by Ed McBain
“Where is he?”
“He’ll be taken to Buena Vista Hospital in just a little while.”
“Where is he now?”
“In Hannon Square.”
“How was he killed?” she asked.
She had the mildest of Southern accents, and her voice was pitched so low that he had trouble hearing her. But she spoke directly and she said what was on her mind, and she was asking now for information he had deliberately withheld.
“He was stabbed,” Carella said.
She was silent for what seemed a long time. On the street outside, automobile tires squealed against asphalt, an engine roared, the tires squealed again as a corner was turned. The sound of the engine receded and was gone.
“Sit down, please,” she said, and gestured unfailingly toward the kitchen table. He pulled out a chair and sat. She came across the room; her hand found the top of the chair opposite him. She sat immediately.
“We can talk another time, if you like,” Carella said.
“Isn’t it better to talk now?”
“If you want to, it might be helpful, yes.”
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
“When did you see him last, Mrs. Harris?”
“This morning. We left the house together at ten o’clock.”
“Where were you going?”
“I have a job downtown. Jimmy was going to Hall Avenue. He usually works Hall, between the Circle and Montgomery.” She paused. “He’s a beggar,” she said.
“Where do you work, Mrs. Harris?”
“I work for a direct-mail company. I insert catalogues into envelopes.”
“What kind of catalogues?”
“Advertisements for what the company is selling. We send them out twice a month. There’s another girl who types up the mailing list, and I fill the envelopes. We sell souvenir items like ashtrays, salt and pepper shakers, coasters, swizzle sticks…things like that.”
“What’s the name of the company?”
“Prestige Novelty. On Dutchman’s Row. In the garment center.”
“And you and your husband both left the house together at ten this morning?”
“Yes. We try to avoid the subway rush hours. Jimmy’s got the dog, and so we—” She stopped abruptly. “Where’s Stanley?”
“He’s being taken care of, Mrs. Harris.”
“Is he all right?”
“I don’t know. He may have been drugged, he may have been…” Carella let the sentence trail.
“What were you about to say? Poisoned?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Stanley won’t accept food from strangers. Jimmy’s the one who feeds him. That’s how he was trained. He won’t even take food from me if I offer it. It has to be Jimmy who feeds him.”
“We’ll know in a little while,” Carella said. “A vet was on the way when I left. Mrs. Harris, was this the usual routine with you and your husband? Did you always leave the house together at ten A.M.?”
“Mondays to Fridays.”
“What time did you get back?”
“I generally get home at about three, three-thirty. Jimmy waits through the end of the day—people going home from work, he makes a lot of money between five and six o’clock. Then he waits another half hour, stops for a drink in a bar, just to make sure he’ll miss the rush hour. He takes the subway uptown around six-thirty, a quarter to seven. He’s usually home by…” She hesitated. She had suddenly realized that she was talking in the present tense about a man who was dead. The realization was painful. Watching her face, Carella saw tears beginning to run down her cheeks from the lower edges of the oversized glasses. He waited.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“If you’d rather…”
“No, no,” she said, and shook her head. “He…he was usually home by seven-thirty the latest,” she said, and rose abruptly and walked directly and unfalteringly to the countertop alongside the sink. Her hands found the box of Kleenex there, she pulled a tissue loose and blew her nose. “I usually had supper ready by seven-thirty. Or else we’d go out for a bite. Jimmy loved Chink’s, we’d go out for Chink’s a lot. With the dog, we could go anywhere we wanted to,” she said, and began weeping again.
“Is there just the one dog?”
“Yes.” The tissue was pressed to her mouth, she mumbled the single word into it. She pulled a second tissue from the box, blew her nose again. “Guide dogs are expensive,” she said. “I didn’t need one, only time I was without Jimmy was when I was at work, or coming back home from work. I’ve got the cane, I…I…” She began sobbing now, deep racking sobs that started in her chest and made it difficult for her to breathe.
He waited. She sobbed into the tissue. Behind her, through the kitchen window, he could see a light snow beginning to fall. He wondered if they were through at the scene. Snow would make it more difficult for the lab people. Silently, the snow fell. She could not have known it was snowing. She could neither see it nor hear it. She kept sobbing into the same rumpled tissue, and then at last she drew back her shoulders and raised her head, and said, “What else do you want to know?”
“Mrs. Harris, is there anyone you can think of who might have done something like this?”
“No.”
“Did your husband have any enemies?”
“No. He was blind,” she said, and again he followed her reasoning completely. Blind men did not have enemies. Blind men were objects of pity or sympathy, but never of hate.
“You haven’t received any threatening telephone calls or letters in recent—”
“No.”
“Mrs. Harris, this was a mixed marriage…”
“Mixed?”
“I mean…”
“Oh, you mean I’m white.”
“Yes. Were there any of your neighbors or…someone where you worked…anyone…who might have strongly resented the marriage?”
“No.”
“Tell me about your husband.”
“What do you want to know?”
“How old was he?”
