by Ed McBain
“Yeah, aspirations and goals, right.”
“Early interest in…”
“Right.”
“Training habits…”
“Okay, sure, that’s easy.”
“Any anecdotes about running…well, we’ll cover all that tonight. Where shall I pick you up? Or would you rather meet me?”
“Well, can you stop by the dorm?”
“I had in mind a midtown restaurant. It might be easier if you took a taxi.”
“Sure, whatever you say.”
“Get a receipt. Sports USA’ll pick up the tab.”
“Okay. Where?” she said.
“Marino’s on Ulster and South Haley. Eight o’clock sharp.”
“Corey McIntyre,” she said. “Sports USA. Wow.”
In the stillness of Nancy Annunziato’s bedroom, her mother and grandmother silently moving around the house outside the closed door, Carella and Hawes went through the dead girl’s belongings. There had been no need to call in the lab technicians; this room could not possibly have been the scene of the crime. And yet, they went through her personal effects as delicately as if they were preserving evidence for later admission at a trial. Neither of the men mentioned the Deaf Man. If the Deaf Man had been responsible for Nancy Annunziato’s death, if he had slain both her and Marcia Schaffer, then they were dealing with a wild card in a stacked deck. They preferred, for now, to believe that there was a reasonably human motive for the murders, that the crimes had not been concocted in the Deaf Man’s computerized brain.
Hawes was now reading the girl’s training diary.
Carella was looking through her appointment calendar.
Nancy had been killed on October 13. The medical examiner’s report on the postmortem interval—premised on body temperature, lividity, degree of decomposition, and rigor mortis—had estimated the time of death as approximately 11:00 p.m. The lab had come up negative for any fingerprints on the wallet found at the scene; the killer, though conveniently providing identification of the girl, had nonetheless wiped the wallet clean before dropping it at her feet. They now had only her personal record of events to help them reconstruct where she’d been and what she’d been doing on the day of her murder.
Her training diary revealed that on Thursday, October 13, Nancy Annunziato had awakened at 7:30 a.m. She had recorded her early morning pulse rate as fifty-eight. She had gone to bed the night before at 11:00 p.m. (A flip back through the pages revealed that this was her usual bedtime; yet on the night of her murder, she had been abroad in the city someplace at that hour.) Her body weight at awakening had been 120 pounds. She had recorded the place of her daily workout as “Outdoor track, CPC,” and had described the running surface as “Synthetic.” She had recorded the day’s temperature (at the time of her workout) as sixty-four degrees, and had described the day as fair, with low humidity and no wind. She had begun her workout at 3:30 p.m.
She had detailed the workout that day as “usual warm-up,” followed by four eighty-yard sprints from blocks, with walkbacks for recovery and a full-track walk after the last sprint; four 150-yard sprints around the turn from running starts, with walkbacks for recovery; and six sixty-yard sprints from blocks, again with walkbacks after each sprint. She had listed the total distance run as 1,280 yards, her weight before the workout as 121 pounds and after it as 119 pounds. Under the words “Fatigue Index,” she had scribbled the number “5,” which Hawes assumed was midway on a scale of one to ten. She had ended her workout at 4:15 p.m.
Her mother had already told them that she’d arrived home after practice that day at 6:00 p.m. Calm’s Point College was only fifteen minutes by subway from the Annunziato house. That left an hour and a half of unaccountable time. There was nothing in the dead girl’s appointment calendar that gave any clue as to how she had spent that hour and a half. Presumably, she had showered at school and changed back into street clothes. That narrowed the gap to an hour. Had she gone to the school library? Had she stopped to chat with friends? Or had she encountered the man who’d later killed her?
Her appointment calendar for Thursday, October 13, read:
“What’s this?” Carella asked. “A magazine?”
Hawes looked at the page.
“Yeah,” he said. “She’s got a stack of them there on the dresser.”
“Probably went on the stands that day,” Carella said.
“Reminder to pick it up, huh?”
“Maybe. See if she’s got the issue that came out last week, will you?”
Hawes walked to where a pile of some dozen magazines were scattered over the dresser top.
“Sports Illustrated,” he said. “Runners World. Yeah, here it is. Sports USA. The October seventeenth issue. Would that be it?”
“I guess so. They usually date them a week ahead, don’t they?”
“I think so.”
“Anything special in it?”
“Like what?”
“Who knows? Tips on how to run a mile in thirty-eight seconds.”
Hawes began leafing through the magazine.
“They really work hard, don’t they?” he said idly.
“Can you imagine doing that kind of exercise?” Carella said, shaking his head.
“Give me a heart attack,” Hawes said.
“Anything?” Carella asked.
“Mostly football.”
He was still leafing through the magazine.
“Nice looking lady here,” he said, and showed Carella a picture of a young woman in a wet tank suit. “Little broad in the beam, but nice.”
He started flipping backward through the magazine.
“Hey,” he said.
“What?”
He showed Carella the page he had turned to, and indicated the masthead.
“Why’d she circle that particular name?” Carella said.
“Maybe her mother knows,” Hawes said.
