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

"Positive about that?"

"Positive."

"Really no trouble between you and your husband? No unexplained absences on his part? No mysterious phone calls?"

"What makes you think there might have been?"

"I'm asking, that's all."

"No trouble between us. None at all," she said.

"How about unexplained absences?"

"He was gone a lot of the time, but that had nothing to do with another woman."

"What did it have to do with?"

"Business."

"I jotted some names down," Carella said, nodding. "Got them from his appointment calendar, people he had lunch with or meetings with in the past month, people he was scheduled to see in the next few weeks ahead. I wonder if you can identify them for me."

"I'll try," Chloe said.

Carella opened his notebook, found the page he wanted, and began reading. "Buster Greerson," he said.

"Saxophone player. He was trying to get George to join a band he's putting together."

"Lester… Handey, is it?"

"Hanley. He's George's vocal coach."

"Okay, that explains the regularity. Once every two weeks, right?"

"Yes, on Tuesdays."

"Hawkins. Who's that?"

"I don't know. What's his first name?"

"No first name. Just Hawkins. Appears in the calendar for the first time on August tenth, that was a Thursday. Then again on August twenty-fourth, another Thursday."

"I don't know anybody named Hawkins."

"How about Lou Davis?"

"He's the man who owns Graham Palmer Hall. That's where George—"

"Oh, sure," Carella said, "how dumb." He looked at his notebook again. "Jerri Lincoln."

"Girl singer. Another one of George's album ideas. He wanted to do a double with her. But that was a long time ago."

"Saw her on August thirtieth, according to his calendar."

"Well, maybe she started bugging him again."

"Just business between them."

"You should see her," Chloe said, and smiled. " Strictly business, believe me."

"Don Latham," Carella said.

"Head of a company called Latham Records. The label is Black Power."

"C. J.," Carella said. "Your husband saw him — or her ," he said, with a shrug, "on the thirty-first of August, and again on September seventh, and he was supposed to have lunch with whoever it is today — I guess it was going to be lunch — at twelve noon. Mean anything to you?"

"No, you asked me that last night."

"C. J.," Carella said again.

"No, I'm sorry."

"Okay, who's Jimmy Talbot?"

"Don't know him."

"Davey… Kennemer, is it?"

"Kennemer, yes, he's a trumpet player."

"And Arthur Spessard?"

"Another musician, I forget what he plays."

"Okay, that's it," Carella said, and closed the notebook. "Tell me about George's brother," he said abruptly.

"Santo? What do you want to know about him?"

"Is is true he ran away seven years ago?"

"Who told you that?"

"Ambrose Harding. Is it true?"

"Yes."

"Ambrose said he may have gone back to Trinidad."

"He didn't go to Trinidad. George went there looking for him, and he wasn't there."

"Have any ideas where he might be?"

Chloe hesitated.

"Yes?" Carella said.

"George thought…"

"Yes, what?"

"That somebody killed his brother."

"What made him think that?"

"The way it happened, the way he just disappeared from sight."

"Did George mention any names? Anybody he suspected?"

"No. But he kept at it all the time. Wasn't a day went bv he wasn't asking somebody or other about his brother.''

"Where'd he do the asking?"

"Everywhere."

"In Diamondback?"

"In Diamondback, yes, but not only there. He was involved in a whole big private investigation. Police wouldn't do nothing, so George went out on his own."

"When you say his brother just disappeared, what do you mean?"

"After a job one night."

"Tell me what happened."

"I don't know what happened, exactly. Neither does anyone else, for that matter. It was after a job — they used to play in a band together, George and his brother."

"Yes, I know that."

"George and two other guys in the band were waiting in the van for Santo to come out. He'd gone to the men's room or something, I'm not sure. Anyway, he never did come out. George went back inside the place, searched it top to bottom, couldn't find him."

"The other musicians who were there that night — would you know them?"

"I know their names, but I've never met them."

"What are their names?"

"Freddie Bones and Vincent Barragan."

"Bones? Is that his real name?"

"I think so."

"How do you spell the other name?"

"I think it's B-A-R-R-A-G-A-N. It's a Spanish name, he's from Puerto Rico."

"But you've never met either of them?"

"No, they were both before my time. I've only been married to George for four years."

"How do you happen to know the names then?"

"Well, he mentioned them a lot. Because they were there the night his brother disappeared, you know. And he was always talking to them on the phone."

"Recently?"

"No, not recently."

"Four years," Carella said. "Then you never met George's brother, either."

"Never."

"Santo Chadderton, is it?"

"Santo Chadderton, yes."

"Is this your first marriage?"

"Yes."

"Was it George's?"

"No. He was married before." She hesitated. "To a white woman," she said, and looked him straight in the eye.

"Divorce her or what?"

"Divorced her, yes."

"When?"

"Couple of months after we met. They were already separated when we met."

"What's her name, would you know?"

"Irene Chadderton. That's if she's still using her married name."

"What was her maiden name?"

"I don't know."

"Does she live here in the city?"

"Used to, I don't know if she still does."

"Would she have known Santo?"

"I suppose so."

"Would she know anything about his disappearance?"

"Anybody who ever had anything to do with George knows about his brother's disappearance, believe me. It was like a goddamn obsession with him. That's the other thing we argued about, okay? My dancing here, and him talking about his brother all the time! Searching for him all the time, checking newspapers , and court records, and hospitals and driving everybody crazy."

"You told me you had a good marriage," Carella said flatly.

"It was good as most," Chloe answered, and then shrugged. The flap of the gown slid away from one of her breasts with the motion, exposing it almost completely. She made no effort to close the gown. She stared into Carella's eyes and said, "I didn't kill him, Mr. Carella," and then turned to look at the wall clock again. "I got to get back up there, my audience awaits," she said breathlessly and smiled suddenly and radiantly.

"Don't forget this," Carella said, handing her the envelope.

"Thank you," she said. "If you learn anything…"

"I have your number."

"Yes," she said, and nodded, and looked at him a moment longer and then turned to walk toward the bar. Carella put on his coat and hat — both still wet — and went to the register to pay his check. As he walked out of the place, he turned to look toward the bar again. Chloe was in the same position the other dancer had assumed less than forty-five minutes ago — back arched, elbows locked, legs widespread, furiously smiling and grinding at a customer sitting not a foot away from her crotch. As Carella pushed open the door to step into the rain, the customer slid a dollar bill into the waistband of her G-string.

After forty-eight hours, you begin to get a little desperate. After seventy-two, you start praying for a break; it is amazing how many cops get religion after putting in seventy-two hours on a cold homicide case. After four days, you're sure you'll never solve the damn thing. When you hit the six-day mark, you begin getting desperate all over again. It is a different sort of desperation. It is a desperation bordering on obsession; you begin to see murderers under every rock. If your grandmother looks at you cockeyed, you begin to suspect her. You go over your typed reports again and again, you study your crime-scene drawings, you read homicide reports from other precincts, you search through the files looking for homicide cases in which the weapon was a .38 or the victim was a hooker or a singer or a business manager, you hash over homicide cases involving frauds or semifrauds like Harry Caine's vanity-house caper, you rehash homicide cases involving missing or kidnapped persons — and eventually you become an expert on all such homicides committed in the goddamn city during the past ten years but you still don't know who the hell killed three people in the immediate past, never mind ten years ago.