“Thirty. He was just thirty in August.”
“Was he blind from birth?”
“No. He was wounded in the war.”
“When?”
“Ten years ago. It would have been ten years this December. December the fourteenth.”
“How long have you been married?”
“Five years.”
“What was your maiden name?”
“Isabel Cartwright.”
“Mrs. Harris…” he said, and hesitated. “Was your husband involved with another woman?”
“No.”
“Are you involved with another man?”
“No.”
“How did your relatives feel about the marriage?”
“My father loved Jimmy. He died two years ago. Jimmy was there at his bedside in Tennessee.”
“And your mother?”
“I never knew my mother. She died in childbirth.”
“Were you born blind?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“No.”
“How about your husband?”
“He has one sister. Chrissie. Christine. Are you writing this down?”
“Yes, I am. Does that bother you? I can stop if—”
“No, I don’t mind.”
“Are his parents alive?”
“His mother is. Sophie Harris. She still lives in Diamondback.”
“Do you get along well with her?”
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Harris, can you think of anything that’s happened in recent weeks, anything that might have caused anyone to bear a grudge or—”
“No.”
“However impossible it may seem?”
“I can’t think of anything.”
“All right, then,” he said, “thank you very much,” and closed his notebook.
Ordinarily, he’d have asked the wife of a murder victim to accompany hi
m to the morgue for identification purposes. He hesitated now, wondering what to do. Isabel Harris could no doubt explore her husband’s face with her hands and identify him as positively as could a sighted person. But identifying a corpse was a trying experience for anyone, and he could only imagine how emotionally unsettling it would be for someone who had to touch the body. He thought he might call Jimmy’s mother instead, ask her to meet him at the morgue in the morning. Sophie Harris in Diamondback. He’d written her name in his book, he’d give her a call later tonight. But then he wondered whether he wasn’t denying Isabel Harris a right that was exclusively hers—and denying it only because she was blind. He decided to play it straight. He had learned over the years that playing it straight was the best way—and maybe the only way.
“Mrs. Harris,” he said, “when a murder victim is married, it’s usually the husband or wife who identifies the body.” He hesitated. “I don’t know whether you want to do that or not.”
“I’ll do it, yes,” she said. “Did you mean now?”
“The morning will be fine.”
“What time?”
“I’ll pick you up at ten.”
“Ten o’clock, yes,” she said, and nodded.
He walked to the door, turned toward her again. Behind her, the snow was still falling silently.
“Mrs. Harris?” he said.
“Yes?”
“Will you be all right? Is there anything I can do?”
“I’ll be fine,” she said.
When the knock sounded on the door, she was already in bed.
She lifted the cover on her watch and felt for the raised Braille dots. The time was twenty minutes to 12:00. She thought immediately that it was the detective coming back; he had probably sensed that she was lying. He had heard something in her voice or seen something flicker on her face. She had lied to him deliberately, had given him a flat “no” answer to the question he’d asked. And now he was back, of course; now he would want to know why she had lied. It made no difference any more. Jimmy was dead, she might just as well have told him the truth from the beginning. She would tell him now.
She was wearing a long flannel nightgown, she always wore a gown in the winter months, slept naked the minute it got to be spring; Jimmy said he liked to find her boobs without going through a yard of dry goods. She got out of bed now, her feet touching the cold wooden floor. They turned off the heat at 11:00, and by midnight it was fiercely cold in the apartment. She put on a robe and walked toward the bedroom doorway, avoiding the chair on the right, her hand outstretched; she did not need her cane in the apartment. She went through the doorway into the parlor, the sill between the rooms squeaking, past the piano Jimmy loved to play, played by ear, said he was the Art Tatum of his time, fat chance. It was funny the way she’d cried. She had stopped loving him a year ago—but her tears had been genuine enough.
She was in the kitchen now. She stopped just inside the door. Whoever was out there was still knocking. The knocking stopped the moment she spoke.
“Who is it?” she said.
“Mrs. Harris?”
“Yes?”
“Police department,” the voice said.
“Detective Carella?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Who is it, then?”
“Sergeant Romney. Would you open the door, please? We think we’ve found your husband’s murderer.”
“Just a minute,” she said, and took off the night chain.
He came into the apartment and closed the door behind him. She heard the door whispering into the jamb, and then she heard the lock being turned, the tumblers falling. Movement. Floorboards creaking. He was standing just in front of her now.
“Where is it?”
She did not understand him.
“Where did he put it?”
“Put what? Who…who are you?”
“Tell me where it is,” he said, “and you won’t get hurt.”
“I don’t know what you…I don’t…”
She was about to scream. Trembling, she backed away from him and collided with the wall behind her. She heard the sound of metal scraping against metal, sensed the sudden motion he took toward her, and then felt the tip of something pointed and sharp in the hollow of her throat.
“Don’t even breathe,” he said. “Where is it?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Do you want me to kill you?”
“No, please, but I don’t know what—”
“Then where is it?” he said.
