“Neck, groin, armpit, epigastrium,” he said.
“Who contacted you regarding funeral arrangements?”
“His wife. Rhoda Gibson. She called me from the hospital at about seven.”
“And did she come here when the body was delivered?”
“Yes. She and her son.”
“What’s his name?”
“Jeffrey Gibson. Big fellow with a red beard, maybe twenty-one, twenty-two years old.”
“Where do they live?”
“1214 Matthews Avenue.”
“And you say the body was delivered at eight last night?”
“Yes.”
“And you embalmed it immediately.”
“Well, as soon as the family left.”
“What time did you leave here?”
“At about midnight.”
“And what time did you open the place this morning?”
“I was here at seven-thirty. I called you the moment I discovered the theft. Will you help me, Lieutenant?’
“Maybe,” I said. “Any jewelry on the corpse? Rings, watch, identification bracelet?”
“Nothing.”
“All right, Abner, do you have any personal enemies or business rivals?”
“None who would do something like this.”
“Are you fooling around with anyone’s wife, mother, sister, or cousin?”
“I’m a happily married man.”
“Have you received any threatening telephone calls or letters?”
“Never.”
“Can you think of anyone who might want to cause you professional embarrassment?”
“Not a soul.”
“Have you had any recent arguments or disputes with families for whom you’ve made funeral arrangements?”
“None.”
“Have you been dunning anyone for non-payment of bills?”
“No.”
“What about your employees? Do you get along with them?”
“I work alone, except for my drivers. This is a very small operation.”
“Any of your drivers ask for a raise recently?”
“No. Lieutenant, why would anyone want to steal a dead body?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is there no longer any respect for the dead?”
“There never was, Abner. Anything else stolen? Besides the body?”
“Nothing. Will you help me?”
“Yes,” I said.
Maybe I was rising to the bait too quickly.
The Penal Law in this state is specific about the theft of dead bodies. The pertinent section is appropriately if unimaginatively titled Body Stealing, and it reads:
Sec. 2216. A person who removes the dead body of a human being, or any part thereof from a grave, vault, or other place where the same has been buried, or from a place where the same has been deposited while awaiting burial, without authority of law, with intent to sell the same, or for the purpose of dissection, or for the purpose of procuring a reward for the return of the same, or from malice or wantonness, is punishable by imprisonment for not more than five years or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or both.
When you cut through the verbiage, the law pretty well describes what it considers to be the only possible motives for stealing a corpse. Those are love, money, or lunacy. In fact, no matter what the criminologists will tell you, those are the only possible motives for any crime: love, money, or lunacy. The lunacy aspects of Section 2216 are defined in the word “wantonness” and in the phrase “for the purpose of dissection,” which was probably a carry-over from the time of Dr. Frankenstein and his ilk; there were very few mad scientists running loose in the city these days. Still, there were many bedbugs in this vast metropolis for which I’d once been a public servant, and whereas they didn’t normally come out of the mattress in September (preferring the dog days of July and August), the possibility did exist that one of them had unseasonably surfaced, swiped a stiff, and then gone back to a snug hiding place in the bedsprings. If a lunatic had committed the crime, I wasn’t interested. Lunatics bore me.
Love as a motive was defined in the section with the simple word “malice,” which together with spite or revenge form the other side of the love coin. Perhaps this was simply a case of someone with a grudge against the family of the deceased, someone who’d stolen the corpse in an attempt to make tragedy even more painful than it had to be. If so, I was equally uninterested. If anything’s more boring than a bedbug, it’s someone with a petty grievance.
As for money, the section spelled it out with the words “with intent to sell the same,” and “for the purpose of procuring a reward for the return of the same.” I wasn’t aware of a lively market in corpses these days, and whereas I’d handled three or four kidnappings during my years on the force, I’d never had a case in which a ransom demand had been made for a stolen body. In fact, I’d never had a case of body snatching in twenty-four years of police work, and I guess this was what caused me to tell Abner on the spot that I’d find his missing Mr. Gibson.
“But how much will you charge?” Abner asked. “For getting the body back to me by ten tomorrow morning?”
“Why ten?” I asked.
“That’s when the family will be here. That’s when they expect to find the body ready for viewing.”
I didn’t know what to tell him regarding a fee. In this city, you don’t need a license to be a private detective provided you don’t charge anything for your services.
There is, after all, no law against being an unpaid snoop. My four previous clients had gifted me lavishly after I’d successfully concluded investigating their cases, and frankly I’d felt justified in accepting presents from them—but only because the disappointment of having solved yet another case seemed ample reason for compensation. Could I now tell Abner that not finding Mr. Gibson’s corpse would make me a very happy man? Could I tell him that if I failed (hope springs eternal), I would not accept even a token of appreciation from him, but would instead take him to dinner in one of the city’s best restaurants, where we’d drink champagne till dawn and toast the superiority of the criminal mind?
“I’m not permitted to charge a fee,” I told him. “Let’s simply see what happens, shall we?”
Full of perhaps childish expectations, I began.
Two
A narrow alley ran between the rear of Abner’s mortuary and the brick rear wall of an apartment building opposite. One end of the alley opened onto Hennessy Street, some hundred feet from the jimmied door; the other end was cut off by another brick wall at right angles to the apartment building. There was a door on this wall, as well as several lighted basement windows. I went to the door and knocked on it.
“Who is it?” a woman asked.
“Police,” I said. This was a lie, but I see no harm in lying to anyone, provided it makes things easier for me. I heard a lock being turned. The door opened. The woman standing there was in her early forties, a slatternly brunette wearing a man’s woolen bathrobe belted at the waist, the sleeves rolled up to accommodate the length of her own arms.
“What is it?” she said.
I showed her the gold shield, and she nodded.
“May I come in?” I asked.
She looked me over, and then stepped back from the doorway. “I was just having some breakfast,” she said, and waited for me to move past her into the room, and then closed and locked the door behind me. The room was a kitchen. A table with a white enamel top was against one wall beneath two small windows opening onto the alley. A bottle of Scotch and a glass with ice cubes in it were the only things on the table; the woman apparently planned to drink her breakfast. A flowered curtain was partially drawn back over a doorway that led to a bedroom. I could see one corner of the bed. It had not been made.