“You said you worked for Outside Life, where you bought this?”
“That’s right. For almost ten years. I was in charge of the mountaineering department. They gave me all the time off I wanted for climbs. It was good publicity for them.”
“Suppose I wanted to buy an ice ax like that. I just walk in and put down my money. Right?”
“Sure. That one cost about fifteen dollars. But that was five years ago.”
“Do I get a cash register receipt, or do they write out an itemized sales check?”
Case looked at him narrowly. Then his bearded face opened into a smile; he showed his stained teeth again.
“Mr. Detective,” he grinned. “Thinking every minute, aren’t you? Well, as far as Outside Life goes, you’re in luck. A sales slip is written out-or was, when I worked there. You got the customer’s name and address. This was because Sol Appel, who owns the place, does a big mail order business. He gets out a Summer and Winter catalogue, and he’s always anxious to add to his list. Then, on the slip, you wrote out the items purchased.”
“After the customer’s name and address were added to the mailing list, how long were the sales slips kept? Do you know?”
“Oh Jesus, years and years. The basement was full of them. But don’t get your balls in an uproar, Captain. Outside Life isn’t the only place in New York where you can buy an ice ax. And most of the other places just ring up the total purchase. There’s no record of the customer’s name, address, or what was bought. And, like I told you, most of these things are imported. You can buy an ice ax in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Geneva, and points in between. And in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Portland, Seattle, Montreal, and a hundred other places. So where does that leave you?”
“Thank you very much,” Captain Delaney said, without irony. “You have really been a big help, and I appreciate your cooperation. I apologize for the way I spoke.”
Calvin Case made a gesture, a wave Delaney couldn’t interpret.
“What are you going to do now, Captain?”
“Do now? Oh, you mean my next step. Well, you heard my telephone call. A man who is helping me is on his way to Outside Life. If he is able to purchase an ice ax like yours, then I’ll go down there, ask if they’ll let me go through their sales slips and make a list of people who have bought ice axes.”
“But I just told you, there’ll be thousands of sales checks.
“I know.”
“And there are other stores in New York that sell ice axes with no record of the buyer. And stores all over the world that sell them.”
“I know.”
“You’re a fool,” Calvin Case said dully, turning his face away. “I thought for awhile you weren’t, but now I think you are.”
“Cal,” his wife said softly, but he didn’t look at her.
“I don’t know what you think detective work is like,” Delaney said, staring at the man in the bed. “Most people have been conditioned by novels, the movies and TV. They think it’s either exotic clues and devilishly clever deductive reasoning, or else they figure it’s all rooftop chases, breaking down doors, and shoot-outs on the subway tracks. All that is maybe five percent of what a detective does. Now I’ll tell you how he mostly spends his time. About fifteen years ago a little girl was snatched on a street out on Long Island. She was walking home from school. A car pulled up alongside her and the driver said something. She came over to the car. A little girl. The driver opened the door, grabbed her, pulled her inside, and took off. There was an eyewitness to this, an old woman who ‘thought’ it was a dark car, black or dark blue or dark green or maroon. And she ‘thought’ it had a New York license plate. She wasn’t sure of anything. Anyway, the parents got a ransom note. They followed instructions exactly: they didn’t call the cops and they paid off. The little girl was found dead three days later.
“Did they get the man?” Evelyn Case burst out.
“Oh, sure,” Delaney nodded. “They got him. Eventually. And if they hadn’t found it in the Long Island applications, they’d have inspected every license in New York State. Millions and millions and millions. I’m telling you all this so you’ll know what detective work usually is: common sense; a realization that you’ve got to start somewhere; hard, grinding, routine labor; and percentages. That’s about it. Again, I thank you for your help.”
He was almost at the shaded doorway to the living room when Calvin Case spoke in a faint, almost wispy voice.
“Captain.”
Delaney turned. “Yes?”
“If you find the ax at Outside Life, who’ll go through the sales slips?”
Delaney shrugged. “I will. Someone will. They’ll be checked.”
“Sometimes the items listed on the sales slips are just by stock number. You won’t know what they are.”
“I’ll get identification from the owner. I’ll learn what the stock numbers mean.”
“Captain, I’ve got all the time in the world. I’m not going any place. I could go through those sales checks. I know what to look for. I could pull out every slip that shows an ice ax purchase faster than you could.”
Delaney looked at him a long moment, expressionless. “I’ll let you know,” he nodded.
Evelyn Case saw him to the outside door.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
When he left the Case home he walked directly over to Sixth Avenue and turned south, looking for a hardware store. Nothing. He returned to 11th Street and walked north. Still nothing. Then, across Sixth Avenue, on the west side, he saw one.
“A little can of oil,” he told the clerk. “Like sewing machine oil.”
He was offered a small, square can with a long neck sealed with a little red cap.
“Can I oil tools with this?” he asked.
“Of course,” the clerk assured him. “Tools, sewing machines, electric fans, locks…anything. It’s the biggest selling all-purpose oil in the country.”
Thanks a lot, Delaney thought ruefully. He bought the can of oil.
He shouldn’t have taken a cab. They still had sizable balances in their savings and checking accounts, they owned securities (mostly tax-exempt municipal bonds) and, of course, they owned their brownstone. But Delaney was no longer on salary, and Barbara’s medical and hospital bills were frightening. So he really should have taken the subway and changed at 59th Street for a bus. But he felt so encouraged, so optimistic, that he decided to buy a cab to the hospital. On the way uptown he took the little red cap off the oil can and squeezed a few drops of oil onto his fingertips. He rubbed it against his thumb. Thin oil. It felt good, and he smiled.
But Barbara wasn’t in her room. The floor nurse explained she had been taken down to the lab for more X- rays and tests. Delaney left a short note on her bedside table: “Hello. I was here. See you this evening. I love you. Edward.”
He hurried home, stripped off overcoat and jacket, loosened his tie, rolled up his cuffs, put on his carpet slippers. Mary was there and had a beef stew cooking in a Dutch oven. But he asked her to let it cool after it was done; he had too much to do to think about eating.
He had cleaned out the two upper drawers of a metal business file cabinet in the study. In the top drawer he had filed the copies of the Operation Lombard reports. Methodically, he had divided this file in two: Frank Lombard and Bernard Gilbert. Under each heading he had broken the reports down into categories: Weapon, Motive, Wound, Personal History, etc.
In the second drawer he had started his own file, a thin folder that consisted mostly, at this time, of jotted notes.
Now he began to expand these notes into reports, to whom or for what purpose he could not say. But he had
