Mischief

by Ed McBain

  “Artwork?”

  “Yeah. Lettering? Painting? Anything like that?”

  “No.”

  “He’s not a sign painter or anything, is he?”

  “He’s a lawyer,” Debra said.

  Until now, Parker thought he’d heard everything there everwas to hear about lawyers. But a lawyer who sprayed paint on walls?

  “Did he ever go out alone at night when hewasn’t going to a movie?” Parker asked.

  “We had separate interests. He sometimes went out alone, yes.”

  “Like what? What separate interests?”

  “He liked basketball, I didn’t. He liked poetry readings, I didn’t. Sometimes, he’d have dinner with a client. Naturally, I didn’t go along on those…”

  “Did he ever leave the house late at night to pursue these separate interests?” Parker asked.

  “Never.”

  “But he sometimes got home late, didn’t he?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Did you ever see him carrying a spray can when he left the house?”

  “A what?”

  “A spray can. That you spray paint with.”

  “No. Aspray can? What on earth would he be doing with…?”

  “Mrs. Wilkins, would it be all right if we looked around the apartment a little?”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Look at some of his things.”

  “Why?”

  “See if we can’t get a bead on why somebody would’ve wanted to kill him.”

  “I don’t see how…”

  “My partner means like his appointment calendar, his diary, anything that…”

  “He didn’t keep…”

  “No, I meant…”

  “…a diary.

  “…like hiscloset .”

  Debra looked him dead in the eye.

  “Officer,” she said at last, “are you aware thatPeter was the one who got killed here? Are you aware that my husband was thevictim ?”

  “Yes, ma’am, all I’m…”

  “Then why do you want to look at some ofhis things? Why don’t you go look at the goddamnkiller’s things? Why aren’t you out there in the street looking for the goddamnkiller ?”

  “Ma’am,” Parker said, unperturbed, “your husband is the second graffiti writer who got…”

  “My husband wasnot a graffiti writer,” she said. “He was alawyer .”

  “All I’m saying,” Parker said, “if there’s anything in his pockets or on his shelves or in his dresser or wherever that would give us some idea what took him over to that wall last night, then maybe we can find out whether somebody heknew was a graffiti writer, is all I’m saying. Ma’am, there’s got to be a connection here, two people found dead with paint sprayed all over them, I’m sure you can see that.”

  “My husband wasnot a graffiti writer,” she said.

  “Well,” Parker said and shrugged as if to say Look, you want us to find who killed your fuckin husband, or you don’t?

  She looked at him.

  She looked at Kling.

  “I’ll show you where he kept his things,” she said curtly, and led them into the bedroom.

  On the top shelf of his closet, they found twenty-two cans of spray paint in various colors of the rainbow.

  BEFORE THERE WASDetective Stephen Louis Carella in her life, there washer life.

  Theodora Franklin.

  Teddy Franklin.

  Four fifths Irish with a fifth of Scotch thrown in, as her father was fond of telling her. Signed this to her with his hands, emphasized the joke with his wide expressive face, exaggerated the words on his lips so that she could read them while his fingers formed them, all of this because his one and only beloved daughter had been born deaf and dumb—or hearing-and speech-impaired as they said in this enlightened day and age, where a blind man was no longer blind but merely sight-impaired. Teddy felt that the word “impaired” was more heavily freighted than either “deaf”or “dumb,” more heavily burdened with derogatory meaning than even the simple designation “deaf mute”—but who was she to comment, being merely deafand mute since birth?

  But, truly, didn’t “impaired” meandefective , wasn’t that the dictionary definition of impaired? And didn’t “defective” meandamaged , orflawed , orimperfect ? And didn’tall of these implydeficient , or—worse yet—somehowbad . She did not want to think of herself as impaired. For too long a time, she had thought of herself in exactly that way.

  Before Carella, there’d been only one “hearing” man in her life. Well, a boy, actually. Back then, most hearing-impaired people went to schools for the so-called deaf, but she was fortunate—perhaps—in that her Riverhead neighborhood had a high school offering special classes for people like her. People with hearing problems. Speech problems. Four of them actually. The other kids in the class were what they called “retarded” back then. Mentally deficient. Until Salvatore Di Napoli asked her out, the only boys she’d ever dated were the ones with hearing problems, the ones in the special class.

  The faculty adviser of the cheerleading squad saw nothing wrong with putting Teddy on it, even though she had no voice. She was prettier than any of the other girls, with raven-black hair and expressive brown eyes and breasts that looked terrific in the white sweater with the letter on its front and legs that looked spectacular in the short pleated skirt, not inconsiderable assets for a cheerleader, so why not? It didn’t matter that she couldn’tyell out the cheers. She could certainly mouth them and dramatize them, and that was all that mattered. In a shouting crowd, no one is speechless. In a roaring crowd, it doesn’t matter if you can’t hear because nobody else can, either.

  She caught Salvatore Di Napoli’s eye at one of the football games.

  “Would you like to go to a movie or something?” he asked her.

  This was in the hallway on the Monday after the game.

