“That was the way Delaney was fixed: bolt upright and unable to bend forward,” Maddox said.
“Okay, okay,” Boos said, frowning. “So what?”
“Go ahead, Regan,” Maddox said, “and take the back off the set.”
“It can’t be done,” I said.
“Well, try anyway, and try hard.”
I wheeled the chair up to the set and took out the two top fixing screws: that was easy, but I couldn’t get within two feet of the bottom screws, fixed as I was in the chair.
“You’ve read the coroner’s report,” Maddox said to Boos. “When Regan found Delaney’s body, the back of the set was off. And another thing there was a screwdriver by Delaney’s side. He apparently got it from the storeroom. He hooked the toolbox down from the shelf with a walking stick. The tools fell on the floor. Ask yourself: how did he manage to pick the screwdriver up?”
Harmas put the screwdriver on the floor beside me.
“Can you reach it?”
My fingers were a good twelve inches from the tool.
Maddox said to Harmas, “Take the back off the set.”
When Harmas had removed the back, Maddox said to Boos, “See those two terminals in the set? Delaney was supposed to have touched them with the screwdriver: that’s how he was supposed to have been killed. You can see Regan can’t get near them from where he is sitting.”
Boos got abruptly to his feet. He came to stare at the inside of the set.
“Do you see what I’m driving at?” Maddox went on. “Delaney is supposed to have taken the back off the set. He couldn’t have done it. He is supposed to have got the screwdriver from the storeroom. He couldn’t have done it. He is supposed to have touched those two terminals. He couldn’t have done it.”
Boos stared at him.
“Well, I’ll be damned!”
Harmas undid the cord that bound me to the chair and I got out of the chair.
Then Boos turned to me.
“Let’s have your story again, Regan,” he said. “Let’s go over the whole thing. You called on Delaney to see how the set was working. Right?”
“Yes. I found Delaney lying in front of the TV set. There was a steel screwdriver by his hand and the back of the set was off. I thought he had electrocuted himself. I pulled the plug out of the mains and then I touched him.”
“He was dead?” Boos asked.
“Yes.”
“How did you know he was dead?”
“He was cold and he was stiff.”
“When a man is killed by a big dose of electricity,” Maddox said, “he burns. He’s not going to cool the way a body would cool, dying from gun-shot wounds or a stab in the back. The jolt he gets from an electric shock would increase the temperature of his blood. If Delaney had died of an electric shock, his body wouldn’t have been noticeably cold in three hours.”
Boos began to look bewildered.
“Are you trying to tell me he didn’t die of an electric shock?” he demanded, staring at Maddox.
“I’m not trying to tell you anything,” Maddox said curtly. “I want his body exhumed.”
Boos scratched the side of his neck, frowning at Maddox.
“You’ll have to talk to Jefferson first,” he said. “Maybe there is something wrong, but I’m Homicide. You’re not suggesting Delaney was murdered, are you?”
There was a constriction in my chest now that made breathing difficult. I leaned forward in my chair, staring at Maddox, my hands squeezed between my knees, waiting to hear what he would say.
“Am I suggesting Delaney was murdered?” Maddox asked. “No, I’m not suggesting it: I’m telling you he was murdered! He was murdered because he took out an insurance policy that covered his crippled life for five thousand dollars. He was murdered because his killer took into account that the inquiry would be handled by two old dead-beats who would accept what they saw and wouldn’t dig deeper.” A hard, grim smile lit up his face. “Murder? Of course it’s murder! Why do you think I brought you out here? This is the plainest case of murder I’ve ever had to deal with!”
II
Boos scratched a match alight. The sound of the red head against the sanded side of the box made a sharp explosion in the silence of the room.
No one was looking at me. That was my good luck.
“Now look, Mr Maddox,” Boos said after he had lit his pipe and had got it to draw to his satisfaction, “I know your hunches. I know you have yet to be proved wrong. Okay, if you say this is murder, I’ll listen, but before I start something I can’t finish, I want to be convinced.”
Maddox went back to the fireplace and stood before it. “This is a murder case. When I smell murder, I know it’s murder. I’ve never been wrong, and what’s more, I’ll stake my life I’m not wrong this time. Anyway, I can give you enough ammunition to blast this old has-been right out of office.”
Boos had let his pipe go out. As he groped for his matches, he said sharply, “What ammunition?”
“I’ve given you enough to get an order to exhume the body, but I can give you more. I can even give you a guess who killed him.”
My heart missed a beat, then began to race so violently I could scarcely breathe.
“You can?” Boos was sitting forward, the match burning between his fingers, forgotten. “Who killed him then?”
“His wife,” Maddox said. “She’s tried to kill him once before but only succeeded in crippling him.”
I started to protest but checked myself in time. I wanted to tell him he was crazy, but I hadn’t the nerve. I knew if I spoke and they looked at me, they would know who had killed him all right. At that moment my guilt was written across my face.
“I don’t get it,” Boos said.
“Delaney married this woman four years ago,” Maddox said. “They hadn’t been married three months before she got into touch with one of my agents. She suggested he should talk to Delaney about an accident insurance policy. She said her husband was interested in a hundred thousand coverage.” Maddox pointed a stubby finger at Boos. “I don’t have to tell you when a wife tries to arrange an accident policy for her husband the red light goes up. My agent told me. I told him to go ahead, but I opened a file on Mrs Delaney. The agent talked Delaney into signing a policy, but a day later, Delaney wrote in and cancelled it. We didn’t press him because I smelt trouble. It was a hunch that paid off. Three days after he had cancelled the policy, my agent reported to me that Delaney had met with an accident. If he had been insured, I would have con-tested the claim and started an investigation, but as he wasn’t insured I let Jarrett, who you took over from, handle it. It was cleverly done, and he didn’t get anywhere. You’ll find it on file though. Delaney was drunk and asleep and she was driving. She stopped the car on the mountain road. A friend of hers had had a breakdown and was blocking the road. Delaney was asleep. She got out of the car and her story was she hadn’t set the parking brake properly. It’s a wonder Delaney survived.”
Boos said, Well, I’ll be damned!”
“The woman must be cock-eyed,” Maddox went on. “The moment Delaney takes out this TV policy and she discovers he is covered for five thousand bucks, she moves in again: only this time she kills him, and this time I’m right here to fix her!”
This was the moment when I should have got to my feet and told him he was wrong. This was the moment when I should have told him I had killed Delaney. But I didn’t. I just sat there, my heart pounding, too frightened for my rotten skin to tell them the truth.
Boos tapped out his pipe.
“You can’t prove she killed him, Mr Maddox.”
Maddox made an impatient gesture with his hands.
“That’s your job. I’m telling you this is murder, and I’m willing to bet my last buck, she did it. It’s your job to pin it on her. Find out where she was when Delaney died. I’ll bet you she’ll have an alibi. When you know what it is, take a good look at it before you accept it. Get Delaney’s body exhumed. I’m willing to bet she staged the scene by taking off the back of the TV set and she also planted the screwdriver by Delaney, and she did it to collect the five thousand coverage.”