A Dog's Ransom

  Clarence picked up his laundry, which included the shirt he had worn the night of Rowajinski. Clarence did not examine the shirt but put it with his others in a drawer. He was thinking that he ought to ring his parents today. They wanted him to come out for Thanksgiving next Thursday. His leave lasted till December 4, which was three weeks after his hospital discharge.

  His telephone rang around 3 p.m. A man’s voice said that he was Detective somebody of Fifth Division, and could Clarence come tomorrow morning, Saturday, to the Fifth Division Headquarters at 10 a.m.? Clarence said he could come.

  CLARENCE WAS THERE AT 9:50 A.M., and was asked to wait. He had brought the Times and a book, and he read for half an hour. Just after 11 a.m., Clarence was ushered into a room with Detectives Morrissey and Fenucci, Fenucci appearing to have other things to do, because he paid no attention to Clarence. Fenucci gathered papers from the desk in the room. Clarence was offered a seat on a straight chair. Morrissey wore a dirty shirt, Clarence noticed, and looked as if he had been up all night—Clarence was pretty sure not because of him.

  “Waiting for someone,” said Morrissey to Clarence, and helped Fenucci assemble the papers he was looking for.

  It occurred to Clarence that he hadn’t called his mother, and that this was an absurd thing to be thinking of now. He would have called his parents last evening, but he had not wanted to tell them he had been summoned for another police interview this morning, and he might have told them, if his mother had pressed him to come out to Astoria at once for the weekend, and to stay through Thanksgiving.

  Just before noon, a big man whom Clarence didn’t recognize at first—the landlord of Rowajinski on Morton Street—came into the room, looking frightened and aggressive. His eyes fixed on Clarence’s face for a couple of seconds, then he did not look at Clarence again.

  “Well,” said Morrissey, rubbing his hands together. “Mr.—” He faced the landlord. “Philip—”

  “Liebowitz,” said the man.

  “Philip Liebowitz. And this is Clarence Duhamell. Patrolman Duhamell. Mr. Liebowitz says,” Morrissey said, addressing Clarence, “that you came to his house on Morton Street Wednesday, October twenty-eighth to see Kenneth Rowajinski. Right?”

  “That’s true,” said Clarence, not sure of the date.

  “Mr. Liebowitz is the landlord there, as you may know. Mr. Liebowitz says you beat Rowajinski up. True?”

  “I told you,” Clarence said, “that I shook him. I wanted to scare him. I did push him and he fell on the floor. I did not beat him up.”

  “That is not the way Mr. Liebowitz reported it,” Morrissey said with a tired, wide grin. “Tell him, Mr. Liebowitz, maybe he’s forgot.”

  “Well, there was a lot of scuffling like, I heard it. I was right in the hall. I heard a thud. This guy Rawinsk—”

  “Rowajinski,” said Morrissey, who was standing up between them.

  “Rowajinski, he was all upset, wanting to use the bathroom just afterwards, I remember.”

  “How long did Patrolman Duhamell stay?” asked Morrissey.

  “Oh, a good ten, fifteen minutes.”

  More like five, Clarence thought. Clarence blinked his eyes, watching Liebowitz. Had Liebowitz been told what to say? The interview was probably being taped, Clarence thought, by a machine in some part of the desk.

  Morrissey began politely in tone, “Patrolman Duhamell, to repeat the circumstances which you already know, you had reason to dislike Rowajinski, he accused you of taking five hundred dollars to let him escape in October, and when he was recaptured, charged, and released on probation, he began annoying your friend Marylyn Coomes and wrote her an unsigned letter saying things against you. You were in the neighborhood of Barrow Street the night Rowajinski was beaten about the head and left dead in the foyer of a house on Barrow Street near Hudson Street. You had already called on Rowajinski for no apparent reason except personal resentment, and knocked him down on the floor. The only support you have for your story of having spent all night in a house on Macdougal is your own statement plus that of your friend Marylyn Coomes. She might be expected to back you up, no? It’s natural. We offer you a chance, Patrolman Duhamell, to tell us what you really did that night. So what have you got to say?”

  “I have nothing more to say. No changes in my statements,” Clarence said.