Mrs. Annunziato did not know.
“Corey McIntyre?” she said. “No, I don’t know the name.”
“Your daughter never mentioned him to you?”
“Mai. Never.”
“Or this magazine? Sports USA?”
“She gets this magazine all the time. The others too. Anything about sports or runners, she gets.”
“But none of the other copies of this magazine have this name circled,” Carella said. “It’s only in this issue. The October seventeenth issue.”
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Annunziato said.
She seemed pained not to be able to supply the detectives with the information they needed. She had still not told her husband that their daughter was dead. The funeral had taken place three days ago, but he did not yet know that she was dead. And now she could not help the detectives with what they wanted to know about this name that was circled in one of her daughter’s magazines.
“This man wouldn’t have called the house or anything, would he?” Carella asked.
“No, I don’t remember. No, not that name.”
“Mrs. Annunziato, you told us your daughter got home at six o’clock on the day she was killed.”
“Yes. Six o’clock.” She did not want to talk about the day her daughter had been killed. She had still not told her husband that she was dead.
“Can you tell us again what she was wearing?”
“School clothes. A skirt, a blouse. A jacket, I think.”
“But that’s not what she was wearing when she was found.”
“No?”
“She was wearing a green dress and green shoes.”
“Yes.”
“Because she changed after she got home, isn’t that what you told us?”
“Yes.”
“Into more dressy clothes.”
“Yes.”
“Because she was going out, you said.”
“Yes, she told me she was going out.”
“But she didn’t say where she was going.”
“She never told me,” Mrs. Annunziato said. “Young girls toda
y…” She shook her head.
“Didn’t mention where she was going or whether she was meeting someone.”
“No.”
“You told us she left the house around seven. A little after seven.”
“Yes.”
“Does she have a car?”
“No. A taxi came for her.”
“She called a taxi?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what taxi company she called?”
“No. It was a yellow taxicab that came.”
“But she didn’t tell you where she was going.”
“No.”
“Mrs. Annunziato, your daughter usually went to bed at eleven o’clock, didn’t she?”
“Yes. She had to be at school early.”
“Were you here at home on the night she was killed?”
“No, I was at the hospital. That was the day my husband had his heart attack. I was at the hospital with him. He was in Intensive Care. It was nine o’clock he had the accident. On his way home.”
“From work?”
“No, no, his club. He belongs to this club. It’s old friends of his, bricklayers like him. They have a club, they meet once a month.”
“Your husband is a bricklayer?” Hawes said.
“Yes. A bricklayer. A union bricklayer,” she said, as though wishing to give the job more stature.
“And he suffered his heart attack at nine o’clock that night.”
“That’s when the hospital called me. I went right over.”
“This was after your daughter had left the house.”
“Yes.”
“Then she didn’t know your husband was in the hospital.”
“No, how could she know?”
“You went directly to the hospital after they called you…”
“Yes.”
“What time did you get home again? From the hospital?”
“I was there all night.”
“You stayed there all night?”
“He was in Intensive Care,” she said again, in explanation.
“What time did you get home the next morning?”
“A little after nine.”
“Then you didn’t know your daughter hadn’t been home at all that night, is that right?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Was your mother home on the night your daughter was killed?”
“Yes.”
“Did she mention anything to you—when you got home the next morning—about your daughter being out all night?”
“She sometimes did that.”
“Your daughter? Stayed out all night sometimes?”
“Young girls today,” Mrs. Annunziato said, and shook her head. “When I was a girl…my father would have killed me,” she said. “But today…” She shook her head again.
“So it wasn’t unusual for your daughter to sometimes stay away from home for the entire night.”
“Not a lot. But sometimes. She says…She told us it was with a girlfriend, she would be staying at a girlfriend’s house. So who knows, a girlfriend or a boyfriend, who knows? It’s better not to ask. Today, it’s better not to ask, not to know. She was a good girl, it’s better not to know.”
“And you don’t know who this man Corey McIntyre might be? Your daughter never mentioned him to you.”
“Never.”
A call to Sports USA at their offices on the Avenue of the Americas in New York City advised Carella that there was indeed a man named Corey McIntyre who worked for them as a writer-reporter. But Mr. McIntyre lived in Los Angeles, and he was usually assigned to cover events in southern California, working as their special correspondent there. Carella told the man on the other end of the line that he was investigating a murder, and would appreciate having Mr. McIntyre’s address and phone number. The man told him to wait. He came back a few minutes later and said he guessed it would be all right, and then gave Carella what he wanted.
Los Angeles, Carella thought. Terrific. What do we do now? Let’s say McIntyre is our man. Let’s say he was here in the city on October sixth when somebody killed Marcia Schaffer, and again on October thirteenth when somebody, presumably the same person, killed Nancy Annunziato. Let’s say I call him and ask him where he was on those nights, and he hangs up, and runs for Mexico or wherever. Great. He leafed through his personal telephone directory, found a listing for the LAPD, dialed the number, and asked for the Detective Division. A man came on the line.
“Branigan,” he said.
