Ed McBain - Cinderella

“I spoke to her yesterday,” Annie said. “She said she’d call back, about meeting me in Miami, but she never did. Well, Katie. Always unreliable,” she said, and made a dismissing gesture with her hand.

Ernesto knew they had spoken. That was why the daughter would soon be stinking up the neighborhood. “She was the one who gave us your address,” he said. Which was the truth. “Because she is concerned about your stepdaughter.” Which was a lie.

“Really?” Annie said. “ That’s a surprise.”

Which is the bad thing about lying, Ernesto thought.

“Those two never got along,” Annie said. “Katie hates her, in fact. And you tell me she’s concerned about her? That’s hard to believe.”

“Well, people’s feelings sometimes change,” Ernesto said, and thought Lady, please don’t make this hard for us, okay? “Anyway, we’d like to know where she is,” he said. “Your stepdaughter Jenny.”

He said it “Henny.”

She almost laughed.

Instead, she said, “Last I heard, she was in Calusa.”

Good, Ernesto thought.

“Where in Calusa?” he said.

“I don’t know,” Annie said.

Ernesto looked at her. He glanced at Domingo. He was hoping she was not going to make this difficult for them. There had been enough blood.

“Why don’t you know?” he asked.

“ Why don’t I know?” she said. “What do you mean, why don’t I know? If I don’t know, I don’t know.”

“You said she’s in Calusa...”

“Yes.”

“...but you don’t know where.”

“That’s right.”

“How can that be?”

“She called me when she got there. She hadn’t found a place yet, she was just calling to say she was okay. I haven’t heard from her since.”

“Ah,” Ernesto said. “When was this, please?”

“When she called me?”

“Yes, when she called you to say she was okay.”

“Early in April,” Annie said.

Ernesto nodded. He was thinking that was about right, she had disappeared around the end of March. She had probably gone straight to Calusa from Miami. While they were still trying to find her in all the hotel bars on the beach. So. Calusa. That was near Tampa, wasn’t it?

“Where’s Calusa?” he asked.

“Not far from here. Near Sarasota.”

“Tell me,” Ernesto said. “Does she still go by the name Jody Carmody?”

“Well, she uses a lot of names,” Annie said. “I never heard that one before, though, Jody Carmody. Why would she have used that , she hates her sisters, hates the Carmody name. I know she was using Angela West and Cheryl Blake, but Jody Carmody? That was my first husband’s name, Carmody. Not Jenny’s father, Jenny’s father was my second husband, he’s dead now, he died of a heart attack four years ago. I always thought it was him finding out about Jenny gave him the heart attack. That she was a prostitute, you know.”

Ernesto nodded impatiently. He did not want to hear this bullshit.

“Write down the names for me, please,” he said. “All the names she goes by.”

“Well, there’s just the ones I told you,” Annie said.

“Write them down, por favor . Please.”

She went into the kitchen, took a pad and pencil from where they were resting near the phone, and carried them back into the living room. She switched on a floor lamp near the couch, leaned over onto the coffee table, and began writing. As she wrote, she spoke. Ernesto had always admired that, people who could talk and write at the same time.

“She may be a redhead by now, who knows?” Annie said. “Or back to her real color, which is brown. Well, more like... well, yeah, brown I guess you would say. She was a blonde the last time I saw her. But who knows what she is now? Did I mention Virginia Darrow? Did I give you that name?”

“No,” Ernesto said.

“That’s one of the names she uses. Virginia Darrow. I like that one a lot. That and Melissa Blair. The last time I saw her, she was Virginia Darrow and she was a blonde. She looked terrific. Well, she’s a beautiful girl, would you like to see some pictures of her?”

“That would be helpful,” Ernesto said.

“These are all the names I can think of,” Annie said. “Oh wait, there’s one more she used to use, but that was when she first went to Los Angeles. When she was still trying to get in pictures. She used this very young name, it was Mary Jane Hopkins. But I don’t think she’s used that in a long time. Do you want me to put it down?”

“Put it down, please,” Ernesto said.

Annie wrote down the name, and then tore the sheet of paper from the pad and handed it to Ernesto. “Here you are, Detective Gomez,” she said, and then frowned. “I’m sorry,” she said, “is that what you told me?”

Ernesto had forgotten what he’d told her.

“Yes, that’s right,” he said, “Gomez.”

Domingo looked at him sharply.

Lady, Ernesto thought again, please don’t make this hard for us.

“Would you like to see the pictures?” she asked.

“Por favor ,” he said, and remembered that he’d told her Garcia.

They went into the bedroom. She opened the closet door, and reached up onto the shelf. “Can you help me here?” she said. “It’s the gray box.”

Ernesto hefted the box down from the shelf. They went back into the living room again, and she began leafing through the pictures, proudly displaying them.

“These are my two daughters when they were little girls,” she said. “And this is my first husband. And this is when we used to live in New Jersey. And this is the four of us in Vero Beach, which is the first time we came to Florida. That was when Al decided he wanted to come live down here. My first husband. And this is—”

I don’t want to hear this bullshit, Ernesto thought.

“—my second husband, Dom. Well, Dominick Santoro. Do you know Santoro Brothers Construction in Miami? That used to be my husband. Ah, here’s Jenny,” he said.

Por fin , Ernesto thought, and almost sighed in relief.

He looked at the picture of a six-year-old girl.

“Have you got anything more recent?” he asked.

What it sounded like was, “Ha’ you gar anytin’ more rissin?”

“Oh sure, just a second,” she said, and began rummaging in the box. “The thing is, you know, there aren’t very many because she left home so young, she was only sixteen when she left for California. Wanted to be an actress. Well, she was very good, you know, ask anybody. She was the star of The Crucible , do you know that play? By Arthur Miller? When they did it at the school. She was the star. The dramatics teacher said she was a very talented young lady. Those were his exact words. A very talented young lady. Still, it broke her father’s heart when she went out there. Well, you know, he had a heart attack two years later. Here she is, look, she must be fifteen in this picture, isn’t she beautiful?”

She showed them a photograph of a girl in a bikini, good breasts in the skimpy top, wide hips, long legs, standing on tiptoe like a model, a grin on her face, dark hair blowing in the wind.

“I’ll tell you the truth,” Annie said, “she’s my stepdaughter and all, but she’s my favorite. Of all the three. The others are my natural daughters, but I like Jenny best. Is that a terrible thing for me to say? I’m supposed to be the wicked stepmother, I know, but I always thought of myself as her real mother, and I loved her better than my own daughters, still do. Here’s another one of her on the beach, this was taken in Florida, too, we were living in Bradenton at the time. She was very well developed at an early age, so beautiful. And smart, too, she used to get A’s even in mathematics, which is difficult for a girl. I don’t know what happened out there, I’ll never be able to understand how she became a prostitute, never. Well, listen, Alice, poor thing, was a drug addict, you know. And Katie’s been divorced twice, who knows what she’ll make of her life. She sent this from Los Angeles, this is fairly recent. It was a party at a producer’s house. In Hollywood. They give big parties, the producers out there in Hollywood.”