by Daydreams
Sally quoted that in a letter, quoted a ‘good friend’ of hers.”
“That doesn’t prove a thing.
, ‘I’ll bet Sally paid for two hundred lunches over the years. I don’t think it’ll be hard to find some restaurant people who remember them.
-Rebecca only likes a few places.”
“All right. -All right, Sherlock, you made your point.
O.K. I did fib about that.”
“Why?”
Because Rebecca asked me to. She didn’t think it would make the slightest difference, except she didn’t want to be involved. -And considering her background, I didn’t blame her. -Now, if that’s caused a big stir down at Headquarters, I’m sorry.” She reached behind her to shift a pillow on the couch. “All right … I suppose I am sorry. It was a stupid thing to do-and if it’s made your job tougher, I’m sorry.
O.K.? Now, is there any other crisis we have to deal with this morning?-I assume, by the way, from all the fuss, that you people are not getting very far with this case. . . .”
It was moments like this one, Ellie supposed, that spoiled police officers, sometimes made ugly bullies out of them. -To be able to step into people’s lives, and change them as if you were God.
“I’m sorry, Susan,” she said, “-but you’re in trouble.”
Susan Margolies put her head back, so slightly it was hardly noticeable.
“Oh-I see,” she said. “I’m in troubleand I’m supposed to tremble. Just what sort of trouble am I in, Officer?”
“Susan-I’m going to have to ask you some questions.
You are not under arrest right now, and you don’t have to answer them if you don’t want to … but if you don’t, I’ll have to place you under arrest, read you your rights, and have you taken downtown. -I know it’s a pretty shitty choice.”
“Oh, well-since you’re being such a pussy cat about it, why the fuck don’t you just ask your fucking questions?” Sitting up straight, now.
“Where were you that Sunday morning, Susan? -The morning Sally was killed.”
“I was right here. O.K.?”
“Was anyone else here? -Anybody who could testify to that?”
“No.-Next question.”
“Do you know if Sally kept any money in her apartment?”
“No, I don’t know if Sally kept any money in her apartment-but I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“In two days, week and a half ago, you deposited seventeen thousand dollars in the Citibank branch over here to help cover a check you wrote for a down payment on buying this place. That down payment was already overdue-“
“My, you’ve been a busy little bee!”
“Where did you get the money, Susan?”
“Out of my piggy bank. That was my money, honey!
Singles and five-dollar bills and some tens I saved for more than thirty-five years-whenever I had a couple of bucks left over from groceries and rent, if you don’t mind!”
“You made your deposits at Citibank in small bills, on Monday and Tuesday of that week. -But on that Monday, first thing in the morning, you went to the Bankers Trust branch on Broadway and changed eight thousand dollars–-hundreds and six thousands-into smaller bills.
On Tuesday morning, early, you went to Manufacturers Hanover, a few blocks downtown from Bankers Trust, and you changed nine thousand dollars-hundreds and thousands-for singles and fives. That teller remembered you very well, because you hurried her up and she lost her count and had to start over. People at these local branches remember large amounts. All those big bills. -You probably should have gone downtown.”
Susan Margolies sat still, back straight, staring just over Ellie’s right shoulder. She seemed wrapped in the bright, slow, liquid light of catastrophe. The air around her sang with it.
“Where did you get those big bills, Susan? Why did you change them?”
The tall woman relaxed a little, sat easier against the cushions. She put her hands together, and they each gripped their opposite. When they were bound together, fingers intertwined, she laid them down in her lap.
“Where are you keeping the rest of the money, Susan?
Here in the apartment? In a safe-deposit box?”
Hunting. That’s what this is, Ellie thought. Like Phil.
Shea, out on Long Island before daylight.
“I’m going to read you your rights, Susan. You’re under arrest.” Ellie was surprised to hear her voice shaking. She searched in her purse, found her badge case, got the Miranda card out, and read it. Her voice sounded better as she read.
When she finished, Ellie put the card away. “Now,” she said, “-you don’t have to say anything to me, Susan. But I’ll tell you what I think happened, and if you want to, you can tell me if I’m right.”
