Long Time No See

by Ed McBain

  “Yes, he said Isabel had to be sick or something, otherwise she’d be there at work. So he asked me to call.”

  “And did you call?”

  “Yes.”

  “What time was that?”

  “About ten-thirty. She usually got to work by ten.”

  “Did anyone answer the phone?”

  “No.”

  He and Meyer would still have been downstairs at 10:30 waiting outside the building for the ME and the lab crew to arrive. There would have been no one in the apartment but Isabel Harris—dead.

  “Did you try again later?”

  “Yes, I called at eleven-thirty. A man answered the phone and said he was a police officer. That’s when we learned she’d been killed.”

  “Did the police officer identify himself?”

  “Yes, but I forget his name.”

  That would have been one of the laboratory technicians. Handkerchief tented over the telephone receiver. He’d answered the phone because it was ringing. A ringing phone at the scene of a murder could be the killer calling.

  “Did you tell Mr. Preston what happened?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was his reaction?”

  “Well, he…he was shocked, of course.”

  “What else?”

  “Just shocked.”

  “You sounded—”

  “No, no.”

  “As if there might have been something else.”

  “Well…He was very fond of her.”

  “Mr. Preston was?”

  “Yes.”

  “So there was more than just shock?”

  “He began crying.”

  “Crying? When you told him Isabel was dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what?”

  “He asked me to please leave him alone. So I went out of his office, and in a little while he asked me to call the apartment again, to make sure there wasn’t some mistake.”

  “Did you call again?”

  “Yes, I did. I got the same police officer. He asked me who was calling, same as he’d done the first time, and I told him this was Prestige Novelty where Isabel worked, and was he sure she was, you know, dead. He said, yes, she was dead. I thanked him, and then I went to tell Mr. Preston there was no mistake.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He just nodded, that was all.”

  “Miss D’Amato, when you say Mr. Preston was very fond of Isabel, are you suggesting there was more between them than an employer-employee relationship?”

  “I don’t know what was between them.”

  “But something?”

  “What Mr. Preston does is his own business.”

  “Miss D’Amato, do you have any reason to believe there was something going on between Isabel and Mr. Preston?”

  “I don’t know what was going on.”

  “But I get the feeling you think something was going on.”

  “Well, I told you, she was very flirtatious. If you didn’t know she was blind…Well, she wore these big sunglasses, you know, you couldn’t tell she was blind when she was just sitting there and working. And she had a big smile for everybody, especially men, and I guess if you were a man looking for something, you might think Isabel was, you know, being flirtatious and looking for something, too.”

  “Did Mr. Preston think she was looking for something?”

  “I don’t know what he thought.”

  “Did he joke with her the way Alex and Tommy did?”

  “No. He never joked with her.”

  “Then what gives you the idea he might have been interested in her?”

  “Look, he’s a married man, I don’t want to get him in trouble. Isabel’s dead, nothing’s going to harm her anymore. But he’s still alive, and he’s married.”

  “Was there some sort of relationship between them, Miss D’Amato?”

  “I saw them together once.”

  “Where?”

  “There’s a cocktail lounge up the street from the office. I went there after work one day last week, and the two of them were sitting in a booth at the back of the place.”

  “Did Mr. Preston see you?”

  “I don’t think so. I went over to the other side of the room…My friend was waiting in a booth on the other side.”

  “Was your friend someone who knew them, too?”

  “No.”

  “Did you mention to him—”

  “Her.”

  “Did you mention to her that your boss was sitting there with a girl from the office?”

  “Yes, I did. Because I was embarrassed, you know, and I was thinking maybe I should leave the place.”

  “But you didn’t leave.”

  “No, my friend and I stayed to have a drink. They were holding hands.”

  “Mr. Preston and Isabel?”

  “Yes. Look, I don’t want to get him in trouble.”

  “No, no, don’t worry about it,” Carella said. “These are just routine questions we’ve got to ask, no one’s about to arrest anybody for murder.”

  “Well, I hope not. There’s no crime against…you know.”

  “I know that.”

  “Against holding a girl’s hand.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Or even…you know.”

  “That’s right, Miss D’Amato, you’ve been very helpful, thank you for your time.”

  “I just don’t want to get anybody in trouble,” she said.

  “Good night, Miss D’Amato.”

  “Good night,” she said.

  South Edgeheath Road was in a section of Riverhead that was still relatively untouched by urban deterioration. The street itself was rather less rural than its name suggested, but it nonetheless gave the impression of somewhat more stately living than areas as close as two miles away. Apartment buildings lined both sides of the short street, but at the northern end there was a park with a public golf course and even in November there was a sense of wide-open green space and a sky uncluttered by sharp architectural angles.

