McQuaid in August

By Shepard Rifkin

Detective Damian McQuaid, of New York’s First Homicide Squad, decides to help a woman who has been receiving obscene phone calls. Such petty squeals are none of McQuaid’s business, but when, as he leaves for the day, he overhears an attractive woman talking to a precinct detective, he volunteers to help her. Unofficially, of course: he knows just what interpretation his buddies in homicide would put on that if they find out.

Because she is terrified of being alone, he spends the night on Iris’s sofa, but when he wakes the next morning, he finds that she has been murdered in her bedroom while he slept.

Shocked and angry, he decides to investigate on his own time—again, very unofficially; again, for very obvious reasons—and his inquiries lead him to begin a clever, insidious, and dangerous program of harassment in an effort to expose the man McQuaid believes to be the killer. All very unofficially, because McQuaid doesn’t have a single clue that would convict his suspect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crossroad Press
• Release date: Jan 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005261511

Book preview

McQUAID IN AUGUST

By Shepard Rifkin

A Gordian Knot Thriller

Gordian Knot is an imprint of Crossroad Press

Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press

Crossroad Press digital edition 2022

Original publication by Doubleday – 1979

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Meet the Author

Shepard Rifkin had more than twenty books published, ranging from non-fiction on maritime subjects to his specialty, hard-boiled police procedurals, noir detective novels, and westerns. Texas Blood Red, a western, was his first published novel in 1956. Raised in Nebraska, he hit the road early and, like many writers, worked at dozens of odd jobs, including managing a cocktail lounge in St. Louis and driving an ambulance in Harlem, all of which enriched his books with fascinating detail. He served as a merchant marine during World War II, was torpedoed in the Atlantic, survived in the oil-coated, flaming water, and rescued, barely alive, by a nearby allied ship.

After the war, he served aboard the famous S.S. Ben Hecht, the ship that in 1947 attempted to run the British blockade of Palestine carrying hundreds of survivors of the Holocaust. Dedicated to helping Israel become a nation, he served as the Executive Director of the American Friends and Fighters for Freedom of Israel, and corresponded with Albert Einstein about helping to establish the state of Israel.

Though he quit college, he was in fact a widely read polymath, teaching himself ancient Greek, so he could read and readily quote the original texts. He died in Washington, D.C., on July 4, 2011.

Bibliography

Damian McQuaid Series

McQuaid

The Snow Rattlers

McQuaid in August

Westerns

Texas Blood Red

The Warring Breed

King Fishers Road

Adventure Novels

Desire Island

What Ship? Where Bound?

The Savage Years

Police Procedural and Suspense

Ladyfingers

The Murderer Vine

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For Tamara

For his good-humored and patient help, I want to thank Detective Don Baeszler, of New York City’s First Homicide Zone.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter One

Another hot day in August was coming to a sticky close. I was typing up a DD5—a Detective Division report—on the case I had caught and solved within five seconds. A jealous husband had killed his wife and then immediately turned the gun on himself. An elegant solution, saving the state the cost of a trial. Still, no credit to me, Damian McQuaid, or to my partner, Tom Dorsey. No brains were strained. It was one of those cases where the murderer identifies and then immediately eliminates himself, the way thunder follows lightning.

We had been spending several hours walking up and down tenement hallways in the East Village, and we stank, as Dorsey said, like pregnant Mongols. As soon as I finished typing one of those elaborate and stupidly detailed DD5’s that Lieutenant Slavitch liked more than anything else in the whole wide world, I was going to drive up to City Island through the mess of the South Bronx. I was going to park my car right on the edge of Eastchester Bay, row out to my mooring, a hundred feet north of the bridge, and take off in my Chris-Craft for a run in the Sound. Let them kill each other back of those pretty river-front parks. I wouldn’t be able to hear a thing.

Once you get in the middle of the river police sirens sound like faraway cats on someone else’s backyard fence. Not my problem any more. Let the night tour sweat it out. I wanted to lean back in my boat and drink beer and forget about all the dead people I’d seen that week. I’d sit in the late afternoon sun and let that river breeze slide over my face. Like some girl’s cool hands. Only some son of a bitch would throw a beer can down at me from one of the bridges. Welcome to the Big Apple. It’s full of worms and the spray isn’t effective.

