It had never escaped Shassad's thoughts that the slaying of Mark Ryder had been done with such surgical precision that it had the mark of professionals. Similarly, what Minnie Yankovich had described had sounded more akin to an elaborately disguised execution than a mugging.
Shassad looked at Mrs. Ryder in her moment of most acute grief.
He knew what his job was.
No, she said, she hadn't seen her husband since the morning he'd last left for work. No, he had no enemies that she could think of, nobody to whom he was in debt, and she knew of no one whom he might have been seeing whom she didn't approve of. Shassad gallantly, refrained from asking the next obvious questions: Did she have any idea where her husband might have planned to spend the night? Did she have any idea that he was seeing another woman?
The answers were obvious.
On the morning following Ryder's identification Detective Patrick Hearn had arrived at the offices of Bradford, Mehr amp; Company, where by five minutes past nine he had obtained a photocopy of Ryde's employment records. Subsequently, Hearn interviewed Ryde's co-workers, none of whom could suggest anyone harboring a grudge against the deceased. To those who seemed to have known Ryder best, Hearn posed one further question: "Do you happen to know if there were any women in addition to his wife?"
Invariably the answer was no, clearly and simply, except in one instance. A young man of Ryder's age, an executive trainee named Durban Hayvis, balked perceptibly before also answering no.
On a hunch, Hearn spent an extra hour going over address lists of company employees, hoping one a female one might read 246 East 73rd Street. None did. The closest address was 316 East 94th Street, the address of Mr. Hayvis. No immediate significance.
However, Hearn did much better two hours later.
He had gone to the Seventy-third Street building itself, and sought to interview the remaining tenants. He finally managed to locate the most elusive, a single girl, early twenties, going by the name of Debbie Moran. Hearn had been seeking her since Daniels had first mentioned the nocturnal activity in her apartment.
Debbie lived in Apartment 3-C, on the floor below Thomas Daniels. She invited the detective in and sat demurely on a large white vinyl couch with large plush cushions, her legs folded under her in tight jeans.
The detective sat across the room and questioned her.
Debbie Moran puffed a cigarette carefully and spoke politely with a hint of a New York accent. She gave her profession as a part-time actress and part-time model. Her hometown, she said, was St. Paul, Minnesota.
"Actress, huh?" asked Hearn with interest.
"Maybe I've seen you in something. Broadway? Off Broadway?"
"No, probably not."
"Movies?"
The 'no" was hesitant. Her eyes lowered to the ashtray. Hearn glanced around the room. The furniture was both modern and reasonably expensive, centered around a large comfortable sofa. The adjoining bedroom, which Hearn eyed when he asked if he could use the washroom, was dominated by an expensive waterbed. The apartment was designed, in its way, for comfort, for satisfaction, and as a den of voluntary seduction. Under further questioning Debbie Moran admitted that she just remembered what her last acting job had been.
"A series of TV commercials on the West coast she volunteered.
"It's not being shown no more Hearn reached to an inside jacket pocket and handed her a picture of Mark Ryder.
"Ever seen this man?" he asked.
She glanced at it.
"No ' He watched her for a moment, studying the facial features and expression.
She handed back the photograph.
"You're sure?" he asked.
"I'm sure."
"That man was murdered in front of this building," he said.
"How awful: " "He was visiting someone in this building."
She shrugged.
"What we're interested in'" he said, "is what time he left, not what he was doing here "I live in the back of the building," she said.
"I sleep soundly. I didn't see no one or hear no one. I go to bed early."
And often, thought Hearn. All the way back to the precinct he cursed her.
Hearn found Shassad sitting at his cluttered desk on the cramped second floor. Behind Shassad was his bulletin board on which, in addition to items of more importance, there were two small posters.
One pictured a blue-uniformed police officer guarding a school crossing, set in an idealized suburban America of the mid-1950s.
The caption read,
"The Police Officer is your friend. Trust him ' The other, hand-lettered by an anonymous precinct-house philosopher, proclaimed simply,
"God loves Negroes. That's why there's so many of them."
"I found the girl," Hearn said.
"Apartment Three-C?"
Hearn nodded.
"A high-priced hooker," he said, 'unless my eyesight is failing. What I don't know is whether she's doing bar pickups or whether she has a little black book. There's no other female in the building who Ryder would have been on top of."
"Did you show her Ryder's picture?"
"She recognized it. And she wouldn't talk sa "Okay," said Shassad casually but with dissatisfaction @ know what's next."
