Mitchell Smith (56 page)

The black woman bit her lip, turned away, and walked back behind the tellers’ cages. In three or four minutes, she came back with a small white slip of paper.

“What did you want to know?”

“I want to know her last big deposit,” Ellie said. “How much and when.”

His. Harris looked at the slip of paper. “Seventeen thousand dollars.

Eight thousand deposited September twenty-first. Nine thousand, September twenty-second.”

“Twenty-first and twenty-second. Monday and Tuesday.”

“That’s right.”

“O.K. One more question, and I’ll get out of here and T

wpm leave you alone. I need to know how that deposit was made.

Particularly if it was in large bills…. Hundreds, maybe even a few thousands.”

“There’s no way in the world to tell that on deposits under ten thousand,” the black woman said. “-Not now.”

“Sure there is,” Ellie said. “Go back there and ask the tellers. One of them might remember a deposit-if it was twenty or thirty hundred-dollar bills-and some thousands.

Go on. -Do it.”

His. Harris pouted, looked mighty sullen, and went away to do it. Ellie saw her walk down the line, talking to each teller in turn. All the tellers had something to say; Ellie couldn’t tell if it was yes or no.

His. Harris came back to the rail, and said, “Jennifer remembers those deposits. And there weren’t any hundreds or thousands. She remembers it was all small bills and it took a very long time to count out.

-What’s all this about, anyway?”

“A robbery and a homicide,” Ellie said. “I appreciate your help…. I’m sorry I had to push you.” She walked to the revolving door, waited while a small, fat lady in a black wool coat struggled through with two shopping bags, then went outside.

The morning was getting brighter, warmer-sunlight glancing off the mica chips in the pavement. Sparkling. A man with a canvas shoulder bag walked by, glanced at Ellie, at her legs, then looked into her eyes for a moment before he passed. Not a bad-looking man. In his late thirties

… short, a blunt, pleasant face. Brown eyes. -Wa r t an P Shea’s winter gray.

The cinnamon rolls had made Ellie hungry. There was a good hot-dog place on Seventy-second that Tommy loved…. That Tommy used to love.

Ellie stood on the corner for a minute or two, thinking, watching the people walk by. Then she walked back into the bank and stood at the rail again, until the black woman-Luanna-saw her and came over. Then Ellie asked for the closest branch of any other bank.

Ellie had two hot dogs and an orange drink for brunch at Seventy-second, thin walked back all the way up to Eighty-seventh Street-very uncomfortable in the brown shoes—because she didn’t want to go down into the subway, and she wasn’t able to get a cab until she’d walked too far to need one. At Eighty-seventh, she walked west to the Donegal. She went through the lobby to the elevator, rang for it, and when it came, took it up to the seventh floor.

‘ Who is it … ?” Susan Margolies’ voice came muffled through the door.

Ellie stood in front of the peep. “Officer Klein,” Ellie said, and after a few moments, heard the door locks begin to rattle.

“Good morning .

“Good morning.”

“You already had the grand tour, didn’t you? I showed you the apartment?”

“Yes, you did. It’s beautiful.”

Susan Margolies, tall, big-boned, walked as she had walked before, leading Ellie down the fine, high-ceilinged hallway, past the small lamps, the German print&—or Austrian. The tall woman was better-dressed this time, in a long, black, pleated skirt and a fine long-sleeved white silk blouse. She had pinned her iron-gray hair up, held it with two tortoise-shell combs.

“Just a minute,” Susan said, “-I think I have an appointment this morning. We may have to cut this short.

… She stopped at a door on the right, opened it, and walked into the small, perfect, blond-wood den. Ellie stood at the door.

The tall woman leaned over her desk, leafed through her appointment calendar. “No. O.K.-we’re all right.”

She stood up, motioned Ellie out through the door ahead of her, and followed her down the hall. She stepped up close behind, and Ellie heard her sniff once or twice.

“One perfume, today,” Susan said, so softly that Ellie supposed she was talking to herself.

There was something new in the living room, that grand and pleasant space, and Ellie saw that a harpsichord, slight, angular, and elegant, was standing in the far corner, under one of the wide, tall windows. The windows were open, and the soft waterfall sound of traffic from the West Side Highway drifted in with sunlight.

