"But we understand there's a teller's tape," Carella said.
"Well, a teller tape, yes," Lawton said, correcting him, and then looking up at the clock; Carella figured it must have been a long, hard day.
"So perhaps if we looked at that tape ..."
"Well," he said again.
"This is a homicide we're investigating," Brown said, and fixed Lawton with a scowl that was in itself homicidal.
Lawton's teller tapes were kept in a locked drawer under the counter. His stamp was in that same locked drawer. He unlocked it now, and searched through what he called his proof sheets, looking for and finding at last the one dated the ninth of July. A tape that did indeed look like an adding-machine tape was stapled to it. Lawton had handled a hundred and thirty-seven counter transactions on that day. None of
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them was for an exact two-thousand-dollar withdrawal in cash. But one of the recorded transactions rang a bell.
The computer printout on the tape showed the date, and then the time, and then:
113-807-40 162 772521
SW $2400
"The first number is the account number," Lawton explained. "The next number is the number of the IBT branch here, one-sixty-two. The last number is my teller's number."
"What's the SW stand for?" Brown asked.
"Savings withdrawal. Twenty-four hundred is what the customer took out of his account. It's likely that I gave it to him in a two-thousand-dollar strap and four hundred in loose bills outside the strap."
"Can you trace that account number ..."
"Yes."
"... and give us the customer's name?"
"If Mr Granville says it's okay."
Mr Granville said it was okay to give them the customer's name.
When the computer punched it up, Lawton said, "Oh yes."
"Oh yes what?" Brown asked.
"He's been withdrawing twenty-four hundred in cash every month since March."
The customer's name was Thomas Mott.
He didn't know what they were talking about.
"There must be some mistake," he said.
They always said that.
"No, there's no mistake," Carella said.
They were standing in the center aisle of his antiques shop on Drittel Avenue. A German grandfather clock bonged the hour: six p.m. again. It was always six p.m. here. Mott seemed annoyed that they'd arrived just as he was about to close. Everyone seemed annoyed at having to work a long day today.
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But the cops had been on the job since seven forty-five this morning.
"You do remember withdrawing twenty-four hundred dollars in cash on the ninth of this month, don't you?" Carella asked.
"Well, yes, but that was a very special circumstance. A man came to me with a rare William and Mary tankard, and he would accept only cash for it. He didn't know what he had, it was truly a steal. I went to the bank ..."
"At twelve twenty-seven p.m.," Brown said, showing off.
"Around then," Mott said.
"That's what the teller tape says," Brown said.
"Then that's what it must have been."
"Who's this man with the rare William and Mary tankard?" Carella asked.
"I'm sure I have his name in the file somewhere."
"Then I wish you'd find it for us," Carella said. "And while you're at it, maybe you can look through your records for the withdrawals you made on June first, which was a Friday, and May first, which was a Tuesday, and April second, which was a Monday, and March ..."
"I don't recall any of those withdrawals," Mott said.
"The teller tapes," Brown reminded him, and smiled pleasantly. "That's when the withdrawals started. In March."
"Twenty-four hundred every month."
"For a total of twelve thousand dollars."
"Remember?"
"Yes, now that you mention it. . ."
They always said that, too.
". . . I do remember withdrawing that amount each month. Against just such an opportunity as the rare William and Mary."
"Ahhh," Brown said.
"Then that explains it," Carella said.
"What it doesn't explain," Brown said, "is how that twelve thousand dollars ended up in Susan Brauer's cash box."
Mott blinked.
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"Susan Brauer," Brown said, and smiled pleasantly again.
"Remember her?" Carella asked.
"Yes, but..."
"She came to your shop every now and then, remember?"
"She was in here on the ninth, remember?"
"To look at a butler's table you'd told her about..."
"Yes, of course I remember."
"Do you remember giving her twenty-four hundred dollars in cash every month?"
"I never did such a thing."
"Since March," Brown said.
"Of course not. Why would I have done such a thing?"
"Gee, I don't know," Brown said. "Why would you?"
"The woman was a customer, why would . . .?"
"Mr Mott ... we found a currency strap in her apartment ..."
"I don't know what that is, a currency ..."
"... and we've traced it back to your account. The money came from your account, Mr Mott, there's no question about that. Now do you want to tell us why you were paying Susan Brauer twenty-four hundred dollars a month?"
"For the past five months ..."
"Two thousand in a strap ..."
"The rest in loose hundreds ..."
"Why, Mr Mott?"
"I didn't kill her," Mott said.
He'd met Susan ...
He'd called her Susan in deference to her wishes; nobody calls me Suzie, she'd said.
. . . here at the shop when she came in one day in January, just browsing, she'd told him. She was renting an apartment up on Silvermine Oval, and whereas it was furnished, she missed the little touches that made a house a home, and was always on the lookout for anything that might personalize the place. He asked her what sort of things she had in mind, and she told him Oh, nothing big, no sideboards or dining-room
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tables or Welsh dressers or anything like that. But if there was a small footstool, for example, or a beautiful little lamp that she could take with her when she moved out - she was hoping to move to a bigger apartment as soon as certain arrangements had been made, she told him, but apartments were soooo expensive these days, weren't they?
He'd called her one day toward the end of the month, he'd just got a new shipment from England, this was the end of January. He and his wife had spent a week in Jamaica, he remembered calling Susan as soon as they got back because there was a beautiful set of Sheffield candlesticks in the shipment, none of the copper showing through, rare for Sheffields, and they were reasonably priced, and he thought she might like to take a look at them. She came to the shop that afternoon, and fell in love with them, of course, they were truly beautiful, but then expressed some doubt as to whether or not they'd fit in with the decor of the apartment, which was essentially modern, leather and stainless, you know, huge throw pillows on the floor, abstract paintings, and so on. So he said he'd be happy to lend her the candlesticks until she made up her mind, and she'd said Ohhh, would you? and he had them sent around the very next day.
She called him on a Saturday, this was sometime during the first week in February, and asked if he could possibly stop by to take a look at the candlesticks himself. She'd put them on the dining-room table, which was all glass and stainless, and she thought maybe the brass clashed with the steel, and she really would appreciate his opinion. So he went by at the end of the day.
She had mixed a pitcherful of martinis, she was fond of martinis.
He told her frankly that he thought the candlesticks did look out of place on that table, and she thanked him for his honesty and thanked him again for coming all the way uptown, and then she offered him a drink, which he accepted. It was close to six-thirty, he guessed. A very cold Saturday afternoon
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