A Dog's Ransom

Clarence had made his bed, not neatly but it was made. His gun in its holster and belt lay on the dresser top, and this was the first thing Fenucci commented on.

  “You take your gun home with you?”

  “Sometimes. At night. Unless I’m going straight to a date somewhere.”

  “Did you have it with you last night?”

  “No, sir.”

  Fenucci pulled out the gun and looked at it, checked that its bullets were all present. He looked at the gun carefully under a standing lamp. “Rowa—This guy could have been clobbered by a gun. Or a brick. Something pretty solid. He had multiple fractures. We’ll take this gun for checking. You’ll have it late tomorrow if it’s clean.” Fenucci smiled. “Not afraid to spend twenty-four hours without your gun, are you? Aren’t you off tomorrow?”

  “Yes, till tomorrow night,” Clarence said.

  Fenucci was taking the belt with him also. “Now—what were you wearing last night? Can I see your closet?”

  Clarence opened his closet door. There were three or four suits, odd jackets and trousers, pajamas and a shirt or two on hooks, shoes in semi-disorder on the floor. The oxblood shoes he had washed were on top on the left—on top of the shoes.

  “What were you wearing last night?”

  Clarence hesitated. “These trousers,” he said, indicating the ones he had on, Oxford grays. “And this sweater—over another sweater, I think.” He had on a V-neck gray sweater.

  Fenucci didn’t seem interested in what other sweater he meant. He glanced at the clothes Clarence had on, then turned back to the closet. “Coat?”

  “My raincoat,” Clarence said, and touched a dark green waterproof in his closet.

  Fenucci pulled the raincoat out, looked at front and back and sleeves. “Shoes?”

  “These shoes.” Clarence indicated the brown loafers he was wearing.

  Fenucci nodded.

  It wasn’t a thorough examination, Clarence knew. Fenucci was counting on the gun. Or maybe he already had his opinions from something Marylyn had said. A real examination would have meant taking Clarence’s whole wardrobe to the lab to test for bloodstains.

  “You said Reynolds was a nice man, a gentleman. Civilized.” Fenucci smiled a little. “He couldn’t have hired someone to get at this guy, maybe?”

  Clarence shook his head. “I don’t think he’s that type. Also he told me he wanted to forget about the whole thing. The dog was important to him—and the dog’s dead.”

  “When did he say to you he wanted to forget the whole thing?”

  Clarence remembered the conversation on Monday in Mr. Reynolds’s office. Clarence didn’t want to mention that visit, though Mr. Reynolds might mention it. “He said it to me after he knew his dog was dead.”

  “Okay. Okay, Patrolman Duhamell. That’s all for now.” Fenucci went to the door. “You’re off till when?”

  “Thursday night at eight, sir.”

  “Reachable here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t go out of town—for a few days.” Fenucci left, carrying the gun belt.

  Clarence took a deep breath and listened to the footsteps of Fenucci fading on the stairway. Half his questions had been calculated, Clarence thought. “Reynolds couldn’t have hired someone to get at this guy?” Had Fenucci expected him to leap at that? Did Fenucci already have everything he needed? And what about the gun? Clarence had washed it well. But the lab tests were fantastic. It’d be yes or no. It was out of his control now. Fenucci might be on his way to see Marylyn or Mr. Reynolds, Clarence didn’t know, because Fenucci wouldn’t be the only man working on the case. Clarence picked up the telephone and looked at his watch: seventeen to eleven.

  Marylyn answered, to Clarence’s enormous relief.

  “Hello, darling. Clare, How are you?”

  “Lousy. I’m just about to go out.”

  “You’re alone?”

  “Yes-s.” She sounded impatient and nervous.

  “The cops—Homicide was just talking with me. Have they been to see you?”

  “Yes. At seven they were here. Would’ve been here before but I was out all day.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “I told them,” Marylyn said, and her rather stiff tone continued, “that you were here all night.”

  Clarence gave a shuddering sigh. “I said the same thing. Good God. Thanks.”

  “You don’t have to thank me, it’s a pleasure.”

  Silence for four or five awful seconds. She meant a pleasure to bollix the cops, to lie to them. “Are they coming to see you again?”

