“They really need to replace this. How many times do I need to tell them? As if the building can’t afford a new elevator,” the Chanelian says, tapping the button for the eighth floor, looking him over as if he’s a trunk show and she might just buy everything in it.
The elevator creaks like the Titanic sinking. Lamont is staying in this building but no one seems to know which apartment. There isn’t one in her name.
“You live in the building? Don’t believe I’ve seen you before,” the Chanelian says.
“Just visiting.” He looks confused, staring at the elevator buttons. “She said the penthouse, but there seem to be two of them. PH and PH two. Or maybe it was…?” He starts digging in his pockets, as if looking for notes.
The elevator stops. The doors take their time opening. The Chanelian doesn’t move, gets thoughtful, replies, “If you tell me who you’re here to see, perhaps I can help you.”
He clears his throat, lowers his voice, leans closer, her perfume piercing his sinuses like an ice pick. “Monique Lamont, but please keep that confidential.”
Her eyes light up, she nods. “Tenth floor, south corner. But she doesn’t live here. Just visits. Often. Probably to have a little privacy. Everyone is entitled to a life.” Her eyes on his. “If you know what I mean.”
“You know her?” he asks.
“Know of. She’s rather hard to miss. And people talk. And you? You look familiar.”
Win sticks out his arm, keeps the doors from closing, replies, “A lot of people say that. Have a nice rest of the day.”
The Chanelian doesn’t like being dismissed, walks off, doesn’t look back. Win gets out his cell phone, calls Sammy.
“Do me a favor. Lamont’s apartment.” He gives Sammy the address. “Find out who owns it, who leases it, whatever.”
He gets off on the tenth floor, where there are two doors on either side of a small marble foyer, and he rings the bell for 10 SC. He rings it three times before Lamont’s wary voice sounds on the other side.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me, Win,” he says. “Open the door, Monique.”
Locks unlock, the heavy wooden door opens, Lamont on the other side, looking like hell, looking like she just got out of the shower.
“What do you want? You had no right coming here,” she says furiously, pushing damp hair out of her face. “How did you get in?”
He moves past her, stands beneath a Baccarat chandelier, looks around at ornate molding and wainscoting and rich, old wood.
“Nice place you’ve got here. Worth what? A couple mil? Four or five, maybe six?” he says.
Sykes sits inside an office at a club she could never afford and wonders if Vivian Finlay thought she was better than everybody else and would have dismissed Sykes as a klutzy country girl who probably doesn’t know which fork to use for salad. The truth about crime victims is, a lot of them are unlikable.
She sorts through paperwork, has gotten as far as May. What she has learned so far is that Mrs. Finlay was very active, played tennis at the country club as often as three times a week, always had lunch afterward, and based on how much the bill was each time, she never ate alone and had a habit of picking up the check. It appears she ate dinner there once or twice a week and liked Sunday brunch. Again, she didn’t dine alone, based on the substantial size of the bills.
Mrs. Finlay was conspicuously generous, and Sykes suspects the reason for the rich old woman’s largesse wasn’t so she could spread around her good fortune, since it is unlikely that her guests were on tight budgets, not at this club. More likely, she was one of those people who nod for the check every time because she likes to be the big shot, likes to be in charge, controlling people, proud people, the sort who have always made Sykes feel simple and small. She’s dated plenty of men like that, thinks about how different Win is from any man she’s ever known.
Like the other night at the Tennessee Grill, the two of them watching the sun set over the river, a special evening of big cheeseburgers and beer, her aching with the hope that maybe he was as attracted to her as she was to him. Well, is. She can’t deny it, keeps thinking it will go away. That night it was her turn to treat, and she did because unlike most men, Win doesn’t mind — not that he’s cheap, because he sure isn’t. He’s generous and kind but believes things ought to be equal so both people feel empowered and experience the pleasure of giving, is the way he explains it. Win takes turns. On the firing range, driving places, paying tabs, or just talking, he is as fair as he can be.
Sykes begins looking through the statement for the month of July, starts getting excited when she notices that in addition to Mrs. Finlay’s court times and lunches, a guest played tennis and golf at the club. Whoever this guest was, or perhaps it was a different guest on different occasions, Sykes considers, within a two-week period, almost two thousand dollars was spent on “clothing” in the pro shops and charged to Mrs. Finlay’s account. Sykes starts on the month of August.
On the eighth, the day Mrs. Finlay was murdered, a guest played tennis, apparently alone because there is a rental fee for the ball machine, something it doesn’t seem the sociable Mrs. Finlay ever used. That same day, a guest spent almost a thousand dollars in the tennis pro shop and charged it to Mrs. Finlay’s account.
There is nothing between Lamont and Win except an antique table and her red silk robe.
It is almost seven p.m., the sun fiery orange, a band of pink spreading across the horizon, the window open and warm air drifting in.
“Why don’t you get dressed,” he says to her for the third time. “Please. We’re two professionals, two colleagues talking. Let’s keep it like that.”
“You’re not here because we’re colleagues. And it’s my apartment and I’ll wear what I want.”
“Actually, it’s not your apartment,” he says. “Sammy had a little chat with the supervisor. It seems your crime lab director is doing quite well.”
She is silent.
“Monique? Where does Huber get his money?”
“Why don’t you ask him.”
“Why are you staying in his apartment? The two of you got something going?”
“I’m rather homeless at the moment. Get this over with, won’t you?”
“All right. We’ll get back to that.” Win leans forward, rests his elbows on the table. “I can go first or give you a chance to tell me the truth.”
“Yes, colleagues, as you put it.” Her eyes are on his. “Will you Mirandize me next for some crime you seem to think I’ve committed?”
“Truth.” He says it again. “You’re in trouble. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the truth.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The office over your garage,” he goes on. “Who uses it?”
“Did you get a search warrant before you went charging in there?”
“Your property is a crime scene. All of it, every inch of it. I don’t need to explain that to you.”
She picks up a pack of cigarettes, slides one out, her hands trembling. It’s the first time he’s ever seen her smoke.
“When’s the last time you were in the apartment over your garage?” he asks.
She lights the cigarette, takes a deep drag, is considerate enough to blow smoke out sideways instead of in his face.
“What is it you intend to accuse me of?”
“Come on, Monique. I’m not after you.”
“Feels like it.” She slides an ashtray close.
“Here, let me walk you through it.” Win tries a different approach. “I enter your garage through the side door — which, by the way, had been broken into, the lock pried open.”