Authors: Sue Grafton
“But he was right there!” Emily was saying. “I swear to God he was.”
“What about your room? Maybe we should take another look,” I said.
Uneasily, the four of us edged into the room like cartoon characters, bumping into
each other, exchanging wary looks. There was still no body. David checked the closet
and Emily got down on her hands and knees to look under the bed.
She opened the bed table drawer. “Well, here’s my gun,” she said, reaching for it.
“Don’t pick it up!” I snapped at her. “Just leave the damn thing where it is.”
Startled, Emily withdrew her hand. “Sorry,” she murmured.
“Let’s just find Gerald.”
Hermione peeked in the clothes hamper. In the interests of thoroughness, I backtracked,
checking Althea’s room and the hall linen closet, noting with interest how tidy it
was. I can’t ever make my sheets lie flat and I usually have the towels all shoved
together in a bunch. Emily’s towels were color coded and her sheets were starched
and pressed flat. She even had a nice empty space left over for the set coming back
from the laundry. I wondered if she ironed men’s underwear for them. She seemed like
the type.
I was just returning to the bedroom when we heard Pat scream. It was a doozy, like
something out of a butcher-knife movie only more prolonged. I was out of the apartment
like a shot. I spotted her standing in the courtyard, two doors away, face white,
mouth working helplessly. She pointed and I pushed past her into the empty apartment,
which apparently had belonged to Caroline. Pat followed on my heels.
There was a body sprawled on the floor in the living room. I hoped it was Gerald and
not someone else.
“It’s him,” Pat said. “Oh my God and he’s dead just like she said he was. I thought
I’d open the apartment to let it air before the people showed up to have a look. The
door was unlocked so I walked right in and there he was.” She burst into tears.
I couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten here. Was it possible that he was still alive
when Emily had seen him this morning? Could he have
crawled
all this way? That couldn’t be the case or he’d have left a trail of blood. Emily
had said when she found his body, he was already cold. I bent over the body briefly,
puzzled by what appeared to be a soft pile of white powder near the dead man’s right
hand. It looked like soap powder and the granules adhering to his right index finger
suggested that he’d tried to leave a message of some kind. A word had been spelled
out almost invisibly on the surface of the spilled soap.
“What is that?” David said, coming up behind me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It looks like M-A-F-I-A.”
“Jesus, a Mafia hit?” he said, anxiously.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” Pat murmured, blowing her nose. “What would they want with
him?”
I moved into the kitchenette. The detergent box itself was on the floor near the sink,
empty by the look of it. It was one of those one-load sizes, dispensed from machines
in commercial laundromats. I left it where it was, figuring the crime scene fellows
would want to dust it for prints.
By now, of course, Emily Culpepper had joined us, along with Hermione and a couple
I’d never seen before. The four of them clustered just outside the door and I saw
the woman lean over and whisper to Hermione.
“Is this the one for rent?”
Hermione nodded, putting a finger to her lips. I guess she hoped to discourage conversation
so she could hear what was going on inside.
The woman’s voice dropped. “The ad said there were built-ins. Do you know if the refrigerator
is frost-free?” Maybe she thought Hermione was agenting the place.
Hermione shook her head. “I just got here,” she whispered. “There’s a body in the
living room.”
“The former occupant?” the woman asked.
“Someone else,” Hermione said.
The woman nodded, as if this were not an unusual occurrence in the course of a housing
search. She conveyed the news to hubby and he lifted up on tiptoe, trying to get a
better view.
“Look,” David said, “I’m going back to Pat’s and call the police. Don’t touch a thing.”
We all stared at him. The place was empty except for Gerald and none of us wanted
to touch
him
.
Pat began to sob again quietly. Emily put a comforting arm around her and drew her
out into the courtyard, where she helped her sit down on the edge of the fountain.
The prospective tenants decided to have a little look around and I saw them disappear
into the apartment. I perched on the fountain rim on the other side of Pat, patting
at Emily ineffectually. Hermione paced up and down the courtyard, smoking a cigarette.
Emily leaned forward and caught my eye. “Well, at least now you know I’m not nuts,”
she said. “I did find him this morning. I just can’t understand how he ended up down
here.”
