The girl stopped on the corner to talk to two men, jostling one of them with her hip, giggling, and then moving on again with her practiced prance, tight little behind wiggling in the short skirt, high-heeled pumps tapping a rapid tattoo on the pavement. On the corner of Mead and Landis, she went into a three-story tenement that had been converted into an office building. Hawes took up position in a doorway across the street. There were three street-side windows on each floor of the building Elizabeth had entered. On the first floor of the building, the middle window was lettered in gold with the words ARTHUR KENDALL, ATTORNEY AT LAW, the flanking windows decorated with large red seals and the words NOTARY PUBLIC. Two of the windows on the second floor of the building had been painted out; the middle window read DIAMONDBACK DEVELOPMENT, INC. The third floor of the building was occupied by a firm that announced itself, in fancy script lettering, as BLACK FASHIONS.
Elizabeth came out of the building not a moment after she had entered it.
She came out at a dead run, shoulder bag flying, skirt riding high on her long legs as she ran in seeming panic up the street. Hawes did not try to stop her. He crossed the street quickly and went into the building. A well-dressed black man was lying in the lobby, bleeding onto the broken blue-and-white-tile flooring. His eyes were rolled up in his head and he was staring sightlessly at the naked light bulb in the ceiling. A four-inch-long scar ran jaggedly through the cuts and bruises and open bleeding wounds on his face.
Hawes figured he had found Charlie Harrod.
6
In Roger Grimm’s office, downtown on Bailey Street, Carella did not yet know that another body had turned up in Diamondback. All he knew was that two arsons and a homicide had already been committed, and that Roger Grimm had a police record. (It was true, of course, that Grimm had paid his debt to society. But some debts can never be paid, and a police record is rather like a stray wolf you’ve taken in on a dark and snowy night: it follows you for the rest of your life.)
Carella had spent all morning in court and was armed with a search warrant, but he preferred not to use it unless he had to. His reasoning was simple. Grimm was a suspect, but he did not want Grimm to know that. And so both men went through a pointless dialogue: Carella trying to hide the fact that he already had a warrant in the pocket of his jacket lest Grimm suspect he was a suspect; and Grimm trying to hide scrutiny of his records, a maneuver suspicious in itself.
“When did I become a suspect in this?” he asked, straight for the jugular.
“No one’s even suggesting that,” Carella said.
“Then why do you want to go through my files?”
“You’re anxious to clear up this business with the insurance company, aren’t you?” Carella said. “I assume you’ve got nothing to hide...”
“That’s right.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I’m a businessman,” Grimm said. “I’ve got competitors. I don’t know whether I like the idea of someone having access to my files.”
“Consider me a priest,” Carella said, and smiled.
Grimm did not smile back.
“Or a psychiatrist,” Carella said.
“I’m not religious, and I’m not crazy,” Grimm said.
“I’m merely trying to say...”
“I know what you’re trying to say.”
“That I’m not about to run to the nearest importer of little wooden animals and reveal the inner workings of your operation. I’m investigating arson and homicide. All I want...”
“What’ve my records got to do with arson and homicide?”
“Nothing, I hope,” Carella said. “Frankly, I’d like nothing better than to go through them and be able to report to your insurance company...”
“Companies.”
“Companies, that you’re clean. Isn’t that what you want, too, Mr. Grimm?”
“Yes, but...”
“Officially, the warehouse arson is Parker’s case. Officially, the fire in Logan belongs to the Logan police. But the Reardon homicide is mine. Okay, I’m here for two reasons, Mr. Grimm. First, I’d like to help you with your insurance company... companies. That’s why you came to me, Mr. Grimm, remember? To get help, remember?”
“I remember.”
“Okay. So if, first, I can help establish your innocence with the insurance people, and, second, get a lead onto the homicide, I’ll go home happy. What do you say, Mr. Grimm? You want to send me home happy, or you want my wife and kids to eat with a grouch tonight?”
“My books and my correspondence are my business,” Grimm said, “not the Police Department’s.”
“When Parker gets back from vacation, he’ll probably want to look at them, anyway. And he can get a warrant, if he has to.”
“Then tell him to get one. Or go get one yourself.”
“I’ve already got one,” Carella said, and handed it to him.
Grimm read it in silence. He looked up and said, “So what was the song and dance?”
“We try to be friendly, Mr. Grimm,” Carella said. “You want to unlock your file cabinets, please?”
If Grimm had anything to hide, it was not immediately apparent to Carella. According to his records, he had started the import business in January, eight months ago, with a capital investment of $150,000...
“Mr. Grimm,” Carella said, looking up from the ledger, “the last time we talked, you told me you’d come into some money last year. Would that be the hundred and fifty thousand you used to start this business?”
“That’s right,” Grimm said.
“How’d you happen to come into it?”
“My uncle died and left it to me. You can check if you like. His name was Ralph Grimm, and the will was settled last year, in September.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Carella said, and went back to the ledger. He had no intention of taking Grimm’s word for anything.
The first business transaction listed in Grimm’s books was for the initial purchase of a hundred thousand little wooden beasties back in January. There was a sheaf of related correspondence starting in December, in which Grimm haggled back and forth over the price with a man named Otto Gülzow of Gülzow Aussenhandel Gesellschaft in Hamburg. There was also a customs receipt indicating that Grimm had paid an 8-percent duty at the port of entry. There were three separate canceled checks: one for 37,120 marks paid to the order of Gülzow Aussenhandel and totaling approximately 10 percent of the agreed-upon purchase price (presumably to cover Gülzow for the risk of packing and shipping); another for 9,280 American dollars paid to the order of the Bureau of Customs; and the last, a certified check for 334,080 marks, paid to the order of Gülzow, and dated January 18, presumably the date the shipment had been handed over to Grimm. The three checks totaled close to $125,000, the price Grimm had said he’d paid for the first shipment. Everything seemed in order. An honest businessman doing business, legally shipping in his little wooden creatures, paying the import duty, and then selling them to retail outlets all over the United States.
According to Grimm’s records, the wooden menagerie had indeed caught on like crazy. His files substantiated that there had been orders for the entire first shipment, and payments to his firm (which incidentally was called Grimports, Inc., Carella realized with a wince) totaling $248,873.94, somewhat less than the $250,000 Grimm had estimated but close enough to establish his veracity. There followed another batch of correspondence with Herr Gülzow, during which Grimm argued for a lower price on the next shipment, since he was ordering twice as many little wooden dogs, cats, turtles, rabbits, horses, etc. Gülzow argued back in Teutonically stiff English that no discount was possible, since he himself purchased the carvings at exorbitant prices from peasants who whittled them in cottages here and there throughout the Fatherland. They finally compromised on a price somewhat higher than what Grimm had desired. Again, there was a canceled check for 10 percent of the purchase price, a check to the Bureau of Customs, and a certified check to Gülzow Aussenhandel. Again the total came near to the $250,000 Grimm had stated to be the cost of the second shipment from Germany. This had been the shipment lost in the warehouse fire.