Ed McBain: Cinderella

A Chinese woman was sitting behind the reception room desk. She did not look at all like the Dragon Lady. She had black hair and eyes the color of loam, and she was wearing a Chinese-style dress with a mandarin collar, but that was where the resemblance ended. Matthew guessed she was in her fifties, as plump as a dumpling, as tiny and as squat as a fire hydrant.

“Yes?” she said. “May I help you?”

Perfect English. Not a trace of sing-song.

“I’m Matthew Hope,” he said. “Summerville and Hope. Mr. Samalson was doing some work for us.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I’m May Hennessy. Otto’s assistant.”

He had spoken to her on the phone more times than he could count, but he had never once guessed she was Chinese. Always figured Otto’s assistant was a big redheaded Irish lady who carried a blackjack in her handbag. May Hennessy. That’s what a May Hennessy should have looked like. He glanced at her left hand resting on the typewriter. No wedding band. So where’d the Hennessy come from? Had her mother been Chinese, her father Irish? Or was she divorced?

“Hell of a thing, isn’t it?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Nicest man who ever lived.”

“Yes,” Matthew said, nodding.

There was an awkward silence.

“Miss Hennessy,” he said, “when I saw Otto on Friday, he mentioned a tape he’d made. On the Nettington case. He said it was in the safe.” He paused and then said, “Could I possibly have that tape?”

May Hennessy looked at him.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Would there be any problem with that? I know my client—”

“Well, I can’t see any problem as such,” May said. “Your client was paying Otto to make that tape, so I guess you’re entitled to it. It’s just...”

“Yes?”

“Well, the detectives asked me...”

“Oh? Have they been here?”

“Been here all morning,” May said. “Left just a few minutes ago.”

“Who? Which ones?”

“Hacker and Rawles.”

“Have they sealed the office?”

“Well, this isn’t a crime scene, I don’t suppose they’ll be sealing it, do you? It’s just... they want me to gather all the current files, the cases Otto was working on when he got killed.” She shook her head. “I still can’t say those words. I get a lump in my throat if I even think those words.”

“Yes,” Matthew said.

“So I guess that includes the tape, don’t you?”

“I would guess so. When will they be coming back for the files, did they say?”

“I told them it’d take me a while. The phone’s been ringing off the hook all morning. He had a lot of friends, Otto.”

“But will they be coming back later today?”

“I told them around five, five-thirty.”

“I wonder if you’d do me a favor, Miss Hennessy.”

“You want to hear that tape, don’t you?” she said. “Before I give it to the police.”

“Please.”

“I can’t see any harm in that,” she said.

“May I take it with me? I’ll bring it back in an hour or so.”

“You can listen right here,” she said. “If you’re worried about me, I’ve already heard anything that could be on that tape a hundred times before. I’ve been working with Otto for ten years now, Mr. Hope. There’s no more dirty surprises for me.

Matthew hesitated.

“You can go in his office and close the door if you think I’ll be embarrassed,” May said. “The recorder’s on his desk. I’ll get the tape for you.”

“Thank you,” he said. “And Miss Hennessy... these cases Otto was working? The current ones?”

“Yes?”

“How many were there?”

“Just yours and one other.”

“Both here in Calusa?”

“Yes.”

“Are the files very thick?”

“How could they be? He only started working yours a few weeks ago and the other one around the end of April.”

“Miss Hennessy... I wonder... after I hear the tape, would you mind very much if I Xeroxed those files?”

“It’s a free country,” May said, “and so far nothing’s been impounded.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“I’ll get that tape,” she said.

A taped conversation somehow always sounded more immediate and real than a live one. Matthew didn’t know why that was so. He guessed that when people were actually engaged in a conversation, they didn’t notice how sloppy and ragged it was. Like life itself, he guessed. But listening to a conversation on tape, you realized that continuity and order were for novels and movies. In real-life conversation, people invariably meandered far afield, sometimes returning to a point minutes later, often seeming to forget it altogether. Interruptions were frequent, overlapping was common, entire passages sometimes made no sense at all. Listening to a taped conversation was compelling because, first of all, it was so shockingly real, and second, the listener was unquestionably eavesdropping. The conversation between Daniel Nettington and a woman identified on Otto’s hand-lettered cassette label as Rita Kirkman (but only as “Rita” on the tape itself) was even more compelling because the people talking were lovers.

Otto’s private office was larger than the reception area — eight by ten as opposed to six by eight — but just as cluttered. It enjoyed the advantage of a window, however, which, combined with its few extra feet, made it seem spacious by comparison, even if the only view from the window was of a bank building across the street. The desk, a twin sister to the one in the reception room, was piled high with papers. There were bookshelves and filing cabinets and a standing electric fan and a small-screen television set and a radio and two wooden chairs with arms and a typewriter on a stand and, on the wall opposite the desk and surrounded by charcoal drawings of nudes, Otto’s framed Class-A license to operate a private investigative agency in the state of Florida.

In accordance with Chapter 493 of the Florida Statutes, such a license granted to its recipient the right to investigate, and to gather information on, a wide range of matters that included:

• The credibility of witnesses or other persons...

• The whereabouts of missing persons...

• The location or recovery of lost or stolen property, and...

• The causes and origin of fires, libels and slanders.

The license further permitted the investigator to:

• Secure evidence to be used in the trial of civil or criminal cases, and...

• When operating under express written authority of the governmental official responsible, to investigate crimes or wrongdoings against the United States or any state or territory of the United States.

All for a hundred bucks.

Which was what the license cost annually.

Renewable before midnight on the thirtieth day of June.

This year, Otto Samalson would not be renewing his license. Nor would he be posting the five-thousand-dollar bond required by subsections 493.08 and 493.09.

Matthew took the cassette May had given him, inserted it into the recorder, sat down behind Otto’s desk — facing the wall with its framed license and its charcoal nudes — and pressed the play button.

...of getting away for at least a weekend.

I don’t know, Rita. I’ll have to see.

I don’t want to force you into doing anything you—

He hit the stop button. Obviously, he’d started the tape someplace beyond the beginning. He rewound it now, pressed the stop button again, and then the play button.

...of getting away for at least a weekend.

I don’t know, Rita. I’ll have to see.

I don’t want to force—

He hit the stop button again. Okay, he had it now. The recorder Otto had planted under the bed was voice-activated. It probably had a good pickup range, and it had begun taping as they came into the bedroom, Rita continuing a sentence she had already started before entering the room. Nodding, Matthew rewound the tape, and started it all over again.