I was finished with the typing. I got up and walked over to the drinking fountain, which was located just behind LIKELY TO DIE, one of those cheerfully labeled file cabinets. The cabinets came from the old Homicide Squad offices, and they all look as if they had been dropped from a ten-story building. I bent down and suddenly noticed a long pair of female legs. I drank and raised my sights. A very attractive woman, and she was sitting at Di Benedetto’s desk. That was one big advantage of the Precinct Investigative Unit—Di Benedetto’s squad—you’d get the small squeals: burglary, purse-snatching, things like that. And if you have an attractive complainant, any assiduous investigator could jack that up into night work.

But not, alas, homicide detectives. People had more important things on their minds. I sighed. I had chosen homicide, where every one of our clients took things seriously. There were times when I wished I was still on the Burglary Squad. I’d get a woman there who’d describe the theft of a hundred-thousand-dollar necklace while she’d press your knee under the desk. I straightened up and went back to my typewriter. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to look. I looked. I could just see her, a little past the LIKELY TO DIE cabinet. Tall girl, narrow head, blue eyes, long black lashes, high cheekbones. A blonde with long legs. My speed. No jewelry, but the way she was sitting in Di Benedetto’s scarred oak chair made me want to get up for another drink of water. I got up and pretended I had to go through LIKELY TO DIE. A mistake. Lieutenant Slavitch saw me from his office. He opened his door and waggled his fingers at me. I slammed the drawer shut with an irritated bang that made Di Benedetto jump. I followed Slavitch.

McQuaid.

Yes, boss.

I’ve been looking over clearance rates.

Yeah. Oh, oh. Slavitch kept a hand-made chart under his plate-glass desk top. He had different colored crayons for every variable he could think of. Time of day, weather, sex, color, first arrest, parole violator, you name it, he had a crayon for it. But what was this about clearance rates? He was worried about them, and lieutenants had risen and fallen because of clearance rates. If he wanted me to share his pain about them I would refuse. I was sick of getting lectures about them.

This case of yours, that’s good for the clearance rate, McQuaid. But what about the others, anything happening?

It’s all down on the DD5’s, sir.

Yeah. He sat there looking down at his chart. He was slim and handsome; his gray hair atop his gray suit made him look like a successful broker. He was unhappy. He wanted his hand held, and I would not. After thirty seconds of my stubborn silence he finally said, All right. I got up and left. I went back for another drink and another look. She was still with Di Benedetto. She sat in that beat-up oak chair like a Hope diamond in a cheap brass setting. Very nice. But every time you lay down beside a complainant you had to make room for her problem.

Still, look at those long legs! But her face showed nothing but trouble and anger. I heard her say, "I’m scared. I’m sick and tired of those phone calls. Heavy breathing, cursing me—I don’t think I can take it any longer."

Did you try getting him to talk while you had your neighbor call the phone company?

Of course! I arranged to knock on the wall, but he’s never on for more than ten seconds. And you said I needed at least four minutes.

I started on another cup.

Right, Di Benedetto said, bored. I knew how he felt. I had been through it all myself when I had been in the PIU. He had burglaries, muggings, shoplifting, stolen cars, vandalism, all piling up on him and drowning him in paperwork. He really didn’t want to listen to this squeal. You just gotta hold him there, that’s all. Do your best, Miss Millikan.

But he calls at midnight, at two-thirty in the morning, he calls at four-fifteen in the morning, I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep for weeks!

I’m sorry, Di Benedetto said stiffly, but that’s all I can do. We decided it can’t be an ex-boyfriend, right? You’ve only been in New York four months and you tell me you haven’t met anyone you go out with. If you had one I’d check him out. But you don’t. You got any theories?

It’s someone crazy!

Sure, Di Benedetto said, covering a yawn. "Don’t tell me. This town is so full of nuts you could build a fence clear across Fifty-ninth Street and charge admission for the other half to come look at it. It doesn’t matter which half either. But how do you find this one? He probably picked out your name from the phone book. That’s what most of them do."

But I only used my first initial.

Then the son of a bitch is working the book at random. They know that first initial trick. You’ll just have to hold him on the phone for that four minutes. Or make a date. Yeah. That’s it, make a date.

