Mitchell Smith (44 page)

“I read that, and I checked for insurance policies, traffic violations-she got four parkings in the last three years, rental cars-and any outstanding liens or repossessions. -Nothing.”

“No insurance?”

“Nothing. She couldn’t fill in a false occupation without nullifying the coverage. -She couldn’t fill in a true occupation and get coverage.”

“So, she went cash.”

“Right. That was the fourteen thousand.”

“Insurance money-an’ not much insurance money.

An’ two bank accounts?” Nardone held up one of the canceled checks and raised an eyebrow, or tried to. Whenever he raised one eyebrow, both went up.

“-That one’s regular checking at Manufacturers. And she had savings at City. -Seventeen hundred in checking. Nine thousand, two hundred in savings.”

“We got a lazy prosty, here,” Nardone said, `-even figurin’ she owned the apartment. She had to be slowin’ down, be that short.”

“I think she spent a lot on Sonia.”

“Got to be a hell of a lot.”

“So-what’s next?”

as “M.E.“s follow-up,” Nardone said, and set the checks ide. “-An’

there’s only one thing we didn’t already know. ‘Shock and systemic collapse due to prolonged exposure to excessive heat, additional steamburn trauma.

Multiple cincture depressions, wrists and ankles … two small puncture wounds anterior lower left mandible.”

“

“we never saw them.” Ellie put sugar and cream in her coffee, and stirred it.

“Nobody saw ‘em. You couldn’t tell anything’ with that skin that way.

-Take a look at those pictures. You tell me you could see any little puncture wounds in there.”

“A knife.” She poured half a sugar into his tea, and stirred it for him.

“You bet. -And that, we should have figured. He’d need something’ to keep her quiet, keep her from yellin’ or something’ while he was wirin’

her up. Probably stuck her a couple times, show he was serious, then he puts the knife to one side where he can get it, an’ wraps her up. -Then he shoves that rubber ball in her mouth, an’ she’s a goner. He’s got her any way he wants.”

“I guess so . . .”

“You notice that ‘multiple cincture’ stuff? Means he wired her up first, left her in the bathtub—out of the way-then, later, he gets the bright idea to put her in the chair. Somewhere in there he has some fun with the bananas.”

“I’d yell, anyway, if somebody had me tied up, was trying to shove a rubber ball in my mouth. -I’d scream my head off.”

“Go ahead,” Samuelson said, passing by. “-Won’t do you any good.”

“Nardone said, “-unless the guy picks u So would I,” nt stickin’ in my throat.

p that knife again, got the poi

Then I’m going’ to be quiet as a mouse-an’ hope the guy’s not a nut case.”

“Well, it’s something new, anyway.” Ellie unwrapped her bagel and took a bite; it was a little stale.

It’s nothin’. It’s something’ we already should have figured. Five’ll get you ten he used one of the kitchen knives, then wiped it like everythin’ else, an’ put it back.”

“Doesn’t sound all that passionate to me,” Ellie said.

“-Sounds like a goddamned cool son-of-a-bitch.”

‘.That’s a point. You got a point, there. -If that lady had been pimped up, I’d say it was a pimp killing.”

“But she wasn’t. There isn’t a smell of anything like that, Tommy. At least the last few years, Gaither was independent as they come.”

“O.K. Right.” Nardone took a sip of his tea. “saw that leaves love.

And, I’ll tell you one thing”-he set the M.E.“s report aside on a thick stack of fingerprint folders”Kenny was right about the answerin’

service. We can forget about calls incomin’. We got the numbers of a thousand people called in there every couple of days but we got no way to tell which ones got forwarded to Gaither. All we got on calls are the numbers on her phone bills, and Leahy had to talk to the asshole at the phone company a half hour, tell him to get us the names and addresses to go with ‘cm. -That’ll take a day or two, right there.” He drank some more tea, and went back to the canceled checks.

“That’s still a lot,” Ellie said. “That’s not bad at all that’s a lot of people.”

“Yeah. —Sounds good, right? But you want to bet something’? -You can bet those calls went to Gristede’s for deliveries; they went to Connecticut to her daughter; they went to a few girl friends, a few fag friends around town. Period.”

::Maybe to Belgium.”

O.K. Probably to Belgium. It’ll give us the guy’s phone over there, anyway. -But that doesn’t help us.

That hurts us; means the guy stayed over there.” HeMEL

stopped and looked at a canceled check, then made a note in his notebook.

