by Ed McBain
“I’ll be happy to,” Moore said.
Carella opened the top drawer of his desk and took out several photocopies of the sheet Miscolo had typed from their handwritten notes. He handed one of the copies to Moore and another to Meyer.
“Kaplan’s her shrink,” Moore said. “She saw him at four o’clock every Monday, Thursday, and Friday.”
“Would you know his first name?”
“Maurice, I think.”
“Know where his office is?”
“Yes, on Jefferson. I picked her up there once.”
“Who’s this Herbie she had lunch with?”
“Herb Gotlieb, her agent.”
“Know where his office is?”
“Midtown someplace. Near the theater.”
“That’s when she was due at the theater,” Moore said. “The curtain goes up at eight each night, two o’clock for the matinees. Half hour is one-thirty for the matinees, seven-thirty for the evening performances. That means the company gets to the theater a half hour before curtain.”
“What’s this audition at two o’clock?” Carella asked. “Do they audition for other parts when they’re already working in a hit?”
“Oh, yes, all the time,” Moore said.
“We’ve got her clocked for two calls a week to ‘Mother M,’” Meyer said. “Would that be her mother in San Francisco?”
“No,” Moore said. “That’s my mother. In Miami.”
“She called your mother twice a week?”
“Every week. Sally didn’t get along too well with her own mother. She left home at an early age, went to London to study ballet. Things were never the same afterward.”
“So your mother was…sort of a substitute, huh?”
“A surrogate, if you will.”
“Mother M. Does that stand for—?”
“Mother Moore, yes.”
“That’s what she called her, huh?”
“Yes. We used to joke about it. Made my mother sound like a nun or something.” He paused. “Has anyone contacted Mrs. Anderson? I’m sure she’d want to know. I guess.”
“Would you know her first name?” Carella asked.
“Yes, it’s Phyllis. Her number’s probably in Sally’s book. You did say Mr. Levine had sent you—”
“Yes, we have it here with some of her other stuff. The stuff the lab’s finished with.”
“What’s the lab looking for?” Moore asked.
“Who knows what they look for?” Carella said, and smiled. He knew damn well what they looked for. They looked for anything that might shed a little light on either the killer or the victim. The killer because he was still loose out there and the longer he stayed loose the harder it would be to get him. And the victim because very often the more you knew about what a person had been, the easier it became to learn why anyone would want that person to cease being.
“But surely,” Moore said, “nothing in Sally’s personal effects could possibly tell you anything about the lunatic who attacked her.”
Again, neither of the detectives mentioned that the same “lunatic” had attacked and killed a young cocaine dealer named Paco Lopez three nights before he’d killed Sally. Instead, both of them looked at the schedules in their hands. Taking his cue, Moore also looked at his schedule.
“Two performances every Wednesday and Saturday,” Moore said.
“Who’s Antoine?” Carella asked.
“Her hairdresser,” Moore said. “He’s on South Arundel, six blocks from her apartment.”
“There’s Herbie again,” Meyer said.
“Yes, she saw him often,” Moore said. “Well, an agent is very important to an actress’s career, you know.”
The listings for the remaining nine days between Wednesday, February 3 and Friday, February 12—the last full day before she was murdered—followed much the same pattern. Dance class on Monday through Friday at 10:00 in the morning. Kaplan at 4:00 P.M. three times a week. Calls to Moore’s mother in Miami twice a week. Meetings with her agent Herbie at least twice a week, and sometimes more often. The page for Sunday, February 7, listed only the word “Del” without a time before it, and then the words “8:00 P.M. Party. Lonnie’s.”
“She’s one of the black dancers in the show,” Moore said. “Lonnie Cooper. That’s the party Sally wanted me to go to last week.”
“And who’s Del?” Carella asked.
“Del?”
“Right there on the sheet,” Carella said. “Del. No time, no place. Just Del.”
“Del? Oh,” Moore said. “Of course.”
“Who is he? Or she?”
“Neither,” Moore said, and smiled. “That stands for delicatessen.”
“Delicatessen?” Meyer said.
“Cohen’s Deli,” Moore said. “On the Stem and North Rogers. Sally went up there every Sunday. To pick up bagels and lox, cream cheese, the works.”
“And she put that on her calendar, huh?”
“Well, yes, she put everything on her calendar.”
“Went up there every Sunday.”
“Yes.”
“What time?”
“It varied.”
“Uh-huh,” Carella said, and looked at the sheet again.
On Thursday, February 11, Sally had gone to her hairdresser again, and then later in the day to a meeting with a man named Samuel Lang at Twentieth Century-Fox. On the day before she was killed, she had taken her cat to the vet’s at 1:00 in the afternoon. The listed calendar appointments naturally spilled over into the weeks beyond her death; even in this city, no one ever expected a gun exploding out of the night. She had, for example, meticulously noted “Dance” for every February weekday at 10:00 A.M. and had similarly noted her appointments with Kaplan, her twice-weekly calls to Moore’s mother, and the times she was due at the theater. For Monday, February 15, she had noted that the cat had to be picked up at 3:00 P.M.