  “I don’t know. Probably. But I’m not going to be here. I’m sick of them all. But—”

  “But?—What, darling?”

  “I gather it was you, right?” she said in a whisper.

  He was pressing the phone hard against his ear. “You said the right thing.”

  “I’ve got to go, Clare. I’m not spending the night here.”

  “You’re afraid they’ll call you at night?”

  “I’m just sick of this place, sick of seeing fuzz in it!” Now she sounded on the brink of hysteria.

  He wanted to ask her where she was spending the night. Probably at Evelyn’s on Christopher. “Would you call me next? Because I won’t know where to reach you.—One more thing. I said I left your house around seven-thirty or eight in the morning.”

  “I think I said ten. Tennish.”

  “I don’t think it matters.”

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “Promise you’ll call me!”

  “I’ll call you.” She hung up.

  AT THAT MOMENT, a little before 11 p.m., Ed and Greta Reynolds were talking with a man from the Homicide Squad, a detective called Morrissey. A different detective had telephoned Ed in his office around 4 p.m., after speaking with Greta and getting his office number, to make an appointment with Ed at his apartment at seven, but Ed had said he had to meet his wife at a funeral parlor on Lexington Avenue: the mother of a friend had died, and he would not be free until after 10 p.m. Ed had been firm. Ed had supposed the police wanted to see him about some detail, a final check-up of some kind in regard to the Lisa business, because the detective had not said he was from Homicide. Lilly Brandstrum’s mother had died after a long illness, and Ed and Greta had spent a rather gloomy hour at the funeral home, followed by a gathering, mostly of Lilly’s mother’s friends, at Lilly’s apartment in the East 8os.

  Ed and Greta had moved. Since the previous weekend, they had been in their new apartment on East 9th Street, in a building which they both found more cheerful than the Riverside Drive place.

  Detective Fred Morrissey explained that Fenucci, who had spoken to Ed in his office, had had to be somewhere else at 11 p.m. “We have several men working on the same cases,” said Morrissey with a pleasant Irish grin. “All gathering pieces. It’s not much like Sherlock Holmes any more.”

  Ed had smiled politely. Ed and Greta had not known about Rowajinski’s death until Morrissey told them. Barrow Street, Ed had only a vague idea where it was, west of here, on the other side of Seventh Avenue where streets had names and did not intersect at right angles. They got through the preliminary questions, one of them being where Ed had been last night, Tuesday, between 8 p.m. and the small hours of the morning? Last night he and Greta had intended to go to a film at the Art on 8th Street and hadn’t because Ed had had to read a manuscript until close to 1 a.m. He had been out at seven and again at midnight, briefly, to air the new pup, Juliette.

  “I’ve never seen Rowajinski by the way,” Ed said.

  “No? Not when he was in jail?” Morrissey knew about their dog and the ransom money.

  “No, I could’ve seen him, but I didn’t care to. I wanted to forget the whole thing, frankly, because our dog was dead a
nd that was that.” The murder was the final touch, Ed was thinking—sordid and depressing beyond words. Someone had had enough of Rowajinski, and small wonder.

  “I see. You don’t possibly know of anyone who—Well, the point is, do you know of anyone who might’ve done it? I can imagine you don’t move in the same circles as this guy but—Morrissey grinned again.

  “I don’t know of anyone,” Ed said. He looked at Greta who was sitting at the other end of the sofa, calm and attentive and silent.

  “I have some notes here—about Patrolman Clarence Duhamell who helped you with the dog thing. You know Patrolman Duhamell?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Ed.

  “This Rowajinski was annoying his girlfriend—” Morrissey looked at his notes and came up with Marylyn’s name and address. “Patrolman Duhamell also went to Rowajinski’s room on Morton Street and roughed him up a little, told him to stop annoying his girlfriend. Do you know about that? Did Duhamell say—”

  “No, I don’t know anything about it,” Ed said. “We don’t know Duhamell very well.” Ed was thinking, could it have been Clarence who killed the Pole? No, it wasn’t possible. Morrissey had said Rowajinski’s skull had been fractured in several places.

