Killer's Choice Read online

  WANTED

  Experienced saleswoman for established quality furniture store. Salary plus commission. Call Patrick 3-7021.

  Miss Boone called and was granted an interview. As it turned out, she had never had any experience selling furniture, and our Personnel Manager was somewhat hesitant about hiring her. But, as you probably know, she had recently been divorced, and she was a rather attractive girl with a warm-spirited personality. We felt we could use her personality to good advantage in our modern furniture department, and we employed her for a trial period of six months. Her starting salary was $45.00 per week, plus commissions, of course, with the understanding that she would be given an increase of $5.00 per week at the end of the six-month period, should her employment prove satisfactory.

  As it turned out, our judgement was not at all inaccurate. Miss Boone was a fine worker and a good saleswoman. She was well-liked by every employee on the sixth floor (Modern Furniture, Lamps, etc.) and was regarded as both capable and enthusiastic by the floor manager.

  We were, indeed, most distressed to have her leave us last year. We understand, though, that she had a job offering a much higher salary, and we certainly would not stand in the way of opportunity.

  I can assure you, Detective Kling, that we learned of her death with great sorrow here at Herman Dodson. Miss Boone was a fine woman and a pleasure to know. She was getting over a most trying experience in her personal life, but she never allowed her private troubles to interfere in any way with her relations with fellow employees or with customers of the store.

  I wish you the greatest success in your endeavours to apprehend her murderer. If I can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to call.

  My very best wishes,

  Sincerely,

  Ralph Dodson

  for HERMAN DODSON, INC.

  Kling studied the letter from Ralph Dodson, and then wondered why anyone had killed Anne Carolyn Boone and then destroyed a liquor store to boot. It did not seem to make much sense. Shrugging, he pulled the Isola telephone directory to him, thumbed it open, and began leafing through the B's. He found a listing for Theodore Boone, phtgrphr at 495 Hall Avenue. He asked the desk sergeant for a line, and then dialled the number. The phone was picked up instantly.

  'Theodore Boone, good morning,' a cheery voice chirped.

  'Mr Boone, please,' Kling said.

  'Who's calling, please?'

  'Detective Bert Kling of the 87th Detective Squad.'

  'Oh,' the voice said.

  'Is he in?'

  'I don't know, sir. Just one moment, and I'll see.'

  Kling waited. While he waited, he drew a picture of a man with a beard, and he put eyeglasses on the man and then a spotted sports shirt. He was ready to hang up and dial again when the voice came on to the line. It was a deep voice, a good voice, a real voice.

  'Hello?'

  'Mr Boone?'

  'Yes?'

  'Detective Kling, 87th Squad.'

  'I've been expecting this,' Boone said. 'It's about Annie, isn't it?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'How can I help?' Boone wanted to know.

  'I'd like to talk to you, Mr Boone. Can I see you sometime this afternoon?'

  'Yes. Just a moment, let me check my appointments.' There was a pause on the line. 'Three o'clock all right?'

  'Fine.'

  'I can squeeze you in, I think. I don't mean to sound rude, Mr Kling, but I've got a session scheduled for three-thirty.'

  'Not at all,' Kling said. 'I'll be there on the button.'

  'Fine. Look forward to seeing you,' and Boone hung up.

  Kling held the dead phone just a moment, and then he replaced it on its cradle. He looked at his watch, walked over to where Meyer Meyer was typing at the next desk and said, 'Come on, coolie. It's lunch time.'

  'Already?' Meyer asked, looking up at the wall clock. 'My God!' he complained. 'All we ever do around here is fress. Fress, fress, fress.'

  But he put on his jacket, and at the greasy spoon in one of the sidestreets near the squad, he ate Kling clear under the table—which was no small feat.

  Peter Kronig was, like Cotton Hawes, a transfer. Unlike Hawes, he was not a transfer from one precinct to another. He had once been a police photographer but he had been transferred to the Police Laboratory to study under Lieutenant Sam Grossman who was his immediate superior and who probably ran the best damn lab in the United States. Actually, Kronig had worked pretty closely with the lab even when he'd been a photographer. It was, in fact, his deep interest in laboratory work which had accounted for the transfer. Lab technicians were difficult enough to come by, God knew, and when Grossman saw a man with real interest, he grabbed him—but fast.

