A Stab in the Dark

Page 7

 

  According to the storys last paragraph, five other persons had been killed in or around the victims building in the year since their murder. Thered been no indication whether those five murders were solved, or whether the kid in custody was suspected of them.

  I let my mind slip off on tangents. Now and again Id put the book aside and find myself thinking about Barbara Ettinger. Donald Gilman had started to say that her father probably suspected someone, then caught himself and left the name unsaid.

  The husband, probably. The spouse is always the first suspect. If Barbara hadnt apparently been one of a series of victims, Douglas Ettinger would have been grilled six ways and backwards. As it was, hed been interrogated automatically by detectives from Midtown North. They could hardly have done otherwise. He was not only the husband. He was also the person who had discovered the body, coming upon her corpse in the kitchen upon returning from work.

  Id read a report of the interrogation. The man who conducted it had already taken it for granted that the killing was the work of the Icepick Prowler, so his questions had concentrated on Barbaras schedule, on her possible propensity for opening the door for strangers, on whether she might have mentioned anyone following her or behaving suspiciously. Had she been bothered recently by obscene telephone calls? People hanging up without speaking? Suspicious wrong numbers?

  The questioning had essentially assumed the subjects innocence, and the assumption had certainly been logical enough at the time. Evidently there had been nothing in Douglas Ettingers manner to arouse suspicion.

  I tried, not for the first time, to summon up a memory of Ettinger. It seemed to me that I must have met him. We were on the scene before Midtown North came to take the case away from us, and hed have had to be somewhere around while I was standing in that kitchen eyeing the body sprawled on the linoleum. I might have tried to offer a word of comfort, might have formed some impression, but I couldnt remember him at all.

  Perhaps hed been in the bedroom when I was there, talking with another detective or with one of the patrolmen whod been first on the scene. Maybe Id never laid eyes on him, or maybe wed spoken and Id forgotten him altogether. I had by that time spent quite a few years seeing any number of recently bereaved. They couldnt all stand out in sharp relief in the cluttered warehouse of memory.

  Well, Id see him soon enough. My client hadnt said whom he suspected, and I hadnt asked, but it stood to reason that Barbaras husband headed the list. London wouldnt be all that upset by the possibility that shed died at the hands of someone he didnt even know, some friend or lover who meant nothing to him. But for her to have been killed by her own husband, a man London knew, a man who had been present years later at Londons wifes funeral-

  Theres a phone in my room but the calls go through the switchboard, and its a nuisance placing them that way even when I dont care if the operator listens in. I went down to the lobby and dialed my clients number in Hastings. He answered on the third ring.

  "Scudder," I said. "I could use a picture of your daughter. Anything as long as its a good likeness. "

  "I took albums full of pictures. But most of them were of Barbara as a child. You would want a late photograph, I suppose?"

  "As late as possible. How about a wedding picture?"

  "Oh," he said. "Of course. Theres a very good picture of the two of them, its in a silver frame on a table in the living room. I suppose I could have it copied. Do you want me to do that?"

  "If its not too much trouble. "

  He asked if he should mail it and I suggested he bring it to his office Monday. I said Id call and arrange to pick it up. He asked if Id had a chance to begin the investigation yet and I told him Id spent the day in Brooklyn. I tried him on a couple of names-Donald Gilman, Janice Corwin. Neither meant anything to him. He asked, tentatively, if I had any leads.

  "Its a pretty cold trail," I said.

  I rang off without asking him who he suspected. I felt restless and went around the corner to Armstrongs. On the way I wished Id taken the time to go back to my room for my coat. It was colder, and the wind had an edge to it.

  I sat at the bar with a couple of nurses from Roosevelt. One of them, Terry, was just finishing up her third week in Pediatrics. "I thought Id like the duty," she said, "but I cant stand it. Little kids, its so much worse when you lose one. Some of them are so brave it breaks your heart. I cant handle it, I really cant. "

  Estrellita Riveras image flashed in my mind and was gone. I didnt try to hold onto it. The other nurse, glass in hand, was saying that all in all she thought she preferred Sambucca to Amaretto. Or maybe it was the other way around.

  I made it an early night.

  Chapter 6

  Even if I couldnt recall meeting Douglas Ettinger, I had a picture of him in my mind. Tall and raw-boned, dark hair, pallid skin, knobby wrists, Lincolnesque features. A prominent Adams apple.

  I woke up Saturday morning with his image firmly in mind, as if it had been imprinted there during an unremembered dream. After a quick breakfast I went down to Penn Station and caught a Long Island Railroad local to Hicksville. A phone call to his house in Mineola had established that Ettinger was working at the Hicksville store, and it turned out to be a $2. 25 cab ride from the station.

  In an aisle lined with squash and racquet-ball equipment I asked a clerk if Mr. Ettinger was in. "Im Doug Ettinger," he said. "What can I do for you?"

