To the point of desperation, I tried to get Robert Sparacino's home number from Directory Assistance and was secretly relieved to find it was unlisted. It would be suicidal for me to call him. Mark had lied to me. He told me he worked for Orndorff amp; Berger, told me he lived in Chicago and knew Diesner. None of it was true! I kept hoping the phone would ring, hoping Mark would call. I straightened up the house, did the laundry and ironing, put on a pot of tomato sauce, made meatballs, and went through the mail.
The phone didn't ring until five P.M.
"Yo, Doc? Marino here," the familiar voice greeted me. "Don't mean to be bothering you on the weekend, but been trying to find you for two damn days. Wanted to make sure you was all right."
Marino was playing guardian angel again.
"Got a videotape I want you to see," he said. "Thought if you was going to be in, I'd just drop it by your house. You got a VCR?"
He knew I did. He had "dropped by" videotapes before. "What sort of videotape?"
I asked.
"This drone I spent the entire morning with. Interviewing him about Beryl Madison."
He paused. I could tell he was pleased with himself.
The longer I knew Marino, the more he had begun subjecting me to show-and-tell. In part I attributed this phenomenon to his saving my life, a horrific event that had served to bond us into an unlikely pair.
"You on duty?" I asked.
"Hell, I'm always on duty," he grumbled.
"Seriously."
"Not officially, okay? Knocked off at four, but the wife's off in Jersey visiting her mother and I got more loose ends to tie up than a damn rug maker."
His wife was gone. His kids were grown. It was a gray, raw Saturday. Marino didn't want to go home to an empty house. I wasn't exactly feeling contented and cheery inside my empty house, either. I stared at the pot of sauce simmering on the stove.
"I'm not going anywhere," I said. "Drop by with your videotape and we'll watch it together. You like spaghetti?"
He hesitated. "Well…"
"With meatballs. And I'm getting ready to make the pasta now. You'll eat with me?"
"Yeah," he said. "I guess I can do that."
When Beryl Madison wanted a clean car, it was her habit to visit Masterwash on Southside.
Marino had found this out by hitting every high-class car wash in the city. There weren't that many, a dozen at most that offered to roll your driverless car automatically through an assembly line of "hula skirts" gyrating over sudsy paint as spray jets fired needle streams of water. Following a quick hot-air drying, the car was manned by a human being and driven to a bay where attendants vacuumed, waxed, buffed, dressed the bumpers, and all the rest of it. A Masterwash "Super Deluxe," Marino informed me, was fifteen dollars.
"I was lucky as hell," Marino said as he guided spaghetti onto his fork with a soup spoon. "How do you track down something like that, huh? The drones wipe off, what, seventy, a hundred rides a day? And you think they're gonna notice a black Honda? Hell, no."
He was the happy hunter. He had bagged the big one. I knew when I had given him the preliminary fiber report last week he would start hitting every car wash and body shop in the city. One thing about Marino, if there was one bush in the desert, he had to look behind it.
"Hit pay dirt yesterday," he went on. "Buzzed by Mas terwash. Was close to last on my list because of its location. Me, I figured Beryl would take her Honda to some West Endy joint. But she didn't, took it Southside, and the only reason I can figure for that is the place has a body and detail shop. Turns out she took her car in shortly after she bought it last December and had one of those hundred-buck jobs done to seal the undercoating and paint. Next thing, she's opened an account there, made herself a member so she could get two bucks knocked off each wash and the perk of the week thrown in free."
"That's how you found out about it?" I asked. "Because of this membership deal?"
"Oh, yeah," he said. "They don't have a computer. Had to look through all their damn receipts. But I found a copy of when she paid for her membership, and based on the condition of her car when we found it in her garage, I was guessing she had it washed not long before she ran off to Key West. Been rooting through her paperwork, too, looking at her charge-card bills. Only one listing for Mas-terwash, and that's the hundred-buck job I told you about. Apparently she paid cash when she had her ride cleaned after that."