  Kronig had been grabbed, and he was learning that there was a good deal more to scientific detection than the mere developing of negatives or emulsification of prints. In the orderly white room which stretched for almost the entire first floor of the headquarters building on High Street downtown, he was learning that scientific detection meant dealing with detectives who were interested in homicide. He did not mind dealing with Steve Carella so much. Carella was a cop whom he'd seen around when he was still shooting stiffs. Carella was always good for a laugh, and Carella also happened to be a good cop who asked pertinent questions and who didn't let very much of importance get by him. But this fellow Hawes—Cotton Hawes, Jesus!—was showing every indication of being a difficult fellow to keep up with. Kronig did not like to run intellectual races. Hawes was as sharp as a plate glass splinter, and as cold as a plate of spumoni. It was the coldness that got Kronig. Even wearing his Detective's 3rd Grade shield, he'd have hated to meet Hawes in a dark alley.

  'We can, as you know, determine the make of an unknown firearm as long as we have the bullet which was fired from it,' he said.

  'That's why we're here,' Hawes said dryly.

  'Yes,' Kronig said. 'Well, we examine the grooves on the bullet, the right- or left-hand direction of the grooves, their number, their width, and degree of twist of the spiral. That's what we do.'

  'What about the gun that murdered Anne Boone?' Hawes asked.

  'Yes. I was getting to that.'

  'When?' Hawes asked. Carella glanced at him, but Hawes did not glance back.

  'A land,' Kronig Went on, slightly ruffled, 'is the smooth surface between the spiral grooves in the pistol barrel. To make things simpler, most pistol barrels have an even number of grooves. For example, there are only eight automatics…'

  'Eight automatics,' Hawes concluded, 'which have five lands. What about the murder weapon?'

  'I was getting to that,' Kronig said. 'Most pistols in the .25 calibre group have six lands. If we have two pistols with the same number of lands, we can further differentiate between them by the direction of twist. To the left or to the right, do you understand?'

  'It's perfectly clear,' Hawes said.

  'Hardly any automatics have a left twist,' Kronig said.

  'There are a few,' Hawes answered. 'Spanish .25s and .32s have a left twist.'

  'Yes. Yes. And the Bayard and Colt .25 have a left twist.'

  'Why are you hitting .25s so hard?' Carella asked.

  'Because the sample bullet we examined had six lands. The twist was sixteen inches left. The groove diameter was .251 inches.'

  'Get to it,' Hawes said.

  'Well,' Kronig said, sighing, 'we went to our charts. We looked up grooves, direction of twist, twist in inches, groove diameter, and we came up with the make and calibre of the gun that fired that bullet.'

  'Which was?'

  'A Colt .25 automatic.'

  'Fill us in, Pete,' Carella said.

  'Not much to tell. You know .25s. A small gun. Weighs thirteen ounces and has an overall length of four and a half inches. The barrel length is two inches. Magazine capacity, six cartridges. You find them in either blued or nickelled finishes. They've got pearl, ivory, or walnut stocks. They shoot like bastards, and they can kill as dead as a .45.'


  'A small gun,' Carella said.

  'And a light one,' Hawes added. 'Light enough for a man to keep in his side pocket. Light enough for a woman to carry in her purse.'

  'Not a woman's gun especially, is it, Pete?' Carella asked.

  'Not necessarily, Steve,' Kronig said. 'It could be, but not necessarily. I'd say it's six of one and a half-dozen of the other. Not like a .45. You know, not many women will lug a .45.'

  'Either a man or a woman,' Carella said dismally.

  'Mmm,' Kronig said, nodding. He grinned at Carella and added, 'We've certainly narrowed it down for you, huh?'

  In the street outside the headquarters building, Carella said, 'Deal much with the lab before, Hawes?'

  'A little,' Hawes said.

  'What was it? Didn't you take to Pete?'

  'He was fine. Why?'

  'You seemed P.O.'d about something.'

  'Only his deadly lecture on elementary ballistics,' Hawes said.

  'That's his job.'

