He rolled the complaint form into its metal carrier and sent it by pneumatic tube into the radio room, where a dispatcher put his number into the appropriate space, consulted the huge precinct map on the wall behind him, and then dispatched a radio motor-patrol car to the scene of the crime. He indicated the time of the dispatch on the form, and then added it to the pile of forms on one side of his desk. The patrolman who’d taken the call meanwhile informed the Detective Division of the 87th Precinct, and asked them to report back if it was truly a homicide so that he could then inform Homicide South.
The detectives who caught the squeal were Carella and Hawes, and so the case was officially theirs.
They were, of course, free to call upon other members of the Squad for assistance if they needed it, provided Detective Lieutenant Byrnes—who commanded the Squad—felt he could spare those men. And Homicide South would begin its own investigation while noisily advising the 87th that homicide was not a precinct squad’s cup of tea. In truth, whether the two homicide squads (North and South) chose to admit it or not, they would have been completely swamped had they tried to handle the city’s flood of homicide cases unaided. So whereas they bore the official titles and whereas they made a lot of noise about squad interference in murder cases, they tacitly agreed that the majority of homicide cases could be handled (and were, in fact, being handled) by the detective squads of the precincts in which the murders had taken place. The role of the two homicide squads, except in rare cases, was usually advisory, sometimes supervisory. Busily, noisily, they went about trying to convince themselves that they alone were qualified to handle homicide cases. Secretly, quietly, they realized they were like job foremen watching other men digging a trench, watching other men doing the actual labor.
The case, then, for all actual purposes, belonged to Carella and Hawes.
They had been out of the office when Mario Torr arrived with his theories about the shooting, and so Kling had naturally spoken to the man, later passing on the information to his colleagues. At bull sessions in the office, he would feel free to air any theories he had about the slaying, putting his two cents into the pot. The men of the 87th Squad worked well together. Each had his two cents’ worth to deliver on any case being investigated—and it doesn’t take long for two cents from each man to add up to a sound dollar.
On Saturday, June twenty-ninth, Cotton Hawes—one of the two detectives officially investigating the untimely demise of Sy Kramer—went to bed with the erstwhile mistress of Kramer, and made an amazing discovery about himself.
He discovered that he could fall in and out of love with consummate ease. He discovered this personality defect—or asset, as the case might be—with some trepidation, some amusement, and some speculation.
Kramer’s ex-mistress, he supposed, was partly to blame. But Hawes had never been a man to hide behind a woman’s skirts, and he would not do so now. When it was all over, he accepted his equal share of the blame—or the credit, as the case might be—and congratulated himself upon what he considered an honorable seduction. He had used his shield as neither a threat nor an inducement. Cotton Hawes the man had gone to bed with this woman, not Cotton Hawes the cop. He had, in fact, even waited until he was off-duty before consummating the distinct and definite animal awakening he had felt that afternoon while questioning her.
The girl’s name was Nancy O’Hara.
Her hair was red, but none of her friends or relations called her Scarlett. Passing strangers, passing drunks, had been known to say to her, “O’Hara, huh? Now, could it be Scarlett O’Hara?” as if they had originated the wittiest remark of the century. Nancy usually answered such devastating wit with a slightly embarrassed smile and the quietly spoken answer, “No, I’m John O’Hara. The writer.”
She was, in truth, neither Scarlett O’Hara nor John O’Hara.
She was Nancy O’Hara, and she had been the mistress of Sy Kramer.
Cotton Hawes had fallen in love with her the moment she opened the door of her Jefferson Avenue apartment, even though she was not dressed in a manner that was conducive to falling in love. She was, in fact, dressed like a slob.
She was wearing dungarees, the bottoms of which were wet to the knee. She wore a man’s dress shirt, the tails hanging over the dungarees, the sleeves rolled to her elbows. She had bright-green eyes, and her full mouth was on the edge of panic, and she didn’t at all look like an extortionist’s mistress, whatever an extortionist’s mistress looks like.
She opened the door, and immediately said, “Thank God you’re here! It’s this way. Come with me.”
Hawes followed her through a luxurious living room, and then into an equally luxurious bedroom, and then through that into a bathroom that—at the moment—had all the charm of a small swimming pool.
“What took you so long?” Nancy said. “A person could drown by the time—”
“What’s the trouble?” he asked.
“I told you on the phone. I can’t turn off the shower. Something’s stuck. The whole damn apartment’ll float away unless we turn it off.”
Hawes took off his jacket. Nancy glanced at the shoulder holster and the sturdy butt of the .38 protruding from the leather.
“Do you always carry a gun?” she asked.
“Always,” he said.
She nodded soberly. “I always suspected plumbing was a hazardous profession.”
Hawes had already reached into the tub. Grasping the knobs on the fixtures, he said, “They’re stuck.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Did you call a plumber?”
“If you’re not the plumber,” she said, “you entered this apartment under false pretenses.”
Hawes tugged at the stubborn fixtures. “I never said I was a plumber. I’m getting wet.”
“What are you?”
“A cop.”
“You can get right out of the bathroom,” Nancy said.
“Shhh, it’s beginning to turn, I think.”
“You’re supposed to have a warrant before—”
“There it goes,” Hawes said. “Now all I’ve got to—OW!” He pulled his hand back and began shaking it.
“What’s the matter?”
“I must have turned off the cold water. I burned myself.”
Steam was beginning to pour into the small bathroom.
“Well, do something,” Nancy said. “For God’s sake, you’ve made it worse.”
“If I can turn up that nozzle…” Hawes said, half to himself. He reached up and directed the spray of hot water toward the far tile wall. “There.” And then he began struggling with the hot water knob. “It’s giving,” he said. “How’d you manage to get them stuck?”
“I was going to take a shower.”
“In your dungarees?”
“I put these on after I called the plumber.”
“There it goes,” Hawes said. He twisted the knob, and the water suddenly stopped. “Phew.”
Nancy looked at him. “You’re soaking wet,” she said.