Cold Shoulder

by Lynda La Plante

  “What a fucking mess!”

  Lorraine lit another cigarette, sat at the desk propping her head on her hands. She steadied herself. She knew the wallet was of no great importance to the investigation. More to the point, and this she knew, too, was that her attacker had been in possession of it. It was obvious he had to have taken it from Hastings’s body. If the newspaper reports could be relied on, and Hastings’s body had been discovered in his own car, then it was surely the same vehicle driven by the man who had attacked her. So that meant that all the time she was in the shopping mall parking lot, the dead man had been in the trunk of the car.

  The officers who had come to the apartment had been trying to trace her, but had never returned. Were they still looking for her? She swore, wishing she had kept the newspaper, but she was certain there had been no mention that the police were looking for anyone seen in Hastings’s car that afternoon. She had given them a good enough description, they even repeated it in the paper, so they must be taking it seriously. There was nothing else she could do.

  “This is all I fucking need!” she said aloud, as she stubbed out her cigarette, immediately lighting another. Her neck felt tense, her whole body was strained. She began taking everything out of the drawer—leaflets, notes, letters—without knowing what she was looking for. There was no appointment diary, and nothing of any particular importance. She flipped through the sales ledgers, noting the prices Art had paid for his canvases. They were all low. According to the sale-or-return memos, most of the paintings she had presumed sold had been returned. She started to replace the papers, and then stared hard at the money and the photographs.

  “Shouldn’t open people’s private property.”

  Lorraine gasped. She hadn’t heard him return—thanks to that damned broken buzzer! Picking up the photographs, Art began to shuffle them, stacking them, clicking them against the desk as he straightened them to stuff back into the envelope. “I’ve been watching you sifting through my desk. What were you looking for?”

  Lorraine blushed. “I don’t know.”

  Art replaced the photographs, folding the envelope into a tight packet. “Well, Lorraine, did they turn you on?”

  “No, no they didn’t.”

  “Takes all kinds, dear.”

  “I suppose it does …”

  Art unzipped his bag and tucked the photographs inside. “I only came back because I felt bad about not giving you your money. Lucky I did. I’d forgotten Nula was delivering these.”

  Lorraine moved out from behind the desk, gesturing to the gallery. “This is all a front, isn’t it? A sham.”

  Art glanced around. “Not all sham, dear. Sometimes I sell some, but I’ve been ripped off so many times, I keep it up as a kind of pastime. Maybe one day when I’ve made enough dough I’ll be able to find some real talent. This stuff is from Venice Beach, I buy it for peanuts.”

  Lorraine shook her head. “The porn sells, does it?”

  Art looked at her, his eyes so enlarged by his glasses that they seemed like a gargoyle’s. “How else do you think I’ve been able to stay open? I have regular customers, you met most of them. In fact, if I recall, you called them.” He picked up the cash and peeled off a fifty-dollar bill. “Here, it’s a bonus.”

  Lorraine didn’t take it. “The pictures of Holly, the girl who was murdered …”

  “What?”

  “There are pictures of Holly.”

  Art shrugged. “Well, they won’t bother her, will they?”

  “Maybe the police would be interested, though.”

  He pursed his lips. “I don’t see why, she was obviously enjoying herself and nobody forced her. In fact, I didn’t even know the girl.”

  “Who takes the photographs?”

  He sighed, hands on his hips, then looked back at Lorraine. “None of your fucking business. Now, let’s just forget this, shall we?”

  She stared at him, forcing herself to keep her voice steady. “Why don’t you make it worth my while not to make it my business?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. You’ve got underage kids in those pictures—so pay me. And … like you said, it’s none of my business.”

  Art hesitated. He picked up the money, seemed to weigh it in his hand before he made the decision. He threw it at Lorraine. “You know what my big problem in life is? I trust people. I make friends with people, I give them a break, and they always fuck me over it. Take it, you scrawny, ungrateful bitch!”

  She picked up the money and stuffed it into her pocket. As she reached over for her cigarettes and lighter, Art gripped her wrist. “Just one thing, sweetheart. I want you to sign for that cash, just as a safeguard for me. Just in case you want to rap about me and—”

  Lorraine yanked her wrist away and rubbed it. He was strong and he had hurt her. “You’ll never see me again, I promise you that.”