“You’re sure he was dead when you saw him,” I said, quizzing her on the point for
the second time.
“Well, I couldn’t swear to it.”
“What about this Mafia business? Do you have any reason to believe he was tied to
the Mob?” I couldn’t believe I was saying shit like this—the Mob—like Gerald had been
“fingered” for betraying some crime boss. Ludicrous. The whole business felt like
bad TV.
Pat clutched my arm, digging her nails in painfully. “I just remembered. Caroline
called two days ago and said she’d be dropping by. She wanted to pick up the refund
on her cleaning deposit because she didn’t leave a forwarding address.”
“Wow,” I said. “Uh, so what?”
“What if she came back?”
“Last night?” I said.
Pat nodded vigorously. “Maybe she overheard Emily threaten him. She could have waited
’til Emily drove off and then gone in there herself.”
“Did she know about the gun?”
“Everybody knew about that,” Pat said.
Emily seemed skeptical. “I did leave my front door unlocked, but it still doesn’t
make any sense. If
she
killed him, why move the body to her own apartment? Why not leave it in mine?”
“And why cut your telephone line?” I said. “The thing is, we really don’t know what
the scheme consisted of. Maybe you interrupted the killer.”
Emily spoke up. “Wait a minute. Suppose what he wrote are the first few letters of
the murderer’s
name
.”
I could see us all mouthing “Mafia,” trying to imagine what the name might be.
David came striding back across the courtyard. “The police are on their way,” he said.
“Uh, me too, gang,” Hermione interjected. “I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes. I have
to get back to the office.”
“But what am I supposed to do?” Emily said. “What if I’m grilled and carted off to
jail?”
“I’ll be back in an hour. Just keep your mouth shut. Tell them I’m your attorney and
I’ve told you not to say a word unless I’m present.”
“Can I do that?” Emily asked. “I mean, is that legitimate?”
“That’s what the Miranda decision was about, dear,” Hermione said with more patience
than I might have mustered at that point.
I gave her a quick word of thanks and watched her head off toward the street where
her car was parked.
There was something about this setup that nudged at me. It was one of those situations
I was sure had a simple explanation if I could only make the mental leap. I felt a
tug and looked down to find Althea standing next to me, slipping her hand into mine.
She was apparently attracted to me in the same way cats unerringly select the lap
of someone who’s ailurophobic. (That’s a fear of cats, folks.) I was flattered, I’ll
admit, but uncertain what I’d done to warrant such trust.
Pat became aware of her at just about the same time I did.
“Oh look, everybody. Here’s Althea,” Pat chirped, sounding like she’d just had a hit
of helium.
“We’ll go for a walk,” I said in a normal tone. I was afraid if I hung around, I’d
start talking like her.
Althea and I headed out to the alley and strolled up and down, passing the rear entrance
to the courtyard now and then. I could see that two uniformed policemen had arrived
and once I spotted the prospective tenants checking out the laundry room. The crime
scene investigators must have been delayed because for thirty minutes, everybody just
stood around. One officer took a report and the second secured the area with tape,
posting signs that said
CRIME SCENE—NO ADMITTANCE
. Althea, meanwhile, was entirely too quiet for my taste.
“Aren’t you curious about all this?” I asked, finally.
She shook her head solemnly. “Because we didn’t come here before, when I played.”
“What’d you do?”
“Just nothing.”
“That sounds boring,” I said. “Wonder why you did that.”
“Just because,” she said.
“That’s your story and you’re sticking to it, right?” I said in jest. I looked down
at that earnest little face, the fat cheeks, the glasses, the huge gray eyes. This
was no laughing matter to the child and I knew I shouldn’t make light.
“Gerald’s dead,” she remarked.
“Looks that way,” I said, wishing I knew what the hell was going on.
I thought about the man shot to death in her room, the empty apartment two doors away.
Emily must have stumbled onto the murder scene before the body could be moved. But
why kill him there? And why move him somewhere else? And why weren’t there any traces
of him in Althea’s bed? I thought about the detergent on the rug with the letters
spelling . . . What? It was all so perplexing. The answer seemed to tease, the solution
hovering just out of sight. I stood still for a moment, questions stirring at the
back of my brain.
