A Stab in the Dark

Page 10

 

  "Matthew Scudder. "

  She repeated it. Then she said, "Barbara Ettinger. Oh, if you knew how that name takes me back. I have a feeling Im going to be sorry I answered the phone. Well, Mr. Scudder, Ill be seeing you in an hour. "

  Chapter 8

  Lispenard is a block below Canal Street, which puts it in that section known as Tribeca. Tribeca is a geographical acronym for Triangle Below Canal, just as SoHo derives from South of Houston Street. There was a time when artists began moving into the blocks south of the Village, living in violation of the housing code in spacious and inexpensive lofts. The code had since been modified to permit residential loft dwelling and SoHo had turned chic and expensive, which led loft seekers further south to Tribeca. The rents arent cheap there either now, but the streets still have the deserted quality of SoHo ten or twelve years ago.

  I stuck to a well-lighted street. I walked near the curb, not close to buildings, and I did my best to move quickly and give an impression of alertness. Confrontations were easily avoided in those empty streets.

  Janice Keanes address turned out to be a six-story loft building, a narrow structure fitted in between two taller, wider and more modern buildings. It looked cramped, like a little man on a crowded subway. Floor-to-ceiling windows ran the width of the facade on each of its floors. On the ground floor, shuttered for the weekend, was a wholesaler of plumbers supplies.

  I went into a claustrophobic hallway, found a bell marked Keane, rang it two long and three short. I went out to the sidewalk, stood at the curb looking up at all those windows.

  She called down from one of them, asking my name. I couldnt see anything in that light. I gave my name, and something small whistled down through the air and jangled on the pavement beside me. "Fifth floor," she said. "Theres an elevator. "

  There was indeed, and it could have accommodated a grand piano. I rode it to the fifth floor and stepped out into a spacious loft. There were a lot of plants, all deep green and thriving, and relatively little in the way of furniture. The doors were oak, buffed to a high sheen. The walls were exposed brick. Overhead track lighting provided illumination.

  She said, "Youre right on time. The place is a mess but I wont apologize. Theres coffee. "

  "If its no trouble. "

  "None at all. Im going to have a cup myself. Just let me steer you to a place to sit and Ill be a proper hostess. Milk? Sugar?"

  "Just black. "

  She left me in an area with a couch and a pair of chairs grouped around a high-pile rug with an abstract design. A couple of eight-foot-tall bookcases reached a little more than halfway to the ceiling and helped screen the space from the rest of the loft. I walked over to the window and looked down at Lispenard Street but there wasnt a whole lot to see.

  There was one piece of sculpture in the room and I was standing in front of it when she came back with the coffee. It was the head of a woman. Her hair was a nest of snakes, her face a high-cheekboned, broad-browed mask of unutterable disappointment.

  "Thats my Medusa," she said. "Dont meet her eyes. Her gaze turns men to stone. "

  "Shes very good. "

  "Thank you. "

  "She looks so disappointed. "

  "Thats the quality," she agreed. "I didnt know that until Id finished her, and then I saw it for myself. Youve got a pretty good eye. "

  "For disappointment, anyway. "

  She was an attractive woman. Medium height, a little more well-fleshed than was strictly fashionable. She wore faded Levis and a slate-blue chamois shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. Her face was heart-shaped, its contours accentuated by a sharply defined widows peak. Her hair, dark brown salted with gray, hung almost to her shoulders. Her gray eyes were large and well-spaced, and a touch of mascara around them was the only makeup she wore.

  We sat in a pair of chairs at right angles to one another and set our coffee mugs on a table made from a section of tree trunk and a slab of slate. She asked if Id had trouble finding her address and I said I hadnt. Then she said, "Well, shall we talk about Barb Ettinger? Maybe you can start by telling me why youre interested in her after all these years. "

  SHED missed the media coverage of Louis Pinells arrest. It was news to her that the Icepick Prowler was in custody, so it was also news that her former employee had been killed by someone else.

  "So for the first time youre looking for a killer with a motive," she said. "If youd looked at the time-"

  "It might have been easier. Yes. "

  "And it might be easier now just to look the other way. I dont remember her father. I must have met him, after the murder if not before, but I dont have any recollection of him. I remember her sister. Have you met her?"

  "Not yet. "

  "I dont know what shes like now, but she struck me as a snotty little bitch. But I didnt know her well, and anyway it was nine years ago. Thats what I keep coming back to. Everything was nine years ago. "

  "How did you meet Barbara Ettinger?"

  "We ran into each other in the neighborhood. Shopping at the Grand Union, going to the candy store for a paper. Maybe I mentioned that I was running a day-care center. Maybe she heard it from someone else. Either way, one morning she walked into the Happy Hours and asked if I needed any help. "

  "And you hired her right away?"

