“Anybody hurt?”
“One of the tellers had a heart attack. But that was it. I’m glad you called. We got something on the jewelry. A pawnbroker called the squadroom while I was out playing cops and robbers. Runs a shop on Ainsley and Third.”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“I called him back the minute I got in. Turns out some guy was in there this afternoon trying to hock the diamond pendant. Just a second, here’s the list.” The line went silent. Carella visualized Hawes running his finger down the list Hillary Scott had provided. “Yeah,” Hawes said, “here it is. ‘One pear-shaped diamond pendant set in platinum with an eighteen-inch chain of eighteen-karat gold.’”
“What was it valued at?”
“Thirty-five hundred.”
“Who pawned it?”
“Tried to pawn it. The broker offered sixteen hundred, and the guy accepted and then balked when he was asked for identification. They have to get identification, you know, for when they send their list of transactions to us.”
“And the guy refused to show it?”
“All the broker wanted was a driver’s license. The guy said he didn’t have a driver’s license.”
“So what happened?”
“He picked up the pendant and left.”
“Great,” Carella said.
“It’s not all that bad. The minute he left the shop, the broker checked the flyer we sent around and spotted the pendant on it. That’s when he called here. There was a number on the flyer, you remember…”
“Yeah, so what happened?”
“He told me the guy had his hands all over the glass top of the jewelry counter. He figured we could maybe lift some prints from it. He’s a pretty smart old guy.”
“Did you go down there?”
“Just got back, in fact. Left a team there to dust the jewelry counter and the doorknob and anything else the guy may have touched. Dozens of people go in and out of that place every day, Steve, but maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“Yeah, maybe. What’d the guy look like?”
“He fits the description. Young guy with black hair and brown eyes.”
“When will the lab boys let you know?”
“They’re on it now.”
“What does that mean? Tomorrow morning?”
“I told them it’s a homicide. Maybe we’ll get some quick action.”
“Okay, let me know if you get anything. I’m at the Hampstead Arms, you want to write down this number?”
“Let me get a pencil,” Hawes said. “Never a fuckin’ pencil around when you need one.”
He gave Hawes the number of the hotel and the room extension and then filled him in on what he’d learned at the Coroner’s Office. He did not mention any of Hillary’s psychic deductions. When he hung up, it was close to 6:00. He looked up Hiram Hollister’s home number in the local directory and dialed it.
“Hello?” a woman said.
“Mr. Hollister, please.”
“Who’s calling?”
“Detective Carella.”
“Just a moment.”
He waited. When Hollister came onto the phone, he said, “Hello, Mr. Carella. Get what you were looking for?”
“Yes, thank you,” Carella said. “Mr. Hollister, I wonder if you can tell me who typed that report filed by the inquest board.”
“Typed it?”
“Yes.”
“Typed it? Do you mean the typist who typed it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Would’ve been the inquest stenographer, I suppose.”
“And who was that?”
“This was three summers ago,” Hollister said.
“Yes.”
“Would’ve been Maude Jenkins,” he said. “Yup. Three summers ago would’ve been Maude.”
“Where can I reach her?”
“She’s in the phone book. It’ll be listed under Harold Jenkins, that’s her husband’s name.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hollister.”
He hung up and consulted the telephone directory again. He found a listing for Harold Jenkins and a second listing for Harold Jenkins, Jr. He tried the first number and got an elderly man, who said Carella was probably looking for his daughter-in-law and started to give him the number for Harold Jenkins, Jr. Carella told him he had the number, thanked him, and then dialed the second listing.
“Jenkins,” a man’s voice said.
“Mr. Jenkins, I’m Detective Carella of the 87th Squad in Isola. I wonder if I might speak to your wife, please?”
“My wife? Maude?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well…sure,” Jenkins said. His voice sounded puzzled. Carella heard him calling to his wife. He waited. In the next room, Hillary Scott was still on the phone.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice said.
“Mrs. Jenkins?”
“Yes?”
“This is Detective Carella of the 87th Squad in Isola…”
“Yes?”
“I’m here in connection with a homicide I’m investigating, and I wonder if you’d mind answering some questions.”
“A homicide?”
“Yes. I understand you were the stenographer at the Stephanie Craig inquest three years—”
“Yes, I was.”
“Did you type up the report?”
“Yes. I took the shorthand transcript, and then I typed it up when the inquest was over. We try to have the same person typing it as took it down. That’s because shorthand differs from one person to another, and we don’t want mistakes in something as important as an inquest.” She hesitated and then said, “But the drowning was accidental.”
“So I understand.”
“You said homicide. You said you were investigating a homicide.”
“Which may or may not be related to the drowning,” Carella said. He himself hesitated and then asked, “Mrs. Jenkins, did you yourself have any reason to believe Mrs. Craig’s death was anything but accidental?”
“None at all.”
“Did you know Mrs. Craig personally?”
“Saw her around town, that’s all. She was one of the summer people. Actually, I knew her husband better than I did her. Her ex-husband, I should say.”
“You knew Gregory Craig?”
“Yes, I did some work for him.”
“What kind of work?”
“Typing.”
“What did you type for him, Mrs. Jenkins?”
“A book he was working on.”
“What book?”
“Oh, you know the book. The one that got to be such a big best seller later on. The one about ghosts.”
“Deadly Shades? Was that the title?”
“Not while I was typing it.”
“What do you mean?”
“There wasn’t any title then.”
“There was no title page?”
“Well, there couldn’t have been a title page since there weren’t any pages.”
“I’m not following you, Mrs. Jenkins.”
“It was all on tape.”
“The book was on tape?”
“It wasn’t even a book actually. It was just Mr. Craig talking about this haunted house. Telling stories about the ghosts in it. All nonsense. It’s beyond me how it got to be a best seller. That house he was renting never had a ghost in it at all. He just made the whole thing up.”
“You’ve been in that house?”
“My sister from Ohio rented it last summer. She’da told me if there’d been any ghosts in it, believe you me.”
“This tape Mr. Craig gave you…”
“Uh-huh?”
“What happened to it?”
“What do you mean, what happened to it?”
“Did you give it back to him when you finished typing the book?”
“Didn’t finish typing it. Got about halfway through it, and then the summer ended, and he went back to the city.”