“You never picked her up there?”
“No.”
“But you were seeing her?”
“Yes, of course I was seeing her.”
“And yet you never went to her apartment. Isn’t that a little odd?”
“Is it? I despise the housing facilities of most working girls, Detective Carella. When I call on a young lady, I find the curiosity of her roommates unbearable. And so, whenever a young lady shares an apartment with someone else, I prefer to meet her away from the apartment. That is the arrangement I had with Barbara.”
“And apparently an arrangement she preferred. The girls she lived with tell us no man ever came to that apartment to pick her up or take her home. What do you think of that, Mr. Tudor?”
Tudor shrugged. “I am certainly not responsible for Barbara’s idiosyncrasies.”
“Certainly not. Did Barbara ever come to your apartment?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I live with my father,” Tudor said. “He’s a very old man. Practically... well, he’s very sick. I’m not sure he would have understood Barbara. Or approved of her. And so he never met her.”
“You kept her away from your apartment. Is that right?”
“That is correct.”
“I see.” Carella thought for a moment. He looked at Hawes.
“Where’d you neck, Mr. Tudor?” Hawes asked. “In the backseat of an automobile?”
“That is none of your business,” Tudor said.
“Would you know whether or not Barbara had another apartment?” Hawes asked. “Besides the one she shared with the two girls?”
“If she had one, I never saw it,” Tudor said.
“You’re not married, of course,” Carella said.
“No, I’m not married.”
“Ever married, Mr. Tudor?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the status now? Separated? Divorced?”
“Divorced. For a long time now, Detective Carella. At least fifteen years.”
“What’s your ex-wife’s name?”
“Toni Traver. She’s an actress. Rather a good one, too.”
“She in this city?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. I was divorced from her fifteen years ago. I ran into her in Philadelphia once about eight years ago. I haven’t seen her since. Nor do I care to.”
“You paying her alimony, Mr. Tudor?”
“She didn’t want any. She has money of her own.”
“Does she know about you and Barbara?”
“I don’t know. She couldn’t care less, believe me.”
“Mmmm,” Carella said. “And you didn’t know about these two other guys Barbara was seeing, right?”
“Right.”
“But surely, if she was seeing them, and if you called for a date or something, she must have said she was busy on that night, no? Didn’t you ever ask how come? Didn’t you want to know why she was busy?”
“I am not a possessive man,” Tudor said.
“But you loved her.”
“Yes. I loved her, and I still love her.”
“Well, how do you feel about it now? Now that you know she was dating two other man, maybe sleeping with both of them, how do you feel about it?”
“I... naturally, I’m not pleased.”
“No, I didn’t think you would be. Did you ever meet a man named Karl Androvich, Mr. Tudor?”
“No.”
“How about a man named Mike Chirapadano?”
“No.”
“Ever go to The King and Queen?”
“Yes, of course. I sometimes picked Barbara up at the club.”
“Mike was a drummer in the band there.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” Carella paused. “He seems to have vanished, Mr. Tudor.”
“Really?”
“Yes. At the same time that Barbara did. What do you think of that?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“Think they ran off together?”
“I’m sure I don’t know.”
“Do you have a black raincoat and umbrella, Mr. Tudor?”
“No, I don’t. A what? A black raincoat, did you say?”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“No, I don’t have one.”
“But you do have a raincoat?”
“Yes. A trench coat. It’s gray. Or beige. You know, a neutral sort of—”
“And the umbrella? Is it a man’s umbrella?”
“I don’t have an umbrella. I detest umbrellas.”
“Never carry one, right?”
“Never.”
“And you don’t know of any other apartment Barbara might have kept, right?”
“I don’t know of any, no.”
“Well, thank you very much, Mr. Tudor,” Carella said. “You’ve been most helpful.”
“Not at all,” Tudor answered.
Outside in the hallway, Carella said, “He smells, Cotton. Wait for him downstairs and tail him, will you? I’ll be back at the squadroom. I want to check on his ex-wife, see if I can get a line on her.”
“What are you thinking of? Jealousy?”
“Who knows? But some torches have been known to burn for more than fifteen years. Why not hers?”
“The way he put it—”
“Sure, but every word he spoke could have been a lie.”
“True.”
“Tail him. Get back to me. I’ll be waiting for your call.”
“Where do you expect him to lead me?”
“I don’t know, Cotton.”
Carella went back to the squadroom. He learned that Toni Traver was a fairly good character actress and that she was at the moment working in a stock playhouse in Sarasota, Florida. Carella talked to her agent who told him that Miss Traver was not accepting alimony from her ex-husband. In fact, the agent said, he and Miss Traver had wedding plans of their own. Carella thanked him and hung up.
At 8:00 P.M. that night, Cotton Hawes called in to report that Tudor had shaken the tail at 7:30.
“I’m sorry as hell,” he said.
“Yeah,” Carella answered.
16
The clothes turned up the next morning.
They were wrapped in a copy of the New York Times. A patrolman in Calm’s Point found them in a trash basket. His local precinct called Headquarters because there was a bloodstain on the black raincoat, and Headquarters promptly called the 87th. The clothes were sent to the lab where Grossman inspected them thoroughly.
Besides the raincoat, there was a black flannel suit, a pair of black lisle socks, and a black umbrella.
An examination of the clothing turned up some rather contradictory facts, and all of these were passed on to Carella who studied them and then scratched his head in puzzlement.
To begin with, the bloodstain on the raincoat belonged to the “O” group, which seemed to tie it in with the hands, and to further tie in with Mike Chirapadano whose service record had listed him as belonging to that blood group. But a careful examination of the black suit had turned up a subsequent small bloodstain on the sleeve. And this bloodstain belonged to the “B” group. That was the first contradiction.
The second contradiction seemed puzzling all over again. It had to do with three other stains that were found on the black suit. The first of these was of a hair preparation, found on the inside of the collar where the collar apparently brushed against the nape of the neck. The stain was identified as coming from a tonic called Strike. It was allegedly designed for men who had oily scalps and who did not wish to compound the affliction by using an oily hair tonic.
But side by side with this stain was the second stain, and it had been caused by a preparation known as Dram, which was a hair tonic designed to fight dandruff and dry, flaky scalps. It seemed odd that these two scalp conditions could exist in one and the same man. It seemed contradictory that a person with a dry, flaky scalp would also be a person with an oily scalp. Somehow, the two hair preparations did not seem very compatible.