“Black.”
“Are you sure? You haven’t tasted my coffee.”
She poured two cups and gave one to Powder.
The woman asked, “What were the names of the other two friends?”
Powder told her.
“They hardly know her either,” the woman said definitively. “I know Mrs. Weaver better than they do.”
Powder sipped his coffee. The woman sat down.
“I went into this lock store, you see, to get a lock. I’d been watching TV about making doors and windows secure and it sankm. But I didn’t know a lot about locks. So I asked the girl who came to help me, when Mrs. Weaver took me over. She is quite a strong personality and we got chatting. She said she didn’t get out much and I suggested that she come along with me and my friends sometime. We—and you have the other two on your list—the three of us go out to the movies or sometimes to a play, maybe once a month. A meal first, and then a drink or two after. It’s a laugh and we generally have a real good time.”
“Did Mrs. Weaver go out with you?”
“Only the once. And that must have been nearly a year ago. And she didn’t have much fun. It was all right until after the show, but to tell the truth, I think she disapproved of us flirting with the barman and some of the guys who were drinking where we went. After a night out and a drink or two my friends and I get a bit frisky. Nothing serious. Well, except for me. I’m the only single gal, and you never know. But the Weaver woman was distinctly uncomfortable and quiet. And I never heard from her again.”
Fleetwood opened the door to the gap allowed by the chain, squinted, and said, “I don’t believe this.”
“That’s not very polite. Sergeant,” Powder said. “Invite me in.”
Powder sat in the same chair as the night before. “Oh, it’s good to sit down,” he said.
“You were just passing by again, I suppose,” Fleetwood said. She was not relaxed or amused.
“Yeah.”
“What is it with you, Powder?”
“What do you mean, Sergeant?”
“Are you after my body?”
“Should I be?” Powder asked. “That good, huh?” He wagged a finger in her direction. “Whatever your own feelings may be, Sergeant, I think you should understand from the beginning that my relationships with people I work with have always been strictly business. Try not to be disappointed.”
“I’m tired,” Fleetwood said. “What do you want?”
“A can of beer would be nice.”
“I’m all out.”
“Do you get enough to eat?” Powder asked. “All I’ve had is a cup of coffee, but then I’m on a diet.”
“What?”
“What have you had to eat tonight?”
“I haven’t been home long. And I’m not very hungry.”
“Shall I make you an omelet? Do you have any eggs?” Powder got up and went to the kitchenette, in a corner of the room demarcated by a curtain rail, though there were no curtains.
Fleetwood rolled after him. “Damn it, get out of there. I’m not hungry. All I want is for you to tell me why you’re here and leave so I can have some peace and quiet after a long day.”
Powder took a can of beer from the refrigerator. “The young are so impatient,” he said reflectively. “Do you want one?”
“No.”
He took a second can of beer, opened it, and carried it back into the living section of the room. “Sure you don’t want an omelet? It’s no trouble.”
Fleetwood didn’t speak. But she had to take the beer as Powder lowered it toward her lap. She knew he would just drop it otherwise.
Powder sat and took a long drink. “The young are so impatient,” he said again. He nodded quietly. “One forgets.You know. Sergeant, I have a son who is not all that much younger than you.Twenty-two. I haven’t had him living with me for several years, but he moved in two days ago and I’d forgotten, simple as that, I’d forgotten what it was like to be young.”
He paused. Fleetwood said nothing.
But she sipped the beer.
“I’d like you to meet him sometime. I’d like your impression. Because I’m worried about him.” Powder drank. “How did you get on at the hospital?”
“Nothing substantive. It’s very hard to get through to someone who not only doesn’t want to talk to you, but finds it physically hard to speak.”
“She’ll probably be better tomorrow,” Powder said. Suddenly he sat up and pointed a finger at Fleetwood. “Hypothetical question for you. Pretend you are a woman with a bit about you, a touch of class. And suppose at the same time you’ve got some kind of trouble that you just can’t escape from. What, really, is it going to take to make you determined not just to die, but to die anonymously? What is it?”
Fleetwood said nothing.
Powder said, “The humiliation of finding yourself in a situation, even if you weren’t at fault for getting there?”
He paused for a moment, but not expecting an answer. “It’s just not a pattern you see. Usually they’re dying to leave notes, excuse the pun.”
Fleetwood began to cry.
A few minutes later she said, “Not that it’s exactly the same for me, but you don’t know the number of times I’ve looked at myself in this wheelcage and said, ‘That can’t be me there!’”
Powder nodded, slowly.
Fleetwood looked at him.
“You bastard,” she said. “You sent me to see her to try to get me to use my sob story to bring out hers.”
Powder failed to deny it.
“Except that it didn’t work. She didn’t talk to me.”
“Did you cry when you were with her?”
“Are you as coldhearted a bastard as you pretend?”
“Colder,” Powder said.
Chapter Eighteen
Powder was joined at breakfast by his son.
