“I suppose I should go get him,” Pat said to me in a lowered tone. I watched Althea’s gaze shift from Pat to me.
“Hi, I’m Kinsey,” I said to Althea.
She said, “Hello.”
Pat hurried off to the parking lot to tell Mr. Culpepper what was going on.
Althea regarded me with the solemnity of a cat. She sat herself on an upholstered chair, scooting way back until her legs stuck straight out. “Who are you?”
“I’m a private investigator,” I said. “Do you know what that is?”
She nodded, pushing her glasses back on her nose.
I assumed her knowledge of private investigators came from TV and I was reasonably sure I didn’t look like one, which might explain why she was staring.
“I didn’t wet the bed,” she announced.
“I’m sure you didn’t.”
She studied me until she was satisfied that she was no longer a suspect. “Where do you live?”
“Over by the beach,” I said.
“Why did you come here?”
“Your mom asked me to.”
“What for?”
“Just to look around and talk to Pat, things like that.”
She looked at her shoes, which were patent leather with a T-strap. “Know what?”
“What?”
“Chicken butt,” she said, and then a small, shy smile played across her face.
I laughed, as much at the look on her face as the joke, which I’d told myself when I was her age. “What’s your daddy’s name?”
“David. He’s nicer than Gerald.”
“I’ll bet.”
She had to lean forward then and pick at her shoe. She sat back, wagging her feet back and forth. “Where’s my mother?”
“On her way home, I expect,” I said.
Silence. Althea made some mouth noises like horses clopping. Then she sighed, resting her head on one hand. “Do you wet your bed?”
“Not lately.”
“Me neither because only babies wet the bed and I’m big.”
She fell silent. Apparently, we’d exhausted the subject.
I could hear the murmur of voices and Pat returned in the company of a man who introduced himself as David Culpepper. He was big, with a mustache, beard, and bushy head of hair. Wide shoulders, narrow hips, and biceps that suggested he lifted weights. He wore boots, blue jeans, and a flannel shirt that made him look like he should be accompanied by Babe the Blue Ox. “Pat filled me in,” he said. “Is Emily here yet?”
“She’s on her way,” I said.
Without even thinking about it, we all looked at Althea, aware of the fact that whatever was happening, she should be spared any tacky revelations.
Pat, talking now like Minnie Mouse, said, “Althea, sweetheart, do you want to go outside and play on the swings?”
“I already did that.”
“Althea,” her father said warningly.
Althea sighed and got up, moving toward the front door with an injured air. As soon as she’d disappeared, David Culpepper turned to me.
“What is this?”
“You know as much as we do, at this point,” I said. “Your wife swears that at six this morning, Gerald was dead as a doornail in Althea’s bed. I can’t find a trace of him.”
“But my God,” he said, “why would Emily say such a thing if it weren’t true?”
“Uh, I hope you’ll excuse me,” Pat said. “I’ve got an apartment to show and I’d just as soon wait outside. Let me know if you need anything.” She took a set of keys from the counter and moved out into the courtyard.
“Maybe you should see Althea’s room yourself,” I said to David.
“I’d like that.”
Emily’s apartment was still open and we moved through the living room to Althea’s bedroom, which was just as bare of bodies as it had been when I first checked. David went through the same procedure I had, pulling back the counterpane and the top sheet to the bedding underneath.
“Was Gerald responsible for the breakup of your marriage?” I asked, watching as he remade the bed.
“I guess you could say that.”
“What else could you say?”
“I don’t know that it’s any of your business.”
“Wait and tell the cops, then,” I said.
He sighed. “Emily had worked before Althea was born, but she stayed home after that. Apparently, she was getting restless. Or that’s what she claims now. Once Althea started preschool, Emily had too much time on her hands. She started spending her afternoons at the country club. I thought she was having a ball. Hell, I wouldn’t mind a schedule like that myself. She played tennis, golf, bridge. She met Gerald.”
He left the rest unsaid, but the implications were clear. Her relationship with Gerald must have started out as recreational sex, developing into an affair with more serious overtones.
“What sort of work do you do?” I asked.
“I’m a building contractor. It’s pretty basic stuff,” he said, almost apologetically. “I guess I didn’t come across as romantic—a man of the world. I sure never had any leisure time. I busted my nuts just trying to get the bills paid.”
“From what Emily says, Gerald was a skunk. He cheated, he borrowed money. Why would she put up with that?”
“Ask her,” he said. “The guy was a jerk. Try paying alimony and child support when you know the money’s goin’ to the guy who’s diddling your wife.”
“David, how dare you!”
Both of us turned. Emily Culpepper was standing in the doorway, her color high. Behind her, I saw Hermione Santoni, the criminal attorney whose office is just across the hall from mine. Hermione is almost six feet tall, with black curly hair and violet eyes—all of which David Culpepper took in at a glance. I made introductions all around and went through the whole explanation again.
“But he was right there!” Emily was saying. “I swear to God he was.”
“What about your room? Maybe we should take another look,” I said.
