Long Time No See (2 page)

“I hate stabbings,” Monoghan said.

“This ain’t a stabbing,” Monroe said.

“No, then what is it? A poisoning? Man’s laying there with his throat cut open—what is it, a hanging?”

“This is an incised wound,” Monroe said. “There’s a difference. A stabbing—” His right hands suddenly appeared from the pocket of his coat, the fist clutching an imaginary dagger. “A stabbing is when you
urh, urh, urh
,” he said, pushing his fist at the air. “That’s a stabbing. An incised wound is when you
zzzt
,” he said, and smoothly drew the imaginary dagger across the same empty air.

“To me,” Monoghan said, “a man gets cut with a knife, that’s a stabbing.”

“To me also,” Monroe said.

“Then what are you—”

“I’m talking about what the autopsy’s going to say. The autopsy’ll say this is an incised wound.”

“Yeah, but I’m talking about what I’ll tell my wife at breakfast tomorrow morning. Can I tell her we found a man who was
incised
to death?” Monoghan said, and burst out laughing.

Monroe started laughing, too. Vapor plumed from their mouths onto the brittle air. Their hilarity rang in the small square where the dead man lay on his back near the statue. In the distance, Carella could hear the impatient
eee-wah
,
eee-wah
,
eee-wah
of an ambulance siren. The dead man’s dark glasses had fallen from his head and lay shattered on the pavement beside him. Carella looked into the open scarred sockets where his eyes should have been. He turned away. The black Labrador lay on its side some four feet from the dead man. Meyer was crouched near the dog. Blood from the dead man’s open throat had run across the sidewalk and into the black hair tufted on the dog’s massive chest. The dog was still breathing. Meyer wondered what to do about the dog. He’d never had a case where there was an unconscious dog.

“What do we do about the dog?” he asked Carella.

“I was just wondering the same thing.”

“It’s a seeing-eye dog,” Monoghan said. “Maybe he saw who done it. Maybe you can ask him who done it.”

Monroe burst out laughing again. Monoghan, as originator of the witticism, modestly restrained himself a moment longer, and then joined his partner. Together they bellowed to the night.

The dog was still unconscious when the ambulance arrived. There were four RMP cars at the scene now, dome lights rotating. Barricades were going up all around the square. It was a cold night, but people were beginning to gather nonetheless and patrolmen were already urging them to go about their business—“Nothing here to see, folks, let’s keep it moving.” The intern got out of the ambulance, looked around immediately for somebody with a police shield pinned to his coat, and went to where Carella and Meyer were standing with the two Homicide dicks. He looked down at the body.

“All right to move him?” he asked.

“Not yet,” Carella said. “The ME hasn’t seen him yet.”

“Then why’d you call us?” the intern asked.

“You can wait a few minutes,” Monoghan said. “It won’t kill you.”

The intern looked at him.

“Yeah,” Monoghan said, and nodded.

“You in charge here?” the intern asked.

“I’m the one ordered the ambulance.”

“You should have waited,” the intern said flatly, and turned on his heel and walked back to where the ambulance was parked at the curb. The attendant had already opened the rear door. The intern told him to close it.

The assistant medical examiner arrived ten minutes later. By that time the intern had threatened to leave four times. Carella mollified him each time. Each time the intern said, “There are people dying in this city.” The ME was a man named Michael Horton. He was wearing a suit and tie, dark overcoat, no hat, black leather gloves. He took off the glove on his right hand before he shook hands with Carella. Then he knelt to examine the body. The man from the Photo Unit moved off and began taking pictures of the dog.