He looked at his watch as Ricky entered the kitchen. He held it to his ear. “Must be slow,” he said.
Ricky rubbed his cheeks, then slapped himself with both hands. “Got a long day today,” he said. He poured a bowl of Cheerios and drenched it with sugar and milk. He sat in front of his cereal and then didn’t eat it. “Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I talked to Mom last night.”
“How is she?”
“Fine.”
“Great?”
“Pretty great. Look, she says you talked to her yesterday too.”
“I called.”
“But you didn’t tell her I was living here now.”
“She didn’t ask.”
“Don’t you think that’s pretty childish? She doesn’t feel this competitive thing about me, so you not telling her means that you’re playing games with her.”
Powder looked at his son. “That’s all you talked about?”
“You can’t say it’s none of my business,” he said. “I can’t stand this being in the middle of something stupid. Don’t you think it’s about time you grew up?”
“You go first, kid. Show me how.”
Powder stopped at the travel bureau where Annie Weaver had bought her train ticket to Washington the day before she disappeared. He identified himself to the chubby white-haired man behind the counter and said that he was doing some routine background work on the disappearance of Mrs. William Weaver.
“We had one of yours in here a couple of days ago asking about that,” the man said, his blue eyes gleaming.
“Did you?” Powder asked noncommittally.
“Yeah, gorgeous little thing. Hey, you must know her.”
Powder looked puzzled.
“The girl that nearly got killed, day after Christmas. Shot on duty. I recognized her right away. I did And I’m real glad to see she’s back at work, even if it’s in that wheelchair. She asked me all about Mrs. Weaver, and did it real nice too.”
“I’ll have to compare notes with her,” Powder said.
“You want to ask too, huh?”
“Just one or two thi
ngs.”
The man smiled broadly. “Suspicious circumstances? That’s what it is, huh? You suspicious of this guy. Weaver? Funny guy, I always said.”
“How’s that?” Powder asked.
“Just . . . funny. No expression on his face. I always said to Sandra, you could kick that guy Weaver in the balls and you wouldn’t be able to tell it by his face.”
“Who is Sandra?”
“My girl that works here.” The man looked at his watch. “She oughta be here by now. Always late, Sandra.” He sighed heavily.
“Do you know Weaver well?”
“Naw, not really. Except you know the other commercial people in an area. By sight. At Christmas-decoration meetings. That sort of thing.”
“Have you met Weaver?”
“A few times. I been in his store. And he came here about a month ago.”
“What about?”
“He wanted information about campsites in state parks.”
“Could you help him?”
“I told him to buy a state map. They got that kind of thing on them.”
“And that’s the only time he was here?”
“Yeah,” the man said, “definitely.”
“So his wife bought the tickets for his trips?”
“That’s it; always by tram.”
“And always the day before he was to leave?”
“No. Usually the week before.”
“But this last time it was the day before?”
“That’s right. And she was mad as hell about it too.”
“About what?”
“Having to rush around for him because he decided to go away after all.”
“And she bought only one ticket?”
“Yeah.” The man was puzzled.
“All right,” Powder said, putting his notebook away. “Thanks.”
“That’s all?” the man asked.
“That’s all.”
“The lady did it a lot better. The one before. She thought of lots more stuff to ask. Good little woman, that. Wish she was working for me. I told her that, when she was here. I did.”
“What did she say?”
“Not to be surprised if she took me up on it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, no kidding. Turns out she just got assigned to a new branch, or whatever you call it.”
“Section.”
“Yeah, section. And the guy in charge is some kind of nut. She called him a troglodyte.”
“A what?”
Proudly the man said, “Troglodyte. It’s fancy talk for how the guy can’t cope with the way things are in the twentieth century. I looked it up.”
Although Powder arrived some ten minutes before the office was due to open, Agnes and Fleetwood were already there and two people were waiting outside the door.
“Morning,” Powder said cheerfully. “Carollee, get the information on the taxi fellow, will you?” he asked as he gave Agnes a slip of paper that asked her to get the annual income of Richard Henry Powder and details of any outstanding debts to banks or loan companies.
Powder was about to open the office when the telephone rang.
He was required in Homicide immediately. He went immediately.
Bull was waiting at the elevator door. Powder wished he’d walked up the stairs.
“What’s so urgent?” he asked.
“This. Forensic supplement on my burned body.”
“So?” Powder asked.
“They say the woman had had sex with at least three different men shortly before she died.”
“Or after,” Powder said.
“They say you asked them to check that. Why?”
Powder looked at the young man. “You seem suddenly more concerned about this case,” he said.
“Afraid I’ve screwed up,” Bull said. “Didn’t take it seriously and lost time. Made me think again about the bruises,” Bull said. “Consistent with rape.”
“Mmmmm,” Powder said. Bull understood that Powder agreed that he had dismissed the case too quickly.
