“What was your business with the doctor, Mr. Cooperman?”
“He called me around four o’clock this afternoon.”
“Interesting. But what was your business with him?”
“He wanted to see me.”
“You didn’t want to see him? You’re not a patient of his?”
“No. I’m not a patient, and I’m not sure about why he wanted to see me. I think he wanted to tell me something.”
“About?”
“About Chester Yates’ death.” That got him. He didn’t like that at all. He got a mean look around the jawline, but after taking a new breath, he continued the questions.
“How was Zekerman connected with Yates?”
“Chester was a patient.”
“And you were bothering him about the sort of thing you told me on the phone last week?” He was losing control of his temper. He did not much want to have this neat murder slop over and muddy the waters of the tidy suicide.
“I told you. He called me.” That was my best shot. “I never heard what he wanted to tell me. When we got here, he was dead.”
“You’re not going to leave this alone, are you, Cooperman?”
“What? Leave what alone?”
“You know what I’m talking about. You two-bit peeper. Who the hell do you think you are? I know my job, and I don’t need tips from a cheapie like you. You bother me, and I don’t like to be bothered by peepers. Can’t keep your hands off anything.”
“You find my prints and say that, Sergeant. Meanwhile ask your questions. It’s past my supper time too.”
“How long have you been acquainted with the deceased?” He hissed that one out from between his stained teeth. He had been smoking his butts shorter than I’d ever seen, stubbing them out with tense, nicotine-yellowed fingers.
“I’ve never been here before.” I hoped I would get away with that, but Harrow frowned. “I saw him once before. At his house. I asked him about Chester, and he didn’t want to talk about it.”
“What else?”
“Nothing else. That’s it, I swear. Believe me, would I try to obstruct the true course of law and order? I’m a citizen too.”
He led me through the story of how we found the body again, detail by detail.
“What did you take when you sent the super out to phone?” I opened my eyes wide to show my surprise.
“Who do you take me for?”
“I won’t answer that. Put your hands on your head.” He then gave me a professional frisking. Now I could be glad I didn’t dip into the wallet of the deceased. “Put your hands down. Now listen to me, Cooperman, and listen to me good: I don’t want to see you again, and I don’t want to hear from you again. Now get out of here.”
When I came out of the bedroom this time, the body had been taken away and you could see the walls better without so many cops running around. The paper mess on the floor had been sorted into cardboard boxes and was disappearing out the door in the capable hands of what looked like apprentice policemen, but I doubted there was such an animal. Mr. Uhernick who had lost his nervousness warmed to all this sudden interest in him, was telling one of the remaining constables about the D-Day landings and the carnage on the Normandy beaches that spring day in 1944. Cahill, the corporal, told me that they might need me again, so I should let him know if I was planning a sudden trip to the Fiji Islands. And that was it. My statement had been taken three times and now reposed in three notebooks. It seemed anticlimactic as I walked out Dr. Zekerman’s door.
The lights of a television film crew nearly blinded me when I came out of the building. Reporters were falling over one another, while uniformed policemen tried to keep the mob of curious gray faces back. Someone with a microphone headed toward me. I thought my big moment had come, but he went by me to grab one of the fingerprint boys. The camera crew, I was happy to see, had its camera pointed at the bright receding rear end of the ambulance.
TEN
I had hoped that there would be something in the mail for me the following morning from Martha Tracy, but the postman only brought me a coupon which would give me ten per cent off on the purchase of a welding outfit. There was also a bill from one of the oil companies, which also seemed to be going in for the same kind of merchandizing on the side. Their offer was for a genuine dutch clock that would enhance the collection of a connoisseur.
I telephone Pete Staziak to see if he could tell me anything about Zekerman’s murder. He wouldn’t spill anything, but I got the idea that the fingerprints hadn’t proved very interesting. The only prints they had to match with belonged to the body. I guess it would have surprised even Harrow if the murder weapon bore the prints of a known wanted criminal. I told that to Pete, and he started to laugh. I asked him why, but he wouldn’t say. So I had to coax him like we were in high school. Finally, he told me that the murder weapon showed a very fine copy of the prints of Dr. Andrew Zekerman. A big help. But, just to be useful, because that’s the way I am, I told Pete to tell Harrow that maybe Zekerman committed suicide like Chester did. Pete liked to share a little subversive joke from time to time, but that was going too far. He deepened his voice by an octave and said he’d talk to me later. I could just see Harrow writing “CLOSED” on this file too. Harrow wouldn’t see anything wrong with Zekerman clubbing himself to death with a rare African statue. Probably it was a fertility object of some sort, and the wider he spread his brains around the room, the better he’d score in the bedroom.
The bedroom bothered me, when I thought about it. I wondered whether he was bedding many of his patients. He didn’t look to me like a guy who would miss a trick like that. That fitted in with his not having a secretary or receptionist or anything. No waiting room to worry about either. The more I thought about Zekerman, the less I liked him. And now that I wasn’t ever going to hear what he wanted to tell me the night he was killed, I couldn’t help feeling resentful. His death was a tragedy for him, but for me it was a pain in the ass.
I put in a call to Myrna Yates. She had a woman taking calls for her. I left my number.
For a Tuesday morning, this wasn’t rising to great heights. The Zekerman murder didn’t rate nearly the space in the paper that Chester’s death had. Zekerman got a small clutch of paragraphs on an inside page. They spelled my name right and didn’t attribute anything to me that I didn’t say. Harrow’s statement led the reader to believe that he was on top of the case and expected to get a break at any moment. But then he spoiled the effect by asking for anyone with any information to call the Regional Police and ask for him. I felt like calling with my suicide theory, but I went out to grab a bite of lunch instead.