“Please, I—”
“Where?” he said, and slapped her suddenly and viciously, knocking the sunglasses from her face. “Where?” he said, and slapped her again. “Where?” he said. “Where?”
“You can’t explain to anyone about seasons,” Meyer said. “You take your average man who lives in Florida or California, he doesn’t know from seasons. He thinks the weather’s supposed to be the same—day in, day out.”
He did not look much like a sidewalk philosopher, though he was indeed on the sidewalk, walking briskly beside Carella, philosophizing as they approached the Harris apartment. Instead, he looked like what he was: a working cop. Tall, burly, with china-blue eyes in a face that appeared rounder than it was, perhaps because he was totally bald and had been that way since before his thirtieth birthday.
The baldness was a result of his monumental patience. He had been born the son of a Jewish tailor in a predominantly Gentile neighborhood. Old Max Meyer had a good sense of humor. He named his son Meyer. Meyer Meyer, it came out. Very comical. “Meyer Meyer, Jew on fire,” the neighborhood kids called him. Tried to prove the chant one day by tying him to a post and setting a fire at his sneakered feet. Meyer patiently prayed for rain. Meyer patiently prayed for someone to come piss on the flames. It rained at last, but not before he’d decided irrevocably that the world was full of comedians. Eventually, he learned to live with his name and the taunts, jibes, wisecracks, and tittering comments it more often than not provoked. Patience. But something had to give. His hair began falling out. By thirty his pate was as clean as a honeydew melon. And now there were other problems. Now there was a television cop with a baldpate. If one more guy in the department called him…
Patient, he thought. Patience.
The flurries had stopped by midnight. Now, at 10:00 on Friday morning, there was only a light dusting of snow on the pavements, and the sky overhead was clear and bright. Both men were hatless, both were wearing heavy overcoats. Their hands were in their pockets, the collars of their coats were raised. As Meyer spoke, his breath feathered from his mouth and was carried away over his right shoulder.
“Sarah and I were in Switzerland once,” he said, “this was late September a few years ago. People were getting ready for the winter. They were cutting down this tall grass, they were using scythes. And then they were spreading the grass to dry, so the cows would have that to eat in the winter. And they were stacking wood, and bringing the cows down from the mountains to put in the barns—it was a whole preparation scene going on there. They knew it would start snowing soon, they knew they had to be ready for winter. Seasons,” he said, and nodded. “Without seasons there’s a kind of sameness that’s unnatural. That’s what I think.”
“Well,” Carella said.
“What do you think, Steve?”
“I don’t know,” Carella said. He was thinking he was cold. He was thinking this was very goddamn cold for November. He was thinking back to the year before when the city became conditioned to expect only two different kinds of weather all winter long. You either woke up to a raging blizzard, or you woke up to clear skies with the temperature just above zero. That was the choice. He was not looking forward to the same choice this year. He was thinking he wouldn’t mind living in Florida or California. He was wondering if any of the cities down there in Florida could use an experienced cop. Track down a couple of redneck bank robbers, something like that. Sit in the shade of a palm tree, sip a long frosty drink. Th
e thought made him shiver.
The Harris building seemed more welcoming in broad daylight than it had the night before. There was grime on its facade, to be sure—this wouldn’t be the city without grime—but the red brick showed through nonetheless, and the building looked somehow cozy in the bright sunlight. That was something people forgot about this city. Even Carella usually thought of it as a place tinted in various shades of black and white. Soot-covered tenements reaching into gray sky above, black asphalt streets, gray sidewalks and curbs, a monochromatic metropolis, ominous in its gloom. But the absolute opposite was true.
There was color in the buildings—red brick beside yellow, brownstone beside wood painted orange or blue, swirled marble, orange cinder block, pink stucco. There was color in the billboard posters—overlapping and blending and clashing so that a wall of them advertising attractions varying from a rock concert to a massage parlor achieved the dimension of an abstract painting. There was color in the traffic and the traffic lights—reds, yellows, and greens flashing on rain-slick pavements reflecting the metallic glow of Detroit’s fancy, every color in the spectrum massed here in these crowded streets to create a moving mosaic. There was color in the debris—this city had more garbage than any other in the United States, and more often than not it went uncollected because of yet another garbage strike. It lay in plastic bags against the walls of apartment buildings, the greens, beiges, and pale yellows of modern technology enclosing the waste product of a city of eight million—or torn open by rats to spill in putrefying hues upon the sidewalks. There was color, too—God help the subway rider—in the graffiti that was spray-can-painted onto the sides of the shining new mass transit cars. Latin curlicues advertising this or that macho male, redundant, but then, so was spraying your name fourteen times on as many subway cars. And lastly, there was color in the people. No simple blacks or whites here. No. There were as many different complexions as there were citizens.
Both men were silent as they climbed the steps to the entrance lobby. One of them was thinking about seasons, and the other was thinking about colors. Both were thinking about the city. They climbed the steps to the third floor and knocked on the door to apartment 3C. Carella looked at his watch, and knocked again.