Ed McBain - Long Time No See

“I’ve got to call this guy Preston,” he said.

She waited, her eyes watching his mouth.

“Why don’t you go upstairs, get ready for bed?”

Still she waited.

“I won’t be a minute,” he said, and grinned boyishly.

She nodded briefly and reached up with one hand to touch his face. He kissed the palm of her hand, and then nodded too, and went out into the living room to dial Preston’s number from the telephone there.

“Hello?” a man’s voice said.

“Mr. Preston?”

“Yes?”

“This is Detective Carella, I called earlier.”

“Yes, Mr. Carella.”

“We’re investigating the murders of Isabel and Jimmy Harris, and I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“ Now , do you mean?”

“If it’s convenient.”

“Well... yes, I suppose so.”

“When I spoke to Mrs. Harris yesterday, she told me she worked for your company.”

“That’s right.”

“In the mail room.”

“Yes.”

“How long had she been working for you, Mr. Preston?”

“Two, three years.”

“What were her duties?”

“She inserted our catalogues into envelopes.”

“Who else worked in the mail room with her?”

“She worked there alone. Another girl typed up the labels and put them on the envelopes. But that was in the outer office.”

“What’s the other girl’s name?”

“Jennie D’Amato. She also answers phones and serves as receptionist.”

“Would you know her address?”

“Not offhand. If you call the office on Monday, she’ll give it to you.”

“How many people do you employ, Mr. Preston?”

“There’s just myself and three girls in the office — two without Isabel.”

“What’s the third girl’s name?”

“Nancy Houlihan, she’s my bookkeeper.”

“Do you employ anyone who works outside the office?”

“Yes, at the warehouse.”

“Where’s the warehouse.”

“About ten blocks from the office. On the river.”

“Who do you employ there?”

“Just two men to make up the orders and pack them and ship them.”

“So the way the operation works...”

“It’s direct mail,” Preston said. “We send out the advertising matter, and when we receive orders they’re filled at the warehouse. It’s a very small operation.”

“These two men working at the warehouse — did they ever come up to the office?”

“On Fridays. To pick up their pay checks.”

“Would they have had any contact with Isabel Harris?”

“They knew her, yes.”

“What are their names?”

“Alex Carr and Tommy Runniman.”

“Would you know their addresses?”

“You’ll have to get those on Monday. Just call the office anytime after nine.”

“Mr. Preston, how did Isabel get along with the other employees?”

“Fine.”

“No problems?”

“None that I knew of.”

“How did you get along with her?”

“Me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I hardly knew her.”

“You said she’d been working there for two, three years...”

“That’s right. But I rarely had any personal contact with the employees.”

“How’d you happen to hire her, Mr. Preston?”

“I’d been thinking of hiring someone handicapped for a long time. The job doesn’t require eyesight. It’s merely inserting catalogues into envelopes.”

“How much were you paying her, Mr. Preston?”

“She was being paid comparable wages.”

“Comparable?”

“To the other girls.”

“Not more?”

"More?”

“Yes, sir. I’m trying to determine whether anyone would have had a reason for bearing a grudge or...”

No, she wasn’t paid more, comparably, than the other girls.”

“Sir, there’s that word ‘comparably’ again.”

“What I’m saying, Mr. Carella, is that you can’t expect someone working in the mail room to be paid the same wages as a bookkeeper or a typist, that’s what I’m saying. Comparably, she was being paid what a sighted person doing her sort of work would be paid. Neither more nor less. The other two girls would have had no reason for enmity.”

“How about the men from the warehouse?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Mrs. Harris was an attractive woman. Did either of them ever make a play for her?”

“I have no idea.”

“But they came to the office every Friday to pick up their pay checks.”

“That's correct.”

“Did you see them on those occasions?”

“Nancy made out their checks. Nancy Houlihan, my bookkeeper.”

“But you told me they knew Mrs. Harris.”

“Yes, I assume they did.”

“Well... did you ever see them talking to her?”

“Yes.”

“But you wouldn’t know whether either of them made advances—”

“No, I—”

“And were rebuffed—”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Mr. Preston, I think you know what I’m looking for. rm trying to find out whether anyone Isabel worked with would have the slightest possible reason for—”

“Yes, I know exactly what you’re looking for, but I can’t help you.”

“Okay,” Carella said. “Thank you very much, Mr. Preston. I'll call the office on Monday for those addresses.”

“Fine.”

“Goodnight, sir.”

“Goodnight,” Preston said, and hung up.

Carella sat with his hand on the telephone receiver for several moments. In the Riverhead house, just as in the squadroom, he had phone books for all five sections of the city. He lifted the Isola directory from the floor under the desk and opened it to the D’s. He knew he wouldn’t get the right time from Nancy Houlihan, but he was eager for more information, and he figured he might stand a chance with Jennie D’Amato. There were seventy-four D’Amatos in the Isola directory, and none of them were Jennies. He opened the Riverhead book. Twelve D’Amatos, no Jennies. In Calm’s Point, there were twenty-nine D’Amatos, no Jennies, but a J on Pierce Avenue. He jotted down the number. In the Majesta book, he found another J. D’Amato, and wrote down that number as well. He did not bother looking through the Bethtown directory. It was his contention that no one but retired cops lived on Bethtown, even now that a bridge had been put in. He dialed the Calm’s Point number first, and immediately hit pay dirt

“Hello?”

“Miss D’Amato, please.”

“This is Miss D’Amato.”

“Jennie D’Amato?”

“Yes?” Tentative, cautious.

“This is Detective Carella, I believe I spoke to you earlier today.”

“Oh.” Pause. The pause lengthened. “Yes.”

“This is the woman who works at Prestige Novelty?”

“Yes.”

“Miss D’Amato, I wonder if you can tell me a little about Isabel Harris.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I'm primarily interested in how she got along with the other people in the office.”

“Fine.”

“No arguments or anything?”

“No. Well...”

“Yes?”

“Well, the usual.”

“What do you mean by ‘the usual’?”

“Well, you know how it is in an office, especially a small one. There’d be irritations every now and then, but nothing—”

“What sort of irritations?”

“Oh, I can hardly remember. Someone would answer the phone and forget to take a message. Or someone would send out for coffee and forget to ask if everybody in the office wanted anything — like that.”

“You’re the one who normally answers the phone, isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“But sometimes other people did, and they forgot to take messages.”

“Well, that only happened once.”