The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams

“Well, I know I didn’t. It’s the sort of thing I would remember. And I know you didn’t because you’re not the type.”

“That’s a relief.”

“And that’s all I have to know,” I said, “because it’s not my problem. Because I was never there.”

“Huh?”

“I took no snapshots and left no footprints,” I said. “Or fingerprints. Or cereal boxes. Nobody saw me enter and nobody saw me leave, unless you count Steady Eddie, and I don’t. I took away everything I brought with me and put back everything I took. I even locked up after myself.”

“You always do.”

“Well, how much trouble is it? If I can pick a lock open, I ought to be able to pick it shut. And it’s good policy. The longer it takes people to realize they’ve been burgled, the harder it is to catch the guy who did it.”

“So you left everything exactly as you found it.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Bern? You left everything exactly as you found it, right?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘everything,’ ” I said. “I wouldn’t say ‘exactly.’ ”

“What do you mean?”

I reached out a hand and ruffled Alison’s coat. She made that whimpering sound again. “I kept the money,” I said.

“Bern.”

“Well, I was going to put it back,” I said, “and then I remembered that I’d taken off my gloves to count it, because if I was taking the money it hardly mattered if I got my prints on it. So I would have had to wipe off every single bill, and I’d have had to be thorough about it, and then I’d have had to pick the lock on the desk drawer, once to open it and a second time to close it again.”

“So you took it.”

“Well, I’d already taken it. What I did was keep it.”

“Eight thousand dollars?”

“Close enough. Eighty-three fifty.”

“And how long were you in there? Four hours? Call it two thousand dollars an hour. That sure beats minimum wage.”

“Believe me,” I said, “it wasn’t worth it. I only kept the money because it was less trouble than putting it back. And it was pretty close to untraceable. The watches and the jewelry might lead back to the Nugent apartment, but money’s just money.” I shrugged. “I suppose I should have put it back, even if it meant wiping off each and every bill. But it was late and all I wanted to do was get out of there.”

“But you took time to pick the locks. The ones on the outer door I can understand, but why lock up the bathroom? It took you forever to open that lock, and it must have been just as much trouble to relock it.”

“Not quite. Locking’s easier than unlocking with that particular mechanism, and I’d already made some surface grooves in the bolt the first time around. But it still took some time, I’ll say that much.”

“Then why bother?”

“Think about it,” I said. “Say the cops come and they have to break the door down. They find a corpse in the tub with a gun alongside him. One little window, and it’s locked, and so was the door until they forced it. If you’re one of the cops, what conclusion do you draw?”

“Suicide,” she said. “It couldn’t be anything else. Bern? Wait a minute.”

“I’m waiting.”

“Suppose there’s no gun.”

“So?”

“Then it’s not suicide, is it?”

I shook my head. “It’s not,” I said, “and what you’ve got is a locked-room homicide straight out of John Dickson Carr, and I’ll be damned if I can figure out how the killer could have worked it. Now, I don’t honestly think that’s what happened, because it would have been impossible. I think the gun must have been out of sight somewhere, behind the body or underneath it. If it was suicide, I’d just as soon leave it as open-and-shut as possible. And if it was murder, some physically impossible kind of locked-room murder, why should I be the one to screw it up? Because if the door’s open when the cops get there, then it’s just another naked corpse in the bathtub. There’s nothing special about it at all.”

“I see what you mean.”

“So that’s why I locked up,” I said, “and there may well be a flaw in my logic, but I was too worn out to spot it. The bathroom lock was easier to manipulate the second time around, but it was still a real pain in the neck, and it took time. Do you want to know something? I felt justified keeping the eighty-three fifty. I worked hard for it. I figure I earned it.”

I chased the last bite of my sandwich with the last swallow of coffee and put the wrappings and the empty cup in the trash. Then I returned to watch Carolyn put the finishing touches on Alison Wanda’s coiffure. “You must be exhausted after a night like that,” she said. “I’m surprised you bothered to open up today.”

“Well, Patience called, and that woke me up. And I had to come down and feed Raffles.”

“Don’t bother,” she said. “When I saw you hadn’t opened, I used my set of keys and gave him food and fresh water.”

“When was that?”

“I don’t know, eleven o’clock, something like that. Why?”

“Because he gave a damn good imitation of a cat on the brink of starvation when I opened up a little after twelve.”

“You fed him again?”

“Of course I fed him again. His dish was spotless and he was wearing a hole in my sock.”

“You’re not supposed to overfeed them, Bern.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

I went back to Barnegat Books and opened up again. Raffles was rubbing against my ankle the minute my foot cleared the threshold.

“Yeah, right,” I told him. “In your dreams, pal.”

I hauled my bargain table outside and propped up the cardboard three-books-for-a-buck sign. Sometimes passersby lifted the odd volume, but at that price how much harm were they doing me? I’d have been more dismayed if one of them walked off with the sign.

I perched on my stool behind the counter and picked up my current book, Clan of the Cave Bear. (I’d read it once years ago, but if you don’t think books are worth reading more than once you’ve got no business ru

Around two o’clock I made my first sale. It was only a buck but it broke the ice, and by three I’d rung up something like fifty dollars on the cash register. You don’t get rich that way, you don’t even break even that way, but at least I was selling books. And I suppose the cat could take credit for those sales, because if I hadn’t had to feed him I wouldn’t have bothered opening up.

And, like it or not, I was $8,350 ahead for having dropped in on the Nugents. And I could do what I wanted with the money and forget what I’d gone through to earn it, because that chapter was over forever and I was in the clear.

Yeah, right. In your dreams, Bernie.