“Why don’t you sit down,” he said quietly, the flint gone from his tone. He had learned a lot in the brief exchange.
She shook her head sharply, her hair flipping back and forth across her face.
“No,” she said weakly. “I think…I think I need some coffee. Would you like a cup?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
He followed her into the small but adequate kitchen, all stainless steel with pots hanging from a rack over a light wooden carving table in the middle of the room. The coffee maker both ground the beans and blended the coffee. She took two mugs from a built-in closet and put them on the counter.
“How do you like it? This is pretty strong stuff. I order it from a place in Key West. It’s called Colombian Hammerhead. I take it with a little sugar.”
“I’ll go with that.”
“Sugar’s really not good for you,” she said as she sprinkled it in both cups and stirred them. “But a pinch or two won’t kill you.”
They went in the living room. She sat in a chair adjoining one of the sofas and nodded to it. When he sat down their knees almost touched.
“Mind if I tape the conversation?” Cody asked. “I’m not very good at shorthand.”
She looked surprised, hesitated a moment, and then said, “No, it’s alright.” She took a sip of coffee and then abruptly burst into a monologue, talking so fast he just sat bemused and listened.
“ My name is Amelie Cluett. My mother’s French. My father’s Japanese, in the diplomatic service, and they met in Paris. They never married. I was born in Japan. They started me on piano when I was just learning to walk but I hated it. I preferred gym and soccer and stuff like that. I learned neechika, which is a form of massage, from an old Japanese master. I loved Japan but we moved back here to New York and I went to Juilliard and I was pretty good at the piano but not good enough. I was going to a gym on Madison called The Body Machine which is a stupid name but it’s a good gym and the owner, Jerry Kerry-I told him once he ought to change his name to Harry, like hari kari — and he thought that was a hoot and when he found out I knew neechika he offered me a job and I was pretty popular and I started getting clients-I call them clients because customers sounds like a hooker-who wanted me to go to their homes and we made a deal where I work four hours a day at the Machine and do home massages the rest of the time. That was about two, no two-and-a-half years ago. I get one-and-a-half at the gym and two-and-a-half for home massages. Anyhow, that’s where I met Raymond.”
She stopped to take a breath and sip some coffee. She had looked him in the eyes during the entire speech.
“Two hundred and fifty dollars for home massages?” he repeated.
“What do you think, two dollars and fifty cents? What century were you born in? And, actually, with tips it rounds out to about three.”
“An hour? No wonder you gave up the piano.”
“I didn’t give it up. It gave me up. I play a little jazz to relax but Carnegie Hall was never within my reach. So? I’ve known Raymond about three years. Go ahead. Grill me.”
Cody laughed and scratched his chin with his thumb. “I’m out of breath listening to you. And I just want to ask you some questions. We do the grilling down at the station.”
“I’m sorry about that. I just got started and… I guess I wanted to get my mind off of, uh, Raymond. I do talk a lot, I know that, people tell me that all the time.” She took another sip of coffee and asked plaintively, “What happened to him?”
“Somebody killed him.”
“Is that all you can tell me?”
“I don’t really know much more. Even if I did it’s a homicide investigation. We don’t tell, we ask. How well did you know him?”
“Socially? Not at all. I gave him a massage twice a week. Lately, because he was under a lot of stress, three times. Look, my clients come in all flavors. Some talk, some take a nap, some don’t say a word, some even hum. I have a fellow who writes lyrics for big Broadway shows. He hums the tune and then he’ll talk some lyric and write it down, then hum some more. I have an opera singer who gargles with champagne before we start. Sometimes when the spirit moves her she hits a high note and scares me to death but it seems to loosen her up so what the hell. I once had an old fellow who was ticklish and giggled a lot. Thing is, I want this clear right off the bat…”
“Ms. Cluett,” Cody interrupted, smiling. “We’re way past ‘right off the bat’.”
“Please call me Amelie.”
“Okay.”
“What do I call you?”
“Captain Cody.”
“Oh, that’s typical. I’m Amelie, you’re Captain Cody. I find that a bit sexist. Oh, which is what I was going to say. I’m a licensed masseuse. No funny business. Anybody gets out of line, I’m out of there. It’s happened once or twice and it’s over. I just wanted you to know that.”
There was some muffled movement in the hallway and it alarmed her. She spun toward the door like a startled bird.
“That would be my team arriving,” Cody said. “There’s going to be a lot of action in and out over there. Ignore it. And stay away from that peephole. It’ll arouse suspicion.”
“Am I a suspect?”
He scratched his chin again.
“Well, you were about…” he looked over his shoulder at her bedroom door, “about fifteen, twenty yards from him when he got it.”
She sat upright, her eyes widening. “I didn’t think about that. Oh my God, it just didn’t occur to me!”
“I didn’t mean to alarm you. But we do have to cover all the bases. Let’s stick with Raymond Handley, okay?”
She rolled her head around, loosening her neck, and blew a little burst of air from her lips.
“Sure, okay. Well, I treated him on Friday mornings, to loosen him up for the weekend. I mean the stock market is a zoo. Did I tell you he works for the stock market?”
“Wilma mentioned it.”
“Anyway, he’d be tight as a tick. Then Monday he’d come over and I’d loosen him up after the weekend. He worked hard and he played hard. He’s their only client I did here because he would jog over to the Machine and work out and jog back and Wilma would be over there so I’d set up the portable table and work him out while she was making him breakfast. Anyway, Raymond is a talker.”
She stopped and started to tear up. She took a couple of swallows of the Colombian java.
“Was he a switch hitter?” Cody asked.
“No. No.” She shook her head. “It was always about girls. And not all the time. I mean, maybe once a month he’d go off on one of his tantrums.”
“It’s tangent. Go off on a tangent.”
“Come on, Captain, I know the difference between a tangent and a tantrum. These were tantrums. He was really upset. It was a strange thing. Like…it was like he was talking in his sleep.”
He stopped and they took a breather.
“Want another cup?” she asked.
“I’m fine, thanks. So these were kind of like ramblings, getting something off his chest?”
“Exactly. When I was through he’d smile and pay me and go back over to his place.”
“Anything else you can remember?”
She shrugged. “He was a nice guy. He was polite. He said ‘Thank you.’”
“And you never asked him about any of these things?”
“He wasn’t a Chatty Cathy. I’ve got some clients who like to chat. Talk about movies, casual talk. There was nothing casual about Raymond. His monologue was part of his working out emotional kinks. He was there to get the knots ironed out, period.”
“I’ve got to ask you this. Where were you last night?”
“Here. I was reading. Sitting over there.” She pointed to a chair near the door.
He could see her sitting there, and the thought oddly pleased him. “Did you hear him come in?”
She shook her head.
“Would you have heard him? If he had come in?”
“Probably. We just heard your people.”
“What time did you go to bed?”
“I finished reading about quarter to eleven. Went back, turned on the TV. Watched the top of the news and then put in the plugs. I was asleep by, I don’t know, eleven-fifteen maybe.”