Dutch Blue Error (20 page)

I straightened up, the keys in my hand. Zerk continued past us. He didn’t pause or even nod to us. The door to my apartment opened, and I stepped inside. Schwartz was right behind me.

When the side of Zerk’s hand met the flesh at the back of Schwartz’s neck, it made the same dull thud that my mother’s meat mallet used to make when she pounded out veal on the board in our kitchen. Schwartz sighed and fell against me. I grabbed his arms and pulled him into my apartment. Zerk followed, grinning broadly.

Schwartz lay limp and still on the carpet in my living room. I reached into his coat pocket and removed the little automatic. I held it up for Zerk to see.

“I know,” he said. “When I saw him down there in the garage I thought you had picked up Peter Lorre or Edward G. Robinson for a companion.” He held out his hand and I gave him the gun. “Little Colt,” he said. “Twenty-two.” He poked at the weapon and several cartridges slid out into his hand. He held one up between his thumb and forefinger for me to see. “Hollow-point long rifle,” he said. “Nasty. They make a tiny little hole going in and a great big mess inside.”

“A twenty-two killed Albert Dopplinger.”

Zerk raised his eyebrows. “So who the hell is this, anyway?”

I glanced down at the motionless body on the floor. “Unless I miss my guess, this is the man who murdered Francis Shaughnessey and Albert Dopplinger. The man who broke into Deborah Martinelli’s house. The man who wants the Dutch Blue Error duplicate stamp badly enough to kill for it.”

“And,” added Zerk, “the man the police want. Instead of me.”

I nodded. Schwartz’s head seemed to be twisted at an odd angle as he lay on the floor. “Did you kill him?” I asked Zerk.

“No. Could have. Figured whoever he was and whatever his business was with you, we could do that later if we wanted to.”

I frowned at him, and he held up his hand. “Just kidding. He should be coming around in a minute. He’s okay. Just a tap.”

“It didn’t sound like a tap.”

“Relatively speaking.”

As if he had been listening, Schwartz groaned and opened his eyes. He blinked a couple of times. His forehead wrinkled with effort as he moved his head. His hand went to the back of his neck. “Oh, Jesus,” he said.

“Good morning, Mr. Schwartz,” I said pleasantly. “Toast and juice? Buttered bun? Eggs?”

He frowned at me. “Ah. Mr. Coyne.”

I bowed. “At your service.” I inclined my head toward Zerk. “My colleague, Mr. Garrett.”

Schwartz’s eyes darted to Zerk, who obliged him with a broad, white-toothed grin. “Yassah, boss,” he drawled.

Schwartz pushed himself gingerly up against the wall into a sitting position. He rubbed the back of his neck and smiled ruefully at me. “So you’ve got the drop on me, Mr. Coyne. No matter. We shall transact some business.”

“Really?”

“Oh, surely, Mr. Coyne. That’s why I came here. You need me. I will help you to dispose of this valuable scrap of paper that you possess. I have certain contacts. I have information that you need. Pertaining to your client, Mr. Weston. Together, you and I, we shall reap great rewards.”

He attempted to smile. It appeared to pain him.

“I don’t have the stamp,” I said. “And I don’t think you know anything that I don’t know. And,” I added, “somehow I don’t think you came here to bargain with me.”

“Ah, Mr. Coyne,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “I can help you. You will see. You don’t need to lie to me. Of course you have the stamp. So let us confer.”

“You came here with a gun to confer, did you?”

He shrugged. “I needed your attention.”

“Well, I don’t bargain with murderers,” I said. “Against my professional ethics, you know.” I turned to Zerk. “You want the pleasure of calling Leo Kirk?”

Zerk’s mouth tightened. “No.”

I went to the kitchen wall and reached for the telephone.

Schwartz’s eyebrows shot up. “What are you doing?”

“Calling the police, of course.”

“Okay. You win. You’re not bluffing, Mr. Coyne. I’ll tell you.”

“You’ve got nothing to tell me that you can’t tell the police.”

“This is ridiculous,” pleaded Schwartz. He tried to stand up, then sank back into a sitting position against the wall.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” he muttered.

I dialed Kirk’s precinct station.

“How do you think I know that Weston owns the original Dutch Blue Error?” said Schwartz.

I shrugged and smiled. “Lieutenant Kirk, please,” I said into the telephone.

“Is he bluffing me?” Schwartz said to Zerk. Zerk replied with an exaggerated shrug of his thick shoulders and widened eyes. “Hang up,” said Schwartz. “I didn’t do anything. Let me tell you about Guillaume Lundi.”

