Peter Spiegelman - Red Cat

“Your water pressure is great,” she said, “but you need some new shampoo. I used that green crap in seventh grade, and even then it smelled like funeral flowers.” Her voice was scratchy and intimate and always vaguely amused. Her laugh was single-malt. Clare kissed me on the mouth and barely stretched to do it. She left an odd mix of tastes behind- vodka, tonic, lime, and Crest.

There was an intent look on her face as she built herself another drink, and a scientific glint in her narrow gray eyes, as if she were repairing a watch or performing minor surgery. Her sharp features blurred and softened in the evaporating light, and her cheeks faded from pink to porcelain as the shower’s heat dissolved. She finished her work with a wedge of lime and some ice cubes from the freezer, and she looked me up and down.

“You look like shit- pale and tired, and look at the bags under your eyes. You’re going to screw up those nice pores if you don’t watch out.” She took a tiny sip of her vodka tonic. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say someone got hammered last night.” She reached out a long-fingered hand and patted my chest. “How about you come lie down for a while.”

Clare was gone when I awoke, and so was the day. Snow was falling in tiny flakes, lit pink by the streetlights. I fumbled on the nightstand for my watch. I’d slept for an hour but I wasn’t rested. My headache was still there, joined now by a soreness in my thighs and a tightness in my lower back: the aftermath of Clare’s athleticism. I rolled onto a cold, damp spot, and kept on rolling- out of bed and into the bathroom.

A long shower and a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich revived me enough to get some work done. I dug through my coat pockets for the notes from my meeting with Victor Sossa and I picked up the telephone.

Victor knew his properties and their owners, and he’d told me enough about the apartments on the fourth floor of the building on Lispenard Street for me to identify which one David had visited: 4-C, the only one-bedroom on the floor.

The apartment was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Martin Litella, who had bought the place for their daughter, Jill. According to Victor, the daughter was an actress, a petite blond who went by the name Jill Nolan, and who was fortunate enough to have steady employment in the road company of a popular musical comedy about the Spanish Inquisition. Nolan had started touring four months ago, Victor said, and she had another three months left on the road. She returned to New York only infrequently- once every six weeks or so- and stayed for just a night or two. He didn’t recall her being back at all in November, and thought she was currently in Seattle. Best of all, he had her cell phone number. She answered on the third ring; I said my name was Fitch.

Jill Nolan told me I’d caught her during her no-fat, no-whip, extra-hot decaf mocha break, right between spinning class and her Bikram yoga session. Usually she was able to fit a box-ercise class in too on Tuesday afternoons, but not that Tuesday, because Mandy, the girl she was rooming with- the little redhead who plays the part of the rabbi’s daughter from Salamanca who dies at the start of act twohad her boyfriend in from Cincinnati, and to give the two of them space Jill stayed the night with Brittany from the chorus, who forgot to set the alarm and so they were late getting up and it threw off the whole effing day, from breakfast right through to picking up the dry cleaning and returning the boots she’d bought last week. It all came out of her in an endless rushing breath, in an almost hypnotic, singsong voice that rose and fell and tumbled and frothed, and seemed to fill my head with suds.

Finally, she inhaled. “You got my phone number from Victor?” she asked.

“I did,” I said, and I repeated my tale about the accident and the search for a witness who’d seen it all from a fourth-floor window. She seemed to take the story more seriously than Victor had.

“Was it a bad accident? Was it with one of those effing bicycle messenger guys? The way they ride, I swear it’s a wonder more people aren’t killed. Can you believe I actually dated one for a while? That was a trip, let me tell you.”

“I’m sure.”

“He called himself Storm, like he was a superhero or something. Can you believe it?”

“I’m struggling. Were you by any chance at home on the eighteenth?”

“November eighteenth, you said?”

“November eighteenth.”

“No, I wasn’t home at all that month.”

“Could anyone else have been in your apartment then?”

“Anyone like who?”

I tried not to sigh. “That’s what I was hoping you’d tell me.”

“Well, I don’t know. My parents have keys and they use the place sometimes, but usually they mention it, and anyway they’ve been in Palm Beach since Halloween. They won’t be back till March.”

“There’s no one else?”

“No one else…?”

“No one else with a key.”

Jill Nolan thought about that, which must have been even more trying for her than it was for me. It went on for a while, but eventually she finished. “Well…there’s Victor, I guess- but you already talked to him. And there’s Holly. She has a key, but it’s only for emergencies- like if something happens when I’m out of town and my parents are away too.”

“Away, like in Florida?”

“Yes, like that. But nothing happened at my place. I mean, I’ve never called Holly to ask her to go over for anything. I haven’t even spoken to her for like five months.”

Listening to Jill Nolan hadn’t robbed me of quite all my ability to think. I looked at the jelly jar still sitting on my kitchen counter. “I understand,” I said. “And this would be Holly Welch you’re referring to, yes?”

“Who’s Holly Welch? I’m talking about Holly Cade.”

“Of course,” I said, and chuckled- silly me-while I copied down the name. “And you’re sure Holly would’ve told you if she’d gone there?”

“I’m positive,” she said.

“Is it possible she stopped by your place, but hasn’t had a chance to mention it yet?”

“That’s nuts. Holly knows my number- she would’ve called if she’d gone over.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“Because I’ve known her since, like, second grade- that’s how.”

“I see. Could you describe Holly for me, Ms. Nolan?”

“Could I what? What does that have to do with your accident thing?”

“Maybe nothing, but my client is sure he saw a woman looking out on the accident scene from what turned out to be a window in your apartment. Tell me, does Holly have blond hair?”

She laughed. “You’re way off base. Holly’s got red hair, and she’s had it all her life. So your client must be wrong, Mr. Fitch. Maybe he got the windows mixed up.”

“I didn’t say that my client saw a blond, Ms. Nolan. In fact, what he saw was a tall, thirtyish woman with thick auburn hair, fair skin, a narrow face, and a slender build. Does that sound familiar?”

Her response was slow in coming, and when it did, confusion and surprise vied with anger in her voice. “That sounds like…But she would’ve…You…you tricked me.”

“And I’m sorry about that, but does the description fit Holly Cade?”

A few moments more of silence, and anger won out in Jill Nolan. It made her smarter. “How could your client see someone so clearly from all the way down in the street, anyway? You lied to me, Mr. Fitch- if that’s your real name- and I don’t think I’ll talk to you anymore.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way. If you give me Holly’s number, I could finish up with her directly.”

I wasn’t surprised when the line went dead, and I wasn’t dissatisfied, either. I had a name to work with now, and maybe the name of my little bird. Holly Cade.