"The car wash attendants," I said. "What do they wear?"
"Nothing orange that might fit with that oddball fiber you found. Most of 'em wear jeans, running shoes-all of 'em have on these blue shirts with 'Masterwash' embroidered in white on the pocket. I looked over everything while I was there. Nothing hit me. Only other fabric-type shit I saw was the barrels of white towels they use to wipe down the cars."
"Doesn't sound very promising," I remarked, pushing away my plate. At least Marino had an appetite. My stomach was still knotted from New York, and I was debating whether to tell him what had happened.
"Maybe not," he said. "But one guy I talked to made my antenna go up."
I waited.
"Name's Al Hunt, twenty-eight, white. Zeroed in on him right away. Saw him standing out there supervising the busy beavers. Something clicked. He looked out of place. Clean-cut, smart, like he ought have been wearing a three-piece suit and carrying a briefcase. I start asking myself, 'What's a guy like him doing in a dead end like this?' "He paused to sop his plate with garlic bread. "So I wander his way and start shooting the breeze. I ask him about Beryl, show him her picture from her driver's license. Ask if maybe he remembers seeing her there, and boom! He starts getting antsy."
I couldn't help but think I would start getting antsy, too, if Marino "wandered" my way. He probably ran over the poor man like a Mack truck.
"Then what?" I asked.
"Then we go inside, get coffee, and get down to serious business,' Marino replied. This Al Hunt's a first-class squirrel. To start with, the guy's been to graduate school. Gets a master's degree in psychology, then goes to work as a male nurse at Metropolitan for a couple years, if you can friggin' believe that. And when I ask him why he left the hospital for Masterwash, I find out his old man owns the damn place. Old man Hunt's got his fingers in pies all over the city. Masterwash is just one of his investments. He also owns a number of parking lots and is a slumlord for half of Northside. I'm supposed to automatically assume young Al's being groomed to move into his daddy's shoes, right?"
I was getting interested.
"Thing is, though, Al ain't wearing a suit even if he looks like he should be, right? Translated, Al's a loser. The old man don't trust him in pinstripes and sitting behind a desk. I mean, the guy's standing out there in the lot telling drones how to wax cars and dress the bumpers. Tells me right away something's off up here."
He pointed a greasy finger at his head.
"Maybe you should ask his father that," I said.
"Right. He's going to tell me his great white hope's a dumb ass."
"How do you plan to follow up?"
"Already did," he answered. "Witness the videotape I brought, Doc. Spent the entire morning with Al Hunt down at HQ. This guy will talk the wood off a door, and he's overly curious about what happened to Beryl, said he read about it in the papers-"
"How did he know who Beryl was?" I interrupted. "The papers and television stations didn't have any photographs of her. Did he recognize her name?"
"Said he didn't, had no idea it was the blond lady he'd seen at the car wash until I showed him the picture on her driver's license. Then he put on the big act of being shocked, real tore up about it. He was hanging on my every word, wanted to talk about her, was real intense for someone who supposedly didn't know her from Adam's house cat."
He placed his rumpled napkin on the table. "Best thing's for you to hear it yourself."
I put on a pot of coffee, gathered the dirty dishes, and we went into the living room and started the tape. The setting was familiar. I had seen it numer
ous times before. The police department's interrogation room was a small, paneled cubicle with nothing but a bare table in the middle of the carpeted floor. Near the door was a light switch, and only an expert or the initiated would notice the top screw was missing. On the other side of the tiny black hole was a video room equipped with a special wide-angle camera.
At a glance, Al Hunt didn't look frightening. He was fair, with receding light blond hair and a pasty complexion. He wouldn't have been unattractive were it not for a weak chin that caused his face to disappear into his neck. He was wearing a maroon leather jacket and jeans, his tapered fingers nervously fidgeting with a can of 7-Up as he watched Marino, who was sitting directly across from him.
"What was it about Beryl Madison, exactly?" Marino asked. "What made you notice her? You get a lot of cars in your car wash every day. Do you remember all your clients?"
