Evan Hunter - Candyland

"Did you see Cathy Frese around that time?"

"Listen, I don't want to get in any trouble here."

On the phone, the fat woman is saying "Very high fidelity, you can hear butterflies." Maybe the "cells" she's talking about are cellular phones. Maybe the lady's into electronics. Or maybe she's just full of shit, Emma thinks, another New York phony carrying her office to the coffee bar, talking loud and loose and trying to impress the world at large, little realizing she's beaming her act to a two-bit whore who makes ten times what the lowly Detective/Second in the rumpled linen suit earns. Emma suddenly realizes how angry she is. And thinks she may be angry only because someone raped and killed Cathy Frese. But knows that isn't it. She's angry because of Andrew Cullen. She's angry because his fucking mother stole Jackie from her. Or maybe she's just angry in general these days.

"What kind of trouble do you think you might be getting into?" she asks.

"Somebody killed Cathy, right?" Cindy says, and her grimace adds the word "Duhhh." She sips at the mochaccino. Foam gives her a momentary white mustache. She licks it clean with a neat little tongue. Emma imagines her doing a three-way with Michael the night before.

"You're here because you think I may know something about it. I don't. So let's not look for trouble, okay?"

"Let's look for whatever I have to look for, okay?" Emma says. "Your girlfriend was killed, so let's cut the crap. Did you see her this morning when you were leaving the salon?"

"Yes," Cindy snaps.

"Was she alone?"

"Yes."

"Sure about that?"

"Positive."

"Did you talk to her?"

"Yes. We said goodnight."

"And?"

"I walked off to the subway."

"What'd she do?"

"She stood there waiting."

"For what? For who?"

"How would I know?"

"Did you see anybody pull up in a taxi?"

"No."

"See a man get out of a taxi and walk over to her?"

"No."

"Did you see somebody named Michael getting out of a taxi at that time?"

"Who's Michael?"

"You did a three-way with him around one, two this morning."

"Who says?"

"Any number of people."

"I don't remember anybody named Michael."

She shakes her head, sips at her coffee. Her face is blank.

"You and Fatima," Emma says. "Dark hair, brown eyes, around five-ten or — eleven," Emma says. "Did you see him outside the XS at around four this morning?"

"I don't remember seeing anybody who looked like that."

"How do you know Cathy was waiting for someone?"

"Well, she was standing there, I assumed she was waiting for someone. Otherwise, why was she standing there? Are you sure you're a detective?"

"Yes, I'm positive," Emma says. "She didn't say she was waiting for someone, did she?"

"She said goodnight, see you tomorrow, is what she said."

"Did she ever mention waiting for someone after work?"

"Never."

She ducks her head, sips coffee and foam from the cardboard container. Emma waits for her to raise her head again. Waits to look into those clear blue eyes again.

"You're sure about that?"

"Yes, I'm positive," Cindy says, and again ducks her head.

Across the room, the fat woman is packing her tent. Emma waits. The woman waddles at last to the front door. A bell tinkles as she opens the door. The contained heat of the day rushes into the room like a plague of rattling locusts. The door closes behind the fat woman. The room is silent except for the whirring of the overhead fan and the hum of the air conditioner high on the wall.

"What are you afraid of?" Emma asks.

"Who's afraid?" Cindy asks.

But she is.

Emma knows she is.

She lets the number ring once, twice, three times…

"Hello?"

A woman's voice. Wary. Apprehensive. Even in that single word. Emma wonders why.

"Karen Tager?"

"Yes?"

"This is Detective Boyle, Special Victims Squad? Okay if I come there and talk to you?"

"What?"

"This is Detective…"

"Yes, but why do you want to talk to me?"

"A woman was killed, Miss Tager, we're trying to find the man who may have done it."

"Well… how would I… I mean, what would I know about…?"

"May I come there, Miss Tager?"

"Well… all right, but…"

"Could you let me have the address, please?"

"Well, okay," she says, and gives Emma the address and apartment number. "But I still don't…"

"See you in a little while," Emma says, and presses the END key. She dials Vice at once, gets a detective she's never spoken to before, asks for Jimmy Morgan, and is told he's gone for the day. She locates Morgan's home number in the little muddle of cards she collected early this morning, and dials it. It rings twice, and Morgan picks up.

"Jimmy Morgan," he says.

"Hi, it's Emma. You got my message, huh?"

"Yeah. What's happening?"

"I think I've got a lead. Woman this Michael character picked up at the Palmer. I'm on my way to see her now. Can you meet me?"

"Where?" he says at once.

The building on Greenwich Avenue is a three-story walkup stuccoed over in brown, with black fire escapes running to the top floor from just above a teal-colored awning that shades a ground-floor French pastry shop. The entrance door to the building is just left of the bakery, painted black to match the fire escapes. Two steps lead up to the door; a brass kick plate protects its lower edge. Immediately to the left of the doorway is a store-front beauty spa with a sign that makes the entrance look like a golden minaret. The street at six-forty-seven p.m. is busy with pedestrians and automobiles. Emma is on the phone again, standing just in front of the black door, when Morgan cruises by in the Vice Squad sedan and toots the horn. He signals to her that he's going to park around the corner, then makes the turn and the car vanishes from sight.

"… but there had to be blood, am I right?" she's telling Manzetti. "What he did to her? So this Michael character couldn't have walked into the Palmer with blood all over his raincoat, right? If it even was him. So maybe there's a raincoat down a sewer near the crime scene someplace. Yeah, could you put some blues on it? That'd save us a lot of time. Thanks," she says, and is about to hit the END key when Manzetti says, "Hold it, here's Danny with something."

She waits.

"The ME's report," he says. " Finalmente ."

She continues waiting. Static riddles the line.

She's afraid she will lose him again. She seems to keep losing people, this phone.

"ME's name is Malone," he says, "do you know him?"

"No."

"Good man, I've worked with him before. Anyway, this is it." He clears his throat, and begins reading. "She was strangled manually, neck grasped from the front. They found curved impressions of the thumbnail and grouped abrasions caused by other fingers. They also found contusions and tears of the thyro… I don't know how to pronounce this… the thyrohyoid membrane?"

"Yeah, go on."

"Also fractures of the hyoid bone, thyroid and cricoid cartilages. Large effusions of blood in the submucous layer of the larynx and pharynx. Impression of the assailant's teeth on the girl's cheek, be nice if we can find a suspect to do a bite imprint. Here's the stuff about her hair… tortuous and deformed roots… patches ripped from her head while still firmly attached to it. Jesus. Cause of death: violence of a nature sufficient to produce a fatal compacting of the throat organs."

He pauses.

He is reading ahead.

She waits again.

"Here's the rape stuff," he says. "She was all torn up, Emma. Forced entry seriously lacerated the posterior commisure and produced a lesion similar to a birth tear unquote. They found dried semen in the pubic hair and on the thighs and vulva. Spermatozoa in the vaginal smears. Multitude of foreign pubic hairs, too, but the girl was a hooker, so that was to be expected. We've got plenty to compare if we ever catch this guy."