He found a magazine, rolled it up tightly, and gripped one end. “Now I’m the killer with a hammer, a pipe, or maybe a long spike. I’m striking down at the victim’s skull.” He raised the magazine above his head and brought it down viciously. “See that? I’ll do it again. Watch the position of my right arm.” Again he raised the magazine and brought it down in a feigned crushing blow. “What did you see?”
“Your arm wasn’t extended. Your right arm was bent. The top of the magazine was only about six inches above your head.”
“Correct. That’s the way a man would normally strike. When you’re hammering in a nail, you don’t raise your arm to its full length above your head; you keep your elbow bent the better to control the accuracy of the blow. You raise your arm just high enough to provide what you estimate to be sufficient force. It’s an unconscious skill, based on experience. To drive a carpet tack, you might raise a hammer only an inch or two. To drive a spike, you’d raise the hammer to your head level or higher.”
“Was Lombard killed with a hammer?”
“Ferguson says no. But it was obviously something swung with sufficient force to penetrate his brain to a depth of three to four inches. I haven’t seen Ferguson’s report yet.”
“Could the killer be lefthanded?”
“Could be. But probability is against it, unless the nature and position of the wound indicate otherwise, and then it might be due to the position of the victim at the moment of impact.”
“There are so many possibilities.”
“There surely are. Barbara, are you getting tired?”
“Oh no. You can’t stop now. Edward, I don’t understand the significance of what you just showed me-how a man strikes with his elbow bent.”
“Just that Lombard was about six feet tall. If the killer raised the weapon about six inches above his own head-which is about the limit any man would raise a tool or weapon before striking downward-and the puncture was low on Lombard’s skull (not so far down as to be in that hollow where the spine joins the skull, but up from that toward the crown of the skull), then I’d guess the killer to be approximately of Lombard’s height or maybe a few inches taller. Yes, it’s a guess. But based, it seems to me, on what little physical evidence is available. And I’ve got to start guessing somewhere.”
“You said you had two things, Edward. What’s the other?”
“Well…I worked this out the morning of the murder. While I was on the scene. Just to satisfy my own curiosity, I guess. What bothered me most about the murder was why a man of Lombard’s size and strength, with his awareness of street crime, alone on a deserted street at midnight, why he would let an assailant come up behind him and chop him down without making any apparent effort to defend himself. Here’s how I think it was done…”
He acted it out for her. First he was Lombard, in his overcoat, walking briskly around the hospital room, head turning side to side as he inspected entrances and outside lobbies. “Then I see a man coming toward me from York Avenue. Coming toward me.” Delaney-Lombard, explaining as he performed, peeked ahead, watching the approaching figure. He slowed his steps, ready to defend himself or run to safety if danger threatened. But then he smiled, reassured by the stranger’s appearance. He moved aside to let the smiling stranger pass, and then…
“Now I’m the killer,” Delaney told a wide-eyed Barbara. He took off his overcoat and folded it over his left arm. Beneath the coat, hidden, the rolled up magazine was grasped in his left hand. His right arm swung free as he marched briskly around the hospital room. “I see the man I want to kill. I smile and continue to walk quickly like a resident of the block anxious to get home.”