The television set was a tiny Sony perched on top of a chest of drawers. There was no stereo, but there were a dozen records, mostly classical with a sprinkling of folk music — Pete Seeger and Joan Baez and Dave Van Ronk. There was a dust-free rectangle on top of the dresser next to the Sony.
I looked through the drawers and closets. A lot of Paula’s clothes. I recognized some of the outfits, or thought I did.
Someone had closed the window. There were two windows that opened, one in the sleeping alcove, the other in the living room section, but a row of undisturbed potted plants in front of the bedroom window made it evident she’d gone out of the other one. I wondered why anyone had bothered to close it. In case of rain, I supposed. That was only sensible. But I suspect the gesture must have been less calculated than that, a reflexive act like tugging a sheet over the face of a corpse.
I went into the bathroom. A killer could have hidden in the stall shower. If there’d been a killer.
Why was I still thinking in terms of a killer?
I checked the medicine cabinet. There were little tubes and vials of cosmetics, though only a handful compared with the array on one of the bedside tables. There were containers of aspirin and other headache remedies, a tube of antibiotic ointment, several prescription and non-prescription hayfever preparations, a cardboard packet of Band-Aids, a roll of adhesive tape, a box of gauze pads. Some Q-tips, a hairbrush, a couple of combs. A toothbrush in the holder.
There were no footprints on the floor of the stall shower. Of course he could have been barefoot. Or he could have run water and washed away the traces of his presence before he left.
I went over and examined the windowsill. I hadn’t asked Guzik if they’d dusted for prints and I was reasonably certain no one had bothered. I wouldn’t have taken the trouble in their position. I couldn’t learn anything looking at the sill. I opened the window a foot or so and stuck my head out, but looking down was extremely unpleasant and I drew my head back inside at once. I left the window open, though. The room could stand a change of air.
There were four folding chairs in the room, one near the bed, one alongside the window, the other two closed and leaning against a wall. They were royal blue and made of high-impact plastic. The one by the window had her clothes piled on it. I went through the stack. She’d placed them deliberately on the chair but hadn’t bothered folding them.
You never know what suicides will do. One man will put on a tuxedo before blowing his brains out. Another one will take off everything. Naked I came into the world and naked will I go out of it, something like that.
A skirt. Beneath it a pair of pantyhose. Then a blouse, and under it a bra with two small lightly padded cups. I put the clothing back as I had found it, feeling like a violator of the dead.
The bed was unmade. I sat on the edge of it and looked across the room at a poster of Mick Jagger. I don’t know how long I sat there. Ten minutes, maybe.
On the way out I looked at the chain bolt. I hadn’t even noticed it when I came in. The chain had been neatly severed. Half of it was still in the slot on the door while the other half hung from its mounting on the jamb. I closed the door and fitted the two halves together, then released them and let them dangle. Then I touched their ends together again. I unhooked the end of the chain from the slot and went to the bathroom for the roll of adhesive tape. I brought the tape back with me, tore off a piece, and used it to fasten the chain back together again. Then I let myself out of the apartment and tried to engage the chain bolt from outside, but the tape slipped whenever I put any pressure on it.
I went inside again and studied the chain bolt. I decided I was behaving erratically, that Paula Wittlauer had gone out the window of her own accord. I looked at the windowsill again. The light dusting of soot didn’t tell me anything one way or the other. New York’s air is filthy, and the accumulation of soot could have been deposited in a couple of hours, even with the window shut. It didn’t mean anything.
I looked again at the chain bolt, rode the elevator to the basement, and found either the superintendent or one of his assistants. I asked to borrow a screwdriver. He gave me a long one with an amber plastic grip. He didn’t ask me who I was or what I wanted it for.
I returned to Paula Wittlauer’s apartment and removed the chain bolt from its moorings on the door and jamb. I left the building and walked around the corner to a hardware store on Ninth Avenue. They had a good selection of chain bolts, but I wanted one identical to the one I’d removed and I had to walk down Ninth Avenue as far as 50th Street before I found what I was looking for.
Back in Paula’s apartment I mounted the new chain bolt, using the holes in which the original had been mounted. I tightened the screws with the super’s screwdriver and stood out in the corridor and played with the chain. My hands are large and not terribly skillful, but even so I was able to lock and unlock the chain bolt from outside the apartment.
I don’t know who put it up, Paula or a previous tenant or someone on the building staff, but that chain bolt had been as much protection as the Sanitized wrapper on a motel toilet seat. As evidence that Paula’d been alone when she went out the window, it wasn’t worth a thing.
I replaced the original chain bolt, put the new one in my pocket, returned to the basement, and gave back the screwdriver. The man I returned it to seemed surprised to get it back.
It took me a couple of hours to find Cary McCloud. I’d learned that he tended bar evenings at a club in the West Village called the Spider’s Web. I got down there around five. The guy behind the bar had knobby wrists and an underslung jaw and he wasn’t Cary McCloud. “He doesn’t come on till eight,” he told me, “and he’s off tonight anyway.” I asked where I could find McCloud. “Sometimes he’s here afternoons but he hasn’t been in today. As far as where you could look for him, that I couldn’t tell you.”
A lot of people couldn’t tell me, but eventually I ran across someone who could. You can quit the police force but you can’t stop looking and sounding like a cop, and while that’s a hindrance in some situations it’s a help in others. Ultimately I found a man in a bar down the block from the Spider’s Web who’d learned it was best to cooperate with the police if it didn’t cost you anything. He gave me an address on Barrow Street and told me which bell to ring.
I went to the building but I rang several other bells until somebody buzzed me through the downstairs door. I didn’t want Cary to know he had company coming. I climbed two flights of stairs to the apartment he was supposed to be occupying. The bell downstairs hadn’t had his name on it. It hadn’t had any name at all.
Loud rock music was coming through his door. I stood in front of it for a minute, then hammered on it loud enough to make myself heard over the electric guitars. After a moment the music dropped in volume. I pounded on the door again and a male voice asked who I was.
I said, “Police. Open up.” That’s a misdemeanor, but I didn’t expect to get in trouble for it.
“What’s it about?”
“Open up, McCloud!”
“Oh, God,” he said. He sounded tired, aggravated. “How did you find me anyway? Give me a minute, huh? I want to put some clothes on.”
Sometimes that’s what they say while they’re putting a clip into an automatic. Then they pump a handful of shots through the door and into you if you’re still standing behind it. But his voice didn’t have that kind of edge to it and I couldn’t summon up enough anxiety to get out of the way. Instead I put my ear against the door and heard whispering within. I couldn’t make out what they were whispering about or get any sense of the person who was with him. The music was down in volume but there was still enough of it to cover their conversation.