“I’m getting an artist’s impression of what she might have looked like, for the papers and TV. Need to identify her, and wondered if you had any leads or ideas. Lieutenant.”
“Happy to help if I can,” Powder said.
“Thank you,” Bull said earnestly.
“But all I have is what I sent up before. Most likely from those is a young woman from out of town, traveling alone, by bus, who got to Indianapolis but didn’t get to the place she was supposed to. We’ve established there’s a cab driver who picked up a fare at the station at the right time and took the passenger to a nonspecific address. It was the cabby’s last day on the job and he didn’t ask for a reference when he left. His home phone is a rooming house he no longer lives at. Cabbies are entitled to leave their jobs and move. But it’s the only thing approaching a lead I happen to have.”
“I’ll look into it.”
Powder walked down the stairs and back to the office.
Which had only Agnes and Fleetwood in it.
To the assembled pair he announced,“I respect a cop who admits a mistake and who asks for help. Damn few of them around.”
Without waiting for the observation to start a philosophical discussion he said to Agnes, “Got something eke for you to do.”
“Shoot.”
“I want you to look through the IPD computers for women who have disappeared from bus stations, train stations, airports. Then the same for state police and, if you can get it, for nearby big cities. But start here, over the last five or six years.”
“Any other parameters?”
“Parameters? What is it, big-word day or something? What the hell is ‘parameters’ supposed to mean? Fleetwood?”
Fleetwood looked up.
“How you doing, CF?”
“OK.”
“In that case, I’ll leave you to it.” Powder left the office.
At County Hospital he found that Sheila Smith Aurora Jane Doe was spoken of more sympathetically than the last time he had come to see her.
He told her so as he sat down beside her bed.
“They’re all right here,” she said.
“You remember who I am?” Powder asked.
“Yes.”
“Sergeant Fleetwood asked me to send you her best wishes. She might have come herself, but she’s been having some trouble on the job.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” the woman said with some hint of feeling creeping into her otherwise colorless voice. She seemed to be able to speak without pain.
“Yes,” Powder said. “Fleetwood is quite a person.”
The woman nodded slowly.
“It’s about time we knew who you were,” Powder said. He looked at her matter-of-factly.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” the woman said slowly.
Powder waited.
“But I can’t tell you.”
“Is it because I am a policeman?” Powder asked.
“Only a bit.”
“At least we are not playing at not knowing who we are,” Powder said.
“No,” the woman said quietly.
“You are a moral responsibility for me,” Powder said.
“How is that? Like the Chinese thing about having to take care of someone you save? It’s all right. I’m a big girl. And you haven’t saved me.”
Powder looked interestedly at the woman. “I read a little about China once,” he said. He sighed. “I’m far too sensitive to be a policeman. But I feel that it does the force good to have some round pegs for their square holes.”
The woman was silent. Powder felt she was thinking about Fleetwood.
“There is nothing I can do, of course,” he said. “There’s no way I can make you tell me who you are and what your problem is, even though Fleetwood and I would like to help.”
“There is nothing you can do.” The woman’s eyes became grave.
“I can do one thing.”
“What?”
> “You are clearly desperate that you do not become publicly identified, living or dead.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“I can promise that if you kill yourself, I will publicize your original face in such a way as to make it virtually inevitable that whoever you don’t want to know about you finds out.”
The woman said nothing.
“It is a promise,” Powder said.
“What business is it of yours!” she screamed. “Leave me alone!”
Chapter Nineteen
Powder stopped at Mrs. Woods’s house. He didn’t know whether to expect to find her at home, but she was there and her face showed immediately the lack of pleasure his arrival brought to her.
They exchanged no greetings. Mrs. Woods said, “Bring sister, yes?”
“I think it would be as well.”
“I phone.”
“Although, before you do, might there be some point to your looking at this woman? It’s just possible you would be able to identify her one way or the other.”
Powder drove her to the County Hospital morgue.
“I not know,” Mrs. Woods said after she had studied the body.
Powder just nodded.
On her way back to the house he asked, “What was Marianna intending to do in Indianapolis?”
“Live,” Mrs. Woods said.
“I mean, get a job? Or study?”
“Get job, when can.”
“What sort of job would she have been looking for?”
Mrs. Woods turned to him. “I do not know. I not know girl good. But you talk like she dead. You know this and not say?”
“I don’t know what has happened to your niece,” Powder said.
“Talk like you do,” she said.
“I don’t mean to.”
When Powder dropped her off, she said, “I call sister now. Then call you.”
“Good,” Powder said, and drove away feeling respect for the matter-of-fact way with which this person approached life.
For the first time in a long while he thought about his mother, an immigrant to Indianapolis from southern Missouri. During her shorter-than-average span, life and death were what mattered to her. While accepting the latter she applauded actively the things that encouraged the former, without ever worrying seriously about the frills most people spend their time on. Powder felt he owed her a lot.
When he arrived at the office, Fleetwood was being shouted at.
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