“Detective Carella in Isola,” Carella said. “I’ve got a problem.”
“Let’s hear it,” Branigan said.
Carella told him about the murders. He told him about the name circled in Nancy Annunziato’s copy of Sports USA. He told him that the man lived in LA. He told him that he was afraid a phone call might spook him, if indeed he was the killer. Branigan listened.
“So what is it?” he said at last. “You want somebody to drop in on him, is that it?”
“I was thinking…”
“First of all,” Branigan said, “suppose we go there, okay, first of all? And suppose the guy says he was out bowling those nights, and we say ‘Thank you very much, sir, can you tell us who you were bowling with?’ and he gives us the names of three other guys, okay, that’s first of all. Then suppose we leave the house to go check on those three other guys who maybe don’t exist, so what does our man do meanwhile? If our man’s the killer, he runs to China. He does just what you’re afraid he’ll do, anyway, so what’s the use of wasting time out here? If he’s the killer, he ain’t about to tell us he was Back East there doing the number on those girls, is he? Especially when he’s probably smart enough to know we ain’t got jurisdiction to arrest him without specific charges pending on your end.”
“I thought if you really questioned him…”
“You got Miranda-Escobedo back there, or are you working in Russia? You’re saying we go to his house, right, this is in the second place. And he doesn’t have anything that looks good for where he was those two nights, or maybe he even tells us he was there on those nights, Back East there, which I don’t think he’d be stupid enough to do if he’s the killer and there are two cops standing on his doorstep. But let’s say he sounds maybe not like real meat but at least a hamburger medium rare and we say, ‘Sir, would you mind accompanying us downtown because there are a few more questions we’d like to ask you?’ So he puts on his hat, and we take him here and we sit him down and read him Miranda because this ain’t a field investigation anymore, Carella, this is now a situation where an investigation is focusing on a man, and he is technically in police custody, and we cannot ask him any questions until he knows his rights. So suppose he says he doesn’t want to answer any questions, which is his privilege? Then what? You expect us to charge him with two counts of Murder One on the say-so of a call from the East?”
“No, I certainly wouldn’t—”
“Of course not, because if you were on our end of the deal, and if we called you to go talk to some guy, you’d recognize what kind of trouble you were buying, wouldn’t you? The Supreme Court doesn’t like lengthy interrogations or incommunicado detention, Carella. If this guy clams up, what do we do then? Hold him here till you can hop a plane out? LAPD would get its ass in a sling so tight we wouldn’t be able to shit for a month.”
“I hear you,” Carella said.
“Look, Carella, I recognize your problem. You call this guy on the phone, you start asking him questions, he thinks right away ‘Uh-oh,’ and he reaches for his hat. But it seems to me you’ve got to take that chance. Anyway, how do you know it’s not somebody Back East just picked the man’s name out of the magazine and used it? This guy out here may be clean as a whistle.”
“I realize that.”
“Carella,” Branigan said, “it’s been nice talking to you, but I got headaches, too.”
There was a click on the line.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Carella thought, and looked up at the squ
adroom clock. Seven-thirty. It was still only 4:30 on the Coast. The night watch had relieved at a quarter to four here. Hawes was busy at his desk, typing up the report on what they’d learned at the Annunziato house. Both detectives had been working the day watch since a quarter to eight this morning. Carella was tired; there was nothing he wanted more than a drink and a hot shower. He looked again at the slip of paper on which he’d written Corey McIntyre’s address and phone number. Okay, here goes nothing, he thought, and dialed the 213 area code and then the number. A woman picked up after the fourth ring.
“Hello?” she said.
“Corey McIntyre, please,” Carella said.
“This is his wife,” the woman said. “May I know who’s calling?”
“Detective Carella of the 87th Squad,” he said. “In Isola.”
“Just a moment,” the woman said.
He could hear voices mumbling in the background. He heard a man say, quite distinctly, “Who?” Carella waited.
“Hello?” the voice on the other end said.
“Mr. McIntyre?”
“Yes?” Puzzlement in the voice. Or was it wariness?
“Corey McIntyre?”
“Yes?”
“Is this the Corey McIntyre who works for Sports USA?”
“Yes?”
“Mr. McIntyre, I’m sorry to bother you this way, but would the name Nancy Annunziato mean anything to you?”
Silence on the other end of the line.
“Mr. McIntyre?”
“I’m thinking,” he said. “Annunziato?”
“Yes. Nancy Annunziato.”
“No, I don’t know her. Who is she?”
“How about Marcia Schaffer?”
“I don’t know her, either. Sir, can you tell me…?”
“Mr. McIntyre, were you in the East on October the thirteenth? That was a Thursday night. Last Thursday night.”
“No, I was right here in LA last Thursday night.”
“Can you remember what you were doing?”
“What is this?” McIntyre said. “Diane, what were we doing last Thursday night?”
In the background, Carella heard the woman say, “What?”
“Last Thursday night,” McIntyre called to her. “This guy wants to know what we were…Listen,” he said into the phone again, “what’s this in reference to, would you mind telling me?”