Ed McBain - Long Time No See

“Who answered the phone and forgot to take a message?”

“Isabel.”

“And who got irritated?”

“Well... Nancy. Because it was her boyfriend who’d called, and Isabel just forgot to mention it.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Last month sometime.”

“Were there any recent arguments?”

“No, not really.”

“What about sending out for coffee? You said—”

“That was me. I sent out for coffee one day and forgot to ask Nancy if she wanted anything, so she blew her stack. That wasn’t Isabel.”

“How about the two fellows who work at the warehouse?”

“Alex and Tommy, yes.”

“She get along with them?”

“Oh, yes. As a matter of fact, Alex was always kidding her about wanting... well, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know.”

“Take her out, do you mean?”

“Well, more than that. You know. Go away for the weekend or something. He was just kidding. He knew she was married.”

“How’d she react to these propositions?”

“Well, they weren’t propositions. He’d just say, you know, ‘Come on, Isabel, let’s run away together.’ And she’d laugh is all.”

“How about Tommy? Did he joke with her, too?”

“Well, they both sort of joked with her. Because she was blind, you know. To make her feel good. I guess.”

“Did it ever go beyond joking?”

“I don’t think so.”

“She never...”

“I don’t think so. It was just joking, that’s all. And maybe, you know, once in a while Alex’d lean over the desk and give her a kiss on the cheek, something like that.”

“Tommy, too?”

“No, he never did that.”

“But you don’t think she was seeing either one of them outside the office?”

“Well, they once in a while walked her to the subway. They only came up on Fridays, you understand, to get their pay checks. Isabel used to leave the office about two-thirty, and they’d be there before then so they could still get to the bank with their checks. So they’d walk her to the subway sometimes.”

“Alex and Tommy both?”

“Yes, both of them.”

“But you don’t think she was dating one of them, do you?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think?”

“I think she was very flirtatious for a blind person.”

“In what way?”

“Well, the clothes she wore, and the way she sat... I just think she was very flirtatious.”

“What sort of clothes, Miss D’Amato?”

“Very revealing clothes. We’re none of us prudes at Prestige Novelty, we couldn’t be and—”

Her voice stopped. For a moment Carella thought they’d been cut off.

“Miss D’Amato?” he said.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“You were about to say?”

“Only that in my opinion she dressed suggestively.”

“But you were saying...”

“That’s what I was saying.”

Carella did not press it further. Instead, he changed the subject. “Miss D’Amato,” he said, “was anyone surprised when Isabel didn’t show up for work this morning?”

“We all were. She never missed a day, and she was always on time. The job was important to her. When she didn’t show up this morning, Mr. Preston asked me to call and find out if anything was the matter.”

“Were those his words?”

“What?”

“Did he say ‘Call and find out if anything’s the matter’?”

“I don’t recall his exact words. He thought she might be sick or something.”

“Did he say that?”

“Yes, he said Isabel had to be sick or something, otherwise she’d be there at work. So he asked me to call.”

“And did you call?”

“Yes.”

“What time was that?”

“About ten-thirty. She usually got to work by ten.”

“Did anyone answer the phone?”

“No.”

He and Meyer would still have been downstairs at ten-thirty waiting outside the building for the M.E. and the Lab crew to arrive. There would have been no one in the apartment but Isabel Harris — dead.

“Did you try again later?”

“Yes, I called at eleven-thirty. A man answered the phone and said he was a police officer. That’s when we learned she’d been killed.”

“Did the police officer identify himself?”

“Yes, but I forget his name.”

That would have been one of the laboratory technicians. Handkerchief tented over the telephone receiver. He’d answered the phone because it was ringing. A ringing phone at the scene of a murder could be the killer calling.

“Did you tell Mr. Preston what happened?”

“Yes.”

“What was his reaction?”

“Well, he... he was shocked, of course.”

“What else?”

“Just shocked.”

“You sounded—”

“No, no.”

“As if there might have been something else.”

“Well... he was very fond of her.”

“Mr. Preston was?”

“Yes.”

“So there was more than just shock?”

“He began crying.”

“Crying? When you told him Isabel was dead?”

“Yes.”

“Then what?”

“He asked me to please leave him alone. So I went out of his office, and in a little while he asked me to call the apartment again, to make sure there wasn’t some mistake.”

“ Did you call again?”

“Yes, I did. I got the same police officer. He asked me who was calling, same as he’d done the first time, and I told him this was Prestige Novelty where Isabel worked, and was he sure she was, you know, dead. He said yes, she was dead. I thanked him, and then I went to tell Mr. Preston there was no mistake.”

“What did he say?”

“He just nodded, that was all.”

“Miss D’Amato, when you say Mr. Preston was very fond of Isabel, are you suggesting there was more between them than an employer-employee relationship?”

“I don’t know what was between them.”

“But something?”

“What Mr. Preston does is his own business.”

“Miss D’Amato, do you have any reason to believe there was something going on between Isabel and Mr. Preston?”

“I don’t know what was going on.”

“But I get the feeling you think something was going on.”

“Well, I told you, she was very flirtatious. If you didn’t know she was blind... well, she wore these big sunglasses, you know, you couldn’t tell she was blind when she was just sitting there and working. And she had a big smile for everybody, especially men, and I guess if you were a man looking for something, you might think Isabel was, you know, being flirtatious and looking for something, too.”

“Did Mr. Preston think she was looking for something?”

“I don’t know what he thought.”

“Did he joke with her the way Alex and Tommy did?”

“No. He never joked with her.”

“Then what gives you the idea he might have been interested in her?”

“Look, he’s a married man, I don’t want to get him in trouble. Isabel’s dead, nothing’s going to harm her anymore. But he’s still alive, and he’s married.”

“ Was there some sort of relationship between them, Miss D’Amato?”

“I saw them together once.”

“Where?”

“There’s a cocktail lounge up the street from the office. I went there after work one day last week, and the two of them were sitting in a booth at the back of the place.”

“Did Mr. Preston see you?”

“I don’t think so. I went over to the other side of the room... my friend was waiting in a booth on the other side.”

“Was your friend someone who knew them, too?”

“No.”

“Did you mention to him—”

“Her.”

“Did you mention to her that your boss was sitting there with a girl from the office?”