He never asked me.

Then make him. You know how. Then I’ll be at the meet. O.K.?

She saw by his face that the discussion was over. She stood up. Di Benedetto pretended to be writing. She started to talk, thought the better of it, and left. When she had disappeared down the stairs, Di Benedetto looked at me and shrugged. I shrugged back. Nothing to say. I read over my DD5, signed it, and dropped it on the lieutenant’s desk. Time for my boat ride. I said good-by to Dorsey, who wanted to know if I’d seen that piece with Di Benedetto.

Yeah.

Mamma mia!

See you tomorrow, Tom, I said. Dorsey was kept on a very short leash by his wife. And I did see him the next day, but in a way I never would have guessed. No. Not in a million years.

Chapter Two

Iwas halfway to the corner when I saw her again. She was leaning against a car and sobbing. Someone once told me that when a woman starts to cry the wisest course is to get your hat and bid her good-by. I was going to use this advice but there was something so despairing about the sound that I stopped. She noticed me, and not recognizing I was a detective, angrily motioned me to keep going. But then she realized she had seen me up in the PIU.

You’re a detective?

"Homicide. I wouldn’t worry too much, miss. I overheard your talk. These guys do it for two, three weeks and then they look for someone else. All you have to do to get him off your back is to act bored and amused. Like, ‘Oh, it’s you again. Get on with it. I can only give you fifteen seconds for your dull little spiel.’ Get it? They get their kicks out of your fear or anger. If you don’t show either one what’s the point? Try it." We began walking.

Bags under her eyes showed she hadn’t been sleeping. I know these guys are supposed to be sick, but if any of them ever tried that on my sister or on whatever girl I was sleeping with, and turned her into someone as tense as this woman, I’d ask some other guy to pick him up. One snotty remark and I’d break his jaw with his favorite instrument—and let him spend a few speechless and sleepless nights.

It’s been going on for two months. I don’t think I can take it anymore.

Unlisted number.

The damn phone company says I’ll have to wait two weeks. And I don’t think I can hold out that long.

I didn’t think so either. But it really wasn’t much of a problem. I could work it out in a few days. But the feeling in Lieutenant Slavitch’s office, with its hand-colored charts under that plate glass, was that solving homicides was far more important than tracing obscene phone callers. And I certainly wasn’t going to take any time off for a woman with a sleep problem, no matter how attractive she was. Slavitch was putting too much pressure on me to work on my own cases—and who’s to say he wasn’t right? I wished she had a boyfriend who could work on it himself. I looked at her more carefully.

I had just broken off with a lady who wanted to get married and have four thousand children. Looking at the lady beside me, I decided that Mrs. Dorsey would say that she was too skinny. Dorsey would say she was too fat. McQuaid would say that she was just right.

She was under control. She said suddenly, My name is Iris. I am a perennial. I bloom. It’s hard sometimes, but I bloom. What’s your name?

I looked at her for a while before answering. I would say that her figure was just about perfect. Her eyes were the color of blue iris. If we were to get real close she’d only have to tilt her head back about fifteen degrees for her gaze to lock into mine. About four inches of her would stick out and press into my ribs. I began to take a deeper interest.

Damian McQuaid.

I like the first part, she said, but ‘McQuaid’ is too sentimental.

Oh, she pleased me. I dropped behind her for a second. She had those long legs, and she walked as if she liked to walk. I imagined myself sinking beside her on a meadow somewhere up in Putnam County, somewhere under one of those abandoned fruit trees with tiny, worm-eaten apples, with a reed-choked creek bubbling around us. In the fall, sometime in late September. She would be feeding me tiny tomatoes, one by one. It would be cool, with a nice breeze coming in off the Hudson. She would not ask me anything about my work.

Don’t you have someone you could ask to help you?

No. No one.

A complication. I silently wished her an intelligent boyfriend, and soon. Me?

He also follows me.

How do you know?

Because as soon as I get home he phones me, tells me what I’m wearing, how he’d like to tear it off and—and, you know.

Did you mention this to Detective Di Benedetto?

Yes. He said he had a couple grievous assaults to take care of, and did I want him chasing someone who just got his rocks off? Those were his words.