Kirk came on to the line. I told him to come on over and pick up Francis Shaughnessey’s killer. I asked him to leave his partner, Stone, there. He said he would do both. Then I hung up.

Schwartz had slumped back down so that only his head was propped against the wall, with the rest of his body stretched out on the floor. His eyes were closed. His skin had an unhealthy grayish tinge beneath a sheen of perspiration. His breathing came harshly through his open mouth.

“What about this Lundi?” I said to him.

“Don’t feel too good,” he whispered between clenched teeth.

“Concussion, probably,” observed Zerk. “He’ll probably puke in a minute.”

“Oh, Christ. On my rug.”

Leo Kirk arrived, a pair of burly, uniformed policemen in tow, within half an hour of my call. By that time Schwartz had deposited his supper into the shopping bag I held for him, splashed water onto his face under Zerk’s careful supervision, and proclaimed himself much improved.

Kirk read him his rights and informed him he was being placed under arrest for suspicion of murder, assault, carrying a concealed weapon, and a few other things that he rattled off too quickly for me to catch, and then sent him off with the two policemen. Then he and Zerk and I sat at my kitchen table.

“Here’s the gun,” I said, handing the Colt automatic to Kirk. “It’s a twenty-two.”

“Yes, I can see that,” he said dryly. He tucked it into his jacket pocket. “I’ll get it over to Mullins in Cambridge for ballistics. Since both of you guys have fondled it, no sense in looking for prints, I guess.”

“Sorry about that,” I said. “He didn’t hand it to us willingly, you know.”

“Doesn’t matter. You got beer or something?” When I raised my eyebrows, he added, “Went off duty an hour ago. I was halfway out the door when your call came.”

I dug two cans of Budweiser and one Schlitz out of my refrigerator.

“Chips? Pretzels?” Kirk grinned.

“Nope.”

He sighed and tilted the can of Bud to his mouth. His throat worked at it for a moment, and then he thumped the can down on the table, grunted “Ahh!” and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Now. Tell me what you make of this.”

“I’m just guessing,” I said.

“So guess, then.”

“Okay. Here goes. Shaughnessey’s in Europe. He worked there for years. He’s got contacts. He’s a collector. Somebody puts him on to this stamp. It’s the duplicate of one that the philatelic world assumed was one-of-a-kind. Very valuable. Priceless. His source is probably not entirely legitimate, so he gets it for a good price. He’s convinced it’s legitimate. Probably has it looked at by somebody who can verify that sort of thing. He brings it back and begins to ask around. Very discreetly. He finally makes contact with this Schwartz, who somehow knows that Ollie Weston owns the original Blue Error. Schwartz and Shaughnessey meet. My guess is that Schwartz insisted on a face-to-face meeting. Perhaps he also insisted on seeing the stamp. In any case, he verified that the stamp Shaughnessey had was genuine—and therefore enormously valuable. They probably met in a public place, so Schwartz couldn’t make a move for the stamp then. He found out where Shaughnessey lived and broke in through the glass door by the garden. Possibly he intended to ransack the place while Shaughnessey was gone, and he came home unexpectedly. Maybe he went there when Shaughnessey was home on purpose, in order to coerce the whereabouts of the stamp from him. Maybe he even went there with an offer to buy the stamp. Whatever. It didn’t work out, and Schwartz ended up smashing in Shaughnessey’s skull.”

“But he didn’t get the stamp,” said Kirk.

“No. Either Shaughnessey refused to tell him where it was hidden, or else he came home while Schwartz was tearing the place apart and Schwartz hit him from behind. In either case, Schwartz’s next stop was Albert Dopplinger. Maybe, in order to get rid of him, Shaughnessey told Schwartz that Dopplinger actually had it. Or maybe Schwartz went to him just for information. In any case, he made an appointment to see Albert at the museum. Dopplinger must’ve been suspicious, or had second thoughts, because he called me. I figure I got there very soon after Schwartz shot Albert in the head.”

“Why did he shoot Dopplinger?” interrupted Kirk. “How do you figure that?”

I shrugged. “He concluded that Albert didn’t have the stamp, and didn’t know who did have it. By then Schwartz had gone too far. Albert would have figured out that Schwartz had killed Shaughnessey. Having killed once, the second time was easy. I don’t know. In any case, when I got there, Schwartz was still in the room. He heard me at the door, so he turned off the lights and hid behind one of the cabinets or counters. I entered the room, turned on the lights, and saw Albert. When I knelt beside his body, Schwartz came up behind me and chloroformed me. At that point he probably heard Zerk coming along and hid himself again, and slipped out after Zerk had taken me away.”

