“Is that what they call being enigmatic?” he said, extending the container toward me. “I wouldn't exactly say it's coffee, but it's hot.”
I got my mug from the bottom drawer of my desk, filled it from the container, and handed the container back to Stan.
“Talk a lot, don't you?” Stan said. “Regular chatterbox.”
“If I hadn't spent so much time talking to you on that phone…”
“That's what they're for, Pete. Talking. The guy wasn't a suspect when you were talking to me. He didn't start being a suspect until he took his swan dive. In other words—”
“In other words, I let him get away,” I said. “That's what it amounts to, any way you slice it.”
“Balls. So what've you done about it? I mean, aside from asking Communications to get out an alarm.”
“Well, the first thing I did was hit for that alley out back. There's only one way he could have got away from there, Stan, and that's through the alley and across a couple of courts to Riverside.”
“Any bloodstains?”
“Not a one.”
He nodded. “The damage must all be on the inside.”
“Communications has put all the hospitals on the watch-and-wait,” I said. “I think he must have made it as far as Riverside under his own power, and then taken a cab.”
“They checking the trip-sheets?”
“Yes. There's a cop at every cab garage. They'll check every sheet the minute the driver turns it in.”
“You think he might have holed in somewhere around there?”
“It wouldn't be easy. But if he did, the uniform men will flush him out.” I finished the last of my coffee and put the mug back in the drawer. “You said Barney came up with some pictures of Maurice Thibault,” I said. “Where are they?”
“He sent them over to Centre Street for copies,” he said. “You want to read the translation of that newspaper story?”
“I remember it,” I said.
“Which reminds me,” he said. “Barney Fells is still here, Pete.”
“At this hour? How come?”
“Hell, he spends half his life here, Pete. All he uses his home for is to store his clothes.” He paused. “He… uh… said he wanted to see you.”
“About Albert Miller?”
“Damned if I know, Pete.”
“If this is going to be a chew-out, I want to know.”
“He's a little bit steamed, Pete. Whether it's about Miller or not, I don't know.”
“Which way would you call it?” I said.
“Well…
“Well?”
“Miller,” he said.
I got up and walked out to the squad commander's six-by-six office and sat down on the straight chair beside his desk.
“You wanted to see me, Barney?” I said,
He scowled at me a moment, nodded almost imperceptibly, and then looked away from me and sat drumming a pencil eraser against the top of his desk. “I can think of a lot of people I'd rather see,” he said.
I didn't say anything. Barney had his own ways of backing into a chew-out, and squad-room protocol required his detectives to say nothing until asked for comment. I watched him, feeling a lot more sorry for Barney Fells than I felt concerned for myself.
Acting-Lieutenant Barney Fells is a Department tragedy, a tough, wiry, graying, dedicated cop who had become so good at his job that he lost it. He had wanted to remain a working detective for the rest of his career; instead, he had, against his protests and threats of resignation, been promoted to acting-lieutenant, a rank he had never wanted, and elevated to squad commander, a desk job he hated.
And so now he sat in his cubbyhole, prevented by his rank and command from doing the work that had been his entire life, forced to watch other men trying to do his old job only half as well as he had.
“Quarter past five,” Barney said, glancing at his watch. “The Ellison girl was killed about twenty-four hours ago.”
I nodded.
“A long time, twenty-four hours,” he said. “Hard grind. Takes the starch out of a man.” He sighed. “Another thing,” he added quickly. “You and Stan are always splitting up. Why do you think we set up detective teams in the first place? So you two heroes can…” He broke off. “Oh, screw it. You're hopeless, Pete. Give you another five years and you'll end up in the same damn fix I'm in. And you know something, smart-ass? It'll serve you right.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So smart. So brave.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Stan, too,”
“Yes, sir.”
“How long's it been since you ate?”
“I'm never hungry when there's time, and there's never time when I'm hungry.”
He stared at me pityingly for a moment, then sighed again and sank back in his chair. “God, I'd liked to have caught this one,” he said. “In the old days, it'd have been my special meat.”
“These girl-murders are tough,” I said.
“That's what I mean,” he said. “Gives a man something to really tear into.”
“And the newspapers, too.”
“You seen them?”
“I don't have to.”
“They're calling this one the 'Petticoat Murder,' Pete. Of course, she actually died some other way, but 'Petticoat Murder' sounds sexier.” He shook his head. “First time I ever saw them fail to come up with a picture for the first page.”
“The snapshot Stan snagged off her dresser was the only one around.”
“Stan filled me in pretty well, all in all. That Nadine must have been a natural-born little liar.”
“Either that, or having the kind of baby she did, and having it the way she had it could've triggered something in her mind.”
“What are you, now? A psychologist?”
“Well, look at what happened to her. She had the kind of baby that would tear any mother's heart out. And she not only had it, Barney, she had it beside the road out in the middle of nowhere, with not a soul around to lift a finger to help her. And then her husband goes insane right before her eyes, and runs, and she lies there all night with this baby dying beside her and maybe she goes a little crazy herself.”
Barney shook his head. “The wonder is that she didn't go all the way.”
“And when she gets out of the hospital, up jumps her husband and tries to kill her with his fists. He was stupid enough to think she was to blame for it. God knows what he thought. He must have figured she'd been sleeping around with a grown-up mongolian idiot or something.”
“A guy like that's the most dangerous kind of man there is,” Barney said. “As for myself, I'll take an honest gunman, every time.”
“He beat her up twice,” I said. “He came pretty close to killing her both times; and even after Nadine left St. Louis, he kept swearing that he'd get her if it was the last thing he ever did.”
“And he may have done it, too,” Barney said. “That phone call he made about getting whoever killed her — that could be just so much manure.”
“It's pretty hard to make a guess about anybody as crazy as Burt Ellison.”
“He didn't come to New York for the World's Fair, because we don't have any,” Barney said, ignoring me. “Ellison's a psycho. He's a standout suspect all the way; and with me, he's number one. How about you?”
“I'm trying not to play any favorites,” I said.
“You mean you don't want to put down any bets until the horses pass the finish line?”
“I just don't like to look so hard at Jack I can't see John”
“Or Jill,” Barney said. “Never rule out the ladies, Pete. It's the one sure way to end up sad, sick and sorry,” He picked up his pencil again, wrote Burt Ellison's name at the top of a scratch pad, and then sat staring at it broodingly for a moment. “Funny how these psycho cases can be so shrewd, isn't it? They've got some very hotshot detectives in St. Louis, and yet Ellison gives them the slip.”