Calypso, page 19
part #33 of 87th Precinct Series
***
After forty-eight hours, you begin to get a little desperate. After seventy-two, you start praying for a break; it is amazing how many cops get religion after putting in seventy-two hours on a cold homicide case. After four days, you're sure you'll never solve the damn thing. When you hit the six-day mark, you begin getting desperate all over again. It is a different sort of desperation. It is a desperation bordering on obsession; you begin to see murderers under every rock. If your grandmother looks at you cockeyed, you begin to suspect her. You go over your typed reports again and again, you study your crime-scene drawings, you read homicide reports from other precincts, you search through the files looking for homicide cases in which the weapon was a.38 or the victim was a hooker or a singer or a business manager, you hash over homicide cases involving frauds or semifrauds like Harry Caine's vanity-house caper, you rehash homicide cases involving missing or kidnapped persons-and eventually you become an expert on all such homicides committed in the goddamn city during the past ten years but you still don't know who the hell killed three people in the immediate past, never mind ten years ago.
It was now 9:40 a.m. on Friday morning, September 22, only fourteen hours short of 11:40 p.m., when exactly one week ago a concerned citizen dialed Emergency 911 to report two men bleeding on the sidewalk at Culver and South Eleventh. Fourteen hours short of a week. Fourteen short hours short. At twenty minutes to midnight tonight, George C. Chadderton would have been dead a full week. At 3:30 a.m. tomorrow morning, Clara Jean Hawkins would likewise have been dead a full week. Ambrose Harding, who was at present lying in a coffin at the Monroe Funeral Home on St. Sebastian Avenue, would be buried tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m., by which time he'd have been dead almost four days. And the case continued to lie there like a lox without a bagel.
At 9:40 that morning, Carella went to see Chloe Chadderton at her apartment in Diamondback. He had called from home first, and was therefore somewhat surprised to find her wearing the same long pink robe she'd worn on that night almost a week ago, when he and Meyer had knocked on her door at two in the morning. It occurred to him, as she let him into the apartment, that he had never seen Chloe in street clothes. She was always either in a nightgown with a robe over it, as she was now, or else strutting half-naked on a bar top, or else sitting at a table and wearing only a flimsy nylon wrapper over her dancing costume. He could understand why George Chadderton wanted his wife to get out of "show biz," considering what she seemed intent on showing day and night to any interested viewer. Sitting opposite her in the living room now, Carella looked across at the long length of leg revealed in the opening of her robe and silently admitted that he himself was an interested viewer. Embarrassed, recalling Chloe's total exposure on the bar top at the Hamingo, he quickly took out his notebook and busied himself leafing through its pages.
"Would you like some coffee?" she asked. "I have some on the stove."
"No, thanks," Carella said. "I just want to ask you some questions, and then I'll be on my way."
"No hurry," she said, and smiled.
"Mrs. Chadderton," he said, "I tried to fill you in a little on the phone about what we believe is the connection between your husband and C. J. Hawkins, the fact that they'd been talking about doing an album together."
"Yes, but George never mentioned that to me," Chloe said.
"Something called 'In the Life.' Do you remember in his notebook…"
"Yes…"
"The night we were here…"
"Yes, I remember."
"That's what we think the title of the album was going to be."
"Mm-huh," Chloe said.
"But he never mentioned this album to you."
"No."
"Or Miss Hawkins. He never mentioned anyone named Clara Jean Hawkins or C. J. Hawkins."
"Never," Chloe said, and shifted her weight on the sofa.
Carella looked at his notebook again. "Mrs. Chadderton…" he said.
"I wish you'd call me Chloe," she said.
"Well… uh… yes, fine," he said, but instead skirted the name the way he might have a puddle on the sidewalk. "In the appointment calendar you let me have, the name Hawkins and the initials C. J. appeared on the following dates: August tenth, August twenty-fourth, August thirty-first, and September seventh. Those are all Thursdays. We know that Miss Hawkins's day off was Thursday-"
"Just like a cleaning woman," Chloe said, and smiled.
"What?" Carella said.
"Thursdays and every other Sunday," Chloe said.
"Oh. Well, I hadn't made that connection," Carella said.
"Don't worry, I'm not about to start another racial hassle," Chloe said. "I didn't think you were."
"I was wrong about you that night," she said. "That first night."
"Well," he said, "that's-"
"Do you know when I realized you were okay?"
"No, when was that?"
"At the Flamingo. You were checking names and dates in your little notebook, same as you're doing now, and you asked me who Lou Davis was and I told you he was the man who owned the hall my husband…"
"Yes, I remember."
"And you said 'How dumb,' or something like that. About yourself, I mean. You were calling yourself dumb."
"I was right, too," Carella said, and smiled.
"So I decided I liked you."
"Well… good. I'm glad to hear that."
"In fact, I was very happy when you called this morning," Chloe said.
