There was the busy sound of chatter, the clatter of silverware against china, the clink of ice cubes in frosted glasses, the lilting laughter of a black woman at another table. The diners here in this "moderately priced Northern Italian" as Zagat had defined it were a random mix of ethnic types. This was a city of contrasts, black and white, yellow and brown, khaki and teak, ochre and dust. In the wintertime, the days were chillingly gray, the nights inky and bleak. Summer's colors were softer, the longer days golden, the nights purple.
He paid the check and waited for Teddy to return. He missed her whenever she was gone from him, and often became alarmed when she was gone for too long a time. He knew she could not cry for help if ever the need arose; a voice had been denied her at birth. Nor could she easily detect, as hearing people could, the warning signs of danger. In her silent world, in this city of predators, Teddy was easy prey.
When at last he saw her coming back to the table, he shoved back his chair, and went to her, and took her hand.
Has to be his girlfriend, Sonny was thinking, cause there ain't no man on earth looks at his wife the way Carella was lookin at this woman right this minute. This was the first time he'd really got a good look at the man since he'd sat opposite him in court at his father's trial.
Standin on the sidewalk across the street now, just outside the restaurant, holding both her hands in his, and leanin down to kiss her.
His jacket was open, Sonny could see the butt of what looked like a nine sticking up out of a holster. Woman walking off now, Carella watching her. Kept watching her till she was out Of sight. Then he turned and began walking toward where he'd parked the Chevy.
Sonny gave it a minute, and then started his own car.
4.
The building Mary Vincent had lived in was on Yarrow Avenue, corner of Faber Street, not a mile from the hospital, a brief ten-minute ride by subway. Why she'd gone to Grover Park last Thursday instead of heading directly home was a question of some importance to the detectives. There was a good-size park alongside the hospital and bordering the River Dix. If she'd felt like taking the air, she could have gone there. Instead, on one of the hottest days of the year, she had walked seven long cross town blocks to the park the equivalent of fourteen uptown downtown blocks and then had walked the width of the park itself to a park bench on its farther side. Why? Carella met Brown downstairs at a quarter past two, told him the judge had dismissed Teddy's case ... "Yay," Brown said.
apologized for being late, and asked if Brown had located the super of the building yet. Brown said he'd just got there a minute ago himself, and they went to look for him together. They found him out back, trying to repair the pulley on a clothesline that had fallen down, dropping clean white sheets all over the backyard. The super was enormously uncomfortable in this humid heat. "I'm from Montana," he told them. "We get breezes there." It was unusual for people from Montana to end up in this city unless they were seeking fame and fortune in television or on the stage. You didn't get many building superintendents from Montana riding their horses in the streets here. Come to think of it, Carella had never met a single person from Montana in his entire life. Neither had Brown.
Carella wasn't even sure he knew where Montana was. Neither was Brown.
Nathan Harding was a man in his early sixties, they guessed, burly and balding, sweating profusely in a striped T-shirt and blue jeans. He had difficulty recalling exactly which of his tenants was Mary Vincent even though there were only twenty-four apartments in the entire building. When they pointed out that she was a nun working at St.
Margaret's Hospital, he said he didn't know where that was, which wasn't exactly answering the question. They told him Mary Vincent was twenty-seven years old, a nun in the Order of the Sisters of Christ's Mercy. He said he had three or four girls that age in the building, but he didn't remember any of them looking like nuns. Neither Carella nor Brown were enjoying this damn heat, either, and the man was beginning to give them a Monday afternoon pain in the ass.
"Haven't you got a tenant list someplace?" Brown asked.
"What's this about?" Harding asked. "It's about a murder," Carella said. Harding looked at him.
"Can we see that tenant list?" Brown said.
"Sure," Harding said, and led them into his apartment on the ground floor. The building was what they called a non-doorman walk-up, which meant there was no security and no elevator. Harding's apartment looked as if the Cambodian army had recently camped there. He rummaged around in a small desk in a small cluttered office just off the kitchen and found a typewritten list that showed a Mary Vincent living in apartment 6C.
"Want to open it for us?" Brown said.
"A nun killed somebody?" Harding said.
"The other way around," Carella said, and watched Harding's face.
Nothing showed there. The man merely nodded.
"Guess it'll be okay," he said.
It damn well better be, Brown thought, but did not say.
Both detectives were out of breath when they reached the sixth-floor landing. Harding was from Montana, he took the climb in stride. There were three other apartments on the floor, but this was two-thirty in the afternoon, and the building was virtually silent, almost all the tenants off to work.
"How long was she living here?" Carella asked. "She the one I think she is," Harding said, "she moved in around six months ago." He was searching his ring of keys for the one to 6C. "Live here alone?”
“I couldn't say.”
The detectives exchanged a glance. It was hotter here in the building than it was on the street outside, all of yesterday's heat contained in this narrow sixth-floor hallway just under the roof. They waited patiently. Brown was just about ready to snatch the goddamn ring away from him, when Harding finally found the key. He tried it on the keyway. It slid in easily. He twisted it, unlocked the door, and opened it wide. A wave of hotter air rolled heavily into the hallway. Carella went in first.
This was not a crime scene, but he pulled on a pair of cotton gloves, anyway, before opening one of the windows. Only slightly cooler air sifted in from the street outside. There was the sound of an ambulance siren bruising the comparative mid-morning stillness. "Studio?" he asked. Harding nodded.
This was a particularly small studio apartment. Single bed against one wall, phone on a night table beside it. On the other side of the room, there was a bookcase, an easy chair, a standing floor lamp, and an unpainted dresser. A locked window alongside the dresser opened onto a backyard fire escape. The kitchen was the size of a closet.
Refrigerator with two oranges in it, a container of skim milk, a loaf of seven-grain bread, a package of organic greens, and a tub of margarine. The freezer compartment contained six frozen yogurt bars and a bottle of vodka. The bathroom was small and immaculate. A glistening white tub, sink, and toilet bowl. Over the sink, there was a mirrored cabinet containing several prescription drugs that appeared to be antibiotics, and the usual array of over-the-counter pain and cough medications one could find in any medicine cabinet in this city.
That was it. Not a painting or a photograph anywhere. The place was featureless, colorless, drab, and depressing.
Brown opened the door to the single closet in the room. There were three skirts, four pairs of slacks, two dresses, a woolen winter coat, a raincoat, several pairs of sensible shoes. Carella opened the top dresser drawer. Cotton panties and bras.
White pantyhose. Socks. Darker pantyhose. Blouses in the middle drawer. Scarves. Sweaters in the bottom drawer. Not a piece of jewelry. Not a hint of anything truly personal.