  He was about five-eight, a chunky one-seventy. Tightly curled light brown hair with red highlights. The plump cheeks and alert brown eyes of a squirrel. Large white teeth, with the upper incisors slightly bucked, consistent with the squirrel image. He didnt look remotely familiar, nor did he bear any resemblance whatsoever to the rail-splitter caricature Id dreamed up to play his part.

  "My names Scudder," I said. "Id like to talk to you privately, if you dont mind. Its about your wife. "

  His open face turned guarded. "Karen?" he said. "What about her?"

  Christ. "Your first wife. "

  "Oh, Barbara," he said. "You had me going for a second there. The serious tone and all, and wanting to talk to me about my wife. I dont know what I thought. Youre from the NYPD? Right this way, we can talk in the office. "

  His was the smaller of the two desks in the office. Invoices and correspondence were arranged in neat piles on it. A Lucite photo cube held pictures of a woman and several young children. He saw me looking at it and said, "Thats Karen there. And the kids. "

  I picked up the cube, looked at a young woman with short blonde hair and a sunny smile. She was posed next to a car, with an expanse of lawn behind her. The whole effect was very suburban.

  I replaced the photo cube and took the chair Ettinger indicated. He sat behind the desk, lit a cigarette with a disposable butane lighter. He knew the Icepick Prowler had been apprehended, knew too that the suspect denied any involvement in his first wifes murder. He assumed Pinell was lying, either out of memory failure or for some insane reason. When I explained that Pinells alibi had been confirmed, he seemed unimpressed.

  "Its been years," he said. "People can get mixed up on dates and you never know how accurate records are. He probably did it. I wouldnt take his word that he didnt. "

  "The alibi looks sound. "

  Ettinger shrugged. "Youd be a better judge of that than I would. Still, Im surprised that you guys are reopening the case. What can you expect to accomplish after all this time?"

  "Im not with the police, Mr. Ettinger. "

  "I thought you said-"

  "I didnt bother to correct your impression. I used to be in the department. Im private now. "

  "Youre working for somebody?"

  "For your former father-in-law. "

  "Charlie London hired you?" He frowned, taking it all in. "Well, I guess its his privilege. Its not going to bring Barbie back but I guess its his right to feel like hes doing something. I remember he was talking about posting a reward after she was murdered. I dont know if he ever
got around to it or not. "

  "I dont believe he did. "

  "So now he wants to spend a few dollars finding the real killer. Well, why not? He doesnt have much going for him since Helen died. His wife, Barbaras mother. "

  "I know. "

  "Maybe itll do him good to have something he can take an interest in. Not that work doesnt keep him busy, but, well-" He flicked ashes from his cigarette. "I dont know what help I can give you, Mr. Scudder, but ask all the questions you want. "

  I asked about Barbaras social contacts, her relationships with people in the building. I asked about her job at the day-care center. He remembered Janice Corwin but couldnt supply her husbands name. "The job wasnt that important," he said. "Basically it was something to get her out of the house, give her a focus for her energy. Oh, the money helped. I was dragging a briefcase around for the Welfare Department, which wasnt exactly the road to riches. But Barbies job was temporary. She was going to give it up and stay home with the baby. "

  The door opened. A teenage clerk started to enter the office, then stopped and stood there looking awkward. "Ill be a few minutes, Sandy," Ettinger told him. "Im busy right now. "

  The boy withdrew, shutting the door. "Saturdays always busy for us," Ettinger said. "I dont want to rush you, but Im needed out there. "

  I asked him some more questions. His memory wasnt very good, and I could understand why. Hed had one life torn up and had had to create a new one, and it was easier to do so if he dwelled on the first life as little as possible. There were no children from that first union to tie him into relations with in-laws. He could leave his marriage to Barbara in Brooklyn, along with his caseworkers files and all the trappings of that life. He lived in the suburbs now and drove a car and mowed a lawn and lived with his kids and his blonde wife. Why sit around remembering a tenement apartment in Boerum Hill?

  "Funny," he said. "I cant begin to think of anyone we knew who might be capable of… doing what was done to Barbie. But one other thing I could never believe was that shed let a stranger into the apartment. "

  "She was careful about that sort of thing?"

  "She was always on guard. Wyckoff Street wasnt the kind of neighborhood she grew up in, although she found it comfortable enough. Of course we werent going to stay there forever. " His glance flicked to the photo cube, as if he was seeing Barbara standing next to a car and in front of a lawn. "But she got spooked by the other icepick killings. "

  "Oh?"

  "Not at first. When he killed the woman in Sheepshead Bay, though, thats when it got to her. Because it was the first time hed struck in Brooklyn, you see. It freaked her a little. "

  "Because of the location? Sheepshead Bays a long ways from Boerum Hill. "

  "But it was Brooklyn. And there was something else, I think, because I remember she identified pretty strongly with the woman who got killed. I must have known why but I cant remember. Anyway, she got nervous. She told me she had the feeling she was being watched. "