  'His job was to tell us what make and calibre gun killed Anne Boone. I'm not interested in the processes which lead to his conclusions. Our job is to get a murderer, not listen to a glorified report on laboratory technique.'

  'It doesn't hurt to know these things,' Carella said.

  'Why? Do you plan on becoming a lab cop?'

  'Nope. But if you can appreciate another man's job, you won't ask the impossible of him.'

  'That's a generous attitude,' Hawes said. 'I like to do things fast.'

  'Sometimes you can't handle homicides fast. We now know that a .25 was used. That's not such a popular calibre. The thieves we deal with seem to favour .32s and .38s. Was it that way at the 30th?'

  'Just about.'

  'So we've got something to look for in the M.O. file. Maybe Pete gave you a lecture, but I didn't mind it. I sort of enjoyed it.'

  'To each his own,' Hawes said flatly.

  'Sure. You handle many homicide cases before your transfer, Hawes?'

  'Not many.'

  'Not many?'

  'We didn't have many homicides at the 30th.'

  'No?'

  'No.'

  'How many?'

  'What are you getting at, Carella?'

  'I'm just curious.'

  'I'm 'way ahead of you.'

  'Are you?'

  'Yes. You know damn well what kind of a precinct the 30th was. Rich people. Big, fancy apartment houses with doormen. Burglary was our most frequent crime. And street stickups. And attempted and realized suicides. And some high-class prostitution. But not many homicides.'

  'How many?'

  'I won't count the ones where a burglar panicked and killed, and where we grabbed him almost at the scene. I'll only count the real homicides. Where we had to work.'

  'Sure,' Carella said. 'How many?'

  'Six.'

  'A week?'

  'No.'

  'What then? A month?'

  'I worked out of the 30th squad for four years. We had six homicides in all that time.'

  'What?'

  'Yeah.'

  'How many of those did you work on?'

  'None.'

  'Oh,' Carella said, smiling.

  'Did you prove your point?'

  'Which point?'

  'That I don't know my ass from my elbow?'

  'I wasn't trying to prove anything.'

  'I don't know homicide, that's true. It was always my impression that killings were left to Homicide North or Homicide South.'

  'If we gave all the 87th's homicides to the Homicide Squads, they wouldn't have enough dicks to go around.'

  'Okay. I don't know homicide. Are we agreed?'

  'We're agreed. What else don't you know?'

  'I don't know the 87th Precinct.'

  'Granted.'

  'I don't know you, either.'

  'Stephen Louis Carella, Detective 2nd Grade, thirty-four years old, been a cop since I was twenty-one. I'm married to a girl named Teddy who's a deaf mute. We're very happy. I like my job. I've worked on forty-one homicide cases, and just about every other type of crime being committed in this city. I made two big mistakes in my lifetime. I jumped on a hand grenade in Italy, and I got myself shot last Christmas. I survived both times, and I won't make the same mistakes again. End of deposition.'

  'That's it, huh?'

  'In a nutshell.'

  'You're a college man, aren't you?'

  'Two and a half years. Chaucer finally threw me.'

  'You were medically discharged from the Army, right?'

  'Yes. How'd…'

  'If you've been a cop since you're twenty-one, and if you went to college for two and a half years, that doesn't leave much time for the Army. What'd you do? Graduate high school at seventeen, go to school for a year, get drafted, get wounded, get medically discharged, and then go back to school for a year and a half before you joined the force?'

  'You're reading it right down the line,' Carella said, somewhat amazed.

  'Okay. I guess I now know Detective Steve Carella.'

  'I guess so. How about Detective Cotton Hawes?'

  'There's not much to know,' Hawes said.

  'Tell it.'

  'It bores me.'

  'The way Pete Kronig in the lab bored you.'

  'In a way, yes.'

  'I'll give you some advice, Hawes.'

  'What's that?'

  'I'm not the best cop in the world,' Carella said. 'I just try to do my job, that's all. But I've worked on homicides, and I know my job is made a whole lot easier because of Sam Grossman and his technicians. Sometimes the lab isn't worth a damn. Sometimes a case is all legwork and stool-pigeons and personal mathematics. But there are times when the lab does everything but go out to make the pinch. When a lab cop talks, I listen. I listen hard.'