Silence, from a tower of silence. Susan Margolies sat on her couch, listening to distant traffic.
“I think you found out from Todd Birnbaum that Sally kept a very large amount of money in her apartment. -And Todd, assuming you already knew, mentioned where the money was kept. Then you did something very dumb—or maybe you needed her to give you the courage to do it; I don’t know. You told Rebecca.”
the apartment smelled faintly and finely of potpourri.
Ellie remembered she’d wanted to ask what mixture Susan used for it.
Now, she’d never know….
“Rebecca took over right away, didn’t she? The chance ?f a lifetime.
More than one hundred thousand dollars just sitting there-and Sally couldn’t call the cops. What could Sally say if that cash turned up missing? ‘I’m a whore, and I was hiding a hundred twenty-seven thousand dollars from the IRS, and I think some friends of mine stole it from me.
No, Sally couldn’t call the cops.”
Far below, at the edge of the Hudson, some impatient traveler caught in slow traffic was blowing his horn.
“And it was so easy! You were supposed to water her plants this summer.
-You still have a key to the apartment, don’t you, Susan? Sunday before last, Sally was going up to visit Sonia in Connecticut. So, I think you and Rebecca went in the back while the carpet cleaners were working over there. You took the elevator to her floor, unlocked the door, and went right in. -And everything would have been fine-but Sally’d gotten a late start. She was still in the apartment, maybe in the bathroom—so she didn’t hear you in there at all, until she came out and caught you in the kitchen, with the lid off that coffee maker.”
Susan had nothing to say. Her hands were no longer clenched together; they lay relaxed in the lap of her fine long black skirt, side by side.
The nails were rounded, e fect manicured, polished in clear. They looked as if out for something … come back and waled Either way, she must have told you both to get the hell out of there-and that would be when Rebecca came out of the kitchen with the knife.”
“I didn’t hurt her,” Susan said. “-I left.”
“You didn’t do what Rebecca told you? You didn’t get some hangers from the closet when Rebecca told you to go get them? You didn’t help hold Sally while Rebecca twisted those hangers around her wrists? -Just to keep her still, keep her quiet until she calmed down? Maybe she was angry enough to call the police, after all.
“I didn’t hurt her,” Susan said. “-I left.”
Ellie stood up, the brown shoes hurting her insteps “I need to use the phone,” she said. “—You’ll have’ to come with me, Susan.”
Susan got up off the couch as if she were fine, as if everything was all right, and led Ellie down the short hall to the kitchen. Then she went to stand near the sink-her reflections, smeared, obscure, moving slightly on the stainless cabinets at either side.
Ellie called Leahy’s number on the Squad, and the Lieutenant answered, caught just before lunch. “Lieutenant,” Ellie said, “-this is Klein.”
“Klein? -What is it, honey? You OK.?”
“I’m fine, Ed. I’m working.”
“What the hell you doin’ working?”
“We have the Gaither thing, Lieutenant. It’s broken.”
“What? -Are you kidding’ me?”
“No. I’m up at the suspect’s apartment. I have her under arrest.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Jesus .
“I need a car, and somebody to take her down and p they be onged on younger fingers.
It -Or, I suppose,” Ellie said, “she t ave gone in on you.
book her-and I need somebody else to go with me for the accomplice.”
“Who is this you got?”
“A lady named Margolies. Went over for the money.”
“You got a good chain, I hope.”
“More than good enough.”
“You sure about that?”
“She had motive, access, and opportunity, and she can’t explain seventeen thousand in very big bills. She’s hiding more.”
“O.K…. O.K. Murray’s on the street. We’ll call him over to you right away. Where is this place?”
“The Donegal, Eighty-seventh and Riverside. Apartment Seven D.”
“O.K. Well-you aren’t supposed to be workin’, but looks like you got one for the Squad.”
“Yes,” Ellie said, “-we got one for the Squad.” She hung up, and began to wait with silent Susan.
“Congratulations on this one,” Murray said, following Ellie and Susan Margolies down the hall to the living room. ‘-Are you all right? Nobody down there can believe Tommy’s gone….
