Romance, p.23
Romance, page 23
part #47 of An 87th Precinct Novel Series
“Guy jumped out a window,” he told her.
“Or was pushed,” she said knowingly.
“Or was pushed,” he agreed, nodding.
“Who’s doing the autopsy?” she asked.
“He was taken to Parkside.”
“That’d be Dwyer. Good man.”
“How long have you been practicing up here?” he asked.
“Always,” she said, and shrugged.
He hesitated a moment, and then asked, “Do you have any white patients?”
“No,” she said. “Well, at Rankin, yeah, white cops come in all the time. But not here, no.”
“Have you ever had a white patient?”
“In private practice? No. Why?”
“I just wondered.”
“Have you ever gone to a black doctor?”
“No.”
“Case closed,” she said, and smiled.
“Who are you going out with tonight?” he asked.
“None of your business.”
“Woman tells me she can’t see me cause she’s got other plans…”
“That’s right.”
“…then it becomes my business.”
“Nope.”
“How about lunch tomorrow?”
“Busy then, too.”
“Who with?”
“My mother.”
“How come your mother’s not none of my business?”
“That’s a double negative.”
“Busy twice in a row is a double negative. Why don’t I join you and your mother?”
“I don’t think that’d be such a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Cause Mama don’t ’low no saxophone playin here.”
“What does that mean?”
“Mama don’t know you white, man.“
“Time she found out, don’t you think?”
“Three dates and we’re getting married already?”
“Four counting today.”
“Four, right.”
“All of them wonderful.”
“Not the first one.”
“First one doesn’t count. Who’s this guy tonight?”
“I told you, that’s none…”
“Is this your first date with him?”
“Nope.”
“Is he black?”
“Sho nuff, honey chile.”
“Does Mama know him?”
“She do.”
“Does she allow you to play his saxophone?”
“Mama thinks I’m still a virgin. Mama don’t ’low me to play nobody’s saxophone nohow.”
“Good for Mama,” Kling said, and blinked in mock surprise. “You mean you’re not a virgin?”
“Sullied through and through,” she said,
“Well, when can we get together? Artie…”
“We’re together now.”
“Yes, but Artie wants to meet you.”
“Who’s Artie?”
“Brown. Who suggested Barney’s, remem…?”
“Right. Whose grandmother was a slave.”
“Great-great-grandmother. He wants to have dinner with us and his wife.”
“Good, I’d like to.”
“Sure, but you’re busy all the goddamn time.”
“Not all the time.”
“You’re busy tonight, you’re busy…”
“I made tonight’s date a long time ago.”
“How about tomorrow night?”
“I’d love to.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Good, I’ll tell Artie. Chinese okay?”
“Chinese is fine.”
“Who’s this guy tonight?”
“None of your…”
“Sharyn?”
The voice was deep and mellow, originating at Kling’s right elbow, and causing him to turn at once in surprise. The man standing there was tall and black and elegantly dressed in a suit several shades lighter than the color of his skin. Unless King was mistaken, the key hanging on a chain across his vest was a Phi Beta Kappa key, and unless he was further mistaken, the little plastic ID tag clipped to the lapel of the man’s jacket had the words MOUNT PLEASANT HOSPITAL printed across its top.
“Jamie, hi,” she said, and then immediately, “Bert, this is Jamie Hudson…”
“How do you…?”
“Bert Kling,” she concluded.
“Nice to meet you.”
The men shook hands. Kling, big detective that he was, had already scanned the plastic identification tag and discovered that this handsome guy looming over the table was Dr. James Melvin Hudson, and that his department at Mount Pleasant Hospital was ONCOLOGY.
“Sit down a minute,” Sharyn said.
Hudson—Dr. James Melvin Hudson, Oncology—immediately sat next to Sharyn, Kling noticed, and not him. The pair of them immediately fell into a lively conversation about a patient Sharyn had referred to Hudson—Dr. James Melvin Hudson—several months back, and who, as fate would have it, had got shot dead on the street last night.
“Bert’s a detective,” Sharyn said.
“Oh, really?” Hudson said.
Kling wondered why she had thought it necessary to mention that he was a detective, whereas she hadn’t thought it necessary to mention that Hudson was a doctor. Perhaps she was informing Hudson that her relationship with Kling was a professional one, both of them being cops and all. In which case, why hadn’t she informed Kling that the relationship with Hudson was a professional one, both of them being doctors and all. He suddenly wondered if Dr. James Melvin Hudson was the guy she was dating tonight. He suddenly felt like kicking him under the table.
“The irony is the man was dying of cancer, anyway,” Hudson said. “I figure he had two, three months at most.”
“Also, the man was such a square…”
“Letter carrier, wasn’t he?”
“Straight as an arrow.”
“Takes two in the head.”
“Was it a drive-by?”
“No, he was at home in bed, that’s the thing of it! These two guys came in and dusted him while he was asleep in bed.”
“How do they know it was two guys?”
“Landlady saw them going out.”
“Was it a mistake?”
“Looks that way. The building he lived in is full of dope dealers.”
“What a break, huh?”