  Art didn’t say another word. Lorraine signed for the money, walked to the door, opened it, and the buzzer shrilled. She turned, a half-smile on her face. “You should get this fixed, you know, Art.”

  As the door closed quietly behind her, he kicked at the desk. He was, and always would be, a shithead when it came to sniffing out people.

  Lorraine did some shopping. She was feeling pretty high and kept on touching the thick wad of notes in her pocket. She bought two dolls for her daughters, some cans of paint, brushes, and a small wardrobe. She bought some tights, underwear, a shirt, and, finally, a nightgown for Rosie. Laden with goods she caught a taxi home.

  Rosie’s jaw dropped as Lorraine staggered in. “Jesus Christ! What did you do? Win a lottery?”

  Lorraine laughed. “We sold four paintings and this is my bonus!”

  Rosie peered at the cans of paint. “Who’s gonna be using all this, then?”

  “You and me!”

  Rosie snorted, but by now she was busy unwrapping her gift. She took out the white cotton nightgown. “Oh, wow! This is pure cotton, and it’s new!”

  She saw two boxes. “What’s this, shoes?” She opened one, and looked at Lorraine. “Wow! I might act like a nine-and-a-half-year-old, but …”

  Lorraine took back the box, closing the lid. “They’re for my daughters.”

  “Oh, so you made contact?”

  Lorraine walked out without answering. She had left more bags piled outside on the steps and yelled for Rosie to lend a hand. Jake arrived, unannounced, and was immediately recruited to carry in the rest of the paint, trays, and rollers. He began to wish he hadn’t dropped by, since he was quickly cajoled into shifting furniture to clear the room ready for painting. He promised to return later in the evening to help out some more. Lorraine didn’t say goodbye—she was carefully putting the two doll boxes under a cushion in case they got damaged.

  She and Rosie had a snack and then, draped in old nightgowns Rosie was now prepared to throw out, set to work. After seeing the way Art, Didi, and Nula had transformed the gallery, Lorraine imagined it would be easy, but she had underestimated the threesome’s expertise. By the time Jake reappeared they had covered only one wall.

  He and Lorraine finished the main room and by the time they had pushed all the furniture back into place, it was after midnight. Jake promised he’d return in the morning so they could start on the kitchen and maybe get around to the bedroom.

  Lorraine showered and combed the flecks of paint out of her hair. It was good to feel so tired—it meant she didn’t have to think over what had happened during the day. She felt stiff from painting, and her back ached, but when she flopped onto the sofa she was too tired even to work out what she was going to do the following morning. She had a bus schedule, a street map of Santa Monica; she had even decided what she would wear. The two dolls were packed in a shopping bag: one was blond, the other dark-haired. She didn’t think about the future, about having to find a new job. Tomorrow, seeing her daughters, was all that mattered.

  6

  Rosie woke up with a start, and then flopped back onto her pillows
. Lorraine was in the bathroom. She squinted at the alarm clock: eight-thirty. She couldn’t go back to sleep, so she got up and went into the freshly painted main room. Lorraine’s bedding was neatly folded, and a pot of coffee was on the stove. Rosie toasted some muffins, then went out to see if the Sunday paper had arrived.

  Lorraine emerged, made up and in her new blouse and the safari suit. She also wore the high-heeled sling-backs and skin-tone tights. She no longer needed to raid Rosie’s makeup or jewelry box, since she had bought her own cosmetics and a pair of fake pearl earrings.

  Rosie gaped, and then sniffed. “My God, you look good and you smell terrific. Are you working today?”

  “Yeah, there’s a big art dealer coming, so I’ve got to open the gallery early. I’m sorry if I woke you.”

  “No problem. You want a muffin … coffee?”

  “No thanks, I’ve had breakfast. Gotta run.”

  Jake arrived about an hour later. Rosie was still reading the paper. “Morning. It’s baking out already. Where’s Lorraine?”

  “Gone to the gallery. You want some coffee and muffins?”

  “Wouldn’t say no.”

