“Tell me what happened,” she said.
“He was murdered,” Ollie said.
“Are you a homicide detective?” she asked.
“No, ma’am, that’s not the way we work it here. The precinct detective who catches the squeal …”
He caught himself.
“The responding detective follows the case through to its conclusion, ma’am, is the way we work it here in this city.”
“Where was this?” she asked.
“In a section of the city called Diamondback, ma’am.”
“That’s black, isn’t it?” she said.
“Largely, ma’am. And Hispanic.”
“What was Jerry doing up there?”
“I thought maybe you could help me with that.”
“Diamondback,” she said, and shook her head.
“Do I smell something baking, ma’am?” Ollie asked.
“Oh my God,” she said, “thank you,” and turned away from him and rushed into the kitchen. He watched as she yanked open the oven door and took from it a steaming cake. “Caught it just in time,” she said, and put it down on the counter top. “I bake one every Christmas,” she said.
“What is it, ma’am?”
“An apple upside down cake.”
“I’ll bet it’s delicious,” Ollie said.
But she didn’t offer him any.
Instead, she suddenly burst into tears. Sometimes apple upside down cakes did that to people. Or maybe she had just realized her husband was dead. Either way, if she wasn’t going to offer him anything to eat, he had no sympathy at all for the woman.
“Ma’am,” he said, “weren’t you concerned when your husband didn’t come home last night?”
“He’s often gone a lot,” Clara said.
“Were you expecting him home?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Well, did he call to say hewouldn’t be home?”
“No, he didn’t. But that’s usual. I don’t worry about him. He comes and goes.”
“What does he do for a living, ma’am?”
“He sells books.”
“He works in a bookstore?”
“No, he’s a booksalesman. For Wadsworth and Dodds. The publishing house. His territory is the entire northeast corridor. He goes all the way up to Maine and down to Washington, D.C. He’s gone a lot.”
Ollie tried to think if there were any bookstores in Diamondback. He couldn’t recall a single one.
“Does he make stops in Diamondback?” he asked.
“I don’t know where he makes stops,” Clara said, and yanked a Kleenex from a box on the counter. “Can’t you see I’m crying here?” she said. “Don’t you have any sensitivity at all?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m trying to learn who might have killed him. Your husband wasn’t doing drugs, was he?”
“What!”
“I said …”
“I heard what you said. Howdare you?”
“Mrs. Hoskins, I was simply asking a question. Your husband was found in a garbage can in Diamon …”
“A garbage can!”
“Yes, ma’am, with a bullet hole in the back of …”
“A bullet hole!”
“Yes, ma’am, which all sounds very strange for a man who sells books for a living, wouldn’t you say? Did you know that he carried a gun?”
“A gun!”
“Yes, ma’am, a P-38 Walther was the make. In a holster on his right side. Was he left-handed, ma’am?”
“Yes. I have to tell you, Detective Weeks, I find all of this extremely upsetting.” She pulled another tissue from the box, and blew her nose. Ollie hoped she wouldn’t get snot all over the cake. She still hadn’t offered him a piece. “I can’t imaginewhat my husband was doing up there in Diamondback, or why he was carrying a gun, or why anyone would want to kill him. This is all simply beyond belief,” she said, and blew her nose again.
“Yes, well, I’m terribly sorry it happened, too, ma’am, or even that I had to report it to you.”
He was thinking he would like a piece of her apple upside down cake.
He was also thinking he would like to grab her ass.
“Your husband had a permit for the gun,” he said.
“A permit!”
She had a very bad habit of repeating the key words in everything he said and shouting them back at him, very loudly, as if he were deaf. Each time she did that, he winced. The kitchen was redolent with baking smells. He felt like grabbing that cake in both his hands and gobbling it down.
“You sure he wasn’t doing drugs?” he asked.
“No, I’mnot sure, how would Iknow if he was doing drugs or not? He was on the road two, three weeks at a time, for all I know he was robbing banks with his goddamn P-thirty-six …”
“Eight, ma’am.”
“Whatever, and shooting heroin in his veins, how the hell wouldI know what he was doing when he wasn’t here? He ends up in a garbage can, how the hell doI know what he was or evenwho he was?”
“That’s just my point, ma’am.”
“I fail to see your point.”
“Just that it seems so strange.”
“It does,” she agreed, and burst into tears again.
He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her. He wanted to reach up under that tight red sweater.
“I wish I could play piano for you sometime,” he said.
She looked at him.
She had very blue sad wet eyes.
“To ease your pain,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said, “that’s very kind of you.”
“I play piano,” he said.
“I wouldn’t have suspected it,” she said.
“I’m sorry for your trouble,” he said. “Here’s my card. Call me if you think of anything.”
“What would I think of?” she asked.
“Anything that might help us find your husband’s murderer.”
She burst into tears again.
“Where do I go to … to claim … to … to … where is he now? His body?”
“At the St. Mary Boniface morgue,” Ollie said. “You can identify the remains …”
“Remains!” she said.
“Yes, ma’am, his body, ma’am. You don’t think he had a black girlfriend up there, do you?”
“A what!”
“I guess not,” he said. “Call me, okay? I know ‘Night and Day,’ if you happen to like that song.”
She was sitting by the Christmas tree in the living room, weeping, when he left the apartment. He could smell the goddamn apple upside down cake all the way down to the street.