  Someone brought in coffee, awful coffee in limp paper cups.

  The blond fellow who ran the coffee-shop below Marylyn’s arrived. He greeted Clarence with a nod and a flicker of a smile. He was in bell-bottom black trousers, and a fur jacket. Teddie his name was, Clarence remembered.

  “Theodore Hackensack,” he said to Morrissey.

  Morrissey established his residence, place of work, the fact that he knew Marylyn Coomes at least by sight, and also Clarence Duhamell by sight.

  “You have said . . .”

  Morrissey had evidently already questioned Teddie, and Teddie had said he had not seen, or couldn’t remember seeing Clarence leaving Marylyn’s house the evening of November 3, Tuesday, around 10:30 or midnight or any other time that evening. He also hadn’t seen him arrive. Teddie looked unshaken and unshakable.

  “Do you remember ever seeing Rowajinski, that evening or any other time?”

  “Yeah, I told you about his coming into my shop and asking if there was a cop living next door.”

  “Yes. I think we established that as around twenty-eighth October,” said Morrissey. “And you told him what?”

  “I told him I didn’t know,” Teddie said, squirming in his chair, irritated by the questioning or the memory of Rowajinski. “Why should I give him any information? I didn’t like his looks.”

  “But you knew Patrolman Duhamell came frequently to Marylyn Coomes’s house?”

  “Oh, sure. I’ve seen him around.”

  “For how long? How long a time has he been visiting Miss Coomes?”

  Teddie shook his head, amused. “I really didn’t keep track.”

  “Do you know Miss Coomes well?”

  “No,” said Teddie.

  “How well? She’s just an acquaintance or what?”

  “She’s just a neighbor. A couple of times she’s come in for coffee. We say hello.”

  “She never said anything about marrying Patrolman Duhamell?”

  Teddie shook his head tolerantly. “Now why would she tell me that?”

  “Or that she’s broken off with this man now?” He indicated Clarence.

  “No,” said Teddie, bored. He looked in another direction and reached for his cigarettes.

  “She has.—Have you any reason to fear Patrolman Duhamell, Theodore?” asked Morrissey.

  Teddie’s blue eyes showed annoyance, then he smiled again.

  “A shakedown? I don’t cater to junkies or pushers. They may come in. They’re not my chums. If you know what I mean.” He added, “I mind my own business. So far I don’t have to take guff. From cops or anybody else.”

  Morrissey nodded. He had removed his jacket and loosened his tie. The room was overheated. “Did you ever talk alone with Patrolman Duhamell? Face to face?”

  Teddie and Morrissey looked at each other. Morrissey was still smiling, but the smile had become nothing more than a slightly open mouth.

  “No,” Teddie said. “I’d remember that.”

  Clarence realized that Morrissey was trying to get Teddie to say he’d accepted some kind of a rake-off, and to imply that for this reason Teddie might be afraid to say anything against him. Morrissey finally got nothing out of Teddie but scowls and silence. Teddie was allowed to leave.

  “Miss Coomes is arriving soon,” said Morrissey, and took the telephone and ordered sandwiches and coffee. “Oh—four, I suppose.”

  Philip Liebowitz sat like a forgotten heap on a straight chair, frowning and looking puzzled
.

  Morrissey turned to Liebowitz and said, “Any other people you ever get in a hassle with Rowajinski, Mr. Liebowitz?”

  “No, I told you. Just this fellow.”

  “Patrolman Duhamell, we’ll see how your story holds up when your girlfriend arrives. We know you’re not telling the truth and neither is she. But you wouldn’t want to put her through a lot of unpleasant questioning, would you—even if she has broken it off with you?”

  Clarence wanted to ask who had said she had broken it off? But he reminded himself that the less he said the better, and that to become angry might be disastrous.

  “She’s due any minute,” said Morrissey with his smile that had now become ghoulish. “There’s time for you to say now—yes, I took a walk. Came back to Macdougal maybe. But you went out and clobbered that guy round about midnight, no? So why not admit it, Duhamell, and save yourself a lot of trouble—pain in the ass questions?” Morrissey took a cigarette, holding it between his teeth.

  Clarence felt unpleasantly warm, shifted slightly, and said nothing.

