A Stab in the Dark (Matthew Scudder #4)

A Stab in the Dark (Matthew Scudder #4) Page 23

Wyckoff Street.

Chapter 16

It must have been around three o'clock when I spoke with the boy. It was between six thirty and seven by the time I mounted the stoop of his building on West 103rd. I'd found things to do during the intervening hours.

I rang a couple of bells but not his, and someone buzzed me in. Whoever it was peered at me from a doorway on the third floor but didn't challenge my right to pass. I stood at Havermeyer's door and listened for a moment. The television was on, tuned to the local news.

I didn't really expect him to shoot through the door but he did wear a gun as a security guard, and although he probably left it in the store each night I couldn't be sure he didn't have another one at home. They teach you to stand to the side of a door when you knock on it, so I did. I heard his footsteps approach the door, then his voice asking who it was.

"Scudder," I said.

He opened the door. He was in street clothes and probably left not only the gun but the entire uniform at the store each night. He had a can of beer in one hand. I asked if I could come in. His reaction time was slow but at length he nodded and made room for me. I entered and drew the door shut.

He said, "Still on that case, huh? Something I can do for you?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'll be glad to help if I can. Meantime, how about a beer?"

I shook my head. He looked at the can of beer he was holding, moved to set it down on a table, went over and turned off the television set. He held the pose for a moment and I studied his face in profile. He didn't need a shave this time. He turned slowly, expectantly, as if waiting for the blow to fall.

I said, "I know you killed her, Burt."

I watched his deep brown eyes. He was rehearsing his denial, running it through his mind, and then there was a moment when he decided not to bother. Something went out of him.

"When did you know?"

"A couple of hours ago."

"When you left here Sunday I couldn't figure whether you knew or not. I thought maybe you were going cat-and-mouse with me. But I didn't get that feeling. I felt close to you, actually. I felt we were a couple of ex-cops, two guys who left the force for personal reasons. I thought maybe you were playing a part, setting a trap, but it didn't feel like it."

"I wasn't."

"How did you find out?"

"St. Marks Place. You didn't live in the East Village after all. You lived in Brooklyn three blocks away from Barbara Ettinger."

"Thousands of people lived that close to her."

"You let me go on thinking you lived in the East Village. I don't know if I'd have had a second thought about it if I'd known from the beginning that you had lived in Brooklyn. Maybe I would have. But most likely I wouldn't. Brooklyn's a big place. I didn't know there was a St. Marks Place in it so I certainly didn't know where it was in relation to Wyckoff Street. For all I knew, it could have been out in Sheepshead Bay near your precinct. But you lied about it."

"Just to avoid getting into a long explanation. It doesn't prove anything."

"It gave me a reason to take a look at you. And the first thing I took a look at was another lie you told me. You said you and your wife didn't have any kids. But I talked to your boy on the phone this afternoon, and I called back and asked him his father's name and how old he was. He must have wondered what I was doing asking him all those questions. He's twelve. He was three years old when Barbara Ettinger was killed."

"So?"

"You used to take him to a place on Clinton Street. The Happy Hours Child Care Center."

"You're guessing."

"No."

"They're out of business. They've been out of business for years."

"They were still in business when you left Brooklyn. Did you keep tabs on the place?"

"My ex-wife must have mentioned it," he said. Then he shrugged. "Maybe I walked past there once. When I was in Brooklyn visiting Danny."

"The woman who ran the day-care center is living in New York. She'll remember you."

"After nine years?"

"That's what she says. And she kept records, Burt. The ledgers with the names and addresses of students and their parents, along with the record of payments. She packed all that stuff in a carton when she closed the business and never bothered to go through it and throw out the things she didn't need to keep anymore. She opened the box today. She says she remembers you. You always brought the boy, she said. She never met your wife but she does remember you."

"She must have a good memory."

"You were usually in uniform. That's an easy thing to remember."

He looked at me for a moment, then turned and walked over to the window and stood looking out of it. I don't suppose he was looking at anything in particular.

"Where'd you get the icepick, Burt?"

Without turning he said, "I don't have to admit to anything. I don't have to answer any questions."

"Of course you don't."

"Even if you were a cop I wouldn't have to say anything. And you're not a cop. You've got no authority."

"You're absolutely right."

"So why should I answer your questions?"

"You've been sitting on it a long time, Burt."

"So?"

"Doesn't it get to you a little? Keeping it inside all that time?"

"Oh, God," he said. He went over to a chair, dropped into it. "Bring me that beer," he said. "Could you do that for me?"

I gave it to him. He asked me if I was sure I didn't want one for myself. No thanks, I said. He drank some beer and I asked him where he got the icepick.