  Rosie bustled around getting him a cup and plate, then sat and ate another muffin, washing it down with more coffee. She divided up the paper and they sat opposite each other, reading.

  “They found another body,” said Jake. “Prostitute. They think she was killed the same way as the others couple months back, this time in Santa Monica.”

  Rosie slapped down the paper. She looked at Jake. “She lied. She hasn’t gone to that gallery, she’s gone to see her kids in Santa Monica. She’s so secretive … but I know she’s traced them ’cos I saw the address on a note by the telephone and I know she’s gone because she’s taken the dolls she bought. Now why does she have to lie?”

  “Maybe that’s just the way she is,” said Jake, folding his paper. “Why don’t we surprise her? Let’s get the kitchen started.”

  Rosie pulled a face. “I was hopin’ you’d forget all about it. I hate painting, it gives me a backache and my arms ache. Even Walter’s taken off—paint gets to cats, you know.” She glared at him. “This is Sunday morning, for chrissakes, a day of rest!”

  Jake began to clear the kitchen. It was so small it wouldn’t take long, and then maybe they could do the bedroom, really surprise Lorraine.

  Rooney was sweating. Ten o’clock and it was way up in the high eighties. It was going to be a roaster, usually was in July. He hated losing his Sunday: there was nothing he liked better than sitting in the yard with the papers. He had them all stuffed under his arm, regardless of the fact that perhaps his wife may have also liked to glance over them, but then Rooney rarely if ever gave a thought to his forever waiting and uncomplaining wife. He plodded flat-footedly along the corridors toward his office. He saw Bean up ahead with a balding man talking animatedly. The man was casually dressed and seemed to be rather stooped, taller than Bean and bent forward as if to listen to or catch every word. Bean looked over to Rooney.

  “Morning, Captain.”

  Rooney glowered and waited for Bean to join him. “That’s not him, is it?”

  “Yep, he’s been working from home, seems a nice guy, real low key.”

  Rooney snorted, and together they went into his office. Andrew Fellows was younger than Rooney had first thought and not in any way stooped. If anything he seemed very fit. Prematurely bald, his rather handsome face was marred by a pair of enormous ears that constantly caught the attention—they moved up and down when he talked. The more animated he became, as Rooney was to discover, the more the ears worked overtime—and Professor Fellows was an animated man. He used his hands like a conductor, and his tall, trim body in its pristine white T-shirt and tight jeans seemed incapable of staying still for a second. Rooney took him into the “Hammer Killings” incident room. Photographs of all the victims had been posted up on the walls, above the rows of computers. He looked up expectantly at Fellows, craning his neck to be able to look him in the eye. “So, you come up with anything for us?”

  Fellows nodded, his ears waved, and he opened a worn leather briefcase. “I’ve spent three days studying all the evidence to date, and I’ve tried to assimilate the most important aspects so we can cut through the dross. Much of the evidence you gave me was of no use, so I concentrated on this detailed description apparently given by an anonymous caller.…”

  He began to pace up and down. “The caller gave a concise and exceptionally clear picture of the assailant—apart from his actual size …” Rooney sighed, looked at Bean, and raised his eyes to the ceiling. Fellows flapped his hands. “… leading me to believe she had not met the man before. He was in the car when he picked her up, so she may have been a stranger to him. Let’s give him a name rather than have to keep calling him the assailant or killer. Why not, for want of something better, ‘the Teacher’ …” Fellows laughed. “Sorry, it’s just that the description fits an old college professor I had.” Rooney gave a faint grimace that was supposed to be a smile.

  Fellows moved to the row of victims’ faces. “Now, we’re led to believe that all these women and Norman Hastings were killed by the Teacher—and this woman, Helen Murphy”—Fellows pointed to the wrong picture, and Bean corrected him. “Ah, sorry, the body of Helen Murphy was found in the trunk of a car, so we are to presume the Teacher first attempted to kill her, failed, then tracked her down, or knew where she lived or the area she worked, whatever, and killed her, using the same method, claw hammer blows. Am I right so far?”

  Rooney sighed. “Yes, but frankly, you’re wasting time. What we need to know—what I need to know—is what sort of man is this bastard?”

