Эд Макбейн - Snow White and Rose Red

Bloom filled him in.

He was trying to locate a black Cadillac limousine that had picked up a girl named Tracy Kilbourne at 207 Heron Lagoon at 10:00 a.m. on the morning of July 5 last year.

“Oh dear,” Hawkins said. “That was quite some time ago, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Bloom said, “but I was hoping—”

“Oh, we have records, indeed we do,” Hawkins said. “Hillary!” he shouted. “Might I have the file for last July, please? Could you hold on a moment?” he said into the phone and again shouted, “Hillary!”

Bloom waited.

When Hawkins came back on the line, he said, “Yes, indeed.”

There was a long silence on the line. Bloom continued waiting. Had Hawkins’s “Yes, indeed” meant that he had found what Bloom was looking for, or merely that he was now in possession of last July’s file?

“A Miss Tracy Kilbourne,” Hawkins said at last. “Two-oh-seven Heron Lagoon. Ten a.m. last July fifth. She requested a stretch limo, said she had a lot of luggage. That the one?”

Bloom took a deep breath.

“Where did you take her?” he asked.

In the state of Florida there are undoubtedly eight thousand condominium developments called Seascape. The one on Whisper Key in Calusa was relatively new. It had been completed for occupancy only last April — three months before a car from Luxury Limousine had deposited Tracy Kilbourne and her luggage on its doorstep. Situated on a full two hundred feet of choice Calusa shoreline, it offered a white-sand beach that ran the length of the property, an almost Olympic-size swimming pool, six tennis courts, a shopping arcade, an on-premises gourmet French restaurant, and a price tag of $625,000 for a two-bedroom apartment like Tracy’s, which was located on one of the choice floors. The quarterly maintenance fee on this apartment was $1,813.12. The smallest apartment here — a one-bedroom broom closet — went for $300,000. All of this Bloom learned from the managing director, a startlingly beautiful black woman named Tabitha Hayes, with whom Cooper Rawles fell immediately in love.

It is easy to fall in love on the first day of May in the state of Florida.

Tabitha Hayes kept licking her lips as she talked to the two cops; Rawles later referred to her as Candy Lips. Rawles wasn’t married, so Bloom guessed it was okay, his falling in love so fast and so hard. Tabitha told them she knew Tracy Kilbourne personally, but she hadn’t seen her around for some time now. It was her guess that someone as wealthy and beautiful as the resident in 106 undoubtedly had condos or villas or yachts or whatever all over the world, and rarely spent much time in any one place.

“What makes you think she was wealthy?” Bloom asked.

“She arrived in a big stretch limo,” Tabitha said, “even though she owns a nice little Mercedes-Benz convertible.”

“She owned a car?” Rawles said, surprised. Their check with Motor Vehicles had indicated no automobile registered in Tracy Kilbourne’s name.

“Still here, if you’d care to see it,” Tabitha said. “Any resident at Seascape has his own two-car garage. Miss Kilbourne’s has been in the garage for months now.”

“How many months?” Bloom asked.

“Six, seven? As I said, I haven’t seen her in a long while.”

Tabitha’s eyes reminded Rawles of coal. Rich, loamy, bituminous coal. She rolled those eyes at him now and asked, “What’s the problem, anyway? Why are you looking for her?”

“She’s dead,” Bloom said.

“Oh,” Tabitha said.

Rawles liked the way she said that single word. Just the proper amount of shock and respect in that single word.

“Would you know which bank carries the mortgage on her unit?” Bloom asked.

“There is no mortgage. The apartment was bought outright.”

Bloom’s eyes opened wide.

“A two-bedroom apartment?” he said.

“Yes, two bedrooms.”

“Costing six hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars?”

“Yes.”

“And she bought it outright ?”

“No, Mr. Bloom, the apartment was not purchased by Miss Kilbourne.”

Bloom leaned in close.

“Who did purchase it?” he asked.

“A firm in Stamford, Connecticut.”

“Named?”

“Arch Realty.”

“Who was paying the quarterly maintenance fees?” Rawles asked.

“Pardon?” Tabitha said, and licked her lips.

Rawles wanted to carry her off to China.

“The maintenance fees. You said—”

“Oh yes.”

“Who paid them?”

“We receive a quarterly check from Arch Realty,” Tabitha said.

“In Stamford?”

“Yes. In Stamford.”

“Every quarter?”

“Every quarter,” Tabitha said.

“When did you get the last one?”

“A few weeks ago. They’re due on the fifteenth.”

“And you’ve been getting them every quarter—”

“Like clockwork.”

“Even though Miss Kilbourne hasn’t been here since... When did you say you saw her last?”

“I can’t be certain. In the fall sometime.”

“The checks keep coming, Morrie,” Rawles said. “Girl was in the river for God knows how long, they still keep paying the maintenance fees here.”

“Yeah,” Bloom said.

“Who signs these checks from Connecticut?” Rawles asked.

“I’ve never really studied the signature, Mr. Rawles,” Tabitha said.

“Could you look at it now?” Rawles said. “You said you received this quarter’s—”

“Yes, two weeks ago. The check’s already been deposited, Mr. Rawles.”

“Which bank?” Bloom asked.

“Our management account is with Calusa National.”

“Ever any trouble with the checks?” Rawles asked. “Any of them ever bounce?”

“Never.”

“Not even in the past six, seven months?”

“No, never.”

“Somebody doesn’t know she’s dead,” Rawles said to Bloom. “Checks just keep on coming.”

“Must be on a computer,” Bloom said.

“Can we see this apartment she was living in?” Rawles asked.

“Why, certainly, Mr. Rawles,” Tabitha said, and rolled her eyes at him.

They followed her out of the office and onto a wide white walkway that meandered past the condominium’s ground-level shops — a boutique, a pharmacy, a flower shop, an art gallery, a jewelry store — and then past the tennis courts. The swimming pool glistened a sapphire blue in the distance, against the emerald-green waters of the Gulf. The air was redolent of lush, blooming plants. Bloom sucked in a deep breath.

“Here are the garages,” Tabitha said. “Did you want to see Miss Kilbourne’s car?”

“Yes, please,” Bloom said.

Tabitha unlocked the door to the two-car garage. A brand-new sleek brown Mercedes-Benz 380SL sat in the exact center of the space. There was a Connecticut license plate on the car. Rawles tried the door on the passenger side. It was unlocked. He opened the door and then thumbed open the glove compartment.

“Here’s the registration,” he said.

“What does it say?” Bloom asked.

“Registered in the state of Connecticut. To Arch Realty Corporation.”

“The address?”

“Four-eighty-two Summer Street, Stamford, Connecticut.”

“Who signed the registration?”

“Andrew... Norman, is it? I can’t make it out, guy writes like a Chink. Andrew Norton Hemingway? Treasurer of Arch.” He turned to Tabitha. “He the one who signs those maintenance checks?”

“I really don’t know,” Tabitha said.

“Would you mind if we take the registration with us?” Bloom asked Tabitha. “We’ll give you a receipt, if you like.”

“It’s not my car,” Tabitha said, and shrugged.

They went out into the sunshine again, and she locked the garage door behind them.