“Mr. Moore,” Carella said, “I hope you won’t mind if we ask some questions—”
“Anything,” Moore said.
“Of a more personal nature,” Carella said.
“Go ahead.”
“Well…would you know whether or not there was any other man in her life? Besides you. Someone who might have been jealous of the relationship she shared with you? Someone she might have known before she met you?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Or another woman?”
“No, of course not.”
“No one who might have resented—”
“No one.”
“How about her agent, Herb Gotlieb? How old a man is he?”
“Why?”
“I was just wondering,” Carella said.
“Wondering what?”
“Well, she did see him a lot—”
“He was her agent; of course she saw him a lot.”
“I’m not suggesting—”
“Yes, you are, as a matter of fact,” Moore said. “First you ask me whether there was another man—or even another woman, for God’s sake—in Sally’s life, and then you zero in on Herb Gotlieb, who has to be at least fifty-five years old! How can you possibly believe someone like Herb could have—”
“I don’t believe anything yet,” Carella said. “I’m simply exploring the possibilities.”
And one of the possibilities, it belatedly occurred to him, was that Mr. Timothy Moore himself was a possible suspect in at least the murder of Sally Anderson. Carella had learned a long time ago that some 30 percent of all reported homicides were generated by family situations, and 20 percent were eventually identified as stemming from lovers’ quarrels. By his own admission, Timothy Moore had been Sally Anderson’s lover, and never mind that he had voluntarily walked into the squadroom—two squadrooms, in fact, by the most recent count.
“As a matter of fact,” Moore said, “the only thing that interests Herb is money. Sally could have danced for him naked and he wouldn’t have noticed unless she was also tossing gold doubloons in the air.”
C
arella decided to run with it.
“But she wouldn’t have done that, right?” he said.
“Done what?”
“Danced naked for Herb Gotlieb. Or for anyone else.”
“Is that a question?”
“It’s a question.”
“The answer is no.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“I’m absolutely positive.”
“No other men or women in her life?”
“None.”
“She told you that?”
“She didn’t have to tell me. I knew.”
“How about you?”
“What about me?”
“Any other women in your life?”
“No.”
“Or men?”
“No.”
“Then this was pretty serious between you, is that right?”
“It was serious enough.”
“How serious is serious enough?”
“I don’t get this,” Moore said.
“What don’t you get?”
“I came up here to offer—”
“Yes, and we’re grateful for that.”
“You don’t seem too grateful,” Moore said. “What are you going to ask next? Where I was last night when Sally was getting killed?”
“I wasn’t going to ask that, Mr. Moore,” Carella said. “You already told us you were home studying.”
“Were you home?” Meyer asked.
“You weren’t going to ask, huh? I was home.”
“All night long?”
“Here we go,” Moore said, and rolled his eyes.
“You were her boyfriend,” Meyer said flatly.
“Which means I killed her, right?” Moore said.
“You seem to be asking the questions and giving the answers both,” Meyer said. “Were you home all night?”
“All night.”
“Anyone with you?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean, not exactly? Either someone is with you or you’re alone. Were you alone?”
“I was alone. But I called a friend of mine at least half a dozen times.”
“What about?”
“The study material. Questions back and forth.”
“Is he a med student, too? This friend you called?”
“Yes.”
“What’s his name?”
“Karl Loeb.”
“Where does he live?”
“In the Quarter.”
“Do you know his address?”
“No. But I’m sure he’s in the phone book.”
“What time did you call him?”
“Off and on, all night long.”
“Did you call him at midnight?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Did he call you at any time last night?”
“Several times.”
“When’s the last time you spoke to him?”
“Just before I went to sleep. I called Sally first, I tried her number—”
“Had you called her before that?”
“On and off, yes.”
“Last night, we’re talking about.”
“Yes, last night. I called her on and off.”
“Were you worried when you didn’t get her?”
“No.”
“How come? When’s the last time you tried her?”
“About three in the morning. Just before I called Karl for the last time.”
“And you got no answer?”
“No answer.”
“And you weren’t worried? Three in the morning, and she doesn’t answer the phone—”
“You’re talking about theater people,” Moore said. “Night people. Three o’clock is still early for them. Anyway, she knew I was studying. I figured she must’ve made other plans.”
“Did she tell you what plans?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“When did you call her again?”
“I didn’t. I heard about…when I woke up, I turned on the radio and I…I…heard…I heard…”
He suddenly buried his face in his hands and began weeping. The detectives watched him. Carella was thinking they’d been too harsh with him. Meyer was thinking the same thing. But why’d he come up here? Carella wondered. Meyer wondered the same thing. And why had a medical student expressed ignorance of what sort of evidence might be turned up by an examination of Sally’s personal effects? Weren’t medical schools teaching prospective doctors about bloodstains anymore? Or traces of semen? Or fingernail scrapings? Or human hair? Or any of the other little physical leftovers that could later lead to positive identification? Moore kept weeping into his hands.