“Tommy was the one,” Ellie said, ‘-who wanted to come back and check her. Susan, this is Detective Murray. He’ll be taking you downtown.
“Nice apartment,” Murray said when they walked into the living room.
“-Really nice.” John Murray was a slender black man in his fifties, with a short, artful “do,” and a mustache. Figured for a fag by most of his colleagues, but not despised on that account, he was regarded as a competent cop, patient and pleasant, if not much for rough stuff, no boon companion.
“I read Susan her rights,” Elbe said, as Susan Margolies went back to her couch, sat down, and looked away out one of the tall windows. “-And we packed a big purse for her, toothbrush and a paperback and some things.
She’s got change for phone calls.”
“All right,” Murray said. “-Susan and I’ll get along just fine.”
“I wouldn’t leave her alone.”
“No,” Murray said, “-I won’t do that. We’ll get along just fine.” He smiled at Susan Margolies, but she didn’t notice. She was staring out through her tall window, as if a new, giant, and wonderfully pinioned bird swung high over the Hudson. “-Lieutenant’s sending a woman officer up to come in with her, and somebody else from the Squad. -You want to wait for them? They’ll be here pretty quick.”
“No, I better not. Whoever the guy is, have him meet me at Bloomingdale’s, O.K.? Lexington Avenue entrance.
I’ll wait as long as I can.”
Susan sighed on her couch. She looked dreamy, as if the intrusion, the excitement and despair, had made her sleepy.
Ellie went to the couch and put her hand on Susan’s shoulder … felt the white blouse’s fine silk, a bone beneath. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Susan reached up and patted her hand. “-What in the world for?” It was the first thing Susan had said in some time.
Ellie got out of the cab at the corner of Fifty-ninth and Lexington. The driver, a pleasant young man from Pakistan, hadn’t known how to get to Bloomingdale’s, and they’d gone several blocks out of their way before he admitted it. He said he knew the West Side very well.
Ellie crossed the street, trying to step lightly in the brown shoes, and stood on the downtown side of the store’s entrance doors, waiting for whoever Leahy sent up. A lot of people were going in and out … a constant flow, almost all women. It was nearly noon, and more of these women, sleek, nervous, harried, up from their offices to shop over their lunch hour, now unfolded from their taxis, left small tips behind them, and strode past Ellie to strike the door handles hard, going in.
Ellie stood waiting for ten minutes-then couldn’t wait any longer. She went in, took the stairs up to the mezzanine, and found a security guard-a thin, blond young man in a maroon blazer-standing beside a counter of Lanc6me cosmetics with a small walkie-talkie in his left hand. He was talking to a young woman clerk wearing a purple sweater-and-skirt outfit and several large pieces of costume jewelry.
Ellie tapped him on the shoulder, and showed her ID when he turned.
“Is your chief in the store?”
“No, he isn’t. Mr. Watson is, though. -He’s exec under Mr.
Delacroce.”
“Fine,” Ellie said. “-Please call Mr. Watson, and ask him to meet me in the female employees’ locker room. -There is one, isn’t there?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the security guard said. “It’s on the fifth floor, now.
You can take the elevators up, then go left. -Anybody up there can tell you.”
“O.K. -And he’ll meet me up there?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the young man said, lifted his small radio and began to talk into it.
Mr. Watson, also wearing a maroon blazer, was tall, thin, and black, and wore luxuriant sideburns. He’d met Ellie in Lingerie just off the fifth-floor elevators, and taken her back through a fire door into long greenpainted corridors–complaining all the time about current disruptions and moves from floor to floor, the women’s locker room being only an example. Then he took a right-hand turn to an open sliding metal door. There were mirrors lining the wall of the white-painted room beyond it.
“What’s Commissioner’s Squad doin’ workin’ on a homicide?” he said, taking his time now examining Ellie’s ID. An ex-cop. Sergeant, probably.
“We were told to . . .” Three women walked past them and through the doorway, talking about somebody named Gary.