“What’s that?” The bagel was so stale it spoiled the taste, even with the butter.

“Liquor store. Let’s see if their delivery guy’s had any problems getting’ along with ladies.”

“You know, I don’t think Soseby has any way to know what happened. He must think she’s still alive.

Ellie reached down to the floor for another shoe box of receipted bills.

“Probably,” Nardone said, “-that’s right. Unless he’s the one arranged to have her put away. It occurred to me, you know … maybe he’s doin’

her a favor, investin’ her money for her. -It’s part of his business-right? Could be he decided to just hang on to the bundle.

-Speakin’ of which guy, I did some sharp detective work at home this mornin’, and looked the guy up in the phone book.

He’s right in town, and I already asked Leahy to get us an E an’ S on his place. Supposed to come through tomorrow-if you believe that-and we’ll go over there and take a look. Find out who he works for, and they’ll have that Belgium address.”

“O.K. But then, you call and tell him,” Ellie said. “I went up and saw the daughter-and I’m seeing that dying lady this afternoon.” She finished going through a bundle of paid bills, took a rubber band from the side drawer of Nardone’s desk, and snapped it around them. The bill receipts so far had been for electricity, phone, groceries, dry cleaners, answering service, laundry, and a carpet cleaner.

“O.K.,” Nardone said, “—that’s fair. I’ll tell the poor son-of-a-bitch she’s dead.” He held up a canceled check.

“Hairdresser. -Those guys got a good business.”

“-And how she went?” The coffee was all right, but the bagel wasn’t worth finishing “Only if he asks. -Reminds me; what about the kid’s letters?”

“I read one last night-they’re long letters-and it was strictly mother-daughter stuff. She was something, though.

You know, you can hear her voice there…. She mentions some guys she knew years ago, and that’s about it.”

“I don’t care. You’re talkin’ about evidence. -You can’t hold that stuff out.” He finished his tea and threw the cup into the wastebasket.

“Well, I promised, and I’m going to-unless there’s real evidence in there. And so far there isn’t.”

“Evidence?” Leahy said, coming down the aisle.

“-Don’t tell me you two actually came up with evidence? I thought this team operated strictly on bullshitlike, for example, that astronomer up in the Bronx. That kind of bullshit.” Leahy was wearing a new double-breasted blue trench coat; it had epaulets, and there were grenade rings on the belt.

“It’s just a couple of letters, Lieutenant-the Gaither woman sent them to her daughter. Personal stuff. No suspects, no trouble, no nothing.

I promised the daughter I wouldn’t show them around.”

“I’m not runnin’ that case, Klein,” Leahy said. “You two are runnin’

it. -An’ you’re sure getting’ great results.”

“We’ll get results,” Nardone said, “-if we got time between runnin’ out to Long Island looking’ at rudders an’ anchors and shit.”

“Job too tough for you, Tommy?” Leahy said. “We keepin’ you too busy?

-Well, you come on in my office, because Anderson’s comin’ down about the peeper up in the Bronx you handed that bullshit all in”-and went on his way. The trench coat looked to be a size fifty, short.

“Well, partner,” Nardone said, “-was that guy a legitimate astronomer, or not?”

“Damn right, he was,” Ellie said. “-It was a comet he was looking for.

It’s his dream to get a new comet named after him. The comet Gershon.”

“That’s pretty good. -That’s a good one,” Nardone said, getting up.

“I’m going’ to use that one. See how they handle that fuckin’ fast ball. -While I’m in there with the Inquisition, keep going’ through those bill payments electric bills, that friggin’ answerin’-service bill, repairs, paint jobs, furniture-any plumbers come callin’, anything. We got a year’s receipts in there, separated pretty good, courtesy of Kenny Keneally. -Look out for something’ doesn’t jibe.”

“Tommy, if you tell them about the Classman thing-go easy. It’s not our case.”

“Oh, I’m going’ to tell ‘em. Right after I explain about the comet Gershon-then, if they’re interested, I’m going’ to tell ‘em I got two private eyewitness junkies stashed, the minute they want to get serious with the Classman thing. -Nothin’ to do with you; you’re out of it.”

“I don’t have to be out of it,” Ellie said, but he was heading down the aisle.

Sally Gaither had kept her receipted bills for exactly a year—discarded all of them past that date. Noted considerable increases, too.

