The 1st Deadly Sin

another.

“Colt forty-four. Nine-inch barrel. It belonged to my daddy. He was a lawman, too. Replaced the pin and one of the grips, but otherwise it’s in prime condition. A nice piece.”

The Captain nodded and turned his eyes, unwilling, to Devil’s Needle. He raised his head slowly. The granite shaft poked into the sky, tapering slightly as it rose. There were mica glints that caught the late afternoon sunlight, and patches of dampness. A blotter of moss here and there. The surface was generally smooth and wind-worn, but there was a network of small cracks: a veiny stone torso.

He squinted at the top. It was strange to think of Daniel G. Blank up there. Near and far. Far.

“About eighty feet?” he guessed aloud.

“Closer to sixty-five, seventy, I reckon,” Chief Forrest rumbled.

Up and down. They were separated. Captain Delaney had never felt so keenly the madness of the world. For some reason, he thought of lovers separated by glass or a fence, or a man and woman, strangers, exchanging an eye-to-eye stare on the street, on a bus, in a restaurant, a wall of convention or fear between them, yet unbearably close in that look and never to be closer.

“Inside,” he said in a clogged voice, and stepped carefully into the opening of the vertical cleft, the chimney. He smelled the rank dampness, felt the chill of stone shadow. He tilted his head back. Far above, in the gloom, was a wedge of pale blue sky.

“A one-man climb,” Chief Forrest said, his voice unexpectedly loud in the cavern. “You wiggle your way up, using your back and feet, then your hands and knees as the rock squeezes in. He’s up there with an ice ax, ain’t no man getting up there now unless he says so. You’ve got to use both hands.”

“You’ve made the climb, Chief?”

Forrest grunted shortly. “Uh-huh. Many, many times. But that was years ago, before my belly got in the way.”

“What’s it like up there?”

“Oh, about the size of a double bedsheet. Flat, but sloping some to the south. Pitted and shiny. Some shallow rock hollows. Right nice view.”

They came outside, Delaney looked up again.

“You figure sixty-five, seventy feet?”

“About.”

“We could get a cherry-picker from the Highway Department, or I could bring up a ladder truck from the New York Fire Department. They can go up a hundred feet. But there’s no way to get a truck close enough; not down that path and across the rocks. Unless we build a road. And that would take a month.”

They were silent then.

“Helicopter?” Delaney said finally.

“Yes,” Forrest acknowledged. “They could blast him from that. Tricky in these downdrafts and cross-currents, but I reckon it could be done.”

“It could be done,” Captain Delaney agreed tonelessly. “Or we could bring in a fighter plane to blow him away with rockets and machine guns.”

Silence again.

“Don’t set right with you, does it, sonny?” the Chief asked softly.

“No, it doesn’t. To you?”

“No. I never did hanker to shoot fish in a barrel.”

“Let’s get back.”

On the way, they selected a tentative site for the snipers. It was back in a clump of firs, offering some concealment but providing a clear field of fire covering the entrance to the chimney and the top of Devil’s Needle.

The State police had not yet arrived. Delaney’s men were lounging in and out of the cars, nursing their beers. The three pale snipers stood a little apart from the others, talking quietly, hugging their rifles in canvas cases.

“Chief, I’ve got to make some phone calls. Do I go into Chilton?”

“No need. Right there.” Forrest waved his hand toward the gate-keeper’s cottage. He pointed out the telephone wire that ran on wooden poles back to the gravel road. “They keep that line open all winter. Highway crews plowing snow use it, and Park people who come in for early spring planting.”

They walked over to the weathered wooden shack, stepped up onto the porch. Delaney inspected the hasp closed with a heavy iron padlock.

“Got a key?” he asked.

“Sure,” the Chief said, pulling the massive revolver out of his holster. “Step back a mite, sonny.”

The Captain backed away hastily, and Chief Forrest negligently shot the lock away. Delaney noted he aimed at the shackle, not the body of the lock where a bullet might do nothing but jam the works. He was beginning to admire the old man. The explosion was unexpectedly loud; echoes banged back and forth; Delaney’s men rose uneasily to their feet. Two brown birds took off from the dry underbrush alongside the dirt road, went whirring off with raucous cries.

The Chief pushed the door open. The cabin smelled dusty and stale. An old, wood-based “cookie-cutter” phone was attached to the wall, operated by a little hand crank.

“Haven’t seen one of those in years,” Delaney observed.

“We still got a few around. The operator’s name is Muriel. You might tell her I’m out here, in case she’s got any words for me.” He left Delaney alone in the shack.

The Captain spun the crank; Muriel came on with pleasing promptness. Delaney identified himself, and gave her the Chief’s message.

“Well, his wife wants to know if she should hold supper,” she said. “You tell him that.”

“I will.”

“You got the killer out there?” she asked sternly. “Something like that. Can I get through to New York City?”

“Of course. What do you think?”

He called Blankenship first and reported the situation as briefly as he could. He told the detective to call Deputy Inspector Thorsen and repeat Delaney’s message.

Then he called Barbara at the hospital. It was a harrowing call; his wife was weeping, and he couldn’t find out the cause. Finally a nurse came on the phone and told the Captain his wife was hysterical; she didn’t think the call should be continued. He hung up, bewildered and frightened.

Then he called Dr. Sanford Ferguson, and got him in his office.

“Captain Edward X. Delaney here.”

“Edward! Congratulations! I hear you got him.”

“Not exactly. He’s on top of a rock, and we can’t get to him.”

“On top of a rock?”

“High. Sixty-five, seventy feet. Doctor, how long can a man live without food and water?”

“Food or water? About ten days, I’d guess. Maybe less.”

“Ten days? That’s all?”

“Sure. The food isn’t so important. The water is. Dehydration is the problem.”

“How long does it take to get to him?”

“Oh…twenty-four hours.”

“Then what?”

“What you might expect. Tissue shrinks, strength goes, the kidneys fail. Joints ache. But by that time, the victim doesn’t care. One of the first psychological symptoms is loss of will, a lassitude. Something like freezing to death. He’ll lose from one-fifth to one-quarter of his body weight in fluids. Dizziness. Loss of voluntary muscles. Weakness. Can’t see. Blurry images. Probably begin to hallucinate after the third day. The bladder goes. Just before death, the belly swells up. Not a pleasant way to die-but what is? Edward, is that what’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know. Thank you for your help.”

He broke the connection, put in a call to Monica Gilbert. But when she recognized his voice, she hung up; he didn’t try to call her again.

He came out onto the cottage porch and said to Forrest: “Your wife wants to know if she should hold