Ed McBain - Eight Black Horses

He blew his nose again.

He was a trim man in his late fifties, his hair graying at the temples, a gray mustache under his nose—which was very red at the moment. A bottle of cold tablets was on his desk. A box of tissues was on his desk as well. He looked thoroughly miserable, but he told the detectives he was willing lo give them all the time they needed. He remembered Elizabeth Turner quite well and had been inordinately fond of her.

‘How long did she work here, Mr. Holberry?’ Brown asked.

‘Almost two years. She used to live in California, excellent credentials out there. Well, a marvelous person all around. I was sorry to have her leave us.’

‘When was that?’ Carella asked.

He was afraid he would catch Holberry’s cold. He didn’t want to bring a cold home to the kids just when the holidays were about to begin. Thanksgiving was only a few weeks off, and after that Christmas would be right around the corner. He was unaware of it, but his posture in the chair opposite Holberry’s desk was entirely defensive. He sat leaning all the way back, his arms folded across his chest. Each time Holberry blew his nose, Carella winced, as if a battery of nuclear missiles were rushing out of their silos, aimed at his vulnerable head.

‘In February,’ Holberry said.

‘This past February?’

‘Yes.’

‘When, exactly, in February?’ Brown asked.

‘On February fourth,’ Holberry said, and reached for a tissue and blew his nose again. ‘These pills don’t work at all,’ he said. ‘Nothing works when you’ve got a cold like this one.’

Carella hoped he would not sneeze.

‘We gave her a wonderful reference,’ Holberry said.

‘She left for another job, is that it?’ Brown asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Here in the city?’

‘No. Washington, D.C

The detectives looked at each other. They were thinking she had left for Washington in February, and she was back here in October—dead.

‘Would you know when she came back here?’ Brown asked.

‘Gentlemen, I didn’t know she was back until I got your request for information. You can’t know how shocked I was.’ He shook his head. ‘Lizzie was such a ... kind, generous, soft-spoken ... elegant person, that’s the word, elegant. To think of her life ending in violence ...’ He shook his head again. ‘Shot, you said?’

‘Shot, yes,’ Carella said.

‘Unimaginable.’

Her sister had used the same word.

‘Mr. Holberry,’ Brown said, ‘we’ve talked to the super at her building and also to many of her neighbors, and they told us she was living there alone...’

‘I really wouldn’t know about that,’ Holberry said.

‘They described her as a very private sort of person, said they’d rarely seen her with friends of any kind, male or female...’

‘Well, I wouldn’t know about that, either,’ Holberry said. ‘She was certainly outgoing and friendly here at the bank. Gregarious, in fact, I would say.’

‘You didn’t know her on a social level, did you, sir?’ Carella asked.

‘No, no. Well, that wouldn’t have been appropriate, you know. But ... gentlemen, it really is difficult to describe Lizzie to someone who didn’t know her. She was simply a ... marvelous person. Always a kind word for everyone, always a smile on her face. Crackerjack at her job, never complained about anything, nothing was too big for her to tackle. When she told me she was leaving for Washington, I was shattered. Truly. She could have gone quite far with this bank. Quite far. Excuse me,’ he said, and blew his nose again, and again Carella winced.

‘You say she asked for a reference,’ Brown said.

‘Yes. Actually she’d told me beforehand she was looking for employment elsewhere. It was not in Lizzie’s nature to lie about anything. She was unhappy here, she said, and she...’

‘Unhappy, why?’ Carella asked at once.

‘She felt she wasn’t advancing rapidly enough. I told her these things took time, we all had our eye on her, and we knew what a valuable employee she was ... but you see, she’d been offered an assistant managership in Washington, and I can understand how that must have appealed to her.’

‘Which bank was that, sir?’

‘The Union Savings and Trust.’

‘Would you know which branch?’

‘I’m sorry, no.’

‘But it’s your understanding that when she left here last February, it was to become an assistant manager at a Union Savings and Trust bank in Washington?’

‘Well, yes. Of course. That’s what I’ve been saying, isn’t it?’

‘What I meant, sir,’ Carella said, ‘is whether to your knowledge she actually took the job she’d been offered.’

‘I would have no way of knowing that. I assume...’

‘Because you see, sir, she was here in this city nine months later...’

‘Oh, yes, I see what you mean. I’m sorry, but I don’t know. I suppose ... I really don’t know. Perhaps she was unhappy in Washington. Perhaps she came back to ... I don’t know.’ He paused. ‘This city has a way of luring people back, you know.’

A sneeze was coming.

Carella wanted to run for the underground bunker.

Holberry grabbed for a tissue.

Carella hunched up his shoulders.

The sneeze did not come. Holberry blew his nose.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘Would you know where she was living when she worked here?’ Brown asked.

‘I’m sure we have the address in our files,’ Holberry said, and picked up the telephone receiver. ‘Miss Conway,’ he said, ‘can you bring in the file on Elizabeth Turner, please?’ He put the phone back on its cradle. ‘It’ll just be a moment,’ he said.

Carella knew exactly where Brown was headed.

In this city the new phone books came out on the first day of September each year. From past investigations the detectives knew that the closing date for any new listing was June 15. If a phone had not been installed by that date, it would not be listed in the new September 1 directory. Elizabeth’s name, address, and number, however, were listed in the directory when her sister arrived here on October 27—even though Elizabeth had left the city on February 4. Which meant she’d either kept her old apartment and her old phone when she’d left the city or...

The door to Holberry’s office opened.

A woman came in and put a file folder on his ;desk.

He opened it.

He began leafing through papers, stopped to blow his nose, and then began leafing again.

‘Yes, here it is,’ he said, and looked up. ‘Twelve twenty-four Dochester Avenue.’

Which meant that Elizabeth Turner had taken a new apartment when she’d come back to the city—sometime before June 15, the closing date for the telephone directory. The carton of sour milk in her refrigerator had been stamped with an October 1 sell-by date. In this city the legal shelf life for milk was eight to ten days; she had to have bought it sometime between September 22 and October 1. On October 29 the super at 804 Ambrose had told Inge Turner that he hadn’t seen her sister in three or four weeks. That would make it about right. She had packed her bags and flown the coop, either temporarily or for good, sometime at the beginning of October.

But why?

And where had she gone?

‘Thank you very much, sir,’ Carella said, ‘you’ve been very helpful.’

Holberry rose and extended his hand.

Carella felt he was gripping the hand of a plague victim.

* * * *

There were a lot of parks in the city, most of them inadequately lighted after sundown and therefore prime locations for anyone wishing to dispose of a corpse. That this particular park—directly across the street from the Eight-Seven’s station house—had been chosen was a matter of some concern to the detectives. It indicated either daring or insanity.