The Burglar in the Closet - By Lawrence Block Page 0,69
I got pretty shaky when Verrill drew yet another dental scalpel from his jacket pocket while Ray droned on about his right to remain silent. Ray was reading from the Miranda card and didn’t even see what was going on, and my jaw dropped and I froze, and then Carson Verrill gave out with a desperate little yelp and stuck the scalpel straight in his own heart. Then I went back to being cool again.
CHAPTER
Twenty-one
“The usual thing,” I told Jillian. “He spent more than he earned, he dropped some money in the stock market, he got himself in debt up to his ears, and then he misappropriated funds from a couple of estates he was handling. He needed money, and you’d be surprised what people will do for money. He probably started the deal in motion with the idea of picking up a commission of a few grand. Then he saw a way to get the whole thing. Besides, by this time Crystal was probably more of a liability than an asset. The relationship had dragged on for years and here was a way for him to end it once and for all and pick up a hundred thousand dollars in the process.”
“He seemed so respectable.”
“I guess he didn’t kill Frankie Ackerman. He didn’t mention it and it’s too late to ask him now. I thought she might have called him last night but I guess her death was either an accident or suicide. If he’d killed her he’d have done it with a dental scalpel.”
She shuddered. “I was looking right at him when he did it.”
“So was I. So was everybody but Ray.”
“Every time I close my eyes I see him doing it, stabbing himself in the chest.”
It bothered me, too, but I had an image to maintain and wasn’t about to show it. “It was considerate of him,” I said breezily. “He saved the state the cost of a trial, not to mention the expense of housing and feeding him for a few years. And he gave Craig an opportunity to keep out of the limelight and made Ray Kirschmann a few dollars richer.”
And that was neat, wasn’t it? A few thousand dollars had changed ownership, moving from Craig to Ray, and as a result certain details of the crime would never find their way into the record books. There hadn’t been any burglary, for example. I was never in the place on Gramercy Park. With the right murderer tagged for the murders and nobody in a position to complain, it was easy enough to sweep unpleasant details under the rug.
I leaned back, took a sip of wine. It was nighttime and I was at Jillian’s place and I didn’t have to worry about the police dropping in. Sooner or later Todras and Nyswander would collect some kind of statement from me, but in the meantime I had other things on my mind.
I moved to put an arm around Jillian.
She drew away.
I stretched, forced a yawn. “Well,” I said, “I guess it might not be a bad idea to take a shower, huh? I haven’t had a chance to change my clothes, and—”
“Bernie.”
“What?”
“I, uh, well, the thing is Craig’s coming over soon.”
“Oh.”
“He said he’d be coming over around nine-thirty.”
“I see.”
She turned to look at me, her eyes round and sorrowful. “Well, I have to be practical,” she said. “Don’t I?”
“Sure you do.”
“I was upset with him because of the way he acted, Bernie. Well, it’s certainly true that some people are better under pressure than others. And different people work well under different kinds of pressure. Craig’s a dentist.”
“The World’s Greatest Dentist.”
“When he’s doing some tricky work on a patient, he’s got nerves of steel. But he wasn’t prepared for being arrested and thrown in a jail cell.”
“Few people are.”
“Anyway, he’s serious about me.”
“Right.”
“And he’s a fine man who is well established in a decent profession. He’s respectable.”
“Carson Verrill was respectable.”
“And he’s got security, and that’s important. Bernie, you’re a burglar.”
“True.”
“You don’t save money. You live from one job to the next. You could wind up in jail at any time.”
“No argument.”
“And you probably wouldn’t want to get married anyway.”
“Nope,” I said, “I wouldn’t.”
“So I’d be crazy to throw away something solid with Craig for…for nothing. Wouldn’t I?”
I nodded. “No question about it, Jillian.”
Her lower lip trembled. “Then how come I feel rotten about it? Bernie—”
It was time to reach out and take her in my arms and kiss her. It was definitely time to do just that,