wait of several minutes, the night attendant reported that Dr. Simon Ellerbee's Jaguar had not been taken out; it was still in its slot.
'I was getting frantic,' she later told detectives. 'I thought he might have been mugged walking to the garage. It happened once before.'
So, at approximately 1:15 A.M Dr. Diane called Dr. Julius K. Samuelson.
He was also a psychiatrist, a widower, and close friend and frequent house guest of the Ellerbees. Dr. Samuelson was also president of the Greater New York Psychiatric Association. He lived in a cooperative apartment. at 79th Street and Madison Avenue.
Samuelson was not awakened by Diane Ellerbee's phone call, having recently returned from a concert by the Stuttgart String Ensemble at Carnegie Hall. When Dr. Diane explained the situation, he immediately agreed to taxi to the Ellerbees' house and try to find Dr. Simon or see if anything was amiss.
Samuelson stated he arrived at the East 84th Street townhouse at about 1:45 A.m. He asked the cabdriver to wait. It was still raining heavily.
He stepped from the cab into a streaming gutter, then hurried across the sidewalk and up the three steps to the front entrance. He found the door ajar.
'Not wide open,' he told detectives. 'Maybe two or three inches.'
Samuelson was fifty-six, a short, slender man, but not lacking in physical courage. He tramped determinedly up the dimly lighted, carpeted staircase to the offices of Dr. Simon on the third floor. He found the office door wide open.
Within, he found the battered body.
He checked first to make certain that Ellerbee was indeed dead. Then, using the phone on the receptionist's desk, he dialed 911. The call was logged in at 1:54 A.M. All the above facts were included in New York City newspaper reports and on local TV newscasts following the murder.
Delaney planted himself across the street from Acting Chief Suarez's house on East 87th, off Lexington Avenue. He squinted at it, knowing exactly how it was laid out; he had grown up in a building much like that one.
It was a six-story brownstone, with a flight of eight stone steps, called a stoop, leading to the front entrance. Originally, such a building was an old-law tenement with two railroad flats on each floor, running front to back, with almost every room opening onto a long hallway.
'Cold-water flats,' they were sometimes called. Not because there was no hot water; there was if you had a humane landlord. But the covered bathtub was in a corner of the kitchen, and the toilet was out in the hall, serving the two apartments.
Not too many brownstones like that left in Manhattan.
They were being demolished for glass and concrete high-rise coops or being purchased at horrendous prices in the process called 'gentrification,' and converted into something that would warrant a six-page, four-color spread in Architectural Digest.
Edward X. Delaney wasn't certain that was progress-but it sure as hell was change. And if you were against change, you had to mourn for the dear, departed days when all of Manhattan was a cow pasture. Still, he allowed himself a small pang of nostalgia, remembering his boyhood in a building much like the one across the street.
He saw immediately that the people who lived there were waging a valiant battle against the city's blight. No graffiti.
Washed windows and clean curtains. Potted ivy at the top of the stoop (the pots chained to the railing). The plastic garbage cans in the areaway were clean and had lids. All in all, a neat, snug building with an air of modest prosperity.
Delaney lumbered across the street, thinking it was an offbeat home for an Acting Chief of the NYPD. Most of the Department's brass lived in Queens, or maybe Staten Island.
The bell plate was polished and the intercom actually worked. When he pressed the 3-B button alongside the neatly typed name, M.R. suarez, a childish voice piped, 'Who is it?'
Edward X. Delaney here,' he said, leaning forward to speak into the little round grille.
There was static, the sound of thumps, then the inner door lock buzzed, and he pushed his way in. He tramped up to the third floor.
The man waiting for him at the opened apartment door was a Don Quixote figure: tall, thin, splintery, with an expression at once shy, deprecatory, rueful.
'Mr. Delaney?' he said, holding out a bony hand. 'I am Michael Ramon Suarez.'
'Chief,' Delaney said. 'Happy to make your acquaintance.
I appreciate your letting me stop by; I know how busy you must be.'
'It is an honor to have you visit my home, sir,' Suarez said with formal courtesy. 'I hope it is no inconvenience for you. I would have come to you gladly.'
Delaney knew that; in fact, Deputy Commissioner Thorsen had suggested it. But Delaney wanted to meet with the Acting Chief in his own home and get an idea of his life outside the Department: as good a way to judge a man as any.
The apartment seemed mobbed with children-five of them ranging in age from three to ten. Delaney was introduced to them all: Michael, Jr Maria, Joseph, Carlo, and Vita. And when Mrs. Rosa Suarez entered, she was carrying a baby, Thomas, in her arms.
'Your own basketball team,' Delaney said, smiling. 'With one substitute.'
'Rosa wishes to try for a football team,' Suarez said dryly.
'But there I draw the line.'
They made their guest sit in the best chair, and, despite his protests that he had just dined, brought coffee and a platter of crisp pastries dusted with powdered sugar. The entire family, baby included, had coffee laced with condensed milk. Delaney took his black.
'Delicious,' he pronounced after his first cup. 'Chicory, Mrs. Suarez?'
'A little,' she said faintly, lowering her eyes and blushing at his praise.
'And these,' he said, raising one of the sweetmeats aloft.
'Homemade?'
She nodded.
'I love them,' he said. 'You know, the Italians and French and Polish make things very similar.'
'Just fried dough,' Suarez said. 'But Rosa makes the best.'
'I concur,' Delaney said, reaching for another.
He got the kids talking about their schools, and while they chattered away he had a chance to look around.
Not a luxurious apartment-but spotless. Walls a tenement green. A large crucifix. One hanging of black velvet painted with what appeared to be a view of Waikiki Beach. Patterned linoleum on the floor. Furniture of orange maple that had obviously been purchased as a five-piece set.
None of it to Delaney's taste, but that was neither here nor there. Any honest cop with six children wasn't about to buy Louis Quatorze chairs or Aubusson carpets. The important thing was that the home was warm and clean, the kids were well fed and well dressed. Delaney's initial impression was of a happy family with love enough to go around.
The kids begged to watch an hour of TV-a comedy special-and then promised to go to their rooms, the younger to sleep, the older to do their homework.
Suarez gave his permission, then led his visitor to the large kitchen at the rear of the apartment and closed the door.
'We shall have a little peace and quiet in here,' he said.
'Kids don't bother me,' Delaney said. 'I have two of my own and two stepdaughters. I like kids.'
'Yes,' the Chief said, 'I could see that. Please sit here.'
The kitchen was large enough to accommodate a long trestle table that could seat the entire family. Delaney noted a big gas range and microwave oven, a food processor, and enough pots, pans, and utensils to handle a company of Marines. He figured good food ranked high on the Suarez family's priority list.
He sat on one of the sturdy wooden chairs. The Chief suddenly turned.
'I called you Mr. Delaney,' he said. 'Did I offend?'