By the next morning, Shassad had obtained four extra detectives, two teams of two, to aid in the Ryder case. A surveillance unit in a panel truck was placed on Seventy-third Street to observe Debbie Moran. At four fifty that afternoon she emerged from her building, hailed a yellow cab, and led two detectives in a plain car to Gypsys Bar at Fifty-fifth between Sixth and Seventh avenues.
Ten minutes later an undercover detective from the Midtown Anti-Vice Squad (known in the police vulgate as the "Pussy Possie") entered the bar. The detective's name was Samuel McGowan. His partner was a policewoman named Theresa Duchecki, better known as Saint Theresa for reasons which were dear to anyone who'd met her. McGowan was wired.
McGowan spotted Debbie sitting alone at the center of the bar.
He approached the bar and seated himself at the far right end. He watched the clock until twenty minutes past five. Then, certain that she'd been watching him, he initiated an aimless conversation.
Several minutes passed. Debbie wanted to know if she was wasting her time.
"Look," she finally purred, leaning slightly forward so that McGowan could look down her dress, 'what do you say we cut out the talk and have some fun?"
"I'm having fun right now," he said.
"Come on, sugar," she intoned,
"I have a nice apartment where I'm all alone."
"I don't know," he said, fidgeting with his drink.
"You look like the type of guy who'll pay to have a super evening."
Pay?"
"Don't you like what you see, sugar?"
"Sure," he stammered, 'but, uh, well… How much?"
"A hundred and fifty dollars," she whispered, never suspecting that the cigarette case in his pocket contained a microphone and no tobacco.
"You get whatever you want twice. And I have to be back here by ten o'clock' "Let's go" he said.
They went, but not to Seventy-third Street. They were no farther than the sidewalk when they were joined by Saint Theresa. They didn't have to tell Debbie she was under arrest. She knew immediately.
"We've pegged something wrong somewhere," Hearn said sipping lukewarm coffee from a plastic container.
"Maybe they were a pair of standard muggers dressed up in good coats."
"No way, Patty," said Shassad, his dark eyes narrowing.
"You saw those knife wounds. A surgeon couldn't make better incisions."
"Then what's wrong?" asked an exasperated Hearn, heavy circles forming beneath his eyes.
Then finding no method to the crime, Hearn sarcastically answered his own question.
"Maybe they got the wrong man."
Shassad, in thought, said nothing. But his eyes were wide.
"Jumping Jesus I " Shassad then said softly "Of course. The wrong man."
"What?"
"Debbie Moran and her rent-a-muff had nothing to do with it.
Try this: Her customer-Ryder-had the luck to walk out the building at the wrong second. Two professionals were there waiting for a hit. But not Ryder. No one cared about him. No, sir. They were waiting for someone more important who was supposed to step out precisely the same time. And who nearly did."
Hearn twisted his face, half in enlightenment, half in skepticism.
"Daniels?" he asked.
– Yeah" said Shassad, opening his hands expansively.
"Yeah, why the hell not?" They paused and considered it.
"He said himself that he was coming out right at that same time '
Shassad paused a few seconds between sentences, stopping to think as he spoke.
"How big is Daniels? Five ten? Five eleven?"
"Approximately."
"Same as Ryder, right?"
Hearn nodded.
"Coloring? Hair? Build? All similar, right? Similar enough to be mistaken by people who were waiting for a man they'd never met before?
Waiting on a rainy 'night in January when they knew their victim would be coming out of that building."
"But they'd have to know right down to the minute in order to jump to a conclusion like that?"
"Of course. They did know. Don't you see?"
"Sorry. No."
"The janitor wanted to know almost to the minute how soon Daniels would be leaving. Remember?"
Hearn's face was assuming a slow glow.
"And sure," said Shassad, getting to his feet excitedly and slapping the back of an open palm into his other hand, "one of the men on the street was back and forth to the telephone. That's how they knew when to look for Daniels. They were tipped from Thirty-first Street.
Huh? What do you think?" Shassad folded his arms against his chest, as if in summation of his case.
"I like it," answered Hearn slowly. He was thoughtful.
"Ryder goes out the front door while Daniels steps out the back. Poof Ryder gets carved in Daniels's place. Now," he added with an almost imperceptible pause, 'who wants Daniels dead?"
"Only one possibility in the world so far," said Shassad.
"Jacobus!" 'Why?"
Shassad poked at the air with a forefinger.
"That's what we find out next."