“Cute, very cute,” Horton said. “Severed the trachea, carotids, and jugular. There’s your cause of death right there. Not another mark on the man. Look at his hands. No defense cuts, nothing. Cute. Must’ve been a big blade. Just one slash, very deep, nobody did this with a penknife, I can tell you. Oh yes, very cute. No hesitation marks, clean-cut edges to the wound, help me roll him over.” Carella knelt. Together they rolled the man over. Horton looked at his back. “Nothing here, clean as a whistle,” he said. He pulled on the collar of the dead man’s coat, studied the back of his neck. “Slash runs almost through to the spine. Okay, on his back again,” he said, and he and Carella rolled the corpse over again. “I want his hands bagged, there may be scrapings under the nails. You won’t need him fingerprinted here at the scene, will you?”

“We don’t know who he is yet,” Carella said.

“I’ll wait around till you go through his pockets,” Horton said. “Pending autopsy, you can say your cause of death is the incised throat wound.”

“What’d I tell you?” Monroe said.

“What?” Horton said.

“Nothing,” Monoghan said, and scowled at Monroe.

“What about the dog?” Carella said.

“What dog?”

“Over there. You want to look at the dog, too?”

“I don’t look at dogs,” Horton said.

“I thought—”

“I’m not a veterinarian, I don’t look at dogs.”

“Well, who does?” Carella asked.

“I don’t know,” Horton said. “I have never in my years with the Medical Examiner’s Office had to examine a dead dog.”

“The dog’s still alive,” Carella said.

“Then why do you want me to look at him?”

“To see what’s wrong with him.”

“How would I know what’s wrong with him? I’m not a veterinarian.”

“The dog’s unconscious there,” Carella said. “I thought you’d take a look at him, tell us what—”

“No, that’s not my function,” Horton said. “I’m finished here, give me what I have to sign. I’ll wait while you check for identification.”

“I don’t know if the Photo Unit’s done with him yet,” Carella said.

“Well, find out, will you?” Horton said.

The intern walked over from the ambulance. He was blowing on his hands. “All right to take him now?” he asked.

“Everybody slow down, okay?” Carella said.

“I’ve been waiting here—”

“I don’t
give
a damn,” Carella said. “This is a homicide, let’s just
cool
it, okay?”

“There are people dying in this city,” the intern said.

Carella didn’t answer him. He walked over to where the police photographer was snapping pictures of the unconscious dog. “You finished with the dead man?” he asked.

“Only my Polaroids,” the photographer said.

“Well, take whatever else you need,” Carella said. “Everybody’s getting itchy.”

“I haven’t fingerprinted him yet, either.”

“The ME wants his hands bagged.”

A lab technician was already chalking an outline of the body on the pavement. The photographer waited till he was finished, and then began taking the additional pictures he needed. Flash bulbs exploded. The assistant ME blinked. At the ambulance, the attendant had opened the rear door again, in expectation. Meyer took Carella aside. They had been about to leave for a stakeout in a warehouse when the squeal came. Both men were wearing mackinaws and woolen watch caps.

“What do we do with the dog?” Meyer asked.

“I don’t know,” Carella said.

“Can’t just leave him here, can we?”

“No.”

“So what do we do?”

“Call a vet, I guess. I don’t know.” Carella paused. “Have you got a dog?”

“No. Have you?”

“Because I was wondering—maybe we ought to get a vet here right away. The dog may have been poisoned or something.”

“Yeah,” Meyer said, and nodded. “Let me call in, see if we can’t get Murchison to send somebody.”

“Maybe there’s somebody downtown…you know the unit that has those dogs who sniff out dope?”

“Yeah?”

“They must have a vet who takes care of those dogs, don’t you think?”

“Maybe. Let me call in, see what I can do.”

“Yeah, go ahead. I think Photo’s done with the body, I want to toss him.”

Meyer walked toward the closest RMP car, exchanged a few words with the patrolman, and then climbed into the car and reached for the hand mike. Carella walked to where the photographer was putting a fresh roll of film into his camera.

“Okay to go through his pockets?”

“He’s all yours,” the photographer said.