Underlined, question-marked them.

She’d been very careful with her money. The answering service bills stayed within a fifty-dollar range per month but it was a steady high range. Cost of business. Like the tips to the doormen, which probably could have been noted and written off her taxes-if she’d entered her occupation as prostitute on those forms. Probably had called herself a consultant, or therapist. The fourteen thousand from her closet wouldn’t appear there, for sure.

Truth House . . . but occasional lies, still, to use in conversation with the House of Lies.

“Klein. , . ” Captain Anderson, smiling down, changed for autumn into a light gray wool worsted. “How are things going for you two with that Gaither case? -No client records at all . . . ? You haven’t sent anything upstairs.” He leaned over the desk to get a better look at the case board.

And how would the handsome Captain have behaved in Sally’s bed? Would he have touched her so gently at the start, stroked her cheek….. or having paid so much, not cared to waste the time….. ?

“No, sir. —Case is going a little slowly.” She started to stand up, but he gestured her down.

“Um-hmm. You were with your partner on the Gershon thing, weren’t you?”

“Yes, I was.”

Anderson looked the board over for a few moments more, then lifted the blue file-cover and looked at the photograph of Sally Gaither, naked and ruined in her folding chair.

“There’s an Internal Affairs officer who seems to have become quite a yachtsman, in the last few years.

You people should have the paperwork on that.”

“I think the Lieutenant has it.”

Anderson let the file-cover fall back over the picture.

“Hope you two have better luck with that, than with those officers up in Spanish Harlem, yesterday, at Cruz’s book. -That was a mess.” He smiled at her, then turned and walked down the aisle to Leahy’s office.

Ellie set the rubber-banded bill receipts aside, and started on the others, watching as carefully as she could for some oddity, some bill higher than the others. A bigger electric bill in the middle of a season might mean Sally had somebody living with her for a few days—a lower one, and maybe she was staying for a while with someone else … a man. Perhaps a little possessive.

Maybe more than a little.

It seemed to Ellie it would be difficult for a man to be in love with a prostitute. -Soseby supposedly was…. A very gentle guy, maybe.

Another kind of man, though, not so easily, so gently in love, would be full of imaginings of her … of her taking money, and putting it in her top dresser drawer, then going back to the bed, and arranging herself to do what she’d agreed to. -Sweating, grunting, saying things as it was done. The lover growing angrier the more clearly he imagined it, remembered her, the richer his recall of all her details, her body, her odors, her sounds—angrier with every reminiscence. A picture in that … his picture. The slight, small blond whore standing on her bed in her blue bathrobe, holding a bare foot up to be seen, and her naked clients-naked except that each wore one thing, a single shoe, a necktie, a T-shirt, a gold butterfly pinned through a pinch of skin on a woman’s ordinary breast-some of these people disgusting; several beautiful. The shriveled old sprinkling their urine on her carpet, ivory adolescents in a perfect, grinning pack, the girls giggling, the boys glancing at each other’s erections. At the corner, in the back, the top dresser drawer is half open, choked with sheaves of money green as leaves….

“Klein, you got another call!” Medina, from up the aisle, over the sounds of talking, and other phones. -Come here an’ get it, an’ for Christ sake will you tell this one you’re not one-four-seven!”

Ellie hurried up the aisle. “Thanks, Bobby-I’m really sorry….

“Don’t be sorry. Just tell him. -0.K.?”

“O.K., I will.” She cleared her throat. “Yes …

“Hi… What’s all the yelling about?”

“Oh… nothing.”

“Well, I know it’s rushing it; you’re probably not going to be free …

but I thought I’d better call you and apologize for that routine out at Woodlawn. I mean I think I carried it off OX, and you were very nice about it. But let’s face it-it was not a class move. And I want to apologize to you for getting so cute, an occasion where it wasn’t called for.”

“Well … that’s all right.”

“I just didn’t want you to think I was usually such a jackass.”

“Oh, I didn’t think you were usually aJackass.”

Shea laughed. “Just-at the time-right?”

“No … really.”

Neither of them said anything for a moment.

“Well … I’m calling to see if you’d like to come down and have some lunch.”

“Down … ?”

“I’m downstairs. I had to come down and see Inspector Manugian about some evidence, and since I was here … Now, that’s a lot of crap. I came downtown to see if you could come out and have lunch. That’s the fact of the matter. I don’t give a damn if I never see that Armenian.”