Widows Read online

  Eileen looked at him.

  "So what about these personal problems you're working on?" he asked.

  She hesitated.

  "If you'd rather ..."

  "The night I shot Bobby . . . that was his name," she said, "Bobby Wilson. The night I shot him, I had two backups following me. But my boyfriend ..."

  "Is he the personal problem? Your boyfriend?"

  "Yes."

  "What about him?"

  "He figured he'd lend a hand on the job, and as a result..."

  "Lend a hand?"

  "He's a cop, I'm sorry, I should have mentioned that. He's a detective at the Eight-Seven."

  "What's his name?"

  "Why do you need to know that?"

  "I don't."

  "Anyway, he walked into what was going down, and there was a mix-up, and I lost both my backups. Which is how I ended up alone with Bobby. And his knife."

  "So you killed him."

  "Yes. He was coming at me."

  "Do you blame your boyfriend for that?"

  "That's what we're working on."

  "You and Dr Lefkowitz."

  "Yes."

  "How about you and your boyfriend? Are you working on it, too?"

  "I haven't seen him since I started therapy."

  "How does he feel about that?"

  10

  "I don't give a damn how he feels."

  "I see."

  "I'm the one who's drowning," Eileen said.

  "I see."

  They sat in silence for several moments.

  "End of interview, right?" she asked.

  They found the letters in a jewelry box on the dead woman's dresser.

  They had ascertained by then - from the driver's license in her handbag on a table just inside the entrance door - that her name was Susan Brauer and that her age was twenty-two. The picture on the license showed a fresh-faced blonde grinning at the camera. The blue cloth backing behind her told the detectives that the license was limited to driving with corrective lenses. Before the ME left, they asked him if the dead woman was wearing contacts. He said she was not.

  The box containing the letters was one of those tooled red-leather things that attract burglars the way jam pots attract bees. A burglar would have been disappointed with this one, though, because the only thing in it was a stack of letters still in their envelopes and bound together with a pale blue satin ribbon. There were twenty-two letters in all, organized in chronological order, the first of them dated the eleventh of June this year, the last dated the twelfth of July. All of the letters were handwritten, all of them began with the salutation My darling Susan. None of them was signed. All of them were erotic.

  The writer was obviously a man.

  In letter after letter - they calculated that he'd averaged a letter every other day or so - the writer described in explicit language all the things he intended to do to Susan . . .

  . . . standing behind you in a crowded elevator, your skirt raised in the back and tucked up under your belt, you naked under the skirt, my hands freely roaming your . . .

  . . . and all the things he expected Susan to do to him . . .

  11

  . . . with you straddling me and facing the mirror. Then I want you to ease yourself down on my . . .

  As the detectives read the letters in order, it seemed possible that Susan had been writing to him in return, and that her letters were of the same nature, his references to her requests . . .

  . . . when you say you want to tie me to the bed and have me beg you to touch me, do you mean . . .

  . . . indicating an erotic imagination as lively as his own. Moreover, it became clear that these were no mere unfulfilled fantasies. The couple were actually doing the things they promised they'd do, and doing it with startling frequency.

  . . . on Wednesday when you opened your kimono and stood there in the black lingerie I'd bought you, your legs slightly parted, the garters tight on your . . .

  . . . but then last Friday, as you bent over to accept me, I wondered whether you really enjoyed . . .

  . . . quite often myself. And when you told me that on Monday you thought of me while you were doing it, the bubble bath foaming around you, your hand busy under the suds, finding that sweet tight. . .

  . . . known you only since New Year's Day, and yet I think of you all the time. I saw you yesterday, I'll see you again tomorrow, but I walk around eternally embarrassed because I'm sure everyone can see the bulge of my . . .

  The letters went on and on.

  Twenty-two of them in all.