In the dead man’s coat pockets, Carella found only a book of matches and a subway token. In the right-hand trouser pocket, he found another subway token, a key chain with two keys on it, and $12.04 in quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. In the left-hand pocket, he found a wallet with $17 in it, all singles, and a Lucite-enclosed card from the Guiding Eye School at 821 South Perry. The typewritten text on one side of the card read:

THIS WILL IDENTIFY JAMES R. HARRIS OF 3414 SOUTH SEVENTH STREET, ISOLA AND HIS GUIDE DOG STANLEY, BLACK LABRADOR RETRIEVER.

The card was signed by the director of training, a man named Israel Schwartz, and the seal of the school was in the lower right-hand corner of the card. On the reverse side of the card there was a picture of Harris and the dog in harness, and the printed text:

ISSUED FOR THE CONVENIENCE OF TRANSPORTATION COMPANIES GRANTING USE OF THEIR FACILITIES TO GUIDE DOGS ACCOMPANIED BY THEIR OWNERS. NONTRANSFERABLE.

The 3400 block was just off Mason Avenue. James Harris had been less than two blocks from home when he’d been killed. Pinned to the inside of the leather wallet was a medallion that looked Catholic to Carella. On Harris’s left wrist, there was a Braille wristwatch. On the third finger of his left hand, there was a wedding band. On his right hand, he wore a high school graduation ring. Emory High. A school in Diamondback. That was all.

The technician walked over. He squatted beside Carella and began putting the dead man’s belongings into brown paper bags, sealing them, tagging them.

“What do you suppose this is?” Carella asked, and showed him the medallion.

“I’m not religious,” the technician said.

“It’s a saint, though, don’t you think?”

“Even if I
was
religious,” the technician said, “there are no saints in my religion.”

“Get what you need?” Horton asked.

“Yes,” Carella said.

“I want his hands bagged,” Horton said to the technician.

“Okay,” the technician said.

“I’ll have a man at the morgue first thing tomorrow,” Carella said.

Horton nodded. “Good night,” he said, and walked off.

Carella went over to where the photographer was taking pictures of the terrain surrounding the square. “I’ll need somebody from Photo to print him in the morning,” he said. “I’ll have a man there to back up the prints and deliver them to the ID Section.”

“What time?” the photographer asked.

“Make it eight o’clock.”

“Crack of dawn.”

“What can I do?” Carella said, and gestured helplessly toward where the lab technician was already slipping a plastic bag over the dead man’s right hand.

Meyer came over from the RMP car. “Get a make?” he asked.

“His name’s James Harris,” Carella said, “lives on South Seventh. What about the dog?”

“Murchison’s sending a vet right away.”

“Good. You want to stay here while I check out this address?”

“Have you made the sketch yet?”

“Not yet.”

The intern approached just as Meyer was asking about the sketch. “Listen,” he said, “if you think we’re going to hang around while you make a goddamn drawing of the—”

“It’ll just take a few minutes,” Meyer said.

“Next time call when you’re
ready
for us,” the intern said. “And about that dog—”

“What about the dog?”

“Cop there said we’d have to take the dog, too. I’m not carrying any dog in the ambulance. That’s—”

“Who said you had to take him?”

“The big cop over there. The one in the black coat.”

“Monoghan?”

“I don’t know his name.”

“You don’t have to take the dog,” Meyer said. “But I can’t let you move the body till I’ve got a sketch of the scene, okay? It’ll only take a minute, I promise.”

Carella knew it would take more like a half hour. “Meyer,” he said, “I’ll be back.”

There was no light in the small entrance foyer.

Carella took a small penlight from his coat pocket and flashed it over the mailboxes. The nameplate for apartment 3C read J. H
ARRIS
. He snapped off the light and tried the inner lobby door. It was unlocked. Inside, there was a hanging bulb on the first-floor landing, casting a yellowish glow onto the linoleum-covered steps. He started up the steps. The tenement smells were familiar to him. He had grown accustomed to them after years of working out of the 87th.