  “That’s obvious. You’ve been given a remarkably clear description, but don’t get me off track. Something’s wrong, you see. When I went over the information regarding Helen Murphy, I was confused.”

  Rooney coughed. “What we got from that description, Professor, was that he’s probably got a good income, a good job, and—”

  “Yes, yes, but let me get around to that. What’s bothering me, as it doesn’t make any logical sense, is, if a woman is badly beaten—as witnessed by, er, that couple, Mr. and Mrs. Summers—and assuming that it was the same woman who subsequently gave you the killer’s description—going so far as to report the incident to the police, describing the hammer—would she go with him again? He had to pick her up again, correct? Now, she was found in a car that had been left unattended, a wrecked vehicle, abandoned for possibly two or three days, yes? Not like any of the other vehicles used. All of those were reported stolen shortly before the crime was committed. So that means our Teacher had to pick her up in another vehicle, kill her, and then dump the body. So Helen Murphy’s murder does not follow the same pattern as the others.”

  Rooney frowned. He’d given this a lot of thought himself and was about to say as much when Fellows continued, pointing at Bean.

  “Whoever took the call said the woman was precise, articulate, and spoke fast in an almost clipped tone. She refused to give any details about herself, and they were unable even to ask her name because she continued to talk so quickly, but they jotted down almost the entire conversation, and then she hung up. Right?”

  Bean nodded, feeling oddly guilty, as if he’d done something wrong, because Fellows was glaring at him, wafting his hand impatiently.

  “You took statements regarding the victim Helen Murphy, correct?”

  “Yes,” Bean said, “but I didn’t do them all, a few of the statements were taken by—”

  Fellows interrupted, his arms swinging like windmill sails. “Who was Helen Murphy? Previously Helena, Helena Dubjeck, an alcoholic, drug abuser, persistent brawler, and … I can’t recall all her previous charges. And she had false teeth. Also, according to the pathologist, a possible malformation of her upper lip, which you can even see on her photograph …” He paused. Rooney was rising slowly to his feet, when the windmill arms waved again. “One moment. Didn’t your anony
mous caller say that the assailant, our Mr. Teacher, was possibly around one hundred and eighty pounds? Odd, don’t you think? Not ‘fat’ or ‘thin, skinny, well-built’—but she gave you his possible weight? Doesn’t that strike you as an odd thing for this kind of woman, Helen Murphy, to say? And you make no allowance for the fact that she might have had a speech impediment, might even have had—and you must ask those who knew her—the trace of a foreign accent. She was not born in America, was she?”

  Fellows ran his hand over his head, then pulled at one of his ears. “Do you see what I’m getting at? I would say that whoever made that call describing her attacker was someone familiar with police procedure, familiar with shortcutting a description. Am I right? It was not made by Helen Murphy.”

  Rooney sat back, transfixed by the information Fellows spouted like bullets.

  Fellows faced the wall lined with photos. “These women were all prostitutes, but none of them had been penetrated at the time of death. No sexual intercourse took place. So why did he pick them up? What was he wanting them to do? I doubt he wanted intercourse—perhaps he wanted simulated sex, or to be jerked off. Or I would say he has a sexual problem, probably impotence. They get into his car or stolen vehicle, he drives them to some location. If they are bending over his groin, then it’s simple for him to strike the back of the head. Again, go back to Mr. and Mrs. Summers. The woman they saw was bleeding badly, but also bleeding from her mouth. Correct?”

  Rooney nodded. “She also said she’d bitten the man in the neck.”

  “But she also said she’d broken the skin, his skin, I presume, so the blood on her mouth could easily have been his blood, not her own. She was facing the Summerses, who saw no wounds to her face apart from the bloody mouth, but the back of her head was bleeding. Nevertheless, she was quite capable of calling a cab, giving an address. Now, would that woman, just a few days later, go with the same man again? And be caught the same way, yet again, with a hammer blow to the back of her head? Unless she knew him or was an accomplice to the other killings, I doubt it. If she was an accomplice and made that call, then she could be arrested. If only some stupid clerk had had the sense to trace the call, her identity might now be known.”