“He followed it with a phone call. We met him in Isola one day last September. He said he considered us equally guilty of murder. He had seen the shooting, seen the burial, and seen the disposal of Kettering’s car. And since he held us equally guilty and since, he said, we were equally guilty in the eyes of the law, he expected equal payments from each of us. He demanded thirty-six thousand dollars-twelve thousand from each of us.”
“That explains the buying spree in September. What then?”
“In October he came to us with another demand,” Ruther said. “He wanted an additional ten thousand from each of us, thirty thousand in all. He said that would be the last demand he would make. We couldn’t raise the money all at once, so he agreed to take it in two payments, one in October and the next in January. We raised twenty-one thousand in October, and we paid the remaining nine thousand in January.”
“We should have known,” Hawes said. “Every damn deposit in that bankbook was an odd number divisible by three. We should have realized. What about that April deposit? The fifteen-thousand-dollar one?”
“We didn’t hear from him all through the winter. We really began to believe his thirty-thousand-dollar demand was the last one,” Murphy said. “Then, in April, he called again. He wanted another fifteen thousand. He swore this would be the last payment. We raised the fifteen thousand.”
“Was it the last payment?”
“No,” Miller said. “If it had been, Kramer would still be alive. He called again in June, the beginning of June. He wanted another fifteen thousand. That was when we decided to kill him.”
“He was bleeding us!” Ruther shouted. “I’ve just begun to get my agency on its feet. I was pouring every damn cent I’d earned into Kramer’s bank account!”
“If homicide is ever considered justifiable,” Miller said, “the murder of Sy Kramer was justifiable.”
Hawes did not comment. “How’d you do it?” he asked.
“Where’s that breakfast?” Ruther wanted to know.
“It’ll be here. Tell me how you got Kramer.”
“We followed him for a month,” Murphy said. “We took shifts. We worked out a timetable. We knew exactly where he went at what hours. We knew his life better than he did.”
“We had to,” Ruther explained. “We were planning to take it from him.”
“Then?” Hawes said.
“On the night of June twenty-sixth we bought a.300 Savage.”
“Why that gun?”
“First, because we had some silly notion of disfiguring Kramer beyond recognition. Second, because I own a Savage,” Murphy said. “We thought if you ever got around to checking guns we owned, you’d eliminate mine and eliminate me as a suspect at the same time.”
“Who fired the gun?” Hawes asked.
The men remained silent.
“You were acting in concert,” Hawes said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“The best shot among us fired the gun,” Ruther said. “Let’s leave it that way.”
“Did Murphy drive the car?”
“Yes, of course,” Murphy said. “I’m an excellent driver.”
“What did the third man do?”
“He was at the back window with an auxiliary rifle. We didn’t want to fire from two different guns unless the first shot missed. We wanted it to appear as if one person had done the killing.”
“You damn near succeeded,” Hawes said.
“We
“Maybe, and maybe not. A lot of people are on this case. Adding another homicide to it isn’t going to help your chances any.”
“Will it
“Where’s the breakfast?” Miller asked.
“What did you do with the rifle you used?” Hawes asked back. A good twenty minutes had passed since Carella’s call. Facing the possibility that Carella would never arrive, Hawes began sizing up the men in the room.
“We did just what you thought we did,” Ruther said.
“We disassembled it and buried the parts in separate locations.”
“I see,” Hawes said. Murphy was obviously the weakest link. He was an old man who couldn’t shoot straight, and he was carrying two guns. Hawes noticed for the first time that the only gun in the room that was not carrying a silencer was his own gun, the gun tucked into Murphy’s waistband.
“Did you just buy these guns?” Hawes asked.
“They’re part of my collection,” Murphy said. “We’ll bury them, too, after we use them.”
“For a guy who’s innocent all the way down the line,” Hawes lied, “you’re sure joining a sucker’s game, Murphy.”
“You just finished saying we had acted in concert when we killed Kramer,” Murphy said. “I’m an old man, mister. Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes.”
“You
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“You’re covering me with an automatic that has the safety on!”
“What?” Murphy said. His eyes flicked downward only momentarily, but that was all the time Hawes needed. He flung himself across the room at Murphy, his left hand crashing down onto Murphy’s right wrist.
