In the Midst of Death

"Oh, I knew he was innocent for a dozen reasons."



"Even so, didn't the Carr woman know about Broadfield's apartment?"



I nodded. "As a matter of fact, she did. But she couldn't have led her killer there because she was unconscious when she made the trip. She was hit on the head first and then stabbed. It stood to reason that she'd been hit elsewhere. Otherwise the killer would have just gone on hitting her until she was dead. He wouldn't have stopped to pick up a knife. But what you did, Claude, was knock her out somewhere else and then get her to Broadfield's apartment. By then you'd disposed of whatever you'd hit her with, so you finished the job with a knife."



"I think I'll have a cup of chocolate. You're sure you wouldn't care for some?"



"Positive. I didn't want to believe a cop would kill Portia Carr in order to frame Broadfield. Everything pointed that way, but I didn't like the feel of it. I preferred the idea that framing Broadfield was a handy way to get away with murder, that the killer's main object was to get rid of Portia. But then how would he know about Broadfield's apartment and phone number? What I needed was somebody who was connected to both of them. And I found somebody, but there was no motive apparent."



"You must mean me," he said calmly. "Since I certainly had no motive. But then I didn't know the Carr person either, and barely knew Broadfield, so your reasoning breaks down, doesn't it?"



"Not you. Douglas Fuhrmann. He was going to ghostwrite Broadfield's book. That's why Broadfield had turned informer- he wanted to be somebody important and write a bestseller. He got the idea from Carr because she was going to go the Happy Hooker one better. Fuhrmann got the idea of playing both ends and got in touch with Carr to see if he could write her book, too. That's what tied the two of them together- it has to be- but it's not a murder motive."



"Then why am I elected? Because you don't know of anyone else?"



I shook my head. "I knew it was you before I really knew why. I asked you yesterday afternoon if you knew anything about Doug Fuhrmann. You knew enough about him to go over to his house last night and kill him."



"This is remarkable. Now I'm being accused of the murder of a man I never heard of."



"It won't work, Claude. Fuhrmann was a threat to you because he'd been talking with both of them, with Carr and with Broadfield. He was trying to reach me last night. If I'd had time to see him, maybe you wouldn't have been able to kill him. And maybe you would have, because maybe he didn't know what he knew. You were one of Portia Carr's clients."



"That's a filthy lie."



"Maybe it's filthy. I wouldn't know. I don't know what you did with her or what she did with you. I could make some educated guesses."



"Damn you, you're an animal." He didn't raise his voice, but the loathing in it was fierce. "I will thank you not to talk like that in the same house with my mother."



I just looked at him. He met my eyes with confidence at first, and then his face seemed to melt. All the resolve went out of it. His shoulders sagged, and he looked at once much older and much younger. Just a middle-aged little boy.



"Knox Hardesty knew," I went on. "So you killed Portia for nothing. I can pretty much figure out what happened, Claude. When Broadfield turned up at Prejanian's office, you learned about more than police corruption. You learned through Broadfield that Portia was in Knox Hardesty's pocket, feeding him her client list in order to escape deportation. You were on that list and you figured it was just a question of time before she handed you over to him.



"So you got Portia to press charges against Broadfield, accusing him of extortion. You wanted to give him a motive for killing her, and that was an easy one to arrange. She thought you were a cop when you called her, and it was easy enough for her to go along with it. One way or another, you managed to scare her pretty well. Whores are easy to scare.



"At this point you had Broadfield set up beautifully. You didn't even have to be particularly brilliant about the murder itself because the cops would be so anxious to tie it to Broadfield. You decoyed Portia to the Village at the same time that you sent Broadfield off to Brooklyn. Then you knocked her out, dragged her into his apartment, killed her, and got out of there. You dropped the knife in a sewer, washed your hands, and came on home to Mama."



"Leave my mother out of this."



"That bothers you, doesn't it? My mentioning your mother?"



"Yes, it does." He was squeezing his hands together as if to control them. "It bothers me a great deal. That's why you're doing it, I suppose."



"Not entirely, Claude." I drew a breath. "You shouldn't have killed her. There was no point to it. Hardesty already knew about you. If he'd thrown your name into the open at the beginning, a lot of time would have been saved and Fuhrmann and Manch would still be alive. But- "



"Manch?"



"Leon Manch. It looked as though he might have killed Fuhrmann, but the timing was wrong. And then it looked as though you might have set it up, but you would have done it better. You would have killed them in the right order, wouldn't you? First Fuhrmann and then Manch, and not the other way around."



"I don't know what you're talking about."



And this time he evidently didn't, and the difference in his tone was obvious. "Leon Manch was another name on Portia's client list. He was also Knox Hardesty's pipeline into the mayor's office. I called him yesterday afternoon and arranged to see him, and I guess he couldn't handle it. He jumped out a window last night."



"He actually killed himself."



"It looks that way."



"He could have killed Portia Carr." He said it not argumentatively but thoughtfully.