  The last one was perhaps the most revealing of the lot. In part, before it sailed off into the usual erotic stratosphere, it dealt with business of a sort:

  My darling Susan,

  I know you're becoming impatient with what seems an interminable delay in getting you into the new apartment. I myself feel uneasy searching for a taxi when I leave there late at night, knowing the streets to the south of the Oval are neither well-lighted nor well-patrolled. I'll be so much happier when

  12

  you're settled downtown, closer to my office, in a safer neighborhood, in the luxurious surroundings I promised you.

  But please don't take the delay as a sign of indifference or changing attitude on my part. And please don't become impatient or forgetful. I would hate to lose this apartment before the other one comes free - which I've been assured will be any day now. I'll make sure you have the cash to cover any checks you write, but please pay all of the apartment bills promptly. You can't risk losing the lease on default.

  I've been going to my post office box every day, but nothing from Susan. Is little Susan afraid to write? Is little Susan losing interest? I would hate to think so. Or does sweet Susan need reminding that she's mine? I think you may have to be punished the next time I see you. I think I'll have to turn you over my knee, and pull down your panties, and spank you till your cheeks turn pink, watch your ass writhing under my hand, hear you moaning . . .

  This letter, too, was unsigned.

  It was a shame.

  It made their job more difficult.

  The clock on the squadroom wall read twelve minutes to midnight. The Graveyard Shift had just relieved, and Hawes was arguing with Bob O'Brien, who didn't want to be the one who broke the news to Carella. He told Hawes he should stick around, do it himself, even though he'd been officially relieved.

  "You're the one the sister talked to," O'Brien said. "You're the one should tell Steve."

  Hawes said he had an urgent engagement, what did O'Brien want him to do, leave a note on Carella's desk? The urgent engagement was with a Detective/First Grade named Annie Rawles who had bought him the red socks he was wearing. The socks matched Hawes's hair and the tie he was wearing. He was also wearing a white shirt that echoed the white streak of hair over his left temple. Hawes was dressed for the summer heat. Lightweight blue blazer over gray tropical slacks, red silk tie and the red socks Annie had given him.

  13

  This was the seventeenth day of July, a Tuesday night, and the temperature outside the squadroom was eighty-six degrees Fahrenheit. By Hawes's reckoning that came to thirty degrees Celsius, which was damn hot in any language. He hated the summer. He particularly hated this summer, because it seemed to have started in May and it was still here, day after day of torrid temperatures and heavy humidity that combined to turn a person to mush.

  "Can't you just do me this one simple favor?" he said.

  "It's not such a simple favor," O'Brien said. "This is the most traumatic thing that can happen in a man's life, don't you know that?"

  "No, I didn't know that," Hawes said.

  "Also," O'Brien said, "I have a reputation around here as a hard-luck cop ..."

  "Where'd you get that idea?" Hawes said.

  "I got that idea because I have a habit of getting into shoot-outs, and I know nobody likes being partnered with me."

  "That's ridiculous," Hawes said, lying.

  "Now you're ask
ing me to tell Steve this terrible thing, he'll confuse the messenger with the message and he'll think Here's this hard-luck cop bringing hard luck to me."

  "Steve won't think that at all," Hawes said.

  "I won't think what?" Carella said from the gate in the slatted-rail divider, taking off his jacket as he came into the room. Brown was right behind him. Both men looked wilted.

  "What won't I think?" Carella asked again.

  O'Brien and Hawes looked at him.

  "What is it?" Carella said.

  Neither of them said anything.

  "Cotton?" he said. "Bob? What is it?"

  "Steve . . ."

  "What?"

  "I hate to have to tell you this, but. . ."

  "What, Bob?"

  "Your sister called a little while ago," O'Brien said.

  "Your father is dead," Hawes said.

  14

  Carella looked at them blankly.

  Then he nodded.

  Then he said, "Where is she?"

  "Your mother's house."

  He went directly to the phone and dialed the number from memory. His sister picked up on the third ring.

  "Angela," he said, "it's Steve."

  She'd been crying, her voice revealed that.

  "We just got back from the hospital," she said.

  "What happened?" he asked. "Was it his heart again?"

  "No, Steve. Not his heart."