Zerk nodded. “He could’ve still been there. I didn’t look around.”

“If you hadn’t come, he might’ve shot me, too,” I said.

Kirk nodded impatiently. “Then what?”

“So he didn’t find the stamp. His next stop was Deborah Martinelli’s house in Carlisle. Shaughnessey’s daughter. He broke in there last weekend. He didn’t find it there, either. Because it’s not there. So Schwartz figured it might be me who had the stamp. Or at least knew where it was. That’s why he came here tonight.”

I shrugged and looked at Kirk. “Make sense?”

“Very neat,” he said.

“You don’t buy it?”

“No, no,” he said distractedly, waving his hand, “it makes sense.” Then he turned to me. “Couple of things do bother me, though.”

“Like what?”

“Well, the two murders, for one thing. Very different. In one case we have a skull smashed in with the base of a statue. Messy. Amateur night. In the second, we have a neat assassination with a small-caliber pistol. And the victim was chloroformed first. Premeditated, professional, tidy. Okay? One messy murder, evidently provoked by anger of frustration or desperation. And one clean, businesslike kill. That bothers me. That doesn’t seem like the work of the same man.”

“So he killed Shaughnessey,” said Zerk, “and then figured, what the hell, next time I’ll do it right.”

Kirk nodded. “Maybe.” He paused. “But then why does he go to the lady’s house when she’s not home? Why not go after her like he did Dopplinger?”

Neither Zerk nor I answered him.

“The other thing that bothers me,” continued Kirk, “is this. Where’s the stamp?”

“Good question,” I said. “But it really doesn’t change anything.”

“The lady could have the stamp,” he persisted.” Say she’s had it all the time. She wouldn’t leave it lying around for some casual prowler to find. She’d have it hidden away. Everything would make sense if she had it.”

“You saying she killed her own father? And Albert, too?”

“I’m not saying anything,” said Kirk, holding the beer can against his cheek and closing his eyes. “Just speculating. It’s what we cops do. Speculate.”

“What would she have to gain by keeping the stamp? Why wouldn’t she just sell it?”

Kirk opened his eyes. “I dunno. Nothing, I guess. At least, not if she didn’t kill anybody.”

“More likely Shaughnessey hid it where it’ll never be found,” I said.

Kirk shrugged. “You’re probably right. We’ll know more when we check up on Schwartz and get a ballistics report on his little gun.” He drained his beer and abruptly stood up. “I best be getting back. I’m eager to interrogate Mr. Schwartz.”

“I thought you were off duty.”

“A good cop,” he replied, thrusting back his shoulders, “is never off duty.”

“My hero,” I said.

Kirk paused at the door, then turned to Zerk. “Mr. Garrett, this makes things a lot better for you, you know.”

Zerk scowled.

Kirk shrugged. “I’ll be in touch,” he said to me.

After Kirk left, I took down my bottle of Jack Daniel’s and poured Zerk and me a couple of fingers, neat, into tumblers. I held my glass aloft. “To your exoneration,” I said.

Zerk shook his head. “I don’t know about that.” But he took a sip. “That Kirk didn’t seem too convinced.”

“Kirk is a good cop,” I said. “His job is to be dubious. It’s logical, though, isn’t it? You’ll see. Schwartz is our man.”

Zerk emptied his glass in a gulp. “I hope you’re right,” he said.

“And by the way. Thanks for saving my life again.” I poured more sour mash into his glass and replenished my own. “That’s twice.”

Zerk nodded absently. “I’ll feel better when we find the damn stamp.”

“We are done looking for the damn stamp,” I said. “Bad fortune follows it around. This case is closed.”

“Yeah. Good.” I could tell by Zerk’s tone that his heart wasn’t in it.

“E
VERY SUMMER CAPE COD
sinks several feet into the ocean from the weight of the humanity that descends upon it,” I said to Deborah as we crossed the Sagamore Bridge which spans the Cape Cod Canal. “Then, the day after Labor Day, it bubbles up again, whooshing its breath out like a man who’s been under water too long, looks around, and decides it’s okay again.”

Deborah stared out the window on her side of the car. This October Saturday had dawned gray and cold, and Deborah’s mood matched the weather. We had been driving for more than an hour from her house in Carlisle down Route 128 and then the length of Route 3 in silence. She had fiddled with the radio, finally settling on an FM station that gave us Bach and Stravinsky, and then she huddled against the car door. She hugged herself into her blue hooded sweatshirt and deflected my conversational thrusts with monosyllabic parries.