He called Squad Seven. Maureen answered and he asked her to look in his book and give him Carolyn Wilder’s phone number. Maureen came back and said, “Six-four-five…”
And Raymond said, “No, that’s her office. Give me her home number. And the address.” He got out his pen and wrote on the back of the Oral Roberts envelope as Maureen dictated. Maureen said, “Why would she have an office in Birmingham if she lives on the east side?”
Raymond said, “You want me to I’ll ask her. But I got a few other questions first.”
He dialed Carolyn Wilder’s home number. Following the first ring her voice came on. “Yes?”
“You were waiting for me to call,” Raymond said.
“Who is this?”
He told her and said, “I’d like to talk to the Oklahoma Wildman, but I don’t know where he is.”
“He isn’t here.”
It stopped Raymond. “I didn’t expect him to be.”
There was a pause. “He was here,” Carolyn Wilder said. “He left a few minutes ago.”
Raymond said, “Carolyn, don’t move. You just stepped in a deep pile of something.”
CAROLYN WILDER’S HOME on Van Dyke Place, off Jefferson, had been built in 1912 along the formal lines of a Paris townhouse. During the 1920s and ‘30s it had changed from residence to speakeasy to restaurant and was serving a limited but selective menu-for the most part to Grosse Pointe residents who knew about the place and were willing to reserve one of ten tables a week in advance-when Carolyn Wilder bought it as an investment, hired a decorator and, in the midst of restoring a past splendor, decided to move in and make it her home.
Standing in the front hall, facing the rose-carpeted stairway that turned twice on its way to the second-floor hall, Raymond said, “It looks familiar.”
The young black woman didn’t say anything. She stood with arms folded in an off-white housedress, letting him look around, the lamplight from side fixtures reflecting on mirrored walls and giving a yellow cast to the massive chandelier that hung above them.
“You look familiar too,” Raymond said. “You’re not Angela Davis.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re… Marcie Coleman. About two years ago?”
“Two years in January.”
“And Mrs. Wilder defended you.”
“That’s right.”
“We offered you, I believe, manslaughter and you turned it down. Stood trial for first degree.”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll tell you something. I’m glad you got off.”
“Thank you.”
“How long ago was Clement Mansell here?”
There was a pause, silence. “Ms. Wilder’s waiting for you upstairs.”
“I was just telling Marcie,” Raymond said, “your house seems familiar, the downstairs part.” Though not this room with its look of a century later, plexiglass tables, strange shapes and colors on the wall, small areas softly illuminated by track lighting. “You do these?”
“Some of them.”
The room was like a dim gallery. He was sure that most of the paintings, not just some, were hers. “What’s this one?”
“Whatever you want it to be.”
“Were you mad when you painted it?”
Carolyn Wilder stared at him with a look that was curious but guarded.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I get the feeling you were upset.”
“I think I was when I started.”
She sat in a bamboo chair with deep cushions of some dark silky material, a wall of books next to her, Carolyn half in, half out of a dimmed beam of light. She had not asked him to sit down; she had not offered him a drink, though a cordial glass of clear liquid sat on the glass table close to her chair and a tea-table bar of whiskeys and liqueurs stood only a few feet from Raymond.
“Marcie married again?”
“She’s thinking about it.”
“I bet the guy’s giving it some serious thought too. She live here?”
“Downstairs. She has rooms. Most of it’s closed off though.”
He turned from the abstract painting over the fireplace to look at her: legs crossed in a brown caftan-some kind of loose cover-her feet hidden by a hassock that matched the chair.
“Are you somebody else when you’re home?”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“You go out much?”
“When I want to.”
“I have a hard question coming up.”
“Why don’t you ask it?”
“Are you working at being a mystery woman?”
“Is that the question?”
“No.” He paused.
He was aware that he had no trouble talking to her, saying whatever came to mind without wondering what her reaction would be or even caring. He felt a small hook of irritation, standing before the woman in shadow, but the irritation was all right because he could control it. He didn’t want to rush the reason he was here. He would hit her with it in time; but first he wanted to jab a little. She intrigued him. Or she challenged him. One or the other, or both.
He said, “Do you still paint?”
“Not really. Once in a while.”
“You switch from fine art to law… On impulse?”
“I suppose,” Carolyn said. “But it wasn’t that difficult.”
“You were divorced first-is that where the impulse comes in? The way the divorce was handled?”
She continued to stare at him, but with something more in her eyes, creeping in now, something more than ordinary interest. She said, “You don’t seem old enough to be a lieutenant; unless you have an M.B.A. and you’re somewhere in administration. But you’re homicide.”
“I’m older than you are,” Raymond said. He walked toward her chair, moved the hassock with his foot and sat down on it, somewhat half-turned from her but with their legs almost touching. She seemed to draw back against the cushion as he made the move, but he wasn’t sure. He could see her face clearly now, her eyes staring, expectant.
“I’m almost a year older. You want to know what my sign is?” She didn’t answer. He picked up the cordial glass and raised it to his face. “What is it?”
“Aquavit. Help yourself… but it’s not very cold.”
He took a sip, put the glass down. “You watched this lawyer handle your divorce, thinking, I can do better than that… Huh?”
“He agreed to their settlement offer,” Carolyn said, “practically everything, let my husband have the house, a place in Harbor Springs, charged ten thousand and billed me for half.”
Raymond said, “And treated you like a little kid who wouldn’t understand anything even if he explained it.”
Her eyes held. “You know the feeling?”
“I know lawyers,” Raymond said. “I’m in court about twice a week.”
“He was so condescending-he was oily. I couldn’t get through to him.”
“You could’ve fired him.”
“I was different then. But at least it turned me around. I actually made up my mind to get a law degree-listen to this-and specialize in divorce and represent poor, defenseless, cast-off wives.”
“I can’t see you doing that.”
“I didn’t, for very long. I decided if I wanted to work with children I should work with real children. I even felt a tinge of sympathy for that jerk who represented me; he’d probably become conditioned to vacuous outbursts and treated all his women clients exactly the same. Eventually I found my way into the Defender’s office and Recorder’s Court.”
She was more relaxed now, not making a pretense of it.
“I’ve always liked to watch you,” Raymond said. “You never seem to get upset. You’re always prepared… full of surprises for the prosecutor.” He placed a hand on the brown cotton material covering her knee.
Her eyes, still calm, raised from his hand to his face.
“But you’re fucking up, Carolyn, and it isn’t like you, is it?”
“If I tell you Mansell was here this evening,” Carolyn said, “it means I’m not going to discuss his involvement in anything until you produce a warrant and he’s placed under arrest.”
“No, it means you’re telling me a story,” Raymond said. “Clement wasn’t here.” He watched her expression; it didn’t begin to change until he said, “He was outside my window at 6:30 P.M. trying to blow my head off with an automatic rifle. Otherwise-if he was here at the same time, then Clement’s into bilocation. And I’m getting off the case.”