The 1st Deadly Sin

“Mr. Langley, I can’t-”

“I know you’re not on active duty. I know it’s a private investigation. You told me. But still…you’re trying. Let me help. Please. Look at me. I’m seventy. I’m retired. To tell you the truth, Captain, I’m sick of gourmet cooking. My whole life was…Oh God, what am I supposed to do-sit up here and wait to die? Captain, please, let me do something, something important. This man Lombard was murdered. That’s not right. Life is too precious.”

“That’s what my wife said,” Delaney said wonderingly.

“She knew,” Langley nodded, his eyes glistening now. “Let me do some work, some important work. I know weapons. You know that. I might be a help to you. Truly. Let me try.”

“I don’t have any funds,” Delaney started. “I can’t-”

“Forget it,” the old man waved him away. “This will cost nothing. I can pay for cabs and books, or whatever. But let me work. At an important job. You understand, Captain? I don’t want to just drift away.”

The Captain stared, wondering if the ex-curator was prey to his own gloomy thoughts. Langley was far from being stupid, and how did an intelligent man justify a lifetime devoted to killing tools? Perhaps it was true, as he had said, that he was simply bored with retirement and wanted to work again. But his insistence on something “important,” “important” work, an “important” job led Delaney to wonder if the old man, his life drawing to a close, was not, in a sense, seeking a kind of expiation, or at least hungering to make a sunny, affirmative gesture after a career celebrating shadows and the bog.

“Yes,” Captain Delaney said, clearing his throat. “I understand. All right. Fine. I appreciate that, sir. If I find out anything more relating to the weapon, I’ll make sure you know of it. Meanwhile, see what you can come up with.”

“Oh!” Langley cried, effervescent again. “I’ll get on it right away. There are some things I want to check in my books tonight, and tomorrow I’ll go to the museums. Maybe I’ll get some ideas there. And to hardware stores. To look at tools. Captain, am I a detective now?”

“Yes,” Delaney smiled. “You’re a detective.”

He moved toward the door, and Langley scampered to get his coat and hat from the closet. He gave his unlisted phone number to the Captain, and Delaney carefully copied it into his pocket notebook. Langley unlocked the door, then leaned close.

“Captain,” he whispered, “one final favor…When you go down the stairs, please try to tiptoe past the Widow Zimmerman’s door. I don’t want her to know I’m alone.”

6

The home of the late Frank Lombard was on a surprisingly pastoral street in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. There were trees, lawns, barking dogs, shrieking children. The house itself was red brick, two stories high, its ugliness hidden in a tight cloak of ivy that was still green and creeped to the eaves.

There was an asphalt driveway leading to a two-car garage. There were four cars, bumper to bumper, on the driveway, and more in front of the house, two double-parked. Captain Delaney observed all this from across the street. He also observed that one of the double-parked cars was a three-year-old, four-door Plymouth, and had the slightly rusted, slightly dusty, nondescript appearance of an unmarked police car. Two men in civilian clothes were in the front seat.

Delaney approved of a guard being stationed for the protection of the widow, Mrs. Clara Lombard. It was very possible, he thought, there was also a personal guard inside the house; Chief Pauley would see to that. Now the problem was, if Delaney went through with his intention to interview the widow, would one of the cops recognize him and report to Broughton that Captain Delaney had been a visitor.

The Captain pondered this problem a few minutes on the next corner, still watching the Lombard home. While he stood, hands shoved deep in his civilian overcoat pockets, he saw two. couples leave the house, laughing, and another car double-park to disgorge two women and a man, also laughing.

Delaney devised a cover story. If the guards made him, and he was eventually braced by Broughton, he would explain that because the homicide occurred in his precinct, he felt duty-bound to express his condolences to the widow. Broughton wouldn’t buy it completely; he’d be suspicious and have the widow checked. But that would be all right; Delaney did feel duty-bound to express his condolences, and would.

As he headed up the brick-paved walk to the door, he heard loud rock music, screams of laughter, the sound of shattering glass. It was a party, and a wild one.

A man answered his ring, a flush-faced, too-handsome man wearing not one, but two pinkie rings.

“Come in come in come in,” he burbled, flourishing his highball glass and slopping half of it down the front of his hand-tailored, sky-blue silk suit. “Always room for one more.”

“Thank you,” Delaney said. “I’m not a guest. I just wanted to speak to Mrs. Lombard for a moment.”

“Hey, Clara!” the man screamed over his shoulder. “Get your gorgeous ass out here. Your lover is waiting.”

The man leered at Delaney, then plunged back into the dancing, drinking, laughing, yelling mob. The Captain stood patiently. Eventually she came weaving toward him.

A zoftig blonde who reminded him of Oscar Wilde’s comment about the widow “whose hair turned quite gold from grief.” She overflowed an off-the-shoulder cocktail dress that seemed capable of standing by itself, so heavily encrusted was it with sequins, rhinestones, braid, a jeweled peacock brooch and, unaccountably, a cheap tin badge, star-shaped, that said “Garter Inspector.” She looked down at him from bleary eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Mrs. Clara Lombard?”

“Yeah.”

“My name is Delaney, Captain Edward X. Delaney. I am the former commanding officer of the-”

“Jesus,” she breathed. “Another cop. Haven’t I had enough cops?”

“I would like to express my condolences on the death-”

“Five,” she said. “Or six times. I lost count. What the hell is it now? Can’t you see I’ve got a houseful of people? Will you stop bugging me?”

“I just wanted to tell you how sorry I-”

“Thanks a whole hell of a lot,” she said disgustedly. “Well, screw all of you. This is a going-away party. I’m shaking New York, and the whole lot of you can go screw.”

“You’re leaving New York?” he asked, amazed that Broughton would let her go.

“That’s right, buster. I’ve sold the house, the cars, the furniture-everything. By Saturday I’ll be in sunny, funny Miami and starting a new life. A brand new life. And then you can all go screw yourselves.”

She turned away and went rushing back to her party. Delaney replaced his hat, walked slowly down to the corner. He watched the traffic, waiting for the light to change. Cars went rushing by, and the odd thing that had nagged him since his reading of the Operation Lombard reports whisked into his mind, as he knew it would. Eventually.

In the interview with the victim’s mother, Mrs. Sophia Lombard, she had stated he never drove over from Brooklyn because he couldn’t find parking space near her apartment; he took the subway.

Delaney retraced his steps, and this time the outside guards stared at him. He rang the bell of the Lombard home again. The widow herself threw open the door, a welcoming smile on her puffy face-a smile that oozed away as she recognized Delaney.

“Jesus Christ, you again?”

“Yes. You said you’re selling your car?”

“Not car-cars. We had two of them. And forget about getting a bargain; they’re both sold.”

“Your husband-your late husband drove a car?”

“Of course he drove a car. What do you think?”

“Where did he usually carry his driver’s license, Mrs. Lombard?”