  He had pale blue eyes and long slender fingers. He played the violin. Everyone called him Salvie. He confessed to her one night that he hated the name Salvatore and that when he was old enough—he was sixteen then, a year younger than she was—he would change it legally. He would pick a good WASP name that would make him feel more at home in America, even though he had been born here of parents who had also been born here.

  “I might call myself Steve,” he said.

  At the time, she didn’t think there was anything remarkable about what he’d said. The name he’d chosen. Steve. She didn’t even think it was a particularly WASPy name. She knew a lot of Irish Catholics named Steve, and she didn’t think they considered themselves WASPs.

  His voice faltered, his fingers fumbled, the first time he asked her to go to bed with him.

  “Do you…is it possible…could we…do you think…is there a chance we might…?”

  She kissed him and guided his long slender fingers to the buttons on her blouse.

  She went steady with him until her graduation a year later. He was in his junior year at the time. She was eighteen—what her father called “a young woman”—and Salvie was seventeen. While she was still debating whether or not she wanted to go to college, he transferred to a school specializing in music and drama, and the next time she saw him he was completely changed. He had new friends now, new pursuits, new encouraged ambitions. And although in high school he had professed his undying love for her, she now had the feeling he considered her a person from another life, adeaf person he had once known only casually.

  She learned much later that he had finally changed his name. Not to Steve. To Sam. Sam Knapp. For Di Napoli. Samuel Knapp. Who’d written a musical that was being performed in Chicago, and who was dating the blonde (andhearing) actress playing the lead role. Teddy remembered that once, long ago, when they were in high school together, he had taken her to seeLa Traviata .

  When she was twenty…

  Quite out of the blue…

  Steve Carella entered her life.

  On the fifth day of February that winter, a Sun
day, someone burglarized the offices where she worked, and on Monday morning the sixth, a detective named Stephen Louis Carella came around to ask questions.

  She thought it was…well,odd …him having the very first name Salvie Di Napoli would have chosen for himself, although he’d finally ended up with Sam Knapp, dating a cute little blonde and hearing actress in the Second City.

  Steve Carella.

  She had already decided by then that there were two separate worlds, the world of the hearing and the world of those who could not hear. Or speak. And she had pretty much decided that she didn’t want to have anything more to do with any man in thatother world, thehearing world, because Sam Knapp had in the long run made her feel hopelessly and helplesslydefective . She did not want to feeldefective ever again in her life. Ever.

  The second time he came to the office, he brought along a police interpreter. This was two days after the burglary. Tuesday, the seventh of February. The name of the firm for which she’d been working was Endicott Mail Order, Inc., she still remembered it after all these years. She used to address envelopes for them, a not unimportant job in that most of their business was conducted by mail—well, EndicottMail Order, would they have used carrier pigeons? He had already asked everyone in the office a lot of questions, and now he was back with an interpreter who knew how to sign, and she immediately figured he considered her a prime suspect.

  “I thought we could save some time if I brought along an interpreter,” he said, and she thought He doesn’t think I’m a suspect, thank God, he only thinks I’m adummy .

  But he didn’t think that, either.

  What he wanted to know was whether any of the people who made deliveries or pickups at the office might have had access to the key to the front door.

  “Because you see,” he said, and waited for the interpreter to translate, “there are no marks on the door or around the keyway. There doesn’t seem to have been any forced entry, you see. So I’ve got to think someone got in with a key.”

  Watching the interpreter’s flying fingers.

  There are lots of people making pickups and deliveries, Teddy signed.

  “What’d she say?” Carella asked.

  “Lots of pickups and deliveries,” the interpreter said.

  “Names,” Carella said, keeping it short, figuring it’d be easier that way. “Can she give me names?”

  The interpreter’s fingers flashed.

  She watched. Big brown eyes. Brownest eyes Carella had ever seen in his life.

  I know a few of them by name, she signed.But usually I know them by their companies .

  “She only knows the company names,” the interpreter said.

  She had been watching his lips.

  She shook her head.

  I know some of themessengers’names, too , she signed,but not all of them .

  The interpreter shrugged.

  “What’d she say?” Carella asked.

  “She said she knowssome of the messengers’ names.”

  “So why didn’t you translate it?”

  “I did,” he said, and shrugged again.

  “I want to heareverything she has to say.”

  “Sure,” the interpreter said. His look said Fuck you.

  “Ask her to write them down for me. All the company names, all the individual names.”

  Teddy began writing.

  “Does the key always hang in that same place?” Carella asked.

  She looked up. The interpreter translated.

  Yes, she signed.Because we keep the front door locked, and when anyone goes to the bathroom he has to take the door key with him, too. To get back in.

  The lock on the door was a spring bolt. The key to it hung on a rack behind Teddy’s desk, alongside a key to the men’s room and a key to the ladies’ room. An experienced burglar wouldn’t have had to steal a key to get into the place. He’d have loided the lock with a credit card. Actually, the burglar who’d done the job here had onlyborrowed the key and replaced it before he’d left the premises. Throw the police off the scent, he probably figured. Brilliant burglar making no attempt to conceal the absence of forced entry, but hangs the key back up before he leaves. A rocket scientist, this burglar. Carella was willing to bet a week’s salary that he was one of the kids who made deliveries or pickups here. Two weeks’ salary.