  "Then what?"

  "We went there to make positive identification."

  For a moment he didn't quite understand. Or didn't choose to understand.

  "What do you mean?" he said.

  "We had to identify the body."

  "Why? Angela, what happened?"

  "He was killed."

  "Killed? What. . .?"

  "In the bakery shop."

  "No."

  "Steve ..."

  "Jesus, what. . .?"

  "Two men came in. Papa was alone. They cleaned out the cash register ..."

  'Angela, don't tell me this, please."

  "I'm sorry," she said.

  And suddenly he was crying.

  "Who's . . . who's ... is it the ... the ... it's the Four-Five, isn't it? Up there? Who's working the ... do you know who's working the . . . the . . . Angela," he said, "honey? Did they . . . did they hurt him? I mean, did they . . . they didn't hurt him, did they? Oh God, Angela," he said, "oh God oh God oh God ..."

  He pulled the phone from his mouth and clutched it to his

  15

  chest, tears streaming down his face, great racking sobs choking him. "Steve?" his sister said. "Are you all right?" Her voice muffled against his shirt where the receiver was pressed fiercely to his chest. "Steve? Are you all right? Steve?" Over and over again. Until at last he moved the phone to his mouth again, and still crying, said, "Honey?"

  "Yes, Steve."

  "Tell Mama I'll be there as soon as I can."

  "Drive carefully."

  "Did you caU Teddy?"

  "She's on the way."

  "Is Tommy there with you?"

  "No, we're alone here. Mama and me."

  "What do you . . .? Where's Tommy?"

  "I don't know," she said. "Please hurry."

  And hung up.

  The two detectives from the 45th Squad in Riverhead felt uncomfortable talking to the detective whose father had been killed. Neither of the men knew Carella; the Eight-Seven was a long way from home. Moreover, both detectives were black, and from all accounts the two men who'd robbed Tony Carella's bakery shop and then killed the old man were black themselves.

  Neither of the detectives knew how Carella felt about blacks in general. But the murderers were blacks in particular, and the way the black/white thing was shaping up in this city, the two Riverhead cops felt they might be treading dangerous ground here. Carella was a professional, though, and they knew they could safely cut through a lot of the bullshit. He knew what they'd be doing to apprehend the men who'd killed his father. They didn't have to spell out routine step by step, the way you had to do with civilians.

  The bigger of the two cops was named Charlie Bent, a Detective/Second. He was wearing a sports jacket over blue jeans and an open-collared shirt. Carella could see the bulge of his shoulder holster on the right-hand side of his body. Left-handed, he figured. Bent spoke very quietly, either because he was naturally soft-spoken or else because he was in a funeral home.

  The other cop was a Detective/Third, just got his promotion last month, he mentioned to Carella in passing. He was big,

  r

  too, but not as wide across the shoulders and chest as Bent was. His name was Randy Wade, the Randy being short for Randall, not Randolph. His face was badly pockmarked, and there was an old knife scar over his left eye. He looked as mean as Saturday night, but this was ten o'clock on Wednesday morning, and they were inside the Loretti Brothers Funeral Home on Vandermeer Hill, and so he was speaking softly, too.

  Everyone was speaking softly, tiptoeing around Carella, who for all they knew might be as bigoted as most white men in this city, but whose father had certainly been killed by two black men like themselves, bigot or not. The three detectives were standing in the large entrance foyer that separated the east and west wings. Carella's father was in a coffin in Chapel A in the east wing.

  There was a hush in the funeral home.

  Carella could remember when he was a kid and his father's sister got run over by an automobile. His Aunt Katie. Killed instantly. Carella had loved her to death. They'd laid her out in this very same funeral home, in one of the chapels over in the west wing.

  Back when Aunt Katie died, the family still had older people in it who'd come from the Other Side, as they'd called Europe in general. Some of them could barely speak English. Carella's mother, and sometimes his father - but not too often because his own English showed traces of having been raised in an immigrant home - laughed at the fractured English some of their older relatives spoke. Nobody was laughing when Aunt Katie was here in this place. Aunt Katie was twenty-seven years old when the car knocked her down and killed her.