"Some store," he said. "I don't remember."

"In the neighborhood?"

"I think in Sheepshead Bay. I'm not sure."

"You knew Barbara Ettinger from the day-care center."

"And from the neighborhood. I used to see her around the neighborhood before I started taking Danny to the center."

"And you were having an affair with her?"

"Who told you that? No, I wasn't having an affair with her. I wasn't having an affair with anybody."

"But you wanted to."

"No."

I waited, but he seemed willing to leave it there. I said, "Why did you kill her, Burt?"

He looked at me for a moment, then looked down, then looked at me again. "You can't prove anything," he said.

I shrugged.

"You can't. And I don't have to tell you anything." A deep breath, a long sigh. "Something happened when I saw the Potowski woman," he said. "Something happened."

"What do you mean?"

"Something happened to me. Inside of me. Something came into my head and I couldn't get rid of it. I remember standing and hitting myself in the forehead but I couldn't get it out of my mind."

"You wanted to kill Barbara Ettinger."

"No. Don't help me out, okay? Let me find the words by myself."

"I'm sorry."

"I looked at the dead woman and it wasn't her I saw on the floor, it was my wife. Every time the picture came back to me, the murder scene, the woman on the floor, I saw my wife in the picture. And I couldn't get it out of my head to kill her that way."

He took a little sip of beer. Over the top of the can he said, "I used to think about killing her. Plenty of times I thought that it was the only way out. I couldn't stand being married. I was alone, my parents were dead, I never had any brothers or sisters, and I thought I needed somebody. Besides, I knew she needed me. But it was wrong. I hated being married. It was around my neck like a collar that's too small for you, it was choking me and I couldn't get out of it."

"Why couldn't you just leave her?"

"How could I leave her? How could I do that to her? What kind of a man leaves a woman like that?"

"Men leave women every day."

"You don't understand, do you?" Another sigh. "Where was I? Yeah. I used to think about killing her. I would think about it, and I would think, sure, and the first thing they'd do is check you inside and out, and one way or another they'll hang it on you, because they always go to the husband first and ninety percent of the time that's who did it, and they'll break your story down and break you down and where does that leave you? But then I saw the Potowski woman and it was all there. I could kill her and make it look like the Icepick Prowler had one more on his string. I saw what we did with the Potowski killing. We just bucked it to Manhattan South, we didn't hassle the husband or anything like that."

"So you decided to kill her."

"Right."

"Your wife."

"Right."

"Then how does Barbara Ettinger come into this?"

"Oh, God," he said.

I waited him out.

"I was afraid to kill her. My wife, I mean. I was afraid something would go wrong. I thought, suppose I start and I can't go through with it? I had the icepick and I would take it out and look at it and-I remember now, I bought it on Atlantic Avenue. I don't even know if the store's still there."

"It doesn't matter."

"I know. I had visions of, you know, starting to stab her and stopping, of not being able to finish the job, and the things that were going through my mind were driving me crazy. I guess I was crazy. Of course I was."

He drank from the beer can. "I killed her for practice," he said.

"Barbara Ettinger."

"Yes. I had to find out if I could do it. And I told myself it would be a precaution. One more icepick killing in Brooklyn, so that when my wife got murdered three blocks away it would be just one more in the string. And it would be the same. Maybe no matter how I did it they'd notice a difference between it and the real icepick killings, but they would never have a reason to suspect me of killing some stranger like the Ettinger woman, and then my wife would be killed the same way, and-but that was just what I was telling myself. I killed her because I was afraid to kill my wife and I had to kill someone."

"You had to kill someone?"

"I had to." He leaned forward, sat on the edge of his chair. "I couldn't get it out of my mind. Do you know what it's like when you can't get something out of your mind?"

"Yes."

"I couldn't think who to pick. And then one day I took Danny to the day-care center and she and I talked the way we always did, and the idea came to me. I thought of killing her and the thought fit."

"What do you mean, 'the thought fit'?"

"She belonged in the picture. I could see her, you know, on the kitchen floor. So I started watching her. When I wasn't working I would hang around the neighborhood and keep tabs on her."

She had sensed that someone was following her, watching her. And she'd been afraid, ever since the Potowski murder, that someone was stalking her.

"And I decided it would be all right to kill her. She didn't have any children. Nobody was dependent upon her. And she was immoral. She flirted with me, she flirted with men at the day-care center. She had men to her apartment when her husband was out. I thought, if I screwed it up and they knew it wasn't the Icepick Prowler, there would be plenty of other suspects. They'd never get to me."