Ed McBain - McBain's Ladies Too - More Women of the 87th Precinct

"Mrs. Chadderton?" Carella asked, and the first faint suspicion flickered on her face. He had called her by name, this was not a routine door-to-door inquiry, they had come here specifically to talk to her , to talk to Mrs. Chadderton ; the time was two in the morning, and her husband wasn't yet home.

"What is it?" she said at once.

"Are you Chloe Chadderton?"

"Yes, what is it?"

"Mrs. Chadderton, I'm sorry to tell you this," Carella said, "but your husband…"

"What is it?" she said. "Has he been hurt?"

"He's dead," Carella said.

The woman flinched at his words. She backed away from him, shaking her head as she moved out of the doorway, back into the kitchen, against the refrigerator, shaking her head, staring at him.

"I'm sorry," Carella said. "May we come in?"

"George?" she said. "Is it George Chadderton? Are you sure you have the right…"

"Ma'am, I'm sorry," Carella said.

She screamed then. She screamed and immediately brought her hand to her mouth, and bit down hard on the knuckle of her bent index finger. She turned her back to them. She stood by the refrigerator, the scream trailing into a choking sob that swelled into a torrent of tears. Carella and Meyer stood just outside the open door. Meyer was looking down at his shoes.

"Mrs. Chadderton?" Carella said.

Weeping, she shook her head, and — still with her back to them — gestured with one hand widespread behind her, the fingers patting the air, silently asking them to wait. They waited. She fumbled in the pocket of the robe for a handkerchief, found none, went to the sink where a roll of paper towels hung over the drainboard, tore one loose, and buried her face in it, sobbing. She blew her nose. She began sobbing again, and again buried her face in the toweling. A door down the hall opened. A woman with her hair tied in rags poked her head out.

"What is it?" she shouted. "Chloe?"

"It's all right," Carella said. "We're the police."

"They're the police," Chloe murmured.

"It's all right, go back to sleep," Carella said, and entered the apartment behind Meyer, and closed the door.

It wasn't all right; there was no going back to sleep for Chloe Chadderton. She wanted to know what had happened, and they told her. She listened, numbed. She cried again. She asked for details. They gave her the details. She asked if they had caught who'd done it. They told her they had just begun working on it. All the formula answers. Strangers bearing witness to a stranger's naked grief. Strangers who had to ask questions now at ten past two in the morning because someone had taken another man's life, and these first twenty-four hours were the most important.

"We can come back in the morning," Carella said, hoping she would not ask them to. He wanted the time edge. The killer had all the time in the world. Only the detectives were working against time.

"What difference will it make?" she said, and began weeping softly again. She went to the kitchen table, took a chair from it, and sat. The flap of the robe fell open, revealing long slender legs and the laced edge of the baby-doll nightgown. "Please sit down," she said.

Carella took a chair at the table. Meyer stood near the refrigerator. He had taken off the Professor Higgins hat. His coat was sopping wet from the rain outside.

"Mrs. Chadderton," Carella said gently, "can you tell me when you last saw your husband alive?"

"When he left the apartment tonight."

"When was that? What time?"

"About seven-thirty. Ame stopped by to pick him up."

"Ame?"

"Ambrose Harding. His manager."

"Did your husband receive any phone calls before he left the apartment?"

"No calls."

"Did anyone try to reach him after he left?"

"No one."

"Were you here all night, Mrs. Chadderton?"

"Yes, all night."

"Then you would have heard the phone—"

"Yes."

"And answered it, if it had rung."

"Yes."

"Mrs. Chadderton, have you ever answered the phone in recent weeks only to have the caller hang up on you?"

"No."

"If your husband had received any threatening calls, would he have mentioned them to you?"

"Yes, I'm sure he would have."

" Were there any such calls?"

"No."

"Any hate mail?"

"No."

"Has he had any recent arguments with anyone about money, or—"

"Everybody has arguments," she said.

" Did your husband have a recent argument with someone?"

"What kind of argument?"

"About anything at all, however insignificant it might have seemed at the time."

"Well, everybody has arguments," she said again.

Carella was silent for a moment. Then, very gently, he asked, "Did you and he argue about something, is that it?"

"Sometimes."

"What about, Mrs. Chadderton?"

"My job. He wanted me to quit my job."

"What is your job?"

"I'm a dancer."

"Where do you dance?"

"At the Flamingo. On Landis Avenue." She hesitated. Her eyes met his. "It's a topless club."

"I see," Carella said.

"My husband didn't like the idea of me dancing there. He asked me to quit the job. But it brings in money," she said. "George wasn't earning all that much with his calypso."

"How much would you say he normally—"

"Two, three hundred a week, some weeks. Other weeks, nothing."

"Did he owe anyone money?"

"No. But that's only because of the dancing. That's why I didn't want to quit the job. We wouldn't have been able to make ends meet otherwise."

"But aside from any arguments you had about your job…"

"We didn't argue about anything else," she said, and suddenly burst into tears again.

"I'm sorry," Carella said at once. "If this is difficult for you right now, we'll come back in the morning. Would you prefer that?"

"No, that's all right," she said.

"Then… can you tell me if your husband argued with anyone else recently?"

"Nobody I can think of."

"Mrs. Chadderton, in the past several days have you noticed anyone who seemed particularly interested in your husband's comings and goings? Anyone lurking around outside the building or in the hallway, for example."

"No," she said, shaking her head.

"How about tonight? Notice anyone in the hallway when your husband left?"

"I didn't go out in the hall with him."

"Hear anything in the hall after he was gone? Anyone who might have been listening or watching, trying to find out if he was still home?"

"I didn't hear anything."

"Would anyone else have heard anything?"

"How would I know?"

"I meant, was there anyone here with you? A neighbor? A friend?"

"I was alone."

"Mrs. Chadderton," he said, "I have to ask this next question, I hope you'll forgive me for asking it."

"George wasn't fooling around with any other women," she said at once. "Is that the question?"

"That was the question, yes."

"And I wasn't fooling around with any other men."

"The reason he had to ask," Meyer said, "is—"

"I know why he had to ask," Chloe said. "But I don't think he'd have asked a white woman that same question."

"White or black, the questions are the same," Carella said flatly. "If you were having trouble in your marriage—"

"There was no trouble in my marriage," she said, turning to him, her dark eyes blazing.

"Fine then, the matter is closed."

It was not closed, not so far as Carella was concerned. He would come back to it later if only because Chloe's reaction had been so violent. In the meantime, he picked up again on the line of questioning that was mandatory in any homicide.

"Mrs. Chadderton," he said, "at any time during the past few weeks—"

"Because I guess it's impossible for two black people to have a good marriage, right?" she said, again coming back to the matter — which apparently was not yet closed for her , either.