Uneasily, the four of us edged into the room like cartoon characters, bumping into each other, exchanging wary looks. There was still no body. David checked the closet and Emily got down on her hands and knees to look under the bed.
She opened the bed table drawer. “Well, here’s my gun,” she said, reaching for it.
“Don’t pick it up!” I snapped at her. “Just leave the damn thing where it is.”
Startled, Emily withdrew her hand. “Sorry,” she murmured.
“Let’s just find Gerald.”
Hermione peeked in the clothes hamper. In the interests of thoroughness, I backtracked, checking Althea’s room and the hall linen closet, noting with interest how tidy it was. I can’t ever make my sheets lie flat and I usually have the towels all shoved together in a bunch. Emily’s towels were color coded and her sheets were starched and pressed flat. She even had a nice empty space left over for the set coming back from the laundry. I wondered if she ironed men’s underwear for them. She seemed like the type.
I was just returning to the bedroom when we heard Pat scream. It was a doozy, like something out of a butcher-knife movie only more prolonged. I was out of the apartment like a shot. I spotted her standing in the courtyard, two doors away, face white, mouth working helplessly. She pointed and I pushed past her into the empty apartment, which apparently had belonged to Caroline. Pat followed on my heels.
There was a body sprawled on the floor in the living room. I hoped it was Gerald and not someone else.
“It’s him,” Pat said. “Oh my God and he’s dead just like she said he was. I thought I’d open the apartment to let it air before the people showed up to have a look. The door was unlocked so I walked right in and there he was.” She burst into tears.
I couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten here. Was it possible that he was still alive when Emily had seen him this morning? Could he have crawled all this way? That couldn’t be the case or he’d have left a trail of blood. Emi
ly had said when she found his body, he was already cold. I bent over the body briefly, puzzled by what appeared to be a soft pile of white powder near the dead man’s right hand. It looked like soap powder and the granules adhering to his right index finger suggested that he’d tried to leave a message of some kind. A word had been spelled out almost invisibly on the surface of the spilled soap.
“What is that?” David said, coming up behind me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It looks like M-A-F-I-A.”
“Jesus, a Mafia hit?” he said, anxiously.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” Pat murmured, blowing her nose. “What would they want with him?”
I moved into the kitchenette. The detergent box itself was on the floor near the sink, empty by the look of it. It was one of those one-load sizes, dispensed from machines in commercial laundromats. I left it where it was, figuring the crime scene fellows would want to dust it for prints.
By now, of course, Emily Culpepper had joined us, along with Hermione and a couple I’d never seen before. The four of them clustered just outside the door and I saw the woman lean over and whisper to Hermione.
“Is this the one for rent?”
Hermione nodded, putting a finger to her lips. I guess she hoped to discourage conversation so she could hear what was going on inside.
The woman’s voice dropped. “The ad said there were built-ins. Do you know if the refrigerator is frost-free?” Maybe she thought Hermione was agenting the place.
Hermione shook her head. “I just got here,” she whispered. “There’s a body in the living room.”
“The former occupant?” the woman asked.
“Someone else,” Hermione said.
The woman nodded, as if this were not an unusual occurrence in the course of a housing search. She conveyed the news to hubby and he lifted up on tiptoe, trying to get a better view.
“Look,” David said, “I’m going back to Pat’s and call the police. Don’t touch a thing.” We all stared at him. The place was empty except for Gerald and none of us wanted to touch him.
Pat began to sob again quietly. Emily put a comforting arm around her and drew her out into the courtyard, where she helped her sit down on the edge of the fountain. The prospective tenants decided to have a little look around and I saw them disappear into the apartment. I perched on the fountain rim on the other side of Pat, patting at Emily ineffectually. Hermione paced up and down the courtyard, smoking a cigarette.
Emily leaned forward and caught my eye. “Well, at least now you know I’m not nuts,” she said. “I did find him this morning. I just can’t understand how he ended up down here.”
“You’re sure he was dead when you saw him,” I said, quizzing her on the point for the second time.
“Well, I couldn’t swear to it.”
“What about this Mafia business? Do you have any reason to believe he was tied to the Mob?” I couldn’t believe I was saying shit like this—the Mob—like Gerald had been “fingered” for betraying some crime boss. Ludicrous. The whole business felt like bad TV.
Pat clutched my arm, digging her nails in painfully. “I just remembered. Caroline called two days ago and said she’d be dropping by. She wanted to pick up the refund on her cleaning deposit because she didn’t leave a forwarding address.”
“Wow,” I said. “Uh, so what?”
“What if she came back?”
“Last night?” I said.
Pat nodded vigorously. “Maybe she overheard Emily threaten him. She could have waited ’til Emily drove off and then gone in there herself.”
“Did she know about the gun?”
“Everybody knew about that,” Pat said.
Emily seemed skeptical. “I did leave my front door unlocked, but it still doesn’t make any sense. If she killed him, why move the body to her own apartment? Why not leave it in mine?”
“And why cut your telephone line?” I said. “The thing is, we really don’t know what the scheme consisted of. Maybe you interrupted the killer.”
Emily spoke up. “Wait a minute. Suppose what he wrote are the first few letters of the murderer’s name.”
