Ed McBain - Cinderella

The young girl — eager to help a working girl like herself inherit a zillion dollars — checked her files and came back five minutes later with the information that on April 3, at the tri-city airport, Hertz had rented the Toyota Corolla with the 201-ZHW license plate to a woman named Jenny Santoro who had since renewed the rental twice.

Otto asked how she was paying for the car.

The girl told him American Express.

Otto asked if that was the name on the card, Jenny Santoro.

The girl told him Yes.

Otto asked if Jenny Santoro had given an address here in Calusa.

The girl told him No, but that wasn’t unusual. Lots of people rented a car before they’d found a place to stay. She had given her home address, though, as 3914 Veteran Avenue in Los Angeles, California.

Jenny Santoro.

More editorializing here. Otto was astonished that she was Italian. That long blonde hair? Those blue eyes? Italian? Well, now he had a name, and now he had to start all over again with the new name.

By the end of the next day, Wednesday, June 4, Otto was beginning to think the Jenny Santoro was a phony, too, this despite the fact that you had to show a driver’s license before any rental company would let you drive off with a car. Otto noted gratuitously, however, that you could buy a phony driver’s license for a hundred bucks anyplace in America, and since the work he’d been doing all day long — the same routine checks he’d made for Angela West — were coming up blank for Jenny Santoro, there was a strong likelihood that the lady was carrying queer documents.

On Thursday, June 5, Otto went back to the South Dixie Mall.

He went back there because Cinderella (or Angela West or Jenny Santoro) had been carrying a shopping bag, and it was safe to assume there’d been something in that shopping bag and reasonable to expect she’d made a purchase in the mall, perhaps in the bookstore, perhaps in one of the other shops.

He showed the bookstore clerk the picture Larkin had given him and asked if this girl had made any purchases and if so how she had paid for them. He was praying for a check with a name and an address printed on it. He told the clerk, by the way, that he worked for a credit-card verification agency, whatever that was, and was trying to track down a stolen card.

The clerk recognized the photo, said Yes, this girl had bought a book just the other day, and then checked her receipts. The book was something entitled A New View of a Woman’s Body . It cost $8.95, and Cinderella had charged it to MasterCard. The name was another name entirely.

Jody Carmody.

Otto showed her picture in every store in the mall, using the same credit-card verification routine, wanting to know if she’d bought anything, and if so whether she’d used either a credit card or a check. He was still hoping she’d used a check in one of the stores. A saleswoman in a record shop recognized the picture, told Otto she’d bought some tapes and paid for them by credit card. Visa, this time.

The name on the card was Melissa Blair.

Otto went back to the bookstore, bought a copy of the book for himself, and drove to his office where he asked May to check all the tri-city phone directories for either a Jody Carmody or a Melissa Blair. May came up blank. Otto continued reading the book Cinderella had bought.

It was, he discovered, a sort of illustrated guide with chapter headings like “Self-Examination” and “A Woman’s Reproductive Anatomy” and “Universal Health Problems of Women” and “Feminist Abortion Care” and so on.

Otto wondered if the choice of this particular book had any connection with the visit Cinderella had made to the Medical Arts Building.

Had she gone to see an obstetrician/gynecologist?

On Friday, June 6 — two days before his murder — Otto went back to the Medical Arts Building, carrying with him the picture of Cinderella. He spoke to four OB-GYNs, the last of whom — a man named Dr. Schlemmer — identified the picture and said Yes, he had examined the girl, who had given her name as Mary Jane Hopkins and her address as 1237 Hacienda Road on Whisper Key. She had paid for the visit in cash. When Otto asked why she had come to see him, Dr. Schlemmer said that was privileged information.

Otto wondered if she was pregnant.

That same afternoon, Otto drove out to 1237 Hacienda Road, which turned out to be a place called Camelot Towers, which was a six-story condominium with ten apartments on each floor. He checked in the resident manager’s office for the name Mary Jane Hopkins. No such person living there. He showed the picture of Cinderella at the Jacaranda Ball, the one Larkin had given him. Ice-blue gown. Long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, wide smile on her face. The resident manager said she did not recognize the girl in the picture. By eight o’clock that night, he had knocked on the doors of seventeen apartments and showed Cinderella’s picture to eleven people.

Five of those people said she looked familiar but they hadn’t seen her around in a while.

Three of those people said they’d never seen her in their lives.

Two said they may have seen her, but they weren’t sure.

One said he’d seen her in the parking lot only yesterday, but he couldn’t remember which space she was parked in.

Otto got home at about eight-thirty.

He planned to go back to the condo on Saturday morning — and again on Sunday if necessary — to knock on more doors, showing the picture and trying to learn why she had given this particular address to Dr. Schlemmer.

That was the last of the handwritten notes.

Otto was killed on Sunday night.

“What are you talking about?” Larkin said, and leaned toward Matthew. “He found her? And he didn’t call me?”

“No, no, he—”

“You just said he spotted—”

“Yes, but—”

“So why didn’t he...?”

“What happened was—”

“Yeah, how about it? I’m the man was paying his bills, and I’m the last to—”

“The notes were still in his handwriting,” Matthew said. “They hadn’t been typed yet. I’m sure Otto planned—”

“So what’d the notes say?”

Matthew told him what the notes had said. They were sitting on the deck of Larkin’s house, looking out over the water. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and thunderclouds were already massing.

“You’re kidding me,” Larkin said.

“No, I’m serious.”

“Cinderella?”

“Yes.”

“The picture I gave him?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe it,” Larkin said.

“It’s what happened.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences like that,” Larkin said, shaking his head.

“Well,” Matthew said.

“I just don’t believe it.”

“Anyway...” Matthew said, and began telling the rest of the story.

Every now and then, Larkin interrupted.

“Did he get the license plate?”

And...

“Italian, I can’t believe it. She looked like an Indiana wheatfield.”

And...

“ Another name? What is she, a spy ?”

But mostly he listened. And when Matthew finished telling him that Otto had planned to check out that condominium again on Monday, Larkin shook his head and said, “Fuckin’ bad break.”

“Mr. Larkin,” Matthew said, “the reason I’m here, I know you went to Otto because you considered this a confidential matter—”

“Very,” Larkin said.

“—and I assure you I’m well aware that I’ve already breached your privacy by reading Otto’s reports. I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t feel so strongly about this. I don’t like the idea of someone killing him, Mr. Larkin. I don’t like it at all.”