  “It’s a funny story,” Morrissey said, “Rowajinski escaping once after Patrolman Duhamell found him, then Duhamell accused of letting him go for five hundred dollars. That’s according to Patrolman Duhamell’s precinct.”

  “Yes,” said Ed cautiously, “we heard about that. Duhamell mentioned it. He told us he didn’t take it. It was never proven, was it?”

  Morrissey consulted his notes before he spoke. “No. Says here accused by Rowajinski. Just accused. What do you think?—I never met Patrolman Duhamell.”

  Greta spoke before Ed. “Oh, no. I don’t zink so. We don’t know, but Clarence is not like zat.”

  Ed smiled, suddenly relieved of tension by Greta’s frank voice and her accent. “I doubt if he took a bribe. He’s pulling a fast one on us if he did.”

  “A fast one? What d’y’mean?” Morrissey asked pleasantly.

  Ed knew Morrissey was wondering if Clarence could have killed the Pole because Clarence had been annoyed by the Pole’s accusation, true or false. “I mean I don’t think he’s the type. He’s a nice young fellow, even idealistic. I don’t think he’d take a bribe for anything.” Especially in this case, since he hated Rowajinski, Ed wanted to say, but thought he had better not.

  “Yeah,” said Morrissey, vaguely. “Um, you never possibly heard of anyone else this Rowajinski was writing letters to?”

  Ed’s lips widened in a smile. “No. We certainly tried to find out during the time our dog was missing. We were trying to find Rowajinski himself then.”

  “People don’t always report stuff. We’re looking for suspects, y’know.”

  Ed knew.

  Morrissey seemed to be finished. He stood up, putting his pen back in his pocket. “Thanks, Mr. Reynolds. You may hear from us again. I dunno. Good night, Mrs. Reynolds.”

  “Good night,” said Greta. “And good luck.”

  “That we always need!”

  The door closed.

  Ed let his arms sag and said, “Whoosh!” He drifted back to the living-room. “Well. What do you think of that?”

  Greta slipped out of her shoes and picked them up. She was tired. “Oh, it was bound to happen.”

  Ed put an arm around her and hugged her tightly for a moment. “What a day! Let’s go to bed with some hot tea. Or chocolate. Or a hot toddy! A funeral and a murder all at once!”

  “Lilly’s very upset. She doesn’t show it but she’s very upset.”

  Ed didn’t reply. The Rowajinski thing was on his mind. Ed knew it was on Greta’s mind too. He glanced at Juliette, who had been unusually quiet on the sofa the whole time. Juliette wagged her cropped tail and looked at him inquiringly.

  “Dead,” Ed said, turning towards Greta. “Funny we didn’t hear about it.”

  “Ach, we haven’t had the TV on for a couple of days.”

  Ed thought of the newspapers, which he did see daily. But how important was Rowajinski’s demise? If it had been reported, he had missed it. What a wretch the man had been! And the money—Ed wasn’t interested in the money that remained owing to him, but the police had taken some of Rowajinski’s bank account and had returned three hundred dollars to him. Another five hundred was missing, and who cared? Burial, Ed supposed, would be at public expense. Ed started to say, I can’t say I’m sorry he’s dead. Instead, he looked at Greta and said, “I’ll pop out with mademoiselle. Let’s forget all about it, darling. Fix us a nice brace of toddies.”

  “I wonder who—”

  “I don’t give a damn who did it. He deserved it.”

  18

  Clarence telephoned Marylyn the next day, Thursday, and on the second try got her, at 3:30 p.m. She didn’t want to make a date. She had two urgent typing jobs.

  “Marylyn—it’s important! Can’t you find five minutes? I’ll meet you out somewhere—near you.”

  The desperate tone in his voice must have had some effect, because she agreed to meet him at O. Henry’s at five. It was on Sixth Avenue at West 4th.

