Free So Long As You Both Shall Live (87th Precinct) by Ed McBain Page A

crime…”
    “What crime?” Pike asked at once.
    “Never mind,” Ollie said.
    “A crime that took place at Augusta’s wedding?”
    “Let me put it this way,” Ollie said. “A crime has been committed, Mr. Pike.”
    “Where? At the wedding?”
    “No, not at the wedding, but shortly after the wedding, and it’s possible that the pictures you took yesterday may help us in identifying the person or persons responsible. Now, that’s all I can tell you at this time, Mr. Pike, without jeopardizing the victim.”
    “Victim? Who?”
    “Well, it doesn’t matter who. I don’t want to jeopardize her by—”
    “Her?” Pike asked. “A woman? Is the victim a woman?”
    “Mr. Pike, it doesn’t matter who the victim is. The point is—”
    “But is it a woman?”
    “Yes, it is a woman.”
    “Who?”
    “Mr. Pike, I’m going to ask you for the last time. If you won’t let me have those pictures, I’m just going to have to run downtown and get a warrant, and that’ll put a hair across my ass, Mr. Pike, it really will. So why don’t you cooperate with a hardworking person like yourself, huh, and let me have the fuckin’ pictures, okay?”
    “I’ll give them to you if you tell me what happened. Was something stolen from one of Augusta’s guests?”
    “No, nothing was stolen.”
    “Then was someone hurt?”
    “No. Nobody was hurt. Not that we know of, anyway.”
    “Then what? ” Pike asked. “Does Augusta know about this? Does she know you want the pictures?”
    “No, she doesn’t know we want the pictures.”
    “Does she know a crime was committed?”
    “Yes. She knows.”
    There was something about the way Ollie said, “Yes,” and paused significantly, and then added, “She knows,” that immediately told Pike all he had to know.
    “Something’s happened to Augusta,” Pike said.
    “I am not saying anything happened to Augusta,” Ollie said. “I am not saying anything happened to anybody. All I am saying is that a serious crime has been committed, and you can help us a lot by letting us have the contact sheets, and by coming along with me to the hotel, where we can go over them together with Kling and a man you may know named Arthur Cutler, who is probably being telephoned right this minute and being asked to go on down there. What do you say, Mr. Pike?”
    “If Augusta’s in trouble…”
    “Yes or no, Mr. Pike?”
    “Yes. Of course,” Pike said.
     
    There were, as Pike had promised, exactly 1,080 prints on the black-and-white contact sheets. Moreover, the guest list for the wedding and reception totaled not 200 people, as Kling had estimated, but exactly 212 people. Carella had phoned Cutler and asked him to meet him at the hotel, and then he had called Kling to tell him what he could expect. Kling, who had never met Fat Ollie Weeks, but who had heard a lot about him from Cotton Hawes, immediately asked why he was sticking his two cents into the case. Carella told him that Ollie had come up with a good idea; he added weakly that Ollie was a very good cop, and that they could use all the help they could get. Kling said that according to Hawes, Ollie was a bigoted asshole. Carella told him that was true.
    “Then why do we need him?” Kling asked.
    “I think he can help us,” Carella said. “He’s got a good head, Bert. He’s apt to run things by the book, but occasionally he’ll come up with an idea that nobody else thought of. As, for example, the pictures Pike took.”
    “Well, okay,” Kling said reluctantly.
    “Give him a chance,” Carella said.
    “Yeah,” Kling said.
    Carella had forgotten to prepare Kling for Ollie’s famous W. C. Fields imitation. There were six men in the hotel room now, including Bob O’Brien, who had relieved Meyer and who was monitoring a telephone that defiantly refused to ring. The one time it had rung all afternoon, in fact, had been when Carella phoned not a half-hour ago, to tell Kling they’d be coming over with the photographs and the