I nodded. "He could have killed her, yes. But he couldn't have killed Fuhrmann because Fuhrmann made a couple of telephone calls after Manch had been officially pronounced dead. You see what that means, Claude?"



"What?"



"All you had to do was leave that little writer alone. You couldn't know it, but that was all you had to do. Manch left a note. He didn't confess to murder, but it could have been interpreted that way. I would certainly have interpreted it that way and I would have done everything possible to pin the Carr murder on Manch's dead body. If I managed it, Broadfield was clear. If not, he would stand trial himself. Either way, you would have been home free because I would have settled on Manch as the killer and the cops had already settled on Broadfield and that left nobody in the world hunting for you."



He said nothing for a long time. Then he narrowed his eyes and said, "You're trying to trap me."



"You're already trapped."



"She was an evil, filthy woman."



"And you were the Lord's avenging angel."



"No. Nothing of the sort. You are trying to trap me, and it won't work. You can't prove a thing."



"I don't have to."



"Oh?"



"I want you to come over to the police station with me, Claude. I want you to confess to the murders of Portia Carr and Douglas Fuhrmann."



"You must be insane."



"No."



"Then you must think I'm insane. Why on earth would I do something like that? Even if I did commit murder- "



"To spare yourself, Claude."



"I don't understand."



I looked at my watch. It was still early, and I felt as though I'd been awake for months.



"You said I can't prove anything," I told him. "And I said you were right. But the police can prove it. Not now, but after they've spent some time digging. Knox Hardesty can establish that you were a client of Portia Carr's. He gave me the information once I was able to show him how it was bound up in murder, and he'll hardly hold it back in court. And you can bet that somebody saw you with Portia in the Village and somebody saw you on Ninth Avenue when you killed Fuhrmann. There's always a witness, and when the police and the district attorney's office are both putting in time, the witnesses tend to turn up."



"Then let them turn up these people if they exist. Why should I confess to make things easier for them?"



"Because you'd be making things easier for yourself, Claude. So much easier."



"That doesn't make sense."



"If the police dig, they'll get everything, Claude. They'll find out why you were seeing Portia Carr. Right now nobody knows. Hardesty doesn't know, I don't know, no one does. But if they dig, they'll find out. And there will be insinuations in the newspapers, and people will suspect things, perhaps they'll suspect worse than the truth- "



"Stop it."



"Everyone will know about it, Claude." I inclined my head toward the closed door. "Everyone," I said.



"Damn you."



"You could spare her that knowledge, Claude. Of course a confession might also get you a lighter sentence. It theoretically can't happen in Murder One, but you know how the game is played. It certainly wouldn't hurt your chances. But I think that's a secondary consideration as far as you're concerned, Claude. Isn't it? I think you'd like to save yourself some scandal. Am I right?"



He opened his mouth but closed it without speaking.



"You could keep your motive a secret, Claude. You could invent something. Or just refuse to explain. No one would pressure you, not if you'd already confessed to homicide. People close to you would know you had committed murder, but they wouldn't have to know other things about your life."



He lifted his cup of chocolate to his lips. He sipped it, returned it to its saucer.



"Claude- "



"Just let me think for a moment, will you?"



"All right."



I don't know how long we remained like that, me standing, him seated before the silent television set. Say five minutes. Then he sighed, scuffed off his slippers, reached to put on a pair of shoes. He tied them and got to his feet. I walked to the door and opened it and stood aside so he could precede me through it into the living room.



He said, "Mother, I'll be going out for a little while. Mr. Scudder needs my help. Something important has come up."



"Oh, but your dinner, Claude. It's almost ready. Perhaps your friend would care to join us?"



I said, "I'm afraid not, Mrs. Lorbeer."



"There's just no time, Mother," Claude agreed. "I'll have to have dinner out."



"Well, if it can't be helped."



He squared his shoulders, went to the front closet for a coat. "Now wear your heavy overcoat," she told him. "It's turned quite cold outside. It is cold out, isn't it, Mr. Scudder?"



"Yes," I said. "It's very cold out."



Chapter 16



My second trip to the Tombs was very different from my first. It was about the same hour of the day, around eleven in the morning, but this time I'd had a good, full night's sleep and very little to drink the night before. I'd seen him in a cell the first time. Now I was meeting him and his lawyer at the front desk. He had left all that tension and depression in his cell and he looked like the conquering hero.



He and Seldon Wolk were already on hand when I walked in. Broadfield's face lit up at the sight of me. "There's my man," he called out. "Matt, baby, you're the greatest. Absolutely the greatest. If I did one intelligent thing in my life, it was getting hooked up with you." And he was pumping my hand and beaming down at me. "Didn't I tell you I was getting out of this toilet? And didn't you turn out to be the guy to spring me?" He inclined his head conspiratorially, lowered his voice to a near-whisper. "And I'm a guy knows how to say thank you so you know I mean it. You got a bonus coming, buddy."