"Well… uh… good," he said, and smiled. "I was saying that your husband's meetings with C. J. Hawkins-"
"She was a hooker, is that right?"
"Yes-always took place on Thursdays, which was her day off, Thursday. We've got reason to believe that some sort of beach party took place every Wednesday night, however, and I wonder if your husband ever mentioned any such party to you."
"A beach party?"
"Well, we don't know if it was a party on the beach. We only know that C. J. went out to the beach someplace-"
"What beach?"
"We don't know-and got paid for her services out there."
"Oh."
"Yes, we think it was, you know, some sort of regular, uh, prostitution she was performing out there someplace."
"With George, are you saying?"
"No, I'm not suggesting that. I know you had a good marriage, I know there was no trouble-"
"Bullshit," Chloe said.
Carella looked at her.
"I know that's what I told you," she said.
"Yes, more than once, Mrs. Chadderton."
"More than twice, in fact," she said, and smiled. "And it's Chloe. I wish you'd call me Chloe."
"Are you telling me now that things weren't good in your marriage?"
"Things were rotten," she said.
"Other women?"
"I would guess."
"Hookers?"
"I wouldn't put it past him, for all his 'Sister Woman' bullshit."
"Then you're not discounting the possibility of a sexual relationship between your husband and Miss Hawkins."
"I'm not discounting anything."
"Was he ever gone from the apartment on a Wednesday night?"
"He was gone from the apartment almost every night."
"I'm trying to find out-"
"You're trying to find out whether he and this woman were together on Wednesday nights."
"Yes, Mrs. Chadderton, because-"
"Chloe," she said.
"Chloe, right-because if I can establish that there was something more than this cockamamy record album between them, if I can establish that they were seeing each other, and maybe got somebody angry about it-"
"Not me," Chloe said at once.
"I wasn't suggesting that."
"Why not? I just told you we were unhappy. I just told you he had other women. Isn't that reason…"
"Well, maybe," Carella said, "but the logistics aren't right. We were here until almost three a.m. last Friday night, and C. J. was killed at three-thirty. You couldn't possibly have dressed, traveled all the way downtown, and found her on the street in that short a time."
"Then you did consider it?"
"I considered it," Carella said, and smiled. "I've been considering everything these past few days. That's why I'd appreciate any help you can give me. What I'm looking for is a connection between the two of them."
"Two of them? What about Ame?"
"No, I think Harding was killed because the murderer was afraid of identification. He was even warned beforehand."
"Warned?"
"Warned. With a pink orchid called Calypso bulbosa. I think the killer wants to be caught. I think it's like that guy years ago who scrawled it in lipstick on a mirror. That orchid is the same damn thing. Otherwise why warn the man? Why not just kill him? He wants to be stopped, whoever he is. So if you can remember anything at all about any Wednesday night your husband was out of this apartment…"
"I don't think you understand," Chloe said. "He was gone more often than he was here. There were times, this last little while, when I'd be sitting here talking to the four walls. I'd find myself longing to go back to the club. I'd get home sometime around eight-thirty, nine o'clock, and I'd eat here alone in the apartment, George'd be gone, and I'd sit here wondering what the hell I was doing here, why didn't I just go on back to the club? Talk to the girls, have someone to talk to. Dance for the men, have someone looking at me as if he knew I was alive, do you understand? George was so involved with his own damn self, he never… Well, look at me, I'm a pretty woman, at least I think I'm a pretty woman, and he was-do you think I'm pretty?"
"Yes," Carella said, "I do."
"Sure, but not to George. George was so much in love with himself, so completely involved in his own projects, his pipe-dream record albums that never got made, his big-shot calypso singer bullshit, his search for his goddamn brother who probably ran off and left him cause he couldn't stand him any more than anyone else could! George, George, George, it was all George, George, George, he named himself right, the bastard, King George, that's exactly what he thought he was, a fuckin king! You know what he told me when he wanted me to quit the Flamingo? He told me my dancing there reflected badly on his image as a popular singer. His image! I was embarrassing him, do you understand? It never once occurred to him that maybe I was embarrassing myself, too. I mean, man, that's degrading, isn't it? Squatting on a bartop and shoving myself in some man's face? You look nervous," she said suddenly. "Am I making you nervous?"
"A little."
"Why? Because you've seen me naked?"
"Maybe."
"Join the club," she said airily, and waved one arm languidly over her head. "Do you understand what I'm saying, though?"
"I think so."
"There was nothing between us anymore is what I'm saying. When you brought me the news that night, when you you came here and told me George had got killed, I started crying because… because I thought, hell, George got killed a long time ago. The George I loved and married got killed more years ago than I can remember. All that was left was somebody running around trying to be the big star he didn't have a chance in hell of becoming. That's why I began crying that night. I began crying because I suddenly realized how long he'd been dead. How long we'd been dead, in fact."
Carella nodded and said nothing.
