Richard Marsten: Vanishing Ladies

‘Yes. But they planned on turning Ann free, I’m sure they did.’

‘Maybe that was part of the plan originally, but once they’d found out I was a cop, once they’d thought it over, how could they turn her free? Damnit, Handy, she may be dead already!’

‘I... I don’t think so.’ He peered through the windshield. ‘We’re entering Davistown now. It’s just a little way further.’

The rain had stopped. I turned off the windshield wipers. The roads were still slickly wet, and they told their secrets to the tires of the car.

‘How long have you loved her, Handy?’ I asked.

‘What?’

‘Stephanie.’

Without hesitation, Handy said, ‘From the first day Mike Barter brought her to Sullivan’s Point.’

‘Why are you leading me to her?’

This time, Handy hesitated. I thought he wasn’t going to answer at all. Then he said, ‘I used to be a good lawyer. I used to be a good justice of the peace, too. I used to believe in the law.’ He paused. ‘Stephanie killed someone.’ He paused again. ‘I imagine that person was loved, too.’

Davistown was an ugly city, ugly with smokestacks and gaudy neon and pool parlors and second-rate bars. We drove into it, and Handy directed me to a three-story apartment building on the fringe of the downtown area.

A light was burning in a third-floor apartment. The rest of the building was in bed.

‘What’s the apartment number?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. His name is Joe Carlisle.’

‘You wait here, Handy.’

‘Be careful,’ he said, and he sounded as if he meant it.

I got out of the convertible. The street was very quiet. In the lobby of the building, I checked the mailboxes. There was a Joseph Carlisle in apartment 33. I brought my foot up and kicked the snap lock on the inner door. The door sprang open, and I found the stairs and took them up to the third floor. Apartment 33 was at the end of the hall. I pulled out the .38, and knocked.

‘Who is it?’ Stephanie asked.

‘Hezekiah,’ I whispered.

‘Hold on.’

I heard her approaching the door. The door opened a crack then, and I saw surprise and shock come into her eyes. She tried to slam the door shut, and she yelled something to somebody in the apartment, but I’d already flung my shoulder at the door. I shoved it open, and Stephanie reeled backwards, lost her footing, and fell to the floor. Barter and Carlisle came rushing from the other room. They stopped dead when they saw me, and then the trapped look came into their eyes, and their feet stood undecided, and their hands fluttered somewhat aimlessly, and then their shoulders slumped because they were facing a .38 and a murder rap, and there was no place to go.

‘Who told you where we were?’ Stephanie said from the floor. Her eyes were puzzled. She was watching her dream collapse around her, watching the thick carpets and the hi-fi unit and the liquor cabinet crumble into the dust.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘Get up.’

And then the girl who didn’t like to hear profanity looked up at me, and her eyes filled with tears, and she said, ‘You bastard, you dirty rotten bastard.’

And that was all.

It was quiet in the squadroom of the 23rd Precinct. There was July sunlight filtering through the meshed windows that opened on the street. Tony Mitchell and Sam Thompson sat at one of the desks. There were two coffee cups before them. Mitchell drank steadily. Thompson did not drink as often because he was talking. He did not like to occupy his mouth with too many tasks at the same time.

‘You can always tell a hero cop from a plain ordinary one,’ he said.

‘Can you?’ Mitchell asked, smiling.

‘Certainly. You’re a cop with heroic dimensions. I can tell.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘It’s very simple. In all the years I’ve been on the force, I have never met a single cop who got bit by a snake. You are unique.’

‘I never met one, either.’

‘Which only proves my point. You’re a white hunter! Tony, you are a hero!’

‘Phil’s the hero. He’s the one who cracked it.’

‘Tony, the one who cracks it is not the hero. The one who gets cracked is the hero. Look at yourself! God, how can you stand looking so pathetically wounded? A Band Aid on your leg, your head in a bandage. Your wife must be dissolving in sympathy.’

‘She gives me breakfast in bed every morning. Bite size.’

‘Predigested, she should give you.’

‘It won’t last long,’ Mitchell said sorrowfully. ‘The bandage comes off my head tomorrow.’

‘The white hunter!’ Thompson said, carried away with himself. ‘Look at him! Fearless! Indomitable! Honest! Jesus, I can hardly stand it.’

Phil Colby pushed his way through the railing which divided the squadroom from the corridor outside. He walked directly to a chair near the desk, plopped into it, stretched his legs and said, ‘Any more coffee?’

‘What are you doing back here?’ Thompson asked. ‘Is the trial over?’

‘It’s over,’ Colby said. ‘Isn’t there any more coffee?’

‘O’Hare has a pot brewing next door. You want some?’

‘I’d like some.’

‘O’Hare!’ Thompson yelled. ‘A cup of coffee for the returning hero.’

‘What happened?’ Mitchell asked.

‘The D.A. got a conviction.’

‘Good.’

‘Yeah.’ Colby sighed. ‘That courtroom was hot, you know?’

‘That’s why I let you solve the thing,’ Mitchell said.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t like testifying before district attorneys. Especially in the summertime.’

‘You’re noble,’ Colby said. He turned to look toward the corridor. ‘Hey, O’Hare,’ he yelled: ‘You coming with that coffee?’

O’Hare came into the squadroom, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He was carrying a pot of coffee in one hand and two cups in the other.

‘I wanted to finish a report I was on,’ he said, grinning. ‘This way I can join you.’ He put the cups down on the desk. He poured coffee into both of them. ‘Pass that container of milk, Tony,’ he said.

Mitchell passed the milk. Thompson passed the sugar. O’Hare administered both to his coffee. Then he sipped it, made a satisfied ‘Ahhh’ with his mouth, smiled and said, ‘So what’s new with the star witness?’

And Phil Colby picked up his coffee cup and said, ‘So what could be new?’