“And Platt’s your pigeon?”
“I think so.”
“Well-you got some backup comin’?”
“I have somebody coming. -But I don’t want Rebecca leaving the store before we get to her.”
“Well, I can station my people on the doors-report back to me. But they can’t stop her if she tries to leave-we got no powers of arrest on some criminal charge comin’ outside the store.”
“She could be holding stolen cash on these premises,” Ellie said.
Mr. Watson smiled. “O.K. That’s a little better, now. -Now, you talkin’ something’ ‘sides shit!” He took another look at Ellie. “Didn’t you lose a man off your Squad, yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Well … I’ll put my people on the doors. They all know her. -She tries to leave, they’ll hold her, suspicion of usin’ store premises for illicit storage.”
“I appreciate it.”
“O.K. -Let’s go see what old Rebecca been hidin’ in her locker. . .
.” He took a small notebook from his back pocket, flipped it open, and leafed to find a page. Facing pages were filled with lists and numbers.
-Lock combinations, Ellie supposed, and the names they went with.
A stack of Italian fashion magazines. A wide-mouth Lliermos—empty. A tan raincoat. -Ellie lifted that out of the locker to look into the pockets, smelled Rebecca’s perfume. . . . A scarf, polyester-small green-and-white checks; a pair of transparent plastic galoshes; a folded Bloomingdale’s shopping bag; a flowered makeup kit (Ellie opened that, then closed it and put it back); a small box of Tampax; a blue folding umbrella; a bar of Dove soap, unwrapped but not used, lying on a folded brown paper towel. And her purse.
Ellie went through the purse, then Rebecca’s wallet.
There, amid checks, a pen, her calculator, and small paper debris, were nineteen dollars-one ten and nine singles-a MasterCard, driver’s license, bank card. Chemical-and two old photographs of Rebecca, years ago, at the beach with the same man-a smiling young man with a sharp-jawed face and long dark hair, neatly combed back.
They were both in bathing suits-the young man slight, gangling, and pale-Rebecca, in a bikini, darker, small-breasted, round-bellied, rich-thighed. She and the young man had their arms around each other in both pictures, facing the camera smiling, squinting in the sunlight. -There was some change, a few tokens, and a book of stamps in Rebecca’s change purse.
Watson said something into his radio, waited awhile watching Ellie put things back into the wallet, the wallet into the purse, the purse into the locker-heard some response, and talked a little more.
Ellie closed the locker, and snapped the lock shut, “Perry saw Rebecca on four,” Watson said. “She did a big new display down there last week.
Always checking’ it out. She was down there about a half hour ago.”
“All right, I’ll go down, see if I can find her,” Ellie said. “-I’d appreciate it if you could have. somebody check the Lexington Avenue entrance. See if there’s a detective there waiting for me-send him up to four.”
“All right. My guess is,” Watson said, “she’s headin’ out for lunch.
I’ll make the rounds of my people, see they’re on the ball. -You be surprised the shit a man’ll say on the radio, an’ him nowhere near where he supposed to be.”
Watson left her back in Lingerie on five, and Ellie took the escalator down one floor with a companion group of women, all silent, staring out over a murmurous expanse of furniture, furnishings, whole rooms and separate suites entire, lamps, mirrors, and a thousand articles of decoration, the aisles sifting with shoppers as they descended. This section of the floor was Italianate, the pillars faced with what appeared creamy, swirled butterscotch marble, each surface fronting on mirrors that gave it back to passersby on every side. Lights-focused spots, unfocused floods-dazzled into the mirrors, gleamed on the cream and brown and yellow surfaces. Ellie got off the escalator and walked back, out of furniture.
Here, behind the escalators, lay another kingdom. Its pillars were deep blood red. Between and among these, low showcases lined the aisles.
Strewn beneath their glass, or draped over small stands, lay costume jewelry, combs, handbags, gloves, scarves, hats, belts, long, thick mufflers, and all and every sort of accessory for the clothes gathered in their sheepfold racks, soft, rich islands of cashmere, shearling, and wool. Autumnal colors.