“Awful. I’ve got to run,” Hudson said, and rose, and shook hands with Kling again, and said, “Nice meeting you,” and then turned to Sharyn and said, “See you at eight.”
“Eight, Jamie,” she said, and waggled her fingers at him as he rushed off.
They were both silent for several moments.
“A mutual patient,” she said.
“Uh-huh,” Kling said.
He was thinking he didn’t stand a chance against Dr. James Melvin Hudson.
“Another thing I hate about doctors,” he said.
He and Carella were standing under the theater marquee, waiting for Josie Beales to arrive. The clock in front of the hot-bed hotel across the street read ten minutes to two. Carella’s watch read eight minutes to two. Either way, she wasn’t here yet.
“…is they think their time is more valuable than anyone else’s,” Kling said. “Have you ever noticed that if you’re going to a hospital for the least little thing, they always get you there two hours beforehand? That’s so the doctor won’t waste any of his time, he can finish one lobotomy and rush next door to do another one. Meanwhile, you’re waiting there since noon for a two o’clock removal of a cyst on your ass…”
“Did you ever have a cyst on your ass?” Carella asked.
“No. On my hand once. The point is, you haven’t had anything to eat since the night before, even though this is going to be local anesthesia, and they drag you in two hours before to sit and wait for the doctor’s convenience. It doesn’t matter who you are, how important you may be, the minute you’re in a doctor’s office or a hospital, the doctor reigns supreme. You can be working a case where a homicidal maniac has killed fourteen people with an ice pick and he’s working on number fifteen right that minute, but the doctor’s time is more important than yours, and you can just sit there reading last year’s magazines, pal, until he’s damn good and ready to sec you. I hate doctors.”
“Boy,” Carella said.
“I hate nurses, too. I go to a doctor’s office, the nurse right away calls me Bert. I never met her in my life, we’re all of a sudden on a first-name basis. President of the United States goes into a doctor’s office, the nurse says, ’Have a seat, Bill, doctor will be with you shortly.’ The only time I use anybody’s first name is if I know him or if he’s a thief. Nurses call anybody who walks in the office by his first name. Sit down, Jack. Sit down, Helen. Does she call the doctor by his first name? Does she buzz him and say, ’Mel, Bert is here.’ No. It’s ’Doctor will see you shortly, Bert.’ I hate doctors and nurses.”
“But how do you really feel about them?”
“This guy doing the autopsy is supposed to be good, though,” Kling said. “Dwyer.”
“How do you know?”
“Sharyn told me.”
“Who’s…oh, Sharyn. How does she know?”
“She’s a doctor.”
“I thought you said she’s a cop.”
“She’s a doctor cop.”
“I thought you hated doctors.”
“Not Sharyn.”
“You’re a very complicated person, Bert,” Carella said. “If I may call you Bert.”
A yellow cab was pulling into the curb. The way the sun was hitting the windows, they couldn’t tell who was inside paying the driver. They watched, waited. The door opened, and Josie Beales swiveled on the seat, reaching with one leg for the sidewalk. She was wearing jeans, a tangerine-colored, cotton tank-top shirt with no bra, and brown sandals. Her strawberry-blond hair was pulled hack in a ponytail, held with a brown ribbon that matched her eyes. A brown leather tote bag was slung over her shoulder, a blue-bound copy of Romance jutting up out of it. She glanced at her watch as she stepped out of the cab, looked up, and saw Carella and Kling approaching her. She appeared startled for a moment. Sunlight struck the single ruby-red earring in her left ear.
“Hi,” she said, and smiled.
Something about the smile and the way she said that single word told them they had her.
“Few questions we’d like to ask,” Carella said.
“Rehearsal starts at two,” she said, and looked at her watch again.
“Won’t take a minute.”
“Is this about Chuck last night?”
“Yes. Few other things, too.”
“Why would he have done such a thing?” she asked, and shook her head and sighed heavily. Carella had the feeling she’d done just that in a play sometime before. Maybe several plays.
“This is the note he left,” he said, and took from his pocket a folded scrap of paper on which he’d copied the note in Madden’s machine.
DEAR GOD, PLEASE FORGIVE ME
FOR WHAT I DID TOMKHELLE
“I don’t understand,” she said. “I thought you already had the…”
“Yes, we thought so, too,” Carella said.
Or at least Ollie thought so, and Nellie Brand thought so, and even Lieutenant Byrnes thought so. But they’d just found the twin to Josie’s ruby-red earring under the bed in Madden’s apartment.
“This would make it seem he’d…well…done something to her,” Josie said.
Carella was thinking it sometimes worked if you opened the garden gate and led them down the path.
“It would make it seem he’d killed her, in fact,” he said.
“Well…yes. But I thought…”
She looked at the note again.
“How do you know he wrote this?” she said. “It isn’t signed.”
“It was in his typewriter.”
“This isn’t even his handwriting,” she said.
“That’s right, it’s mine,” Carella said. “I copied it from…”
“How do you know what his handwriting looks like?” Kling asked.
“He was our stage manager. Stage managers write notes about rehearsal calls or costume fittings or whatever. Everybody on the show knows Chuck’s handwriting. Knew it. Whatever. I think this is awful, him killing himself.”
