The Burglar in the Closet - By Lawrence Block Page 0,65

from rattling around. It wasn’t what he’d wanted and it was too hot for him to unload it easily, but at least he had the fifty grand in cash free and clear and he could probably raise close to that much again on the jewelry when it was safe to show it around.

“Maybe he even planned to go back and take another shot at the counterfeit money. But Knobby Corcoran didn’t give him the chance. Knobby switched shifts with the other bartender the day after Crystal was murdered, and he was the one who broke the police seals on her door and gave her apartment a second run-through. Maybe he knew where to look, maybe she’d said something like ‘Don’t worry, it’s all here on a shelf in my closet.’ Because he broke in and went home with the counterfeit money and tucked it away on the shelf in his closet.”

“How do you know that, Mr. Rhodenbarr?”

“Simple. That’s where I found it.”

“That’s where you—”

“Found the case full of counterfeit twenties. How else would I know about them? I left them there to keep from rattling Knobby.”

Jillian knew better. I’d told her something about stowing the funny twenties in the bus locker and hoped she wouldn’t pick this time to remember what I’d said. But she had something else on her mind.

“The scalpel,” she said. “The lawyer killed Crystal with one of our dental scalpels.”

“Right.”

“Then he must have been a patient.”

“A lawyer named John,” Craig said. “What lawyers do we have as patients?” He frowned and scratched his head. “There’s lots of lawyers,” he said, “and John’s not the scarcest name in the world, but—”

“It wouldn’t have to be a patient,” I said. “Try it this way. Crystal’s been to Grabow’s loft on King Street. She saw the dental instruments he used for his printmaking work and recognized them as the same line Craig stocks. That was a coincidence and she happened to mention it to the lawyer. And that made his choice of a murder weapon the simplest thing in the world. He’d use one of the dental implements. It would point to Craig, and if Craig somehow managed to get out from under, he could always find a way to steer the cops toward Grabow.”

I’d been pacing around. Now I went over and sat on the edge of Marion the Receptionist’s desk. “His plan was a pretty good one,” I said. “There was just one thing to screw it up and that was me.”

“You, Bern?”

“Right,” I told Craig. “Me. The cops had you in a cell and you were looking for a way out, and you decided to throw them your old buddy Bernie.”

“Bern, what choice did I have?” I looked at him. “Besides,” he said, “I knew I hadn’t killed Crystal, and if you were in her apartment, and one of my scalpels, hell, it started looking as though you were trying to frame me, and—”

“Forget it,” I said. “You were looking for a way out and you took it. And Knobby broke into the apartment and snatched the counterfeit money, and that break-in made it obvious there was more going on than a simple case of a man killing his ex-wife. The lawyer saw that he had to move quickly. There were loose threads around and he had to tie them off, because if the police ever really checked into Crystal’s background his role in the whole affair might start to become evident.

“And he was worried about Grabow. Maybe the two of them had met. Maybe Grabow knew about the lawyer’s relationship with Crystal, or maybe the lawyer didn’t know for certain just how much talking Crystal might have done. For one reason or another, Grabow was a threat. And Grabow himself was nervous when I saw him. Maybe he got in touch with the lawyer. Anyway, he had to go, and the lawyer decided he might as well kill Grabow and tighten the frame around me at the same time. He managed somehow to get the artist over to my apartment, killed him with another of those goddamned dental scalpels, and planted a couple of pieces of Crystal’s jewelry there to tie it all together for the police. Now why I would kill Grabow in the first place, and why I would kill him with a dental scalpel in my own apartment, and why I would then leave Crystal’s jewels around, that was all beside the point. It might not make any absolute sense but it