“Let’s go see if we can use Pat’s phone,” I said to Althea. She trotted beside me
obediently. We walked back toward the courtyard, past the laundry room.
“Hang on,” I said. I popped my head in the door. Sure enough, there was a machine
on the wall, dispensing small detergent boxes like the one on Caroline’s floor. Well,
at least I was pretty sure where
that
came from.
We approached the fountain, where Pat and Emily still sat, waiting for a homicide
detective to arrive, along with the medical examiner, photographers, and assorted
crime scene specialists.
“Can I use your phone?” I said casually to Pat. She nodded.
What I was suddenly curious about was the telephone number I’d seen penciled on the
wall by both Emily’s phone and Pat’s. Why both places? Aside from their living in
the same building, what did those two have in common? I wondered if the answer to
this whole puzzle was hidden somewhere in that seven-digit code.
I went into Pat’s apartment, crossing to the phone. I checked the number and then
dialed. The line rang twice and then someone picked up. A singsong voice said, “At
the sound of the tone, General Telephone time will be twelve o’clock, exactly.” I
burst out laughing and Althea looked at me.
“What’s so funny?” she said.
“Skip it. I just made a fool of myself,” I said.
As I started toward the door, I caught sight of Pat’s photographs and experienced
one of those remarkable mental earthquakes that jolt all the pieces into place. Maybe
the right question here wasn’t
why
but
who
. “Althea, was Gerald a
golf
pro?”
She nodded.
“Hey, kiddo,” I said, “we just cracked this case.”
Althea looked more worried than thrilled.
By the time we reached the courtyard, Lieutenant Dolan had arrived and was consulting
with the uniformed police officers while David, Emily, and Pat looked on. He seemed
startled to see me, but not necessarily displeased. Dolan is assistant division commander
for Crimes Against Persons, handling the homicide detail for the STPD
.
He’s in his fifties, a baggy-faced man with a keen intellect. While he finds himself
annoyed with me much of the time, he knows I respect him and he knows I won’t tread
on his turf. Having spent two years as a cop myself, I know better than to withhold
information or tamper with evidence.
“How did you get involved in this?” he asked.
I gave him a condensed version of the entire sequence of events, starting with Emily’s
appearance in my office. When I finished, he shoved his hands down in his pockets
and rocked back on his heels. “I suppose you have the whole thing wrapped up,” he
said, facetiously.
“Actually, I do,” I said. “Want me to demonstrate?”
“It’s your show.”
I took Althea by the hand and returned to Emily’s apartment, the whole group trooping
after us into Althea’s room. I was beginning to feel a bit like Hercule Poirot, but
I had to talk my way through this one. I waited until everyone was assembled, including
the apartment hunters, who lurked at the rear, peering around surreptitiously. Maybe
she’d be arrested and they could have dibs on this place.
“Let’s go back to the beginning,” I said. “Emily was convinced that Gerald was killed
in Althea’s bed, but when I got here, the body was gone and there wasn’t any sign
that a murder had been committed.
“I went to Pat’s apartment to use the phone and that’s when Althea showed up with
her father. Emily had let David take her overnight and she was just being returned.
Or so they led us to believe. The truth is, David had brought her back earlier. He
found Gerald’s body and realized how bad things looked for Emily—”
“Wait a minute,” Dolan said. “What makes you so sure the body was here in the first
place? You only have Mrs. Culpepper’s word for it, right?”
“Well, yes, but it turns out to be true.”
“Where’s your proof?” Dolan asked. I could see that he was interested, but unconvinced.
My heart did a flip-flop, but I proceeded as if I were sure of myself. Secretly, I
thought, Shit, why didn’t I verify this first? I didn’t need to make a fool of myself
publicly.
I stripped the bed. As before, the sheets were clean as a whistle and the mattress
looked like it had never been touched, let alone used as target practice by someone
with a grudge. David flexed his fingers nervously. Emily reached down protectively
and pulled Althea close.