Ellie supposed the light was brightened by reflection off the Hudson.

-The apartment was as special as she’d remembered it.

“What do you think?” Susan Margolies said. The fine white blouse blanched her long pale face even paler, softened soft wrinkles. Her blue eyes assumed a more definite blue.

“It’s beautiful. They’re such pretty-looking instruments.”

“Pretty-sounding, too, if you know how to play them. -I know I’m a little long in the tooth for it, but I decided what-the-hell, and I got it, and I’m going to take lessons.”

Ellie didn’t know what to say to that.

“Would you like some coffee, or tea? I could make us some muffins …

?”

“No, thanks. I’ve had breakfast.”

Susan Margolies sat down in an armchair, and gestured Ellie to the couch. “Well-what is it now? You know, I just decided that it’s uncivilized for a person to live and die and not know how to play an instrument, at least a little. Most people today can do only one thing.

-And they usually can’t do that very well.”

“I think that’s right, Susan,” Ellie said.

“All right-I canceled my appointments, and here I am at your disposal.

His. Klein-right?”

“Right.”

“Well—what do you want to know?”

“Well, the first thing I’d like to know”-heart going bump, bump, bump-“I’d like to know why in the world you lied to me? If you hadn’t lied, it might have been weeks before we got back to you. -Maybe a couple of months.”

The tall woman seemed surprised. “Well, you’re going to have to explain that one. -I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“You told me that Sally only met Rebecca Platt a couple of times, had nothing to do with her. That was a lie-and it was the same lie Rebecca told me.

“I didn’t lie.

Then, and kids. -A blow-job or a peanut-butter sandwich, and they’re satisfied.” -Heard that before, Susan?

Sally quoted that in a letter, quoted a ‘good friend’ of hers.”

“That doesn’t prove a thing.

, ‘I’ll bet Sally paid for two hundred lunches over the years. I don’t think it’ll be hard to find some restaurant people who remember them.

-Rebecca only likes a few places.”

“All right. -All right, Sherlock, you made your point.

O.K. I did fib about that.”

“Why?”

Because Rebecca asked me to. She didn’t think it would make the slightest difference, except she didn’t want to be involved. -And considering her background, I didn’t blame her. -Now, if that’s caused a big stir down at Headquarters, I’m sorry.” She reached behind her to shift a pillow on the couch. “All right … I suppose I am sorry. It was a stupid thing to do-and if it’s made your job tougher, I’m sorry.

O.K.? Now, is there any other crisis we have to deal with this morning?-I assume, by the way, from all the fuss, that you people are not getting very far with this case. . . .”

It was moments like this one, Ellie supposed, that spoiled police officers, sometimes made ugly bullies out of them. -To be able to step into people’s lives, and change them as if you were God.

“I’m sorry, Susan,” she said, “-but you’re in trouble.”

Susan Margolies put her head back, so slightly it was hardly noticeable.

“Oh-I see,” she said. “I’m in troubleand I’m supposed to tremble. Just what sort of trouble am I in, Officer?”

“Susan-I’m going to have to ask you some questions.

You are not under arrest right now, and you don’t have to answer them if you don’t want to … but if you don’t, I’ll have to place you under arrest, read you your rights, and have you taken downtown. -I know it’s a pretty shitty choice.”

“Oh, well-since you’re being such a pussy cat about it, why the fuck don’t you just ask your fucking questions?” Sitting up straight, now.

“Where were you that Sunday morning, Susan? -The morning Sally was killed.”

“I was right here. O.K.?”

“Was anyone else here? -Anybody who could testify to that?”

“No.-Next question.”

“Do you know if Sally kept any money in her apartment?”

“No, I don’t know if Sally kept any money in her apartment-but I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“In two days, week and a half ago, you deposited seventeen thousand dollars in the Citibank branch over here to help cover a check you wrote for a down payment on buying this place. That down payment was already overdue-“

“My, you’ve been a busy little bee!”

“Where did you get the money, Susan?”

“Out of my piggy bank. That was my money, honey!

Singles and five-dollar bills and some tens I saved for more than thirty-five years-whenever I had a couple of bucks left over from groceries and rent, if you don’t mind!”