"I've been lonely a long time," she said. And then softly, so softly that it seemed a part of the whisper of rain against the windows, she said, "Steve."
The room went silent. In the kitchen, he could hear the steady hiss of the gas jet under the coffeepot. Somewhere in the distance, there was the low rumble of thunder. He looked at her, looked at the long length of tan leg and thigh in the opening of the pink gown, looked at the slender ankle and the jiggling foot, and remembered her on the Flamingo bar top.
"If… if there's nothing more you can tell me," he said, "I'd better be going."
"Stay," she said.
"Chloe…" he said.
"Stay. You liked what you saw that day, didn't you?"
"I liked what I saw, yes," Carella said.
"Then stay," she whispered. "The rain is gentler in the other room."
He looked at her and wished he could tell her he didn't want to make love to her without having to say it straight out. He knew a hundred cops in the department-well, fifty anyway- who claimed they'd been to bed with every burglary, robbery, assault, or what-have-you victim they'd ever met, and maybe they had, Carella guessed maybe they had. He guessed Cotton Hawes had, though he wasn't too sure about that, and he supposed Hal Willis had, and he knew Andy Parker had or else was lying when he boasted in the squadroom about all his bedroom conquests. But he knew Meyer hadn't, and he knew that he himself would rather cut off his right arm than be unfaithful to Teddy, though there were many times-like right this goddamn minute with Chloe Chadderton sitting there opposite him, the smile gone from her face now, her eyes narrowed, her foot jiggling, her robe open clear to Sunday-when he would have liked nothing better than to spend a wet Friday in bed with a warm stranger in another room where the rain was gentler. He looked at her. Their eyes locked.
"Chloe," he said, "you're a beautiful, exciting woman-but I'm a working cop with three homicides to solve."
"Suppose you didn't have all those homicides to solve?" she asked.
"I'm also a married man," he said.
"Does that mean anything nowadays?"
"Yes."
"Okay," she said.
"Please," he said.
"I said okay," she snapped. And then, her voice rising, her words clipped and angry, she said, "I don't know anything about George's Wednesday night parties, or the whore's either. If there's nothing else, I'd like to get dressed now."
She folded her arms defensively across her breasts, and pulled the robe closed around her crossed legs. She was sitting that way when he left the apartment.
***
The dog was sitting just inside the locked double doors, the keys hanging on his collar where she'd put them. She'd been late bringing Santo his breakfast, but she seemed happy and excited this morning, and her exuberance frightened him somewhat. As he spooned cornflakes into his mouth, he watched her pacing the room, and he remembered that she had been this way just before all the other times she'd done things to him. The time with the needles, and then when she'd burned him with the cigarettes and when she… when he woke up that time and… and the… the little finger of his right hand was missing, she had… she had doped him first and then… then had cut off his finger while… while…
"Eat your breakfast," she said.
She hardly ever doped him in the morning, it was usually dinner, she usually put something in his food at dinnertime and then… did what… did whatever she… she… but this morning she was higher than he'd ever seen her, pacing the room, walking back and forth from the locked entrance doors to the closed bathroom door, passing Santo where he sat eating from the tray on the coffee table in front of the couch.
"Drink your coffee, too," she said, "drink it while it's still hot. I made you hot coffee. Why don't you ever appreciate any of the things I do for you?"
"I appreciate everything you do," he said.
"Oh, yes, certainly," she said, and laughed. "Which is why you tried to run away." She laughed again. "And did run away. Don't talk to me about gratitude."
"Did run away?"
"Well, you're never going to run away again, don't worry about that."
"Are you talking about the time Clarence-"
"No, no, no, no," she said, and laughed too heartily, and a shiver ran up his spine. "Not dear Clarence-no, stay, Clarence-not your good friend Clarence, who pinned you to the ground that time, do you remember that time, is that the time you mean? No, not that time, I mean the first time, don't think I didn't know you wanted to leave me, don't think I didn't realize it."
"I told you I wanted to leave."
"Be quiet!" she said. "Drink your coffee. I made hot coffee for you. Drink it!"
"Is there something in it?" he asked.
"Why? Are you afraid of what I'll do to you when you're asleep?" she asked, and laughed again. "Do you know what happened to the old man in his sleep last night?"
"What old man?" Santo asked.
"The keeper of the keys," she said, "the man who fixed the locks, do you remember the man who fixed the locks?"
"I never saw him," Santo said.
"That's right, you were unconscious, weren't you? Someone put something in your food. You never met the poor man, did you? Clarence met him, though, didn't you, Clarence?"
The dog, at mention of his name, began thumping his tail against the floor.
"Yes, Clarence," she said, "good dog, you're the only one who knows now. You and Santo. The only ones who know."
"Know what?" Santo asked.
She laughed again, and suddenly the laughter caught in her throat like a choke, and her face sobered, and she pointed her finger at him and said, "You shouldn't have left me, Robert."
