'Mr Hodding, did you commit those murders?' Carella asked.
'No, sir, I did not,' Hodding said.
* * * *
The affair with Annie Flynn . . .
He couldn't even properly call it an affair because their love wasn't fashioned in the classic adulterers' mold, it was more like . . .
He didn't know what to call it.
'How about cradle-snatching?' Carella suggested.
'How about seducing a girl half your age?' Meyer suggested.
They didn't particularly like this man.
To them, he was a cut above Fats Donner - who dug Mary Jane shoes and white cotton panties.
He wanted them to know that he'd never done anything like this before in his life. He'd been married to Gayle for the past five years now, he'd never once even looked at another woman until Annie began sitting for them. Annie was the only woman he'd ever . . .
'A girl,' Carella reminded him.
'A sixteen-year-old girl,' Meyer said.
Well, there were girls who became women at a very early age, listen she wasn't a virgin, this wasn't what you'd call seduction of the innocent or anything, this was-
'Yes, what was it?' Carella asked.
'Exactly what would you call it?' Meyer asked.
'I loved her,' Hodding said.
Love.
One of the only two reasons for murder.
The other being money.
It had started one night early in October. She'd begun sitting for them in September, shortly after they'd adopted the baby, he remembered being utterly surprised by Annie's maturity. You expected a teenage girl to be somehow bursting with raucous energy, but Annie . . .
Those thoughtful green eyes.
The subtlety of her glances.
Secrets unspoken in those eyes.
The fiery red hair.
He'd wondered if she was red below.
'Look,' Meyer said, 'if you don't fucking mind . . .'
Meyer rarely used profanity.
'I didn't kill her,' Hodding said. 'I'm trying to explain . . .'
'Just tell us what . . .'
'Let him do it his own way,' Carella said gently.
'The son of a bitch was fucking a sixteen-year . . .'
'Come on,' Carella said, and put his hand on Meyer's arm. 'Come on, okay?'
'I loved her,' Hodding said again.
In October, the beginning of October, she'd sat for them while he and his wife attended an awards dinner downtown at the Sherman. He remembered that it was a particularly mild night for October, the temperature somewhere in the seventies that day, more like late spring than early fall. Annie came to the apartment dressed in the colors of autumn, a rust-colored skirt, and a pale orange cotton shirt, a yellow ribbon in her hair, like the song. She had walked the seven blocks from her own apartment, schoolbooks cradled in her arms against abundant breasts, smiling, and bursting with energy and youth and . . .
Sexuality.
Yes.
'I'm sorry, Detective Meyer, but you have to understand . . .'
'Just get the fuck on with it,' Meyer said.
. . . there was an enormous sexuality about Annie. A sensuousness. The smoldering green eyes, the somewhat petulant full-lipped mouth, the volcanic red hair, lava erupting, hot, overflowing. The short green skirt revealing long, lovely legs and slender ankles, French-heeled shoes, the short heels exaggerating the curve of the leg and the thrust of her buttocks and breasts, naked beneath the thin cotton shirt, nipples puckering though it was not cold outside.
They did not get home until almost three in the morning.
Late night. The dinner had been endless, they'd gone for drinks with friends after all the prizes were awarded - Hodding had taken one home for the inventive copywriting he'd done on his agency's campaign for a cookie company, he'd shown the plaque to Annie, she'd ooohed and ahhhed in girlish delight.
Three in the morning.
You sent a young girl out into the streets alone at three in the morning, you were asking for trouble. This city, maybe any city. Gayle suggested that her husband call down, ask Al the Doorman to get a taxi for Annie. Hodding said, No, I'll walk her home, I can use some air.
Such a glorious night.
A mild breeze blowing in off Grover Park, he suggested that perhaps they ought to take the park path home.
She said Oh, gee, Mr Hodding, do you think that'll be safe?
Innuendo in her voice, in her eyes.
She knew it would not be safe.
She knew what he would do to her in that park.
She told him later that she'd been wanting him to do it to her from the minute she'd laid eyes on him.
But he didn't know that at the time.
Didn't know she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
It was only seven blocks from his apartment to where she lived with her parents. Well, seven and a half, because she lived in the middle of the block, off the avenue. He had seven and a half blocks to do whatever it was he planned to do ...
He didn't have any plan.
. . . whatever it was he longed to do ...
He yearned for her with every fiber in his being.
She began talking about her boyfriend. A kid named Scott Handler. Went to school up in Maine someplace. The asshole of creation, she said. She looked at him. Smiled. Green eyes flashing. Had she deliberately used this mild profanity? To tell him what? I'm a big girl now?
She said she'd been going with Handler since she was fifteen . . .
Rolling her eyes heavenward.
He guessed that at her age, dating someone for a year and more was an eternity.
. . . but that she was really beginning to feel tied down, you know? Scott all the way up there, and her down here, you know? They were supposed to be going steady, but what did that mean? How could you go steady with someone who was all the way up near the Canadian border? In fact, how could you go with him at all?.
In the park now.
Leaves underfoot.
The rustle of leaves.
French-heeled shoes whispering through the leaves.
He was dying to slide his hands up her legs, under that rust colored skirt. Open that cotton blouse, find those breasts with their erect nipples, teenage nipples.
You know, she said, a girl misses certain things.
His heart stopped.
He dared not ask her what things she missed.
Kissing, she said.
Scuffing through the leaves.
Touching, she said.
He held his breath.
Making love, she whispered.
And stopped on the path.