Hell, she’d probably been nagging him so much that he lost his temper. Ordinarily he’d never talk like that. Too many cases, not enough men. handle the serious ones first. On the other hand, when I was on the Robbery Squad some old biddy had a twenty-four-dollar radio stolen. She yelled so much, called the Chief of Detectives so often, sent him so many telegrams that my lieutenant took me off a $235,000 jewelry-store stickup and put me on her squeal till I found her damn radio. The wheel that squeaks the loudest gets the grease. I was not going to tell her this story. She might try the technique and then would let slip it was all my idea. It was one headache I could live without. I could just imagine a scenario, with Slavitch calling me into his office, picking up one of his crayons, tapping it on the glass top, and saying, McQuaid, the Millikan woman says you’re the guy who told her to send those registered letters to the Chief of Detectives. He told me to tell you he doesn’t like it.

Can I ask you a favor? Please?

Oh, Christ, here it comes.

Sure.

The animal has followed me the last two days. I live four blocks from here. I know you’re not supposed to do this, but would you mind following me and see if you spot him?

Well, Jesus Christ, that wasn’t my job. Besides, it was very hot, it was in the opposite direction from where I was heading, and all I wanted was a big, tall cold drink at Geraghty’s, where the bartender would make me a tall tom collins without any cherry and only two cubes. And extra gin instead of the cherry. Then I would take my boat ride. I was about to say no. Even though she had eyes the color of the Gulf Stream.

"Please."

Oh, why the hell not? Fifteen minutes wouldn’t kill my day. I said O.K., told her to cross the street and not look back at me. I’d be about half a block back of her and on the opposite side of the street. I let her get half a block ahead, and then I started strolling. No one was following her. She went into her lobby. I followed her in, ready to give her that comforting news, but she was standing there, white-faced.

Relax. No one followed you.

I know, she said, miserable. "He’s been here." She held out a note printed on a piece of paper that looked as if it had been torn from a paper bag. It read, in block capitals, WELCOME HOME BITCH. IM LOOKING FORWARD TO FRIENDLY CHATS THIS EVENING YOUR FRIEND.

She had set her jaw, but it was beginning to tremble.

"How—how am I going to sleep? Oh, God, how?"

Make them do something to take their minds off the situation.

First, I said crisply, do you have any plastic bags? I was holding the note by one corner, between the nails of my thumb and forefinger.

Yes, I have some grapes in a plastic bag. You want to look for fingerprints? I didn’t, but I wanted to give her the feeling that the N.Y.P.D. was hot on the trail. She might relax a bit.

Yes, maybe we can find the original bag from which he tore this off.

Please come up and have a cold drink as well, she said. I’ve taken you out of your way. You look very hot.

So that’s how I wound up in her apartment, an event I was to very seriously regret for the next two days.

Chapter Three

She had a tiny two-room apartment, carved out of one of the old tenements. She had a small living room with a tiny alcove at one end which served as a kitchen, plus a tiny bedroom which faced the back yard. The yard contained one miserable ailanthus that had survived a concrete surfacing all around it. She had wired several pots of English ivy to the top railing of the fire escape. The long green tendrils hung down past the iron uprights. It was illegal, but catch me snitching.

The living room was so small that she needed a convertible sofa in order to gain some space. She explained that her mother or sister sometimes visited from out West, and that was why she had bought the convertible rather than a sofa. This was a very feminine thing to say. Men usually didn’t give a damn what other men might think of their furniture.

She made me a very good tom collins, and as I sipped she asked me what my plans were for the rest of the evening.

I’m taking a boat ride.

Are you married?

I said no. Good, she said. I have no designs on your virtue, and I’m grateful for what you’ve done. So if no one is expecting you home, let me make you dinner. It’s air-conditioned here. And I’m a good cook.

I said yes.

She opened the refrigerator door, and said she’d have to go out for something. I offered to get it but she said, No, I’d like you to stay here in case he calls. You’ll know what to say and he might decide not to phone again. It was a good idea, so I subsided into my chair. She left. I made another tom collins. This time I squeezed in a whole lime and only stuck in one ice cube. It was much better that way. I was half finished when she unlocked the door. I had been thinking that she may not have had any designs on my virtue, but what about me? After all, I wasn’t assigned to her case; I was simply offering my services on