He turned on me, and if those weren’t a killer’s eyes then seeing’s not believing. “You’re out of your mind,” he said. “You have a lot of theories and nothing else. You don’t have any proof.”
“That’s what the bad guy always says in the movies,” I said. “That’s when you know he’s really guilty, when he starts talking about the lack of proof.”
“You’ve got the prattling of a convicted burglar and a drunken car parker. That’s all you’ve got.”
“What’s this car-parker crap? I don’t park the cars. I own the garage.”
“But as for hard evidence-”
“Well, it’s a funny thing about evidence,” I said. “You usually find it when you know what to look for. When the police start showing your photo around it’s going to turn out that more people saw you with Crystal than you ever realized. You found a way to get past my doorman last night, and that couldn’t have been the hardest thing in the world, but he or someone else in the building will probably remember you. And then there’s the jewelry. You didn’t plant all of Crystal’s stuff at my place because you’re too damned greedy for that. Where’s the rest of it? Your apartment? A safe-deposit box?”
“They won’t find any jewelry.”
“You sound pretty confident. I guess you found a safe place for it.”
“I never took any jewelry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Well, there’s the counterfeit money. That ought to be enough to hang you.”
“What counterfeit money?”
“The twenties.”
“Ah, the elusive twenties.” He arched an eyebrow at me. “I thought we were to understand that the equally elusive Knobby headed south with them.”
“That’s what he must have done. But I’ve got a hunch there was a sample batch that Grabow ran off in advance, because I’ve got the damnedest feeling there’s a couple thousand dollars’ worth of those phony bills in your office.”
“In my office?”
“On Vesey Street. It’s funny how deserted the downtown section is on a Sunday. It’s as if a neutron bomb got rid of all the people and just left the buildings standing there. I’ve got a strong hunch there’s a thick stack of twenties in the center drawer of your desk, and I’ll bet they’re a perfect match to the plates in Walter Grabow’s loft.”
He took a step toward me, then drew back. “My office,” he said.
“Uh-huh. Nice place you’ve got there, incidentally. No view of the park like Craig has, of course, but you can see a little of the harbor from the one window, and that’s something.”
“You planted counterfeit money there?”
“Don’t be silly. Knobby took the money south. How could I plant it?”
“I should have killed you, Rhodenbarr. If I’d known you were in the closet I could have set it all up right then and there. I’d have left it looking as though you and Crystal killed each other. You stabbed her and she shot you, something like that. I could have worked it out.”
“And then you could have taken the twenties from the closet while you were at it. It would have simplified things, all right.”
He wasn’t even listening to me. “I had to get rid of Grabow. I’d met him. And she might have talked to him. Knobby was just someone who took her home now and then after a hard night’s drinking, but she had a real relationship with Grabow. He could have known my name, could have guessed I was involved.”
“So you got him to meet you at my apartment?”
“He thought he was meeting you. I had his phone number. It was unlisted but of course he’d given it to Crystal. I called him, told him to come up to your apartment. I told him I had his counterfeit bills and I’d give them back to him. It wasn’t hard getting past your doorman.”
“It never is. How did you get into the apartment itself?”
“I kicked the door in. The way they do on television.”
So much for my pick-proof locks. One of these days I’ll get one of those Fox police numbers like Grabow had. Not that it had done Grabow much good-
“Then when Grabow got there the doorman buzzed upstairs and I told him to send the man up. Naturally the doorman assumed I was you.”
“Naturally.”
“Grabow said I didn’t seem like a burglar. But he wasn’t at all suspicious.” He considered for a moment. “He was easier to kill than Crystal. He was big and strong, but it wasn’t hard to kill him.”
“They say it gets easier as you go along.”
“I was hoping you’d come. I’d make it look as though you fought and killed each other. But you didn’t come home.”
“No,” I said. I started to say I was at Jillian’s, then remembered Craig was there. “I was afraid the police would have the place staked out,” I said, “so I got a hotel room.”
“I didn’t wait that long anyway. I was uncomfortable staying there with his body in the middle of the room.”
“I can understand that.”
“So I left. The doorman didn’t notice me coming or going. And I didn’t leave any fingerprints there. I don’t think it means that much, a little counterfeit money planted in my desk. I’m a respected attorney. When it comes down to my word against yours, who do you think the police will believe?”
“What about these people, Verrill?”
“What, this drunk from the garage?”
“I own the damn place,” Dennis said. “It’s not like it was a hot-dog wagon. You talk about a parking garage and you’re talking about a piece of profitable real estate.”
“I don’t think Craig will want to tell the police everything that’s come to light,” Verrill went on. “And I trust Miss Paar knows which side of her bread holds the butter.”
“It won’t work, Verrill.”
“Of course it will.”
“It won’t.” I raised my voice. “Ray, that’s enough, isn’t it? Come on out and arrest this son of a bitch so we can all go home.”
The door to the inner office opened and Ray Kirschmann came through it. “This is Ray Kirschmann,” I told them. “He’s a policeman. I let Ray in earlier before I went to pick up Dennis. I suppose that was forward of me, Craig, picking your lock and everything, but it’s sort of a habit of mine. Ray, this is Craig Sheldrake. Jillian you’ve met. This is Carson Verrill, he’s the murderer, and this fellow here is Dennis. Dennis, I don’t believe I know your last name.”
“It’s Hegarty, but don’t apologize, for God’s sake. Here I had your name all wrong myself. I was calling you Ken.”
“Mistakes happen.”
“Jesus,” Ray said to me. “You’re the coolest thing since dry ice.”
“I’ve got the guts of a burglar.”
“You said it, fella.”
“No, as a matter of fact you said it. Do you want to read Carson here his rights?”
“The guts of a burglar.”
I let him go on thinking so, but weren’t we all pretty cool? Dennis was positively gelid, identifying Verrill so beautifully when he’d never seen the man before in his life. If I hadn’t introduced him all around, he might just as easily have picked Craig as the elusive Legal Beagle.
And I’m not so sure I had the ice-cold nerves he’d credited me with, either. I have to admit I got pretty shaky when Verrill drew yet another dental scalpel from his jacket pocket while Ray droned on about his right to remain silent. Ray was reading from the Miranda card and didn’t even see what was going on, and my jaw dropped and I froze, and then Carson Verrill gave out with a desperate little yelp and stuck the scalpel straight in his own heart. Then I went back to being cool again.
Chapter Twenty-one
“The usual thing,” I told Jillian. “He spent more than he earned, he dropped some money in the stock market, he got himself in debt up to his ears, and then he misappropriated funds from a couple of estates he was handling. He needed money, and you’d be surprised what people will do for money. He probably started the deal in motion with the idea of picking up a commission of a few grand. Then he saw a way to get the whole thing. Besides, by this time Crystal was probably more of a liability than an asset. The relationship had dragged on for years and here was a way for him to end it once and for all and pick up a hundred thousand dollars in the process.”