“You made your deposits at Citibank in small bills, on Monday and Tuesday of that week. -But on that Monday, first thing in the morning, you went to the Bankers Trust branch on Broadway and changed eight thousand dollars–-hundreds and six thousands-into smaller bills.

On Tuesday morning, early, you went to Manufacturers Hanover, a few blocks downtown from Bankers Trust, and you changed nine thousand dollars-hundreds and thousands-for singles and fives. That teller remembered you very well, because you hurried her up and she lost her count and had to start over. People at these local branches remember large amounts. All those big bills. -You probably should have gone downtown.”

Susan Margolies sat still, back straight, staring just over Ellie’s right shoulder. She seemed wrapped in the bright, slow, liquid light of catastrophe. The air around her sang with it.

“Where did you get those big bills, Susan? Why did you change them?”

The tall woman relaxed a little, sat easier against the cushions. She put her hands together, and they each gripped their opposite. When they were bound together, fingers intertwined, she laid them down in her lap.

“Where are you keeping the rest of the money, Susan?

Here in the apartment? In a safe-deposit box?”

Hunting. That’s what this is, Ellie thought. Like Phil.

Shea, out on Long Island before daylight.

“I’m going to read you your rights, Susan. You’re under arrest.” Ellie was surprised to hear her voice shaking. She searched in her purse, found her badge case, got the Miranda card out, and read it. Her voice sounded better as she read.

When she finished, Ellie put the card away. “Now,” she said, “-you don’t have to say anything to me, Susan. But I’ll tell you what I think happened, and if you want to, you can tell me if I’m right.”

Silence, from a tower of silence. Susan Margolies sat on her couch, listening to distant traffic.

“I think you found out from Todd Birnbaum that Sally kept a very large amount of money in her apartment. -And Todd, assuming you already knew, mentioned where the money was kept. Then you did something very dumb—or maybe you needed her to give you the courage to do it; I don’t know. You told Rebecca.”

the apartment smelled faintly and finely of potpourri.

Ellie remembered she’d wanted to ask what mixture Susan used for it.

Now, she’d never know….

“Rebecca took over right away, didn’t she? The chance ?f a lifetime.

More than one hundred thousand dollars just sitting there-and Sally couldn’t call the cops. What could Sally say if that cash turned up missing? ‘I’m a whore, and I was hiding a hundred twenty-seven thousand dollars from the IRS, and I think some friends of mine stole it from me.

No, Sally couldn’t call the cops.”

Far below, at the edge of the Hudson, some impatient traveler caught in slow traffic was blowing his horn.

“And it was so easy! You were supposed to water her plants this summer.

-You still have a key to the apartment, don’t you, Susan? Sunday before last, Sally was going up to visit Sonia in Connecticut. So, I think you and Rebecca went in the back while the carpet cleaners were working over there. You took the elevator to her floor, unlocked the door, and went right in. -And everything would have been fine-but Sally’d gotten a late start. She was still in the apartment, maybe in the bathroom—so she didn’t hear you in there at all, until she came out and caught you in the kitchen, with the lid off that coffee maker.”

Susan had nothing to say. Her hands were no longer clenched together; they lay relaxed in the lap of her fine long black skirt, side by side.

The nails were rounded, e fect manicured, polished in clear. They looked as if out for something … come back and waled Either way, she must have told you both to get the hell out of there-and that would be when Rebecca came out of the kitchen with the knife.”

“I didn’t hurt her,” Susan said. “-I left.”

“You didn’t do what Rebecca told you? You didn’t get some hangers from the closet when Rebecca told you to go get them? You didn’t help hold Sally while Rebecca twisted those hangers around her wrists? -Just to keep her still, keep her quiet until she calmed down? Maybe she was angry enough to call the police, after all.

“I didn’t hurt her,” Susan said. “-I left.”

Ellie stood up, the brown shoes hurting her insteps “I need to use the phone,” she said. “—You’ll have’ to come with me, Susan.”

Susan got up off the couch as if she were fine, as if everything was all right, and led Ellie down the short hall to the kitchen. Then she went to stand near the sink-her reflections, smeared, obscure, moving slightly on the stainless cabinets at either side.