Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 34, No. 13 & 14, Winter 1989

“Turn around, Kelly,” the ugly one said, and when I did, I was cuffed. “I don’t know from gambling charges, Mister Kelly.” He turned me about, took out his celluloid Miranda card, and gave me a sardonic grin. “You’re supposed to be a comic, Kelly. Here’s a riddle for you. What’s the sum of murder one plus murder one? It can’t be murder two. Give up? It’s a double life sentence. Okay, you have the right to remain silent...”

Four hours later, Lieutenant Donald Bullethead Jaffee of Homicide was far from silent and getting hoarser by the minute. He seemed to have the persistent notion that I had poisoned Gina and Samson Velker with Jack Mac’s aid and assistance. My kitchen manager had arrived at Police Plaza wearing city bracelets about the same time I did, and was probably going through the same Torquemada drill in some other office on some other floor. I hoped he was playing the same dummy act I was.

“Come on, Kelly,” Jaffee said with false friendship. “She had something on you. Why else would a high roller like you be squiring a working class housewife around town? Kelly, we have the lab reports and the autopsy protocol, and they’ll hang you. The poison was injected by hypodermic through the sealed champagne bottle cork. We can prove that beyond a doubt. Jack McCarthy’s fingerprints are on the bottle’s cardboard half-sleeve, and yours are on the fancy paper it was done up in. You wiped the bottle clean, and either forgot about the bottle’s sleeve or didn’t think it would show prints. We’ve come a long way with computer enhancement of latent prints, chump. Next time you plan a murder, don’t be so sloppy. Remember, you’re killing in the space age. That champagne is an exclusive brand, a Chateau La Codar 1958, stored at your club by a customer, a Mr. Pemberton, Jay Porter Pemberton. Your own wine cellar records prove that.

“You poor bastard, you were caught in the middle. The wife is shaking you down and holding you as a trapped lover, and her old man is jealous as hell and wants to kill you. After that scene at your apartment house with the gun, you had no choice. You got them together for a supposed payoff and brought the wine to seal the deal. It’s widely known that you only drink vodka and tonic, so you let Velker open the champagne and unsuspectingly pour his wife and himself a toast... a toast of freedom for you and death for them. What did she have on you, Kelly?”

On and on he went with his boring fairy tale, while I was trying to think the whole thing through.

Theory #1: Samson Velker killed his wife and then took a suicide sip, but that idea had two flaws. Why go through with the hypodermic jazz with a sealed cork, and if he was so hurt, why didn’t he try to kill me?

But that scenario was more acceptable than Theory #2, which had Jay Porter in the starring role, taking matters into his own hands. True, he keeps his Chateau La Codar at my place, but he must keep some at home, too. He was in a panic, called Gina direct, got her and Velker together for a payoff, and voilà! the poison toast bit. This also had a flaw, mainly that Samson Velker, by Mrs. Rosen’s observation, was alive at two fifteen on my doorstep, and Gina was still breathing when I dropped her off around twelve forty-five. The M.E. fixed their deaths at between four and five A.M. and, due to the baby blizzard, no one, but no one, was able to get from Jay Porter’s manse out at Little Neck, Long Island, to Gina’s place on East 89th Street.

I might add that Mrs. Rosen must have gone off duty after the corridor fracas with my pathetic gunman because she told the cops she couldn’t give me an alibi for four to five o’clock. Of course, for it to have been an ironclad alibi, she would have had to be in bed with me, but the least she could have done was to say she never saw me leave the apartment. Never have a non-fan for a neighbor.

I was still ignoring Jaffee and working on Theory #3 when a uniformed cop stuck his head into the office and said, “He’s here.” Jaffee cocked his bald noggin at me. “Your attorney has finally arrived. We’ve documented that you were allowed to call him five minutes after you arrived.”

Touchy, touchy. The uniform led me to a private room where I expected to find Ted Summers. Instead, who is perched on a chair with all the presence of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes? It is none other than Tall Tommy Tanuka, ligner of ligners.

“Thank you, officer, I’ll buzz when we’re through,” he says as he waves me to a chair.

“What in the...”

Tall Tommy gives me a shush sign with fingers to lips as he places a briefcase on the table and takes out a small black oblong box. He flips a few switches and turns a dial as he looks innocently up at the ceiling. As a look of satisfaction crossed his face, I said, “You practice in downtown Moscow, counselor?”