"I remember more of them than you might think," Hunt replied. "Regular customers in particular. Maybe I don't remember their names, but I remember their faces because most people generally stand out in the lot while the attendants are wiping down their cars. Many of the customers supervise, if you know what I mean. They keep an eye on their cars, make sure nothing is forgotten. Some of them will pick up one of the cloths and help out, especially if they're in a hurry-if they're the kind of people who can't stand still, have to be doing something."
"Was Beryl that kind of person? Did she supervise?"
"No, sir. We have a couple of benches out there. It was her habit to sit outside on a bench. Sometimes she read the paper, a book. She really didn't pay any attention to the attendants and wasn't what I would call friendly. Maybe that's why I noticed her."
"What do you mean?" Marino asked.
"I mean she sent out these signals. I picked up on them."
"Signals?"
"People send out all kinds of signals," Hunt explained. "I'm attuned to them, pick them up. I can tell a lot about a person by the signals he or she sends out."
"Am I sending out signals, Al?"
"Yes, sir. Everybody sends them."
"What signals am I sending?"
Hunt's face was very serious as he answered, "Pale red."
"Huh?" Marino looked baffled.
"I pick up signals as colors. Maybe you think that's strange, but it's not unique. There are some of us who sense colors radiating from others. These are the signals I'm referring to. The signals I pick up from you are a pale red. Somewhat warm but also somewhat angry. Like a warning signal. It draws you in but suggests a danger of some sort-"
Marino stopped the tape and smiled snidely at me.
"Is the guy a squirrel or what?" he asked.
"Actually, I think he's rather astute," I said. "You are sort of warm, angry, and dangerous."
"Shit, Doc. The guy's goofy. To hear him talk, the whole friggin' population's a walking rainbow."
"There's some psychological validity to what he's saying," I replied matter-of-factly. "Various emotions are associated with colors. It's a legitimate basis for color schemes chosen for public places, hotel rooms, institutions. Blue, for example, is associated with depression. You won't find many psychiatric hospital rooms decorated in blue. Red is angry, violent, passionate. Black is morbid, ominous, and so on. As I recall, you told me Hunt has a master's degree in psychology."
Marino looked annoyed and restarted the tape.
"-I assume this may have to do with the role you're playing. You're a detective," Hunt was saying. "You need my cooperation at the moment, but you also don't trust me and could be dangerous to me if I have something to hide. That's the warning part of the pale red I sense. The warm part is your outgoing personality. You want people to feel close to you. Maybe you want to be close to people. You act tough, but you want people to like you…"
"All right," Marino interrupted." What about Beryl Madison? You pick up colors from her, too?"
"Oh, yes. That struck me right away about her. She was different, really different."
"How so?" Marino's chair creaked loudly as he leaned back and crossed his arms.
"Very aloof," Hunt replied. "I picked up arctic colors from her. Cool blue, pale yellow like weak sunlight, and white so cold it was hot like dry ice, as if she would burn you if you ever touched her. It's the white part that was different. I pick up the pastel shades from a lot of women. Feminine shades that fit with the colors they wear. Pink, yellow, light blues and greens. The ladies passive, cool, fragile. Sometimes I'll see a woman who sends out dark, strong colors like navy or burgundy or red. She's a stronger type. Usually aggressive, may be a lawyer or doctor or businesswoman, and often wears suits in the colors 1 just described. They're the type who stand out by their cars, their hands on their hips as they supervise everything the attendants are doing. And they don't hesitate to point out streaks on the windshield or any spots of dirt."
"Do you like that type of woman?" Marino asked.
He hesitated. "No, sir. To be honest."
Marino laughed, leaned forward and said to him, "Hey. Me, I don't like those types either. Like the pastel babes better."
I gave the real Marino one of my looks.
He ignored me as on-screen he said to Hunt, "Tell me some more about Beryl, about what you picked up."