He took the stairs two at a time, not because he was in any hurry, but only because he always climbed stairs two at a time. He had started doing that when he was twelve and beginning to get lanky and long-legged. His mother used to call him a long drink of water. He’d stopped growing when he was seventeen, just short of six feet tall. He was broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted now, with the muscular leanness and effortless grace of an athlete. His hair was brown, his eyes were brown, too; they slanted downward to give his face a peculiarly Oriental look.

The tenements in the precinct territory were always either too hot or too cold. This one was suffocatingly hot with the contained steam heat of the day. He took off the woolen watch cap as he climbed the steps, stuffed it into a pocket of the mackinaw, and then unbuttoned the short coat. Behind closed doors he could hear television voices. Somewhere in the building someone flushed a toilet. He came onto the third-floor landing. There were three apartments there. Apartment 3C was at the end of the hall, farthest from the stairwell. He knocked on the door.

“Jimmy?” a woman’s voice said.

“No, ma’am, police officer.”

“Police, did you say?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He waited. The door opened a crack, held by a night chain. The apartment beyond was dark, he could not see the woman’s face.

“Hold up your badge,” she said.

He had the tin ready in his hand, they always asked to see it. It was pinned to the flap of a small leather case that also contained his Lucite-enclosed ID card. He showed it to her, and waited for recognition.

“Are you holding it up?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, and frowned, puzzled.

Her hand appeared in the narrow open wedge of the door. “Let me touch it,” she said, and he realized belatedly that she was blind. He held out the shield, watched as her fingers explored the blue enamel, the gold ridges set in a sunburst pattern around the city’s seal.

“What’s your name?” she said.

“Detective Carella,” he said.

“I guess it’s all right,” she said, and pulled her hand back. But she did not remove the night chain. “What do you want?” she asked.

“Does James Harris live here?”

“What is it?” she asked at once.

“Mrs. Harris…” he said, and hesitated. He hated this moment more than anything in police work. There was no kind way to do it, nothing that would soften it, nothing. “Your husband is dead,” he said.

There was silence in the open wedge of the door, silence in the darkness beyond.

“What…what…?”

“May I come in?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, please…”

He heard the night chain being removed. The door opened wide. In the light spilling from the landing, he saw that she was a white woman, blonde, slender, wearing a long belted blue robe and oversized dark glasses that covered her eyes and a goodly portion of her face as well. The apartment behind her was dark. He hesitated before entering, and she sensed this, and understood the cause at once. “I’ll put on a light,” she said, and turned and moved surely to the wall, and then along it, her left hand scarcely grazing it. She found the light switch, snapped it on. An overhead ceiling fixture illuminated the room. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

They were standing in a kitchen. This did not surprise him; the front doors to many of the precinct’s apartments opened into kitchens. Some of those kitchens were spotlessly clean, others were filthy. This one was neither. Had he not known the occupants of the apartment were blind, he would have guessed they were only careless housekeepers. She was facing him now, head tilted in the characteristic position of the blind, chin bent, waiting.

“Mrs. Harris,” he said, “your husband was murdered.”

“Murdered?” She began shaking her head. “No,” she said, “you must be…No, there’s some mistake.”

“I wish there were, Mrs. Harris.”

“But why would…no,” she said. “No, he’s blind, you see.”

He understood her reasoning completely. The thought was inconceivable. You did not slay blind men or little children. You did not strangle bluebirds or pull the wings off butterflies. Except that people did. Someone
had.
Her husband was lying dead on the sidewalk this very moment. Someone had slit his throat. Carella said again, very slowly this time, “He’s dead, Mrs. Harris. He was murdered.”

“Where is he?”

“He’ll be taken to Buena Vista Hospital in just a little while.”

“Where is he now?”

“In Hannon Square.”

“How was he killed?” she asked.

She had the mildest of Southern accents, and her voice was pitched so low that he had trouble hearing her. But she spoke directly and she said what was on her mind, and she was asking now for information he had deliberately withheld.