  “She’s not the only one turning up. Your friend Edward Reynolds is coming too. Just after Miss Coomes.” Morrissey looked at his wrist-watch. “At three-thirty.”

  “Fine,” Clarence said.

  But 2 o’clock came, and still Marylyn hadn’t arrived. Liebowitz had been dismissed with hearty and phony thanks from Morrissey.

  “You told Detective Fenucci you didn’t have your gun with you that night,” Morrissey said when he and Clarence were alone. “We think you did. We think you used it to clobber Rowajinski. Isn’t that true?”

  “That gun was examined. That gun wasn’t used for anything,” Clarence said, feeling on safe ground—or if the ground wasn’t safe it was time they told him.

  “Oh, you could’ve washed the gun. Why did you have it at home, if you weren’t carrying it that night?”

  “I take my gun occasionally when I leave the precinct house after 4 a.m. So do a lot of patrolmen.”

  “Patrolmen,” Morrissey said in a mocking way. “You’re the polite type, eh Dummell? Nasty subject murder, no? Not used to talking about it, eh Dummell?”

  Clarence said nothing. He wanted a cigarette and didn’t take one.

  Marylyn arrived at ten to three. Now she wore a skirt, a wide, longish black skirt embroidered in red at the hem. She nodded and gave a faint smile to Clarence who was still sitting on the straight chair.

  “Do sit down, Miss Coomes,” said Morrissey. “Is that chair comfortable?”

  “Yes, but it’s full of smoke here,” Marylyn said.

  Morrissey opened a window, pulling it with difficulty down from the top. “Well now, Miss Coomes—we are making progress. Are you still prepared to say that Clarence Duhamell spent the entire night of November third-fourth at your house on Macdougal Street? Never went out even briefly—and maybe came back?” He smiled.

  Marylyn, looking tense, took a deep breath and answered quite calmly, “He spent the whole night. Why should I change my story?”

  “Your story? Is it true?”

  “I wouldn’t bother lying,” Marylyn said with superb contempt, and Clarence imagined “to pigs” that might have ended her statement.

  “I understand you’ve broken off with Duhamell, Miss Coomes. Isn’t it because you know he’s guilty—guilty of having bashed a man to death?”

  “And who said I’ve broken off? I’m perfectly friendly with Clare. As friendly as ever. After all, we’re not married. And what business is it of yours?” She got out her cigarettes. “I gather it’s okay if I smoke,” she said, casting an eye up at the murky ceiling.

  “Pete Manzoni told me you’d broken off,” said Morrissey. “Clarence Duhamell hasn’t spent any nights on Macdougal since the—”

  “Manzoni can shove himself. He’s a fascist pig—a—disgrace! You issue uniforms and guns to people like that? I intend to report that wop pig but I’m still gathering my dossier so I can really slam him. I wouldn’t be proud, if I were you, to have such shit as a colleague.”

  Morrissey was momentarily silenced, and Marylyn added:

  “This wop is a heckler and he’s the kind who feels women up. Crime, we’ve plenty of it, so why doesn’t he go after it instead of knocking on my door and crashing in, hoping he can find me in the middle of dressing—or undressing. This whole bloody town,” she said, looking straight at Morrissey, “is rolling in dope and the pigs are rolling in dough from it, and you waste your time trying to find out who killed a creep. What side are you on, anyway? I’ll tell you. The cops are on the creeps’ side!”

  The insults plainly rolled off Morrissey. “Why a creep? Rowajinski was a human being.”

  “Ho-hum,” said Marylyn.

  Morrissey smiled. “Aren’t you saying that because you—”

  “I have no further comment on that creep. He was no better and no worse than the wop cop, for instance.”

  There was a knock on the door, an arm in a uniform sleeve came into Clarence’s view, and then Ed Reynolds entered. He nodded to Morrissey, and said “Hello” to Clarence and to Marylyn. Morrissey, who was half sitting most of the time now on the edge of the desk, pulled another straight chair from the wall for Ed.

  “Thank you for coming, Mr. Reynolds,” Morrissey said.

  “We’ve been going over the circumstances of the night of November third-fourth last. And we are going to get to the bottom of it. And we already have, I think. Miss Coomes here—” Morrissey stopped, because the door was opening again.