Hunt frowned, thinking hard. "The pastel shades she sent out weren't all that unusual except I didn't interpret them as fragile, exactly. Not passive, either. The shades were cooler, arctic, as I've said, versus flower shades. As if she were telling the world to keep away from her, to give her a lot of space."
"Like maybe she was frigid?"
Hunt fidgeted with his 7-Up can again. "No, sir, I don't think I can say that. In fact, I don't think I was picking up that. Distance is what came to mind. A vast distance one would have to travel to get to her. But if you did, if she ever let you get close, she would burn you with her intensity. That's where the white-hot signals came in, the thing that made her stand out to me. She was intense, very intense. I had the feeling she was very intelligent, very complicated. Even when she was off sitting alone on her bench and not paying anybody any attention, her mind was working. She was picking up on everything around her. She was distant and white-hot like a star."
"Did you notice she was single?"
"She wasn't wearing a wedding ring," Hunt replied without pause. "I assumed she was single. I didn't notice anything about her car to tell me otherwise."
"I don't get it." Marino looked confused. "How could you tell from her car?"
"I think it was the second time she brought it in. I was watching one of the guys clean out the interior and there wasn't anything masculine inside. Her umbrella, for example-it was on the floor in back and was one of these slender blue umbrellas women usually carry, versus the black ones with big wooden handles men carry. Her dry cleaning was also in the back and it looked like women's clothing in the bags, no men's garments. Most married ladies pick up their husband's clothing when they pick up their own. Also, the trunk. No tools, jumper cables. Nothing masculine. It's interesting, but when you see cars all day long, you start to notice these details and make assumptions about the drivers without really thinking about it."
"Sounds like you did think about it in her case," Marino said. "Did it ever cross your mind to ask her out, Al? You sure you didn't know her name, didn't notice it on her dry cleaning slip, maybe on a piece of mail she left inside her car?"
Hunt shook his head. "I didn't know her name. Maybe I didn't want to know it."
"Why not?"
"I don't know…" He became uneasy, confused.
"Come on, Al. You can tell me. Hey, maybe I would have wanted to ask her out, you know? She's a good-looking lady, interesting. Hey, I would have thought about it, probably would have gotten her name on the sly, maybe even tried to ring her up."
"Well, I didn't." Hunt stared down at his hands. "I didn't try any of that."
"Why not?"
Silence.
Marino said, "Maybe because you had a woman lik
e her once and she burned you?"
Silence.
"Hey, it happens to all of us, Al."
"In college," Hunt replied almost inaudibly. "I went out with a girl. For two years. She ended up with some guy in med school. Women like that… they look for certain types. You know, when they start thinking about settling down."
"They look for the big shots."
Marino's voice was getting sharp around the edges. "The lawyers, doctors, bankers. They don't look for guys working in car washes."
Hunt's head jerked up. "I wasn't working in a car wash then."
"Don't matter, Al. The blue-chip babes like Beryl Madison ain't likely to give you the time of day, right? Bet Beryl didn't even know you were alive, right? Bet she wouldn't have recognized you if you'd run into her damn car on a street somewhere…"
"Don't say things like that-"
"True or false?"
Hunt stared at his clenched fists.
"So maybe you had a thing for Beryl, huh?"
Marino continued relentlessly. "Maybe you was thinking about this white-hot lady all the time, fantasizing, wondering what it would be like to get with her, date her, have sex with her. Maybe you just didn't have the guts to talk to her directly because you figured she'd consider you a low-life, beneath her-"
"Stop it! You're picking on me! Stop it! Stop it!" Hunt cried shrilly. "Leave me alone!"
Marino stared unemotionally across the table at him.
"Sound just like your old man, don't I, Al?"
Marino lit up a cigarette and waved it as he talked. "Old Man Hunt who thinks his only kid's a fuckin' fairy because you're not a mean-ass-son-of-a-bitch slumlord who don't give a shit about anybody's welfare or feelings."
Body of Evidence ks-2 Page 10