  Carella could still remember the women keening.

  The women keening were more frightening than the fact that his dear Aunt Katie lay young and dead in a coffin in the west wing.

  Today, there was no keening. The old ways had become American, and Americans did not keen. Today, there was

  18

  only the hush of death in this silent place where two black cops tiptoed around a white cop because his father had been killed by two black men like themselves.

  "The witness seems reliable," Bent said softly. "We've been showing him ..."

  "When did he see these two men?" Carella asked.

  "Coming out," Wade said.

  "He was in the liquor store next door. He thought he heard shots, and when he turned around to look, he saw these guys ..."

  "What time was this?"

  "Around nine-thirty. Your sister told us your father sometimes worked late."

  "Yes," Carella said.

  "Alone," Bent said.

  "Yes," Carella said. "Baking."

  "Anyway," Wade said, "he saw them plain as day under the street lamp ..."

  "Getting into a car, or what?"

  "No, they were on foot."

  "They'd been cruising, we figure, looking for a mark."

  "They had to pick my father, huh?"

  "Yeah, well," Bent said sympathetically, and shook his head. "We've got the witness looking through mug shots, and we've got an artist working up a drawing, so maybe we'll come up with some kind of positive ID. We're also checking the MO file, but there's nothing special about the style of this one, we figure it was maybe two crack addicts cruising for an easy score."

  Nothing special about it, Carella thought.

  Except that it was my father.

  "They're both black," Bent said. "I guess your sister told you that."

  "She told me," Carella said.

  "We want you
to know that our being black ..."

  "You don't have to say it," Carella said.

  Both men looked at him.

  19

  "No need," he said.

  "We'll be doing our best," Wade said.

  "I know that."

  "We'll keep you informed every step of the way," Bent said.

  "I'd appreciate that."

  "Meanwhile, anything we can do to help your family, look in on your mother, whatever you need, just let us know."

  "Thanks," Carella said. "Whenever you have anything ..."

  "We'll let you know."

  "Even if it seems unimportant..."

  "The minute we get anything."

  "Thanks," Carella said.

  "My father was killed in a mugging," Wade said out of the blue.

  "I'm sorry," Carella said.

  "Reason I became a cop," Wade said, and looked suddenly embarrassed.

  "This city ..." Bent started, and let the sentence trail.

  Brown had been in the apartment for an hour before Kling arrived to lend a hand. Kling apologized for getting there so late, but he didn't get the call from the lieutenant till half an hour ago, while he was still in bed. This was supposed to be his day off, but with Carella's father getting shot and all -

  "Are they any good up there?" he asked Brown. "The Four-Five?"

  "I don't know anything about them," Brown said.

  "That's like the boonies up there, isn't it?"

  "Well, I think they have crime up there," Brown said dryly.

  "Sure, but what kind of crime? Do they ever have murders up there?"

  "I think they have murders up there," Brown said.

  Kling had taken off his jacket and was looking for a place to hang it. He knew the techs were finished in here and it was okay to touch anything he liked. But he would feel funny

  20

  putting his jacket in a closet with the dead woman's clothes. He settled for tossing it over the back of the living-room sofa.

  He was wearing brown tropical-weight slacks and a tan sports shirt that complemented his hazel eyes and blond hair. Loafers, too, Brown noticed. Mr College Boy. They made a good pair, these two. Most thieves figured Kling for an innocent young rookie who'd just got the gold shield last week. With all that blond hair and that shit-kicking, apple-cheeked style, it was hard to guess he was a seasoned cop who'd seen more than his share of it. Your average thief mistook him for somebody he could jerk around, play on his sympathies, get him to talk Big Bad Leroy here into looking the other way. Kling and Brown played the Good Cop/Bad Cop routine for all it was worth, Kling restraining Brown from committing murder with his bare hands, Brown acting like an animal just let out of his cage. It worked each and every time.