  The street at 9:00 A.M. that Saturday morning seemed only half awake. Carella parked his car, and then walked toward the entrance doors of the redbrick building in which Frank Preston lived. In the lobby he passed a woman in a black coat carrying an empty cloth shopping bag in her right hand. She seemed already cold in anticipation of the weather outside, her face pinched in dire expectation. He searched out Preston’s name in the lobby directory, took the elevator up to the fifth floor, went down the corridor to apartment 55, and rang the doorbell.

  The woman who opened the door was in her mid-fifties, Carella guessed, brown hair cut in a stylish bob, brown eyes inquisitive behind eyeglasses too small for her face. The face itself gave an impression of angular sharpness, pointed chin and pointed nose, slender oval exaggerated by the narrow glasses and squinting eyes behind them. Carella had once worked with an English cop who told him that in England a person with a “squint” was a person who was cross-eyed. The woman standing in the doorway was not cross-eyed. She was peering out at him from behind narrow eye slits; she was squinting.

  “Let me see your badge, please,” she said.

  He showed her the badge and the ID card. She studied both carefully, and then nodded and said, “Yes, what is it?”

  “I’m Detective Carella, I called—”

  “Yes, I saw that on the card. What is it, Mr. Carella?”

  “I’d like to talk to Frank Preston, if he’s here.”

  “I thought you talked to him last night.”

  “Are you Mrs. Preston?”

  “I am.”

  “Mrs. Preston, there are some things I’d like to ask him in person. Is he home?”

  “He’s home. I’ll see if he can talk to you.”

  “Thank you.”

  She closed the door. He stood in the hallway for several moments. The building was silent. These old buildings with thick walls…The door was opening again.

  “Come in,” Mrs. Preston said.

/>   The apartment was shaped like an upside-down L. The door opened at the bottom of the long branch of the L, a corridor running its entire length, and then angling to the left at the far end. Carella followed Mrs. Preston down the corridor, passing a kitchen on his left, and then a living room, and then a bedroom on the right, where the short tail of the L began. At the end of this shorter corridor, there was a small room, its door open.

  Preston was sitting in an easy chair watching television. He was wearing a maroon bathrobe and brown house slippers. He seemed to be in his early sixties, a massive man with a large head and enormous hands. A thin fringe of white hair clung to his head, around his ears, and the back of his skull. He was bald above that. His eyebrows were white and shaggy over piercing blue eyes. His nose would have been large in any other face, but seemed perfectly proportioned for his. He might have made a good stage actor; most stage actors had large heads and prominent features. One of the early-morning news talk shows was on. Preston rose ponderously from the chair, went immediately to the television set, and turned it off.

  “You’re here early,” he said.

  “I didn’t want to miss you.”

  “Why didn’t you call first?”

  “I was in the neighborhood, I thought I’d just stop by.”

  “I thought we’d said everything there was to say last night on the phone.”

  “Few more things I wanted to ask you.”

  “Then go ahead and ask.”

  “I’d rather talk to you privately. Mrs. Preston, would you mind…”

  “I’ll leave you,” she said, and immediately turned and walked up the corridor.

  Carella closed the door behind him. Preston looked suddenly worried. He fished in the pocket of his robe, came up with a crumpled package of cigarettes, and offered one to Carella. Carella shook his head. Preston put a cigarette between his lips, fished again in the robe, found a matchbook. He struck a match, held the flaming end to his cigarette and then shook the match out and dropped it in an ashtray on the television set. There were two windows in the room. Through them Carella could see across the street and beyond to where the elevated train tracks ran above Barbara Avenue.

  “Mr. Preston,” Carella said. “I want to ask you about your relationship with Isabel Harris.”

  “My relationship?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What do you mean, my relationship? She worked for me.”

  “Mr. Preston, is it true that you began crying yesterday morning when you learned she was dead?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Is it true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it also true that you and she met for a drink on at least one occasion?”

  “Is there something wrong with that?”

  “I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it, Mr. Preston. I simply want to know if it’s true.”

  “Yes, it’s true.”

  “When was this?”

  “Last week.”

  “You met her for a drink, is that right?”

  “It wasn’t the way you make it sound.”

  “How was it?”

  “Something was bothering her. She wanted to talk about it. We went for a drink after work. Period.”

  “What was bothering her, Mr. Preston?”

  “Well, it was something personal.”

  “Yes, what was it?”

  “Well, really, I think that was her business, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Well, I think it was.”

  “What was bothering her, Mr. Preston?”

  “It doesn’t matter, that’s not the point. I was merely trying to explain that whatever you were suggesting—”

  “What was I suggesting?”

  “That Isabel and I were having an affair or something.”

  “I didn’t suggest you were having an affair, Mr. Preston.”

  “Well, all right. But if we were, I wouldn’t have taken her to a place just up the street from the office. There was nothing clandestine about our meeting. I had nothing to hide. An employee came to me with a problem, and I was trying to help her.”