“Are you all right?” Carella asked.
Moore nodded. He fumbled in his back pocket for a handkerchief, tossing the tails of the trench coat aside. There was a stethoscope in the right-hand pocket of his jacket. He found the handkerchief, blew his nose, dried his eyes.
“I loved her,” he said.
The detectives said nothing.
“And she loved me,” he said.
Still they said nothing.
“I know what you’re trained to look for, I know all about it. But I had nothing to do with her murder. I came up here because I wanted to help, period. You might do better to go looking for the son of a bitch who did it, instead of—”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Moore,” Carella said.
“I’ll bet you are,” Moore said. He put the handkerchief back in his pocket. He looked up at the wall clock. He stood up and began buttoning the trench coat. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “You’ll find my number in Sally’s book, you can reach me at night there. During the day, I’m at Ramsey.”
“We appreciate your help,” Meyer said.
“Sure,” Moore said, and turned and walked out of the squadroom.
Both men looked at each other.
“What do you think?” Carella asked.
“The idea or the execution?”
“Well, I know I blew it, but the idea.”
“Good one.”
“I really was looking for a third party at first—”
“I know that. But the other way around, right?”
“Right. Some guy—”
“Or some lady—”
“Right, who was annoyed because Sally Anderson was seeing Moore—”
“Right.”
“And who decided to put the blocks to her.”
“A possibility,” Meyer said.
“But then Moore blew sky-high—”
“Right, I could see the wheels clicking inside your head, Steve.”
“Right, when I reversed field, right?”
“Right. You were thinking, ‘Hey, maybe Moore is the jealous party, maybe he’s the one who killed her.’ “
“Well, yeah. But I blew it.”
“Maybe not, maybe now he’ll run a bit scared. Two things we’ve got to find out, Steve—”
“Right. The exact times he was on the phone talking to this guy Loeb—”
“Right, the other med student.”
“Right. And where he was on Tuesday night, when Lopez was getting his.”
“You decided not to go with Lopez, huh?”
“I wanted to see if Moore would volunteer an alibi for Tuesday.”
“Listen, you know something?” Meyer said. “Who says the same gun means the same killer?”
“Huh?” Carella said.
“I use a gun to kill somebody on Tuesday night. I throw the gun away. Somebody picks it up, and it finds its way onto the street. You come along and buy the gun to use on Friday night. No connection at all between the two murders, do you get it?”
“I get it,” Carella said, “and you’re making life difficult.”
“Only because I can’t see any connection at all between Paco Lopez and Sally Anderson.”
“Monday’s a holiday, isn’t it?” Carella asked abruptly.
“Huh?”
“Monday.”
“What a
bout it?”
“It’s Washington’s Birthday, isn’t it?”
“No, that’s the twenty-second.”
“But we’re celebrating it on the fifteenth. We’re calling it ‘Presidents’ Day.’”
“What’s that got to do with Moore?”
“Nothing. I’m thinking about the cat.”
“What cat?”
“Sally’s cat. She was supposed to pick it up on Monday. Will the vet be open on Monday?”
“I guess if she put it in her book—”
“She listed a pickup for three o’clock.”
“Then I guess he’ll be open.”
“So who’ll pick up the cat?” Carella asked.
“Not me,” Meyer said at once.
“Maybe Sarah would like a cat,” Carella said.
“Sarah doesn’t like cats,” Meyer said. His wife did not like any animals. His wife thought animals were animals.
“Maybe the girl’s mother will take the cat,” Carella said, very seriously.
“The girl’s mother is in San Francisco,” Meyer said, and looked at him.
“So who’ll take the goddamn cat?” Carella said. He had once taken home a Seeing Eye dog he’d inherited on the job. Fanny, the Carella housekeeper, had not liked the dog. At all. The dog no longer resided at the big old house in Riverhead. Meyer was still looking at him.
“I just hate to think of that cat sitting there waiting,” Carella said, and the telephone rang. He snatched the receiver from the cradle.
“87th Squad, Carella,” he said.
“This is Allan Carter,” the voice on the other end said.
“Ah, Mr. Carter, good,” Carella said, “I’ve been trying to reach you. Thanks for returning my call.”
“Is this about Sally Anderson?” Carter asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“I know nothing whatever about her death.”
“We’d like to talk to you anyway, sir,” Carella said. “As her employer—”
“I’ve never heard it described that way before,” Carter said.
“Sir?”
“I’ve never heard a producer described as an employer,” Carter said, raising his voice as though Carella hadn’t quite heard him the first time around. “In any event, I was in Philadelphia last night. Her death came as a total surprise to me.”