“How about him killing Michelle?” Kling asked. “If that’s what he did.”
“Well, he doesn’t actually say that’s what he…”
“No.”
“In fact, the lines could be given any number of readings.”
“Lines?”
“In his note. What he says in his note. If it is his note. You don’t really know he wrote it for a fact, do you?”
“No, we don’t,” Carella admitted. “But if he did…”
“Then it would seem he killed Michelle,” Josie said, and did the head-shaking, heavy-sighing bit again.
“How well did he know her?” Carella asked.
“I don’t think he knew her at all well. I mean, she was living with her agent, I didn’t think…why would Chuck have killed her? What did he have to do with her?”
“It does seem odd, doesn’t it?”
Gently down the garden, he thought.
“I mean, he only seemed to know her casually,” Josie said. “I can’t believe there was anything between…”
“How well did he know you, Miss Beales?”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” she asked, and looked suddenly wary.
“You said he only knew Josie casually…”
“Yes?”
“So how well did he know you?”
“The only place I ever saw him was here in the theater,” she said, and jerked her head toward the marquee.
“Do you know where he lived?” Kling asked.
“No.”
“Never mentioned where he lived?” Carella said.
“Not to me.”
“Ever been to his apartment?”
“Never. I just told you, the only place I ever saw him was in the goddamn theater,” she said, and jerked her head toward the marquee again, sharply this time.
“How long have you known him?”
“Two months or so.”
“When did you first meet him?”
“When l read for the part.”
“When was that?”
“Beginning of March.”
“Where?”
“Here.”
“Where were you last night at eleven-thirty?”
“What?”
“Where were…”
“I heard you. Am I going to need a lawyer here?”
“Why would you need a lawyer? All we’re doing is investigating a suicide.”
“Why are you investigating a suicide to begin with? A man throws himself out the goddamn window…”
“We treat homicides and suicides in exactly the same way.”
“But homicide’s the operative word here, isn’t it? You show me a note you say Chuck left…”
“That’s right…”
“And it says he did something to Michelle. Well, what somebody did to Michelle was murder her. That’s homicide, isn’t it? What you’re trying to do here is implicate me in a goddamn homicide! Somebody writes a note, you don’t even know if Chuck himself wrote it, so you automatically think Ah-ha, we’ve caught the Mad Stabber! She’s the one who got Michelle’s part, so naturally she’s the one who put him up to killing her!”
“There’s nothing in his note about that, Miss Beales.”
“No, that’s in your heads, is where it is,” she said, and glanced furiously at her watch. “Are we done here?”
“Not yet. Where were you last night at eleven-thirty?”
“Asleep.”
“Where?”
“Home.”
“Alone?”
“Good title for a movie,” she said.
“Miss Beales, we don’t find anything comical about this.”
“Neither do I!” she snapped.
“So where were you?”
“Home in bed. Alone.”
“What time did you go to bed?”
“Around ten.”
“Anyone with you before that time?”
“No,”
“Talk to anyone on the phone before that time?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Ashley.”
“Ashley Kendall?”
“Yes.”
“What time was that?”
“Around eight-thirty.”
“What’d you talk about?”
“What do you think we talked about? We’ve got a play opening in five days.”
“Talk to anyone else before ten?”
“No.”
“How about after ten?“
“I told you…”
“Yes, but did your phone ring at any time after you went to bed?”
“No.”
“What time did you wake up this morning?”
“Eight-thirty. I had a voice lesson at ten.”
“When did you learn Mr. Madden was dead?”
“I saw it on Good Morning America.”
“Talk to anyone about it after that?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Freddie Corbin. He’d seen it on television, too.”
“Miss Beales,” Carella said, “the last time we talked to you…”
“I know. I said I was sorry for what happened to Michelle, but happy for myself. That doesn’t mean…”
“Yes, you said that, too. But you also mentioned losing the mate to the earring you’re wearing right this minute…”
“My good-luck earrings, yes.”
“Recognize this?” he asked, and took from his jacket pocket a sealed plastic bag marked with the word EVIDENCE and containing the ruby-red earring they’d found in Madden’s apartment.
“Is that mine?” she asked.
“Looks like it.”
“I don’t understand…where’d you…?”
“Under Chuck Madden’s bed,” Carella said.
“Goodbye, fellas,” she said at once, “I’m calling my lawyer.”
12
LIEUTENANT BYRNES KNEW THAT CARELLA’S DEADLINE WAS Tuesday the fourteenth, and whereas he didn’t with to rain on Carella’s parade, he simply could not see the logic in this thing. Which is why he gathered them all together in his office late that Saturday afternoon. Sometimes a great notion, he figured.
The detectives Byrnes had called in for his informal snowballing session were Carella and Kling—the two actively working the case—and Brown, Meyer, Hawes and Parker, who’d seen enough about it on television and in the papers to believe they themselves were working the damn thing. This was now four-forty in the afternoon, and Parker wanted to go home. Truth be known, he always wanted to go home, even when it wasn’t five minutes before the shift was about to be relieved.