“He was stabbed,” Carella said.

She was silent for what seemed a long time. On the street outside, automobile tires squealed against asphalt, an engine roared, the tires squealed again as a corner was turned. The sound of the engine receded and was gone.

“Sit down, please,” she said, and gestured unfailingly toward the kitchen table. He pulled out a chair and sat. She came across the room; her hand found the top of the chair opposite him. She sat immediately.

“We can talk another time, if you like,” Carella said.

“Isn’t it better to talk now?”

“If you want to, it might be helpful, yes.”

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

“When did you see him last, Mrs. Harris?”

“This morning. We left the house together at ten o’clock.”

“Where were you going?”

“I have a job downtown. Jimmy was going to Hall Avenue. He usually works Hall, between the Circle and Montgomery.” She paused. “He’s a beggar,” she said.

“Where do you work, Mrs. Harris?”

“I work for a direct-mail company. I insert catalogues into envelopes.”

“What kind of catalogues?”

“Advertisements for what the company is selling. We send them out twice a month. There’s another girl who types up the mailing list, and I fill the envelopes. We sell souvenir items like ashtrays, salt and pepper shakers, coasters, swizzle sticks…things like that.”

“What’s the name of the company?”

“Prestige Novelty. On Dutchman’s Row. In the garment center.”

“And you and your husband both left the house together at ten this morning?”

“Yes. We try to avoid the subway rush hours. Jimmy’s got the dog, and so we—” She stopped abruptly. “Where’s Stanley?”

“He’s being taken care of, Mrs. Harris.”

“Is he all right?”

“I don’t know. He may have been drugged, he may have been…” Carella let the sentence trail.

“What were you about to say? Poisoned?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Stanley won’t accept food from strangers. Jimmy’s the one who feeds him. That’s how he was trained. He won’t even take food from
me
if I offer it. It has to be Jimmy who feeds him.”

“We’ll know in a little while,” Carella said. “A vet was on the way when I left. Mrs. Harris, was this the usual routine with you and your husband? Did you always leave the house together at ten
A.M.
?”

“Mondays to Fridays.”

“What time did you get back?”

“I generally get home at about three, three-thirty. Jimmy waits through the end of the day—people going home from work, he makes a lot of money between five and six o’clock. Then he waits another half hour, stops for a drink in a bar, just to make sure he’ll miss the rush hour. He takes the subway uptown around six-thirty, a quarter to seven. He’s usually home by…” She hesitated. She had suddenly realized that she was talking in the present tense about a man who was dead. The realization was painful. Watching her face, Carella saw tears beginning to run down her cheeks from the lower edges of the oversized glasses. He waited.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“If you’d rather…”

“No, no,” she said, and shook her head. “He…he was usually home by seven-thirty the latest,” she said, and rose abruptly and walked directly and unfalteringly to the countertop alongside the sink. Her hands found the box of Kleenex there, she pulled a tissue loose and blew her nose. “I usually had supper ready by seven-thirty. Or else we’d go out for a bite. Jimmy loved Chink’s, we’d go out for Chink’s a lot. With the dog, we could go anywhere we wanted to,” she said, and began weeping again.

“Is there just the one dog?”

“Yes.” The tissue was pressed to her mouth, she mumbled the single word into it. She pulled a second tissue from the box, blew her nose again. “Guide dogs are expensive,” she said. “I didn’t need one, only time I was without Jimmy was when I was at work, or coming back home from work. I’ve got the cane, I…I…” She began sobbing now, deep racking sobs that started in her chest and made it difficult for her to breathe.

He waited. She sobbed into the tissue. Behind her, through the kitchen window, he could see a light snow beginning to fall. He wondered if they were through at the scene. Snow would make it more difficult for the lab people. Silently, the snow fell. She could not have known it was snowing. She could neither see it nor hear it. She kept sobbing into the same rumpled tissue, and then at last she drew back her shoulders and raised her head, and said, “What else do you want to know?”