  “Don’t you have a private office at Prestige Novelty?”

  “Yes. What’s that got to—”

  “Couldn’t you have talked to her there?”

  “This was something that couldn’t be handled in ten minutes.”

  “All right, tell me what happened that afternoon.”

  “She got there at about three, I was waiting for her in a booth at the back of the place. I saw her when she came in and went to meet her, and led her back to the booth.”

  “What did she say?”

  “At first she didn’t want to tell me what was bothering her.”

  “Yes, what was it?”

  “Jimmy. Her husband.”

  “What about him?”

  ‘Well, as I said before—”

  “Mr. Preston, both of them are dead, and if whatever was bothering Isabel had anything to do with—”

  “No, it didn’t.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, I just…I don’t think it did.”

  “How about letting me judge? What was it?”

  “Well…She thought he had another woman.”

  “Ah,” Carella said.

  “So naturally, it…it troubled her. She was a lovely person, it…troubled her to think her husband was being unfaithful.”

  “Why’d she think so?”

  “She just thought so.”

  “Intuition, huh?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “But no real reason. She just assumed he was playing around, is that right?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose so.”

  “No whispered telephone conversations, no shirts smelling of perfume…”

  “No, no.”

  “And that’s what was bothering her. That’s why she came to you, and that’s why you went for a drink together last week. To discuss the possibility that Jimmy Harris was playing around with another woman.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did she expect you to do about it, Mr. Preston?”

  “Oh, I don’t think she expected me to do anything.”

  “Then why did she come to you?”

  “To…just to talk.”

  “Nobody she could talk to at the office, I guess.”

  “I guess not.”

  “None of the other girls.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Just you.”

  “Well…”

  “Was this the first time she came to you with a problem?”

  “Yes.”

  “First time you ever had a drink together?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sure about that?” Carella said.

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Because, you see,” Carella said, “my information indicates otherwise.” He paused. He looked into Preston’s eyes. He had no information other than what Jennie D’Amato had given him: She had seen Preston and Isabel together once, last week. That’s all he had. Period. He was lying, and he was gambling, and the gamble paid off.

  “Well…Perhaps we had a drink together once or twice before,” Preston said.

  “Which was it, Mr. Preston? Once or twice?”

  “Twice.”

  “Now you’re sure about that, are you?”

  “Yes.”

  Carella raised his eyebrows. That was all he had to do.

  “Actually, I suppose it was several times,” Preston said.

  “How many times?”

  “Half a dozen times.”

  “Same little bar up the street?”

  “Well…no.”

  “Another bar?”

  “Yes.”

  “A lot of different bars?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anywhere besides a bar?”

  “Mr. Carella—”

  “Mr. Preston, a man and a woman have been murdered, and I’m trying t
o find out why. A few minutes ago you told me there was nothing between you and Isabel Harris except an employer-employee relationship. You took her out for a drink because she had a problem she wanted to discuss. Okay, fine. Now you tell me you met her away from the office on at least six occasions—”

  “That’s all it was.”

  “Six times, right, that’s what you said, half a dozen times. Did you go to bed with her, Mr. Preston?”

  “I don’t see what—”

  “Please answer the question. Did you go to bed with Isabel Harris?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you were having an affair with her.”

  “I didn’t think of it as an affair.”

  “How did you think of it, Mr. Preston?”

  “I loved her. I planned to marry her.”

  “Ah,” Carella said, and nodded. “Did your wife know this?”

  “No.”

  “Did Jimmy?”

  “No. That’s what we talked about last Wednesday. Telling them.”

  “Then all this stuff about Jimmy having a woman…”

  “I made that up,” Preston said.

  “It was a lie.”

  “If that’s what you want to call it.”

  “What would you call it, Mr. Preston?”

  “A lie, I suppose.”

  “So the reason you met last—when was it?”

  “Wednesday afternoon.”

  “Wednesday afternoon was to discuss how you and Isabel would tell your respective—”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did you decide? What scheme did you hit upon?”

  “It wasn’t a scheme, Mr. Carella, I don’t like the way you use the word scheme, we weren’t scheming or plotting, we were…”

  “Yes, what were you doing, Mr. Preston?”

  “We were two people in love planning divorce and remarriage.”

  “After having seen each other a total of half a dozen times?”

  “Well—”

  “Or was it more than that?”

  “Well…”

  “Was it?”

  “We’d been seeing each other for the past year.”

  “Ah.”

  “We loved each other.”

  “Yes, I understand that. Mr. Preston, where were you on Thursday night between six-thirty and seven-thirty P.M.?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because that’s when Jimmy Harris was killed.”

  “I didn’t kill him.”

  “Then tell me where you were.”

  “I was…”

  “Yes?”