Evan Hunter - Candyland

"Here's Morgan now," she says. "We'll get back to you after we talk to the redhead."

"She's a redhead?"

"I thought I told you, sorry."

"I Would've liked a blond better. Establish an M.O."

"I gotta go, Tony."

"Go," he says.

"Who was that?" Morgan asks, nodding to the phone.

"Manzetti," she says, and drops it into her bag. "He just got the ME's report, the guy was a fucking monster."

"Tell me about it," Morgan says, nodding.

"Did you ever reach that lady at the Guild?"

"Yes. Nobody named Stanley worked on both those pictures."

"So scratch Stanley," she says, and nods glumly.

"Easy come, easy go," Morgan says.

A Chinese delivery boy on a bicycle goes zipping past on the sidewalk. Morgan takes an angry slap at his rear wheel. The kid turns to him, is about to say something when Morgan gives him a look. The kid pedals off in a hurry. Morgan turns back to Emma. He shrugs, grins. This city, he is telling her. She shrugs, grins back. This city, she agrees. And turns to scan the bell buttons for a Tager, K.

She knows at once that Karen Tager is a rape victim.

The woman doesn't even have to open her mouth. Emma knows. Perhaps it's the way she instinctively backs away from Morgan as they come into the apartment — and then immediately smiles at him. This is a woman who's been violated. Emma has met this woman before.

She greets them in pajamas over which she wears a green robe that matches her eyes. She tells them she's sorry, but she was getting ready for bed when they called. She gets up at three-thirty every morning because she has to be at work at five. She's a phlebotomist, she tells them, and waits expectantly, knowing they will ask what that is. She explains that she draws blood.

"Thank you for letting us come here," Emma says.

"How'd you get my name?" Karen asks.

"The bartender at the Palmer gave it to us."

"Freddie? Really? Why? You said on the phone that a woman had been killed. I don't see what my being at the Palmer…"

"Did you meet a man named Michael last night?" Morgan asks.

"Michael?"

"Yes. At the Palmer bar."

"Well… yes, I did," she says, and her green eyes suddenly open very wide. "Oh my God," she says. "Did he kill somebody?"

"We don't know yet, Miss Tager. Did you leave the hotel bar with him?"

"Yes, but I don't know anything about…"

"Where'd you go?"

"An Italian restaurant around the corner. Who did he kill?"

"What time did you finish eating?"

"Nine-thirty, ten o'clock. Who'd he kill?"

"Where'd you go then?"

She hesitates.

"Miss Tager? Where'd you go then?"

"Back to the hotel."

"To the bar again?"

She hesitates again.

"Miss Tager?"

"No. We went to his room."

Morgan merely glances at Emma. They are both experienced detectives. And although they have never worked together before, there is a shorthand they both understand. He is asking her to pick up the questioning. He is telling her a woman will get better results from this point on.

"How long did you stay in his room?" Emma asks.

"I was only there for a few minutes."

"Do you remember what time you left?"

"I guess it was around ten-fifteen."

"Where'd you go, Miss Tager?"

"Home."

"Was he alone when you left him?"

"Yes. Well, yes. What'd you think? We were just the two of us, he was alone when I left, yes."

"Why'd you leave?"

"He tried to rape me," Karen says.

Here it comes, Emma thinks.

"Tried?"

"Yes. I ran right out of there."

"Good."

"You don't believe me, do you?"

"Of course I do."

"Well, your partner doesn't."

"I believe you," Morgan says.

"Then why are you smirking that way?"

"Sorry, I didn't know I was."

Emma glances at him. He is definitely not smirking. In fact, there is a very serious look on his face and in his eyes. She does not know what is wrong with Karen Tager or why she has suddenly decided to lie. Nor does she understand what woman's intuition or cop's insight is telling her this girl sitting in the easy chair across the room there is lying, but she would stake her life on it. Whatever this Michael character did or didn't do later on last night, he did not try to rape Karen Tager after dinner.

"So you ran out of there around ten-fifteen or so."

"I think it was about then. He's married, you know. He told me he was expecting a call from his wife. In fact, he has a twenty-one-year-old daughter. She lives in Princeton. His father plays trumpet. Used to play trumpet. He had his own band."

"Was that the last time you saw him? When you left his room?"

"I called him later. But that was the last time I actually saw him, yes."

"Why'd you call him?"

"To tell him what I thought of him."

"What time was that?"

"That I called him?"

"Yes."

"Around eleven or so. I was already in bed."

"He was still there at eleven?"

"Yes."

"What room was it, Miss Tager?"

"What?"

"What room did you call?" Morgan says impatiently. "What was his room number?"

"Oh. 721."

"You're sure about that?"

"Positive. Michael Thorpe. Room 721."

Bingo, Emma thinks.

The hotel manager tells them that the person who occupied room 721 from early yesterday morning to early this morning was not a Michael Thorpe but a Mr Benjamin Thorpe from Los Angeles, California. He gives them Thorpe's address and telephone number in Topanga Canyon, and tells them he would allow them to inspect room 721, but a new guest has already checked into it. If there's anything else he can do to…

"What time did he check out this morning?" Morgan asks.

"Six-thirty-one."

"Give us a list of all the phone calls he made from the time he checked in to the time he checked out," Emma says.

The computer printout of Benjamin Thorpe's hotel bill shows ten outgoing calls on July 21 and three on July 22. It is now six minutes to eight. Emma calls Manzetti's office, and somebody on the squad tells her he's in the field. She gives him the number of her cell phone, even though Manzetti already has it, and asks that he call back as soon as he checks in.

"He's out," she tells Morgan, and gets on the pipe to her own office. She tells a detective there named Susan Hawkes that she'll be faxing her a list of numbers for which she'll need corresponding names and addresses. "If the phone company gives you trouble with addresses…"

"The phone company!" Susan says, and Emma visualizes her rolling her eyes.

"… just settle for localities, we've already got the numbers. I also need a list of all planes leaving New York for Los Angeles anytime from, say, seven this morning to whenever tonight."

"Newark, too?" Susan asks.

"Newark, too. How's the rape business?"

"Quiet."

"Let me know if you pick up a white male, medium height, medium build, dark hair, dark eyes, okay?"

"Sounds like my husband," Susan says.

"Sounds like everybody's husband."

"How soon do you need this stuff?"

"Now," Emma says.

"Okay, m'dear, shoot me the fax."

Standing at the fax machine in a little alcove off the cashier's office, feeding the several pages of Thorpe's hotel bill into it, Emma says, "Did I tell you I went to see Cindy?"

Morgan is sitting in a leather-and-chrome chair near the machine. "Cindy, Cindy," he says, and taps his temple. "Tall busty blonde, frizzed…"

"That's the one. She left the salon same time as Cathy this morning. Says she didn't see anyone, but I think she's hiding something. She knows what Thorpe looks like, she's the one who did the three-way with him."

"I guess that's one way to remember a person," Morgan says and grins. He is silent for a moment. The fax machine whirs and beeps. He glances at it. "Couple of things," he says, and looks up at Emma.