“Mrs. Harris, is there anyone you can think of who might have done something like this?”

“No.”

“Did your husband have any enemies?”

“No. He was blind,” she said, and again he followed her reasoning completely. Blind men did not have enemies. Blind men were objects of pity or sympathy, but never of hate.

“You haven’t received any threatening telephone calls or letters in recent—”

“No.”

“Mrs. Harris, this was a mixed marriage…”

“Mixed?”

“I mean…”

“Oh, you mean I’m white.”

“Yes. Were there any of your neighbors or…someone where you worked…anyone…who might have strongly resented the marriage?”

“No.”

“Tell me about your husband.”

“What do you want to know?”

“How old was he?”

“Thirty. He was just thirty in August.”

“Was he blind from birth?”

“No. He was wounded in the war.”

“When?”

“Ten years ago. It would have been ten years this December. December the fourteenth.”

“How long have you been married?”

“Five years.”

“What was your maiden name?”

“Isabel Cartwright.”

“Mrs. Harris…” he said, and hesitated. “Was your husband involved with another woman?”

“No.”

“Are you involved with another man?”

“No.”

“How did your relatives feel about the marriage?”

“My father loved Jimmy. He died two years ago. Jimmy was there at his bedside in Tennessee.”

“And your mother?”

“I never knew my mother. She died in childbirth.”

“Were you born blind?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“No.”

“How about your husband?”

“He has one sister. Chrissie. Christine. Are you writing this down?”

“Yes, I am. Does that bother you? I can stop if—”

“No, I don’t mind.”

“Are
his
parents alive?”

“His mother is. Sophie Harris. She still lives in Diamondback.”

“Do you get along well with her?”

“Yes.”

“Mrs. Harris, can you think of anything that’s happened in recent weeks, anything that might have caused
anyone
to bear a grudge or—”

“No.”

“
However
impossible it may seem?”

“I can’t think of anything.”

“All right, then,” he said, “thank you very much,” and closed his notebook.

Ordinarily, he’d have asked the wife of a murder victim to accompany him to the morgue for identification purposes. He hesitated now, wondering what to do. Isabel Harris could no doubt explore her husband’s face with her hands and identify him as positively as could a sighted person. But identifying a corpse was a trying experience for anyone, and he could only imagine how emotionally unsettling it would be for someone who had to
touch
the body. He thought he might call Jimmy’s mother instead, ask her to meet him at the morgue in the morning. Sophie Harris in Diamondback. He’d written her name in his book, he’d give her a call later tonight. But then he wondered whether he wasn’t denying Isabel Harris a right that was exclusively hers—and denying it only because she was blind. He decided to play it straight. He had learned over the years that playing it straight was the best way—and maybe the only way.

“Mrs. Harris,” he said, “when a murder victim is married, it’s usually the husband or wife who identifies the body.” He hesitated. “I don’t know whether you want to do that or not.”

“I’ll do it, yes,” she said. “Did you mean now?”

“The morning will be fine.”

“What time?”

“I’ll pick you up at ten.”

“Ten o’clock, yes,” she said, and nodded.

He walked to the door, turned toward her again. Behind her, the snow was still falling silently.

“Mrs. Harris?” he said.

“Yes?”

“Will you be all right? Is there anything I can do?”

“I’ll be fine,” she said.

When the knock sounded on the door, she was already in bed.

She lifted the cover on her watch and felt for the raised Braille dots. The time was twenty minutes to 12:00. She thought immediately that it was the detective coming back; he had probably sensed that she was lying. He had heard something in her voice or seen something flicker on her face. She had lied to him deliberately, had given him a flat “no” answer to the question he’d asked. And now he was back, of course; now he would want to know why she had lied. It made no difference any more. Jimmy was dead, she might just as well have told him the truth from the beginning. She would tell him now.