  He watched her as she completed the list.

  Short list.

  This one would be a piece of cake.

  “Ask her if that’s all of them,” he said to the interpreter.

  She had read his lips, she knew the question before it formed on the interpreter’s hands, answered it before he signed the first word.

  Yes, she signed.That’s all I can remember .

  “Ask her if she’d like to have dinner with me tomorrow night,” Carella said.

  “What?” the interpreter said.

  “Ask her.”

  The interpreter shrugged. His fingers moved. She watched his hands. She turned to look at Carella, surprised. Her own fingers moved. Briefly.

  “She wants to know why?” the interpreter said.

  “Tell her I think she’s beautiful.”

  He signed it to her. Teddy signed back.

  “She says she knows she’s beautiful.”

  “Tell her I’d like to get to know her better.”

  Tell him I’m busy tomorrow night.

  “She’s busy tomorrow night.”

  “Then how about lunch the next day?”

  I’m busy then, too.

  “She’s busy then, too.”

  “Then how about dinner that night? Friday night. How about dinner?”

  I’m busy for dinner Friday, too.

  “She’s busy all day Friday.”

  Carella put his face very close to hers.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “Watch my lips.” Slowly and distinctly, he said, “How about breakfast Saturday morning?”

  She watched his lips.

  He said it again.

  “Breakfast. Saturday morning. Okay?”

  He smiled.

  She shook her head.

  Carella turned to the interpreter.

  “Did she sayno ?” he asked.

  “That’s what she said, pal.”

  Carella looked at her.

  “No?” he said incredulously.

  She shook her head again.

  And then spelled the word out with her right hand, letter by letter, so there’d be no mistake.

  N…

  O…

  No.

  He caught the burglar three days later. A kid who delivered lunch to the office from the local deli, got grandiose ideas about how much money the firm had to be making, concocted his brilliant caper, stole the key, and sneaked in one night to score a big two hundred and twelve dollars that would net him at least three years on a Burg Two. Eighteen years old, he’d be out of jail when he was twenty-one. Maybe.

  He came to the office again on that Friday, the eleventh day of February—she remembered all these dates accurately and precisely because they all led to the beginning. Coming out of Mr. Endicott’s office where he’d just reported the results of his investigation, he stopped at Teddy’s desk to repeat the story. She listened without an interpreter this time. Studied his mouth as he spoke, his lips.

  “Why won’t you go out with me?” he asked abruptly.

  She shrugged.

  “Tell me.”

  She shook her head.

  “Please,” he said.

  She touched her lips.

  She touched her ears.

  She shook her head again.

  “What’sthat got to do with anything?” he asked.

  She sighed heavily, spread her arms helplessly. Her face saidIt has everything to do with everything .

  He read this on her face and in her eyes, and he said, “No, Teddy, it doesn’t. It doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

  She nodded.

  Yes, her face said. Her eyes saidYes, it does.

/>   He kept looking at her.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “Haven’t you ever dated men who…well, who canhear ?”

  She nodded.

  “And speak?”

  She nodded again.

  “Youhave ?”

  She nodded again. Yes, I have.

  Once, she thought.

  “Well, good,” he said, “I was beginning to think…”

  She pointed at him.

  Shook her head.

  Wagged her fingerNo.

  “Why not?” he said.

  She shrugged.

  “I mean…whynot ?”

  She turned away.

  “Well…” he said.

  She did not turn to face him again. She was no longer listening. “See you around,” he said, which she didn’t hear or see. And left the office.

  She had not told him she was afraid of what might happen if she started seeing this handsome detective with the slanted brown Chinese eyes and the easy smile and the long rangy look of an athlete. Never again, she thought. I will never again fall in love with ahearing man, I will never again even allow myself theopportunity …never grant myself even thepossibility of it happening ever again.

  But on Valentine’s Day that year…

  A Monday.

  It was snowing that Monday. She took the bus home from work, and walked up the street to her building, the air swirling with snowflakes, the ground underfoot white and clean, the air sharp, a spot of red up ahead in the overwhelming white, she squinted through the flying flakes and saw someone sitting on the front stoop of her building, and recognized him as Detective Stephen Louis Carella.

  Steve.

  His face was windblown and his hair blowing in the wind was covered with snow, and the spot of color in his gloveless hand was a single red rose.

  “Change your mind,” he said, and extended the rose to her.

  She hesitated.

  The rose still in his hand, its petals moving in the wind.

  Extended to her.

  He raised the other hand.

  Slowly his fingers formed the single letterO .

  And then the letterK .

  OK?

  “Change your mind,” he said again.

  And raised his eyebrows plaintively, and she found herself nodding, perhaps because he had taken the trouble to learn how to sign those two letters,O andK , OK, Okay, change your mind, okay? Or perhaps because she saw in those Chinese eyes an honesty she had never seen on the face of any man she’d ever known. She knew in that instant that this man would never hurt her. This man could be trusted with her very life.