Эд Макбейн - Snow White and Rose Red

“This way,” she said.

Tracy Kilbourne’s apartment was called “ground level,” which, under Calusa’s new building codes, meant thirteen feet above mean high-tide line. Tabitha unlocked the door for them and led them into a spacious living room that overlooked the Gulf. The apartment smelled of insecticide. Tabitha explained that the exterminator had been there only yesterday. The apartment was extravagantly and expensively furnished in a style too modern for Bloom’s taste; he later confided to Rawles that he felt as if he were stepping into Star Trek’s Enterprise . Rawles, on the other hand, thought this was just what an apartment in Florida should look like — all white Formica and glass, and fabrics in blues and greens and yellows to give an open feeling of sun, sky, and water — and he secretly wished he could afford something like this. He suspected the modern paintings on the walls had cost someone a fortune. He knew that Tracy had not furnished the place herself; there had been no checks written for furniture or art among the ones they had studied back at the police station. From somewhere on the beach below, Rawles heard a young girl laughing, and for some reason the sound almost moved him to tears.

“Bedrooms are back this way,” Tabitha said.

The master bedroom enjoyed the same beachfront exposure as the living room. White Levolor blinds were drawn against the sun, giving the spacious room — with its white furniture and white fabrics — the cool, clean look of an arctic tundra.

Framed photographs of a beautiful blonde woman with light eyes and a slender figure were on the dresser top.

“That’s Tracy,” Tabitha said.

“We’ll want to take those with us,” Bloom said.

Both he and Rawles had been occupied with Tracy Kilbourne’s case since the fifteenth of April, but only now — on the first of May — did they know what she had looked like when she was alive.

Bloom began taking the photographs out of their frames.

A king-size bed dominated the room. A pair of white Formica nightstands flanked the bed. A white slim-line telephone rested on the one nearest the window wall. Rawles picked up the receiver.

“Getting a dial tone,” he said.

Bloom looked surprised.

Rawles studied the receiver. “Number on it,” he said. “Want to jot it down?”

Bloom took out his pad, and Rawles read off the number.

“So how come the phone company doesn’t have a listing for her?” Rawles asked.

“Pardon?” Tabitha said.

Rawles wondered if she was a little hard of hearing. The possibility that she might be somewhat deaf made her seem even more exciting to him. He was considering a marriage proposal when Bloom said, “Let’s check the drawers and closets. That okay with you, Miss Hayes?”

“Yes, certainly,” she said.

The detectives went through the dresser drawers first.

A leather jewelry box in one of the top drawers contained, among other choice baubles, a gold ring with a diamond as large as the state of Rhode Island.

The drawer alongside that one contained lace-edged silk panties in what appeared to be every color of the rainbow.

There was more lingerie in the other dresser drawers. And sweaters. And blouses. In the closets they found yet more blouses on hangers, and tailored slacks and designer dresses and suits and high-heeled shoes lined up like a cadre of well-disciplined cavalry officers.

Tracy Kilbourne had owned more clothes than all of Bloom’s three sisters put together.

A mink coat hung on a padded hanger.

A piece of Louis Vuitton luggage still carried a baggage tag for Delta’s Flight 91 from Tampa to LAX.

“There’s that American Express item,” Rawles said.

“Yeah,” Bloom said.

“Pardon?” Tabitha said.

A silk peignoir was hanging on a hook behind the bathroom door.

Bottles with colored liquids in them lined the tiled wall behind the sunken bathtub. Bloom had seen such an Arabian Nights lineup of perfumes and oils only once — when he was looking for a bookie in a massage parlor in Hempstead, Long Island.

“She lived well,” Tabitha said dryly.

“Who do you suppose paid for all this stuff?” Bloom asked.

“I assumed she herself...”

“Ever see a boyfriend coming around?” Rawles asked.

“It’s not our policy at Seascape to monitor the comings and goings of our residents,” Tabitha said, and looked him squarely in the eye.

“You want to have dinner with me tonight?” Rawles asked.

“Pardon?” Tabitha said.

“You want to have—”

“No,” she said.

The first thing they did when they got back to the office was call the telephone company.

Bloom spoke to a supervisor named Marcia Gristede. He told her what he was after. He gave her the address of Tracy Kilbourne’s condo at Seascape, and read off the number they’d taken from the phone in her bedroom. Marcia Gristede checked her records.

“Yes, sir, I have that listing,” she said.

“To whom is the phone listed?” Bloom asked.

“To Arch Realty Corporation in Stamford, Connecticut,” Marcia Gristede said.

“They get the bills each month?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When’s the last bill they paid?”

“We bill this number on the seventeenth, sir. The last bill was paid six days ago.”

Bloom looked at his desk calendar. “That would’ve been April twenty-fifth,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Always pay promptly, do they?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Arch Realty Corporation in Stamford, Connecticut, right?”

“Yes, sir. That’s where we send the bills, sir.”

“And the telephone is listed under that name?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you have an address for them?” Bloom asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“May I have it, please?”

“Certainly, sir,” she said, and read off the address to him. The address was the same as the one on the registration for the Benz. As Bloom wrote it down, he wondered if Marcia Gristede knew that a chain of grocery stores in New York had been named after her.

“Miss Gristede,” he said, “do you know who signs these checks from Arch Realty?”

“I have no idea in the world,” she said.

While Bloom was on the phone with Marcia Gristede, I was on the phone with Sarah Whittaker. She had called me in what appeared to be a state of great agitation, telling me at once that Dr. Pearson was attempting to sabotage her one chance at “freedom” — as she called it — by insisting that Brunhilde accompany us to Southern Medical.

“What’s wrong with Brunhilde?” I asked.

“What’s wrong with her?” Sarah said, her voice rising. “I thought I made it clear that I detest her.”

“It’s only an hour or so to Southern Medical,” I said. “The moment we—”

“An eternity,” Sarah said. “Matthew, I’m going to be examined and observed by a team of doctors who’ve never met me before, and I don’t want to arrive there all upset because the Bitch of Belsen was in the car with me.”

“This is just a matter of form,” I said. “Knott’s can’t allow you to leave the hospital unattend—”

“That’s not what I’m complaining about,” Sarah said. “I know they need somebody with a straitjacket handy. I’m not objecting to an attendant. I’m objecting to Brunhilde being that attendant.”

“Well... whom would you prefer?” I asked.

“Jake,” she said.

“I never got the impression you were overly fond of Jake.”

“Jake doesn’t watch me while I sit on the toilet,” Sarah said.

“Well, if you’d prefer Jake, I’m sure Dr. Pearson—”

“He’s already said no.”

“Why?”