“Don’t fret, old buddy. I tracked down Murdoch in Vegas,” he said with a note of pride. “He was shacked up with some chorus girl from the Luxor and he was still flogging penny stocks to old ladies. He said he thought Wheelock was somewhere in Connecticut, maybe Westport.”
“Outstanding,” I said. “Now get me some coordinates.”
“Aye, aye, sir. I’ll make some more calls. We’ll tree the SOB yet.”
CHAPTER XXXII
The super opened the apartment door without using a key and turned back to look at me.
“It was not locked, mister,” he said. “Just slammed shut. Solamente cerrado.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t know that,” I told him.
I gave him a twenty. “Thanks for your help.”
He nodded several times rapidly. “Gracias, mister.” He was a small man with smooth movements and a friendly smile. I’d told him I was Laura’s brother-in-law and that I was worried because I hadn’t been able to contact her. It didn’t take much to persuade him I was telling the truth. Maybe he was just a newcomer to New York and hadn’t had time to develop that gimlet-eyed instinct that protects the city dweller.
I shoved open the door and stepped into the living room.
Nothing looked out of the ordinary. The apartment was cute, spotless and comfortable. It always smelled like lilacs. Only this time there was another smell and it wasn’t good. It was the stench of death. It was an odor as familiar in the triple-canopy jungle as the screech of the birds.
The words came back.
Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption. He passes from the stink of the didee to the stench of the shroud.
My stomach started to clench up. The super was a step behind me. He touched my sleeve in a tentative way. “Senor, something does not smell good.”
“I know.” I hoped he didn’t hear the tremor in my voice. “Wait here. I’ll take a look around.”
She was lying on her back on the bedroom floor next to a Chinese rug. There was a small bloodstain on her chest. She was wearing a sleeveless dress with a pattern of red flowers. If you looked quickly, you might have mistaken the bloodstain for one of the flowers except that it was a little larger and a little darker. That innocent face was twisted into a rictus of surprise and fear. There was a thin line of dried blood at the corner of her mouth.
I kneeled beside her and touched her cheek. It was cold. Colder than anything I’d ever touched.
I cleared my throat and got up and looked around the room. There was nothing unusual. The bed was neatly made and all the clothing was in the proper place. There was a night table next to the bed with a thin vase and a single rose, wilting.
I stepped back into the living room. The super stood there, looking out of place in his work clothes in the middle of this delicately furnished setting. He was trembling slightly.
“She’s dead,” I said in a low voice, not wanting to spook him. “You better call the police.”
“Yes, mister. I will call right now.” He rushed out of the apartment, leaving the door open.
There wouldn’t be much time before the cops got here. I did the standard search but didn’t turn up anything. The apartment was a junior one-bedroom with a cramped kitchen, a large living room and a bedroom half the size of what a bedroom should be. But it wasn’t out of line with the square footage allotment of a typical New York apartment. Every inch of space was put to good use.
The kitchen was clean. No dishes in the sink. I opened the dishwasher. It was empty. When had she put away the dishes? When was the last time she’d eaten? What was her last meal? The M.E. would know. But I would never know. Who did she have her last meal with? Did she laugh that sweet little laugh when she cocked her head to one side?
Laura knew the killer and had let him in. Three to one it was the same guy who killed her sister. And for the same reason. Whatever the reason was. I didn’t have the answer. I wasn’t any closer than I’d been when Alicia died.
I waved my hand at no one in particular. There was nothing in the kitchen that could help me. I went back into the living room. There was a wall unit with a bookcase. Her taste in reading matter ran to romance and biographies of show biz folk. You could forgive her for small weaknesses.
There was a magazine rack next to the sofa. In it was a large manila envelope with Laura’s name written on it. The handwriting was familiar. I recognized it immediately. It was Alicia’s.
I opened the envelope. It was empty.
I folded the envelope twice and put it in my inside breast pocket. I didn’t know what it meant. But it would mean more to me than it would to the cops.
“Listen, scumbag,” the seamstress said. “How do we know you don’t have another piece stashed away somewheres?” He ran his fingers over his mustache. “And you used it to whack these sisters for some reason for which we don’t have figured out yet.”
His partner winced. Maybe it was the tortured syntax. “Shut up,” Black said. “You make more noise than a cow pissing on a flat rock.”
The seamstress looked hurt. His fingers kept doing their twinkletoes dance in the air. “I still say this scumbag is the best lead we got. He knew both sisters. Had access to both of them. I say he killed both of them.”
I stared at Forgash across Black’s beaten-up desk. “Go stand in the corner with your thumb up your ass like little Jack Horner,” I said.
The seamstress started across the room toward me, but Black’s words stopped him. “Get the fuck out of here,” he yelled. “Get back to your desk.”
Forgash halted, torn between his desire to make a mark on me and his fear of disobeying his boss. Discretion won out. That, plus the risk of suffering some serious basic bodily injury. He shot me a dirty look as he left.
Black waited a couple of minutes before he spoke, as if he were running the facts of the case over in his mind. While he thought, he rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth, over and over. He closed his eyes.
Finally he spoke. “This is my last case before I retire.” He opened his red-rimmed eyes and studied me. “I don’t want to leave the game on a strikeout.”
I leaned back in my chair and looked out through the slits in the venetian blind into the squad room. The seamstress was sitting at his desk, his shoulders hunched forward, his chin in his hands. He looked like a kid who’d been caught by the principal pulling his pecker in the little boy’s room.
I looked back at Black. His face was one of those that tell you they’ve seen every crime in the book-and some that aren’t in the book. Every crime that can be committed will be committed. I felt sorry for the old bastard, but not sorry enough to give him Jergens. Black was telling me the cops hadn’t been able to crack two perfect murders. Neat and clean.
“I wish I could help you, Gene,” I said, “but I don’t have a goddam thing. Not even an angle. I can just tell you what you already know.”
He nodded. “OK. Same gun. Clean entry. No struggle. Killer was known to both girls,” he rattled off in his raspy voice.
He rose heavily, like a man old before his time. “Coffee?” he asked.
“Sure, if it’s strong.”
“Curl your toes,” he said. He walked around from behind his desk over to a hot plate sitting on a low file cabinet. He poured two cups black and steaming from one of those round glass pitchers restaurants use. This one had an orange top.
“Is that decaf?” I asked.
He glanced at me sheepishly and then looked down. “My wife says regular coffee makes me jumpy.”
“A cop’s supposed to be jumpy.”
He grunted. “Not if your wife’s twenty-five years younger than you.”
“You having troubles at home?”
“Nothing that a smaller prostate and a stiffer stick couldn’t cure.”
It was my turn to grunt. I took the coffee and drank some. It was hot but it was still decaf and it tasted bland.