  "I told her I couldnt pay her much. The place was just about making expenses. I started it for a dumb reason-there was no convenient day-care center in the neighborhood, and I needed a place to dump my own kids, so I found a partner and we opened the Happy Hours, and instead of dumping my kids I was watching them and everybody elses, and of course my partner came to her senses about the time the ink was dry on the lease, and she backed out and I was running the whole show myself. I told Barb I needed her but I couldnt afford her, and she said she mostly wanted something to do and shed work cheap. I forget what I paid her but it wasnt a whole lot. "

  "Was she good at her work?"

  "It was essentially baby-sitting. Theres a limit to how good you can be at it. " She thought for a moment. "Its hard to remember. Nine years ago, so I was twenty-nine at the time, and she was a few years younger. "

  "She was twenty-six when she died. "

  "Jesus, thats not very old, is it?" She closed her eyes, wincing at early death. "She was a big help to me, and I guess she was good enough at what she did. She seemed to enjoy it most of the time. Shed have enjoyed it more if shed been a more contented woman generally. "

  "She was discontented?"

  "I dont know if thats the right word. " She turned to glance at her bust of Medusa. "Disappointed? You got the feeling that Barbs life wasnt quite what shed had in mind for herself. Everything was okay, her husband was okay, her apartment was okay, but shed hoped for something more than just okay, and she didnt have it. "

  "Someone described her as restless. "

  "Restless. " She tasted the word. "That fits her well enough. Of course that was a time for women to be restless. Sexual roles were pretty confused and confusing. "

  "Arent they still?"

  "Maybe they always will be. But I think things are a little more settled now than they were for a while there. She was restless, though. Definitely restless. "

  "Her marriage was a disappointment?"

  "Most of them are, arent they? I dont suppose it would have lasted, but well never know, will we? Is he still with the Welfare Department?"

  I brought her up to date on Douglas Ettinger.

  "I didnt know him too well," she said. "Barb seemed to feel he wasnt good enough for her. At least I got that impression. His background was low-rent compared to hers. Not that she grew up with the Vanderbilts, but I gather she had a proper suburban childhood and a fancy education. He worked long hours and he had a dead-end job. And yes, there was one other thing wrong with him. "

  "What was that?"

  "He fucked around. "

  "Did he really or did she just think so?"

  "He made
a pass at me. Oh, it was no big deal, just a casual, offhand sort of proposition. I was not greatly interested. The man looked like a chipmunk. I wasnt much flattered, either, because one sensed he did this sort of thing a lot and that it didnt mean I was irresistible. Of course I didnt say anything to Barb, but she had evidence of her own. She caught him once at a party, necking in the kitchen with the hostess. And I gather he was dipping into his welfare clients. "

  "What about his wife?"

  "I gather he was dipping into her, too. I dont-"

  "Was she having an affair with anybody?"

  She leaned forward, took hold of her coffee mug. Her hands were large for a woman, their nails clipped short. I suppose long nails would be an impossible hindrance for a sculptor.

  She said, "I was paying her a very low salary. You could almost call it a token salary. I mean, high-school kids got a better hourly rate for baby-sitting, and Barb didnt even get to raid the refrigerator. So if she wanted time off, all she did was take it. "

  "Did she take a lot of time off?"

  "Not all that much, but I had the impression that she was taking an occasional afternoon or part of an afternoon for something more exciting than a visit to the dentist. A woman has a different air about her when shes off to meet a lover. "

  "Did she have that air the day she was killed?"

  "I wished youd asked me nine years ago. Id have had a better chance of remembering. I know she left early that day but I dont have any memory of the details. You think she met a lover and he killed her?"

  "I dont think anything special at this stage. Her husband said she was nervous about the Icepick Prowler. "

  "I dont think… wait a minute. I remember thinking about that afterward, after shed been killed. That shed been talking about the danger of living in the city. I dont know if she said anything specific about the Icepick killings, but there was something about feeling as though she was being watched or followed. I interpreted it as a kind of premonition of her own death. "

  "Maybe it was. "

  "Or maybe she was being watched and followed. What is it they say? Paranoiacs have enemies, too. Maybe she really sensed something. "

  "Would she let a stranger into the apartment?"

  "I wondered about that at the time. If she was on guard to begin with-"

  She broke off suddenly. I asked her what was the matter.

  "Nothing. "

  "Im a stranger and you let me into your apartment. "

  "Its a loft. As if it makes a difference. I-"

  I took out my wallet and tossed it onto the table between us. "Look through it," I said. "Theres an ID in it. Itll match the name I gave you over the phone, and I think theres something with a photograph on it. "

  "Thats not necessary. "

  "Look it over anyway. Youre not going to be very useful as a subject of interrogation if youre anxious about getting killed. The ID wont prove Im not a rapist or a murderer, but rapists and murderers dont usually give you their right names ahead of time. Go ahead, pick it up. "