I could see us all mouthing “Mafia,” trying to imagine what the name might be.
David came striding back across the courtyard. “The police are on their way,” he said.
“Uh, me too, gang,” Hermione interjected. “I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes. I have to get back to the office.”
“But what am I supposed to do?” Emily said. “What if I’m grilled and carted off to jail?”
“I’ll be back in an hour. Just keep your mouth shut. Tell them I’m your attorney and I’ve told you not to say a word unless I’m present.”
“Can I do that?” Emily asked. “I mean, is that legitimate?”
“That’s what the Miranda decision was about, dear,” Hermione said with more patience than I might have mustered at that point.
I gave her a quick word of thanks and watched her head off toward the street where her car was parked.
There was something about this setup that nudged at me. It was one of those situations I was sure had a simple explanation if I could only make the mental leap. I felt a tug and looked down to find Althea standing next to me, slipping her hand into mine. She was apparently attracted to me in the same way cats unerringly select the lap of someone who’s ailurophobic. (That’s a fear of cats, folks.) I was flattered, I’ll admit, but uncertain what I’d done to warrant such trust.
Pat became aware of her at just about the same time I did.
“Oh look, everybody. Here’s Althea,” Pat chirped, sounding like she’d just had a hit of helium.
“We’ll go for a walk,” I said in a normal tone. I was afraid if I hung around, I’d start talking like her.
Althea and I headed out to the alley and strolled up and down, passing the rear entrance to the courtyard now and then. I could see that two uniformed policemen had arrived and once I spotted the prospective tenants checking out the laundry room. The crime scene investigators must have been delayed because for thirty minutes, everybody just stood around. One officer took a report and the second secured the area with tape, posting signs that said CRIME SCENE—NO ADMITTANCE. Althea, meanwhile, was entirely too quiet for my taste.
“Aren’t you curious about all this?” I asked, finally.
She shook her head solemnly. “Because we didn’t come here before, when I played.”
“What’d you do?”
“Just nothing.”
“That sounds boring,” I said. “Wonder why you did that.”
“Just because,” she said.
“That’s your story and you’re sticking to it, right?” I said in jest. I looked down at that earnest little face, the fat cheeks, the glasses, the huge gray eyes. This was no laughing matter to the child and I knew I shouldn’t make light.
“Gerald’s dead,” she remarked.
“Looks that way,” I said, wishing I knew what the hell was going on.
I thought about the man shot to death in her room, the empty apartment two doors away. Emily must have stumbled onto the murder scene before the body could be moved. But why kill him there? And why move him somewhere else? And why weren’t there any traces of him in Althea’s bed? I thought about the detergent on the rug with the letters spelling . . . What? It was all so perplexing. The answer seemed to tease, the solution hovering just out of sight. I stood still for a moment, questions stirring at the back of my brain.
“Let’s go see if we can use Pat’s phone,” I said to Althea. She trotted beside me obediently. We walked back toward the courtyard, past the laundry room.
“Hang on,” I said. I popped my head in the door. Sure enough, there was a machine on the wall, dispensing small detergent boxes like the one on Caroline’s floor. Well, at least I was pretty sure where that came from.
We approached the fountain, where Pat and Emily still sat, waiting for a homicide detective to arrive, along with the medical examine
r, photographers, and assorted crime scene specialists.
“Can I use your phone?” I said casually to Pat. She nodded.
What I was suddenly curious about was the telephone number I’d seen penciled on the wall by both Emily’s phone and Pat’s. Why both places? Aside from their living in the same building, what did those two have in common? I wondered if the answer to this whole puzzle was hidden somewhere in that seven-digit code.
I went into Pat’s apartment, crossing to the phone. I checked the number and then dialed. The line rang twice and then someone picked up. A singsong voice said, “At the sound of the tone, General Telephone time will be twelve o’clock, exactly.” I burst out laughing and Althea looked at me.
“What’s so funny?” she said.
“Skip it. I just made a fool of myself,” I said.
As I started toward the door, I caught sight of Pat’s photographs and experienced one of those remarkable mental earthquakes that jolt all the pieces into place. Maybe the right question here wasn’t why but who. “Althea, was Gerald a golf pro?”
She nodded.
“Hey, kiddo,” I said, “we just cracked this case.”
Althea looked more worried than thrilled.
By the time we reached the courtyard, Lieutenant Dolan had arrived and was consulting with the uniformed police officers while David, Emily, and Pat looked on. He seemed startled to see me, but not necessarily displeased. Dolan is assistant division commander for Crimes Against Persons, handling the homicide detail for the STPD. He’s in his fifties, a baggy-faced man with a keen intellect. While he finds himself annoyed with me much of the time, he knows I respect him and he knows I won’t tread on his turf. Having spent two years as a cop myself, I know better than to withhold information or tamper with evidence.
“How did you get involved in this?” he asked.
I gave him a condensed version of the entire sequence of events, starting with Emily’s appearance in my office. When I finished, he shoved his hands down in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “I suppose you have the whole thing wrapped up,” he said, facetiously.