  'You're saying?' Hawes asked.

  'I'm saying you've got ears, too,' Carella said. 'Shall we go get some coffee?'

  CHAPTER FIVE

  495 Hall Avenue was a sumptuous building with a wide entrance lobby and fourteen elevators. It rested in the heart of the publishing section, flanked on either side by the high-class department stores which lined the street.

  Kling felt as if he'd died and gone to heaven.

  It was a distinct pleasure to get away from the 87th. There was a nice feeling to midtown Isola, a feeling he had almost forgotten. He could remember Christmas shopping with Claire, his fiancée, but this was June and Christmas seemed as if it had happened in 1776. It was good to be back on Hall Avenue, good to see men carrying brief-cases and going about clean jobs, good to see girls in tailored suits or skirts and blouses, clean-scrubbed girls hurrying to their offices, or hurrying to do their shopping. This was the nicest part of the city, he felt, the part that really felt like it, that really made you think you were in a giant metropolis.

  The weather, too, was ideal. Summer had not yet begun its onslaught. Spring had not yet left the air. It was mild and balmy, a day for taking off your shoes and walking barefoot on wet grass. He regretted that he had a job to do. But his regret did not spread to include Hall Avenue.

  He entered 495 and walked to the directory. Theodore Boone was listed as being in Room 1804. Kling looked at his watch. It was 2.50. He nodded slightly and walked toward the elevator banks. He wore grey slacks and a grey-striped seersucker jacket. He did not at all look like a cop. With his blond hair and wide shoulders, with his long purposeful strides, he looked like a Scandinavian in America to study investment banking.

  The elevator banks were divided into several sections. He passed the Local 1-12 section, and then stopped at the Express 14-22 section, amused at the idea of a modern office building in the heart of a modern city superstitiously eliminating the thirteenth floor.

  He stepped into the closest car and said, 'Eighteen, please,' The elevator operator stabbed a button.

  'How's it outside?' the elevator operator asked.

  'Nice.'

  'I never get out. I'm trapped in this building. From eight in the
morning 'til five at night, I'm a prisoner. I never see the light. I have my lunch right here in the building. I bring my lunch, I eat it downstairs in a little room we got. I'm a mole.'

  Kling nodded sympathetically.

  'This is a city of moles, you know that? I know people, they get off the subway, they walk underground to their office. At least I get the two-block walk to this building every morning and every night. Them, they get nothing. They walk underground to the office 'cause it's quicker, rain or shine. They eat their lunch in the arcade, underground. They go back to the subway underground when they leave the office at night. They never see the city. Me, I see two blocks of the city. How is it outside?'

  'Nice,' Kling said.

  The starter snapped his fingers. The elevator operator closed the doors. 'Eighteen, right?' he asked.

  'Right,' Kling said.

  'Up and down all day long,' the elevator operator said. 'Up and down, but I'm never going any place. I'm a vertical mole. I'd rather be a subway conductor. Then at least I'd be a horizontal mole. And they come up for air. When they reach Calm's Point or Riverhead, the train comes up outa the ground. Me, up and down, up and down, all day long. It's nice outside, huh?'

  'Very nice,' Kling said.

  'It seemed nice on the way to work this morning. You got an outside job, mister?'

  'Part of the time,' Kling said.

  'Listen, even a part-time outside job is good,' the elevator operator said. 'I think I ought to get an outside job. Even maybe a street cleaner's job. That's outside.'

  'It gets cold in the winter,' Kling said.

  'Yeah?' This was a new idea to the elevator operator. 'Yeah, that's right, ain't it? Say, that's right.' The car slid to a stop. 'Eighteen,' he said.

  The door slid open. 'Thank you,' Kling said as he walked out of the car.

  'Don't mention it,' the elevator operator said. The door slid shut. Behind the door, the mechanism whirred and faded down the shaft. Kling smiled and looked for Room 1804. He followed the doors down the hallway and stopped before a set of double doors with frosted glass. He opened one of the doors and stepped into a small luxuriously furnished waiting-room. A receptionist sat behind a desk at one end of the room. Kling walked directly to her.

  'Mr Boone,' he said.

  'Who shall I say is calling, please?'