  Clarence wanted to telephone Edward Reynolds, but he thought he had better not. The Reynoldses might be annoyed if he telephoned, and they were probably annoyed already because the police had come to see them in regard to Rowajinski’s death. Mr. Reynolds would think he was interfering, obsessed by the one subject. Mr. Reynolds might even think he had done it, or might suspect it. This had occurred to Clarence earlier. Mr. Reynolds could easily say, “Yes, Clarence had provocation, and it wouldn’t surprise me if—” On the other hand, Clarence could more easily imagine Ed saying, “I hardly know Clarence Duhamell. I have no opinion. I want nothing to do with it.”

  Clarence arrived early at O. Henry’s and managed to get a booth. When Marylyn came in, he stood up so she could see him. She was wearing a long jacket over faded blue jeans, and she walked towards him with her usual short, quick steps—which oddly always made him think of a squaw—not looking at him. Such had been the prelude to many a happy date, but Clarence was not sure about this one.

  “Well,” she said when she had sat down. “What’s the latest?”

  “Nothing new today.” There was no report as yet re his gun.

  Marylyn glanced around, as if expecting to see a cop watching them, or someone in plain clothes keeping an eye on them. Clarence had already looked around.

  “Thank you, darling,” Clarence said.

  She shrugged.

  Clarence glanced up at a waiter who had arrived. “What’ll you have?” he asked Marylyn.

  “Oh—a Coke.”

  “Not a rum in it?”

  “All right. A rum in it.” Her gray-green eyes glanced at the waiter, then she lit one of her Marlboros.

  Clarence ordered a beer, and the waiter went away. Clarence had expected Marylyn to be more concerned, to be upset. He didn’t know what to make of her eyes that would not look at him. Did you know right away that I did it, he wanted to ask. “Did you hear it on the news? About the Pole?”

  “Dannie heard it and called me up. Yesterday afternoon. He knew where I was working.”

  So Dannie knew where she was working. And also about the Pole being a nuisance. Dannie probably knew more about Marylyn’s feelings now than he did.

  “At least the fuzz last night wasn’t the wop cop. Some detective in plain clothes.”

  It didn’t matter who it was, Clarence supposed. They all shared notes. Clarence refrained from asking was it Fenucci.

  The waiter arrived, served them, and departed.

  Marylyn relaxed a little, loosened her thick woolen muffler, and said, “What the hell happened Tuesday night?”

  “Well—as soon as I
left your place, I saw him. On Macdougal and he turned the corner into Bleecker. I thought he’d been hanging around in your street again, so I followed him with—with an idea of scaring him—but really scaring him. Then he began running because he saw me. He crossed Seventh and I started chasing him. He ran into a doorway. Then I hit him.” Clarence sat forward on the edge of the bench seat. There was a loud juke-box near, and they were whispering besides, hardly able to hear each other.

  “Hit him with what?”

  “With my gun. I was carrying my gun.”

  Marylyn stared at him.

  “I know it was with my gun,” Clarence said.

  “Well, why shouldn’t you know it?”

  “Because the rest is sort of vague. I don’t mean I blacked out. But I was in a rage. I don’t know if I spent three or four minutes there or just thirty seconds. I don’t even remember getting home. Just suddenly I was home. Afterward.” He was looking at Marylyn, who still stared at him in a shocked and puzzled way. “I didn’t mean to beat him up—so badly, when I went into that doorway. You know—one of those little houses on Barrow, far west. He didn’t even live there.”

  “I don’t know. I only know, Clare, that I want out of this and now. I told the cops you were with me, sure, because I don’t give a—a—”

  “All right.”

  “—about this Pole or about the fuzz. I like lying to them. So it helps you, fine. But this is the end, Clare, the last of it.” Her eyes flashed, and she slapped her hand palm down on the table on the word “last.”

  Clarence wanted to take her hand and didn’t dare. He wanted to say: there’s nothing to fear and we’re all glad the guy is dead, aren’t we? By all, he meant the Reynoldses also. They must be glad. But he couldn’t say a word.

  “They asked me if you had your gun that night. I said no, I didn’t think so. I thought it was better to be casual about it than to say a definite “no,” as if I was trying to protect you.”

  “Yep. Right,” Clarence said.

  “I can see you’re worried.”

  “Worried?” The idea of clues went swiftly through his head, but what clues, so far? “I know I’m a logical suspect. They know I didn’t like him. And I was even in the neighborhood that night.”