  Fenucci came in, and after a glance went out and returned at once with another chair for himself. He signaled for Morrissey to continue.

  “I was saying,” Morrissey resumed, “Miss Coomes here continues to say that Dummell spent the entire night with her.” He was mainly addressing Ed Reynolds. “But that’s understandable since Dummell is a friend of hers. Mr. Reynolds, we don’t believe this story and that’s why we’re here—to get the truth out, now or later.”

  Ed glanced at Clarence, an assessing glance, Clarence felt, as if to try to estimate how much questioning he had been through already. Clarence felt perfectly fit, and reminded himself again to keep calm and to save his energy. Morrissey wasn’t going to keep Marylyn or Ed all night, but he himself might be for it.

  “I wonder, Mr. Reynolds, if you share Miss Coomes’s dislike of the police force?” Morrissey asked pleasantly.

  Ed smiled slightly, and hesitated. “I haven’t given it much thought.”

  “I imagine you disliked Rowajinski even more,” said Morrissey.

  A nasty slant, Ed thought. He kept the blank, agreeable expression on his face. He also kept silent, even though Morrissey was awaiting a reply. So was Fenucci waiting.

  “Dummell has said,” Morrissey went on, “that he spent the entire night of November third-fourth at the apartment of Miss Coomes from ten p.m. to around eight the next morning—or ten, there’re two different stories there from each of these people, because neither is true. Dummell says he didn’t go out even for half an hour. Says he didn’t have his gun with him, and Miss Coomes doesn’t remember seeing it, although his gun was later found at his apartment because he’d taken it from his precinct house. We think the gun was the murder weapon and that Dummell washed it well, which was why no blood was found on it. We also know Dummell took a pair of pants and a topcoat to his local cleaners the morning after Rowajinski’s death. Strange, no?” Morrissey glanced at Clarence.

  Clarence kept his cool. He had supposed that Homicide would check at his local cleaners.

  “And so the evidence mounts up,” Morrissey said with satisfaction. “Now—”

  Ed slowly got his cigarettes out, and in his effort to appear relaxed was so relaxed that his lighter slipped from his fingers. Morrissey retrieved it for him, because it was closer to his feet than Ed?
??s. “Thanks,” Ed said.

  “You say, Mr. Reynolds, that Dummell said nothing to you at any time about wanting to hit back at Rowajinski?”

  “That is correct,” Ed said.

  “Even after Bellevue wasn’t doing anything, wasn’t doing enough, in Dummell’s opinion? Didn’t he say to you something like—’Somebody ought to do something’?”

  Ed inhaled smoke. “He thought Bellevue ought to do something.”

  “And when they didn’t?”

  “That’s all he said—to me.”

  “Don’t you really know, Mr. Reynolds, that Patrolman Dummell is responsible for Rowajinski’s death?” (Marylyn gave a bored moan.) “And that it’s something so plain it doesn’t need to be put into words maybe?”

  “No,” said Ed, hating it. He hated Morrissey’s manner. He hated his own lying. He realized he couldn’t look at either Marylyn or Clarence, couldn’t even glance at them. Ed looked at the floor, or at the cuffs of Morrissey’s trousers. Morrissey was leaning against the desk.

  “Don’t you suspect, Mr. Reynolds, that Clarence Duhamell killed that man? You’re an intelligent man. How could you not suspect it?”

  Ed didn’t want to reply anything, yet realized that he ought to reply something. “I have no real reason,” he said finally, “to suspect it. That’s why I don’t.”

  “Your goodwill—naïveté—I’m afraid they don’t much apply here, Mr. Reynolds. We’re going to get the truth out of Clarence Duhamell.” He added more heatedly, “No reason to suspect, even, when he’s the only person in the whole picture who had motive—who had the means at hand, a gun with which—”

  “So did I have motive,” Ed interrupted, smiling.

  “Mr. Reynolds, you’re a different temperament from this man . . .” Morrissey went on for a few minutes. It was boring.

  “Don’t leave me out. I had motive,” Marylyn said.

  Morrissey waved a hand at her. He looked vague for an instant, then said, “Excuse me for a minute,” and went out.