Ed McBain: Cinderella

“So,” she said, “has your man learned anything?”

All business now. She had not known the name of the private investigator he’d hired; she had come to him specifically to avoid personal contact with such a scurrilous breed. Ergo, she did not know that the man he’d hired was dead, the victim of gunshot wounds inflicted on a hot summer night, though the eighth day of June couldn’t be considered summertime except in the state of Florida. In the state of Florida, summertime sometimes came at the end of April. In the state of Florida, violent death sometimes came, too, and it had come on Sunday night to a nice guy named Otto Samalson who smoked too damn much, and coughed a lot, but who did a good job. “Your man,” she had called him. Matthew wasn’t so sure Otto would have enjoyed being called anybody’s man. If nothing else, Otto was his own man.

“My man ,” Matthew said, “is dead.”

“What?” she said, and took off the sunglasses.

She’d been wearing sunglasses on the day she came to the office, hadn’t taken the glasses off during her entire visit. Her face had looked long and sorrowful, the glasses adding a further dimension of mournfulness, black against her pale white skin, as impenetrable as a crypt. On the day of her visit, she had told Matthew that her husband was forty-five years old, and he had assumed she was in her mid- to late-thirties. Her eyes, revealed now, were a glade green, youthful and alive with intelligence, easily her best feature. Without the glasses, she seemed a decade younger. The adolescent body now seemed entirely appropriate.

“He was shot to death on the Tamiami Trail,” Matthew said. A blank stare from her. “This past Sunday night,” he said. “A man named Otto Samalson.” The green gaze unwavering. “You may have read about it in the papers. Or seen it on television.”

“No,” she said.

“In any event, he’s dead,” Matthew said.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, and then, almost at once, “Does this mean I’ll have to find another detective?”

Me, me, me, Matthew thought, how does this affect me ? Does Otto Samalson’s untimely and inconsiderate demise mean I will now have to seek the services of another private detective, equally faceless and anonymous?

He almost sighed.

“If you feel you still want one,” he said.

“Well, if the man is dead ...”

“He is dead, yes, Mrs. Nettington.”

“Then how can we continue...?”

“I’d already had a report from him, Mrs. Nettington. And yesterday I heard a tape that—”

“Why didn’t you tell me this?” she said. “When did you have this report?”

“Late Friday afternoon.”

“And you didn’t call me?”

“Otto was making a duplicate copy of the tape. I thought I’d wait till—”

“What tape? What do you mean?”

“Otto was able to plant a recorder...”

“Who is she?” Carla said at once. “Who’s the woman?”

“Someone named Rita Kirkman.”

The same blank green-eyed stare again. The name meant nothing to her.

“She lives in Harbor Acres,” Matthew said. “That’s where the tape was made. In her home there.”

“Where is it?” Carla said. “I want to hear it.”

“The tape? In Otto’s office. The police—”

“You don’t have it with you?”

“No, I don’t. The police are investigating a homicide, Mrs. Nettington—”

“You mean the police will be listening to that tape?”

“There’s a good possibility of that, yes.”

“Oh God,” she said. “What’s on it?”

“Everything you wanted,” Matthew said.

“When can I hear it?”

“I’ll check with the police. I’m sure—”

“I wish the goddamn police weren’t in this,” she said.

“Yes, it’s unfortunate that Otto was killed,” Matthew said dryly.

She looked at him, uncertain whether sarcasm had been intended.

“Was your husband home on Sunday night?” he asked.

She hesitated.

“Mrs. Nettington?”

She put the sunglasses on.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I was out myself. I went to a movie with a girlfriend.”

“You didn’t call home at any time Sunday night? From the theater? Or anyplace else?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t know whether your husband was here or not?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t.”

“What time did you get home, Mrs. Nettington?”

“At a little past midnight. We stopped for a drink.”

“You didn’t try calling your husband from where you were, did you? The bar, or the restaurant, or wherever.”

“We were at Marina Lou’s. No, I didn’t.”

“Was your husband here when you got home?”

“Yes, he was in bed. Asleep.”

“But you have no idea if he was here all night or if he—”

“No.”

“What movie did you see?”

“ Dr. Zhivago . For the fifth time,” she said, and smiled. “They’re showing it again at the Festival.”

“Up on the North Trail?”

“Yes.”

“Good movie,” he said.

“Very romantic,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

There was a long silence.

“Mrs. Nettington,” he said, “do you think your husband knew he was being followed?”

“I have no idea.”

“He didn’t say anything to you about it, did he?”

“Nothing.”

“Didn’t accuse you of hiring—”

“No.”

“Didn’t hint that he knew—”

“No, nothing like that,” she said, and then, in sudden realization, “You’re asking exactly what they’ll ask, aren’t you? Daniel will be a suspect in this, won’t he? Because he was being followed by the man who was killed!” She swung her long legs over the side of the chaise, facing him now, lips compressed in a tight angry line, sunglasses reflecting the approaching storm clouds, towers of storm clouds hiding her green eyes, a cool wind blowing in suddenly off the bayou. “They’ll ask Daniel where he was Sunday night, and Daniel will want to know why they want to know, and they’ll have to tell him that a private investigator was killed, and my husband will ask what a private investigator has to do with him , and they’ll say he was being followed by this man who was killed, your wife hired this man to follow you — and there goes my goddamn marriage down the drain!”

“Mrs. Nettington,” Matthew said, “I thought the reason you came to me—”

“Not because I wanted this to happen!”

“But... you told me... I’m sorry, but you said you were thinking of a divorce. You said that if your husband was in fact —”

“Never mind!” she said sharply.

Matthew almost flinched.

“Forget it,” she said. “Thank you very much, Mr. Hope, please send me your man’s report, and the tape, and of course your bill.”

He looked at her, still puzzled.

“Go now, would you? Leave me alone, okay?”

“Mrs. Nettington...”

“Would you please go ?” she said.

Two men were sitting in Kate Carmody’s living room when she got home from work that Tuesday afternoon. Both of them Hispanic. One of them clean-shaven and as slender as a toreador, the other one a huge man with a slick little mustache. The clean-shaven one was reading a copy of People when she came in. The one with the pencil-line mustache was cleaning his fingernails with a switchblade knife. Kate took one look and turned to run out of the apartment.

The one with the knife was off the couch in a wink.

He grabbed her shoulder, spun her away from the door, hurled her back across the room, and closed and locked the door. The other one put down the magazine and said, “Miss Carmody?” Heavy Spanish accent. She immediately thought Miami . She next thought Alice . This had something to do with her dumb junkie sister in Miami.