Sadie When She Died Read online

“Yes, it is.”

  “Look, I’ve got to shave and get out of here. Can you come to the office later? About . . . ten o’clock? I should be free around then. I’d see you earlier, but someone’s coming in at nine.”

  “We’ll be there at ten. Where is the office, Mr. Hart?”

  “On Hamilton and Reed. 480 Reed. The sixth floor. Hart and Widderman. We’ve got the whole floor.”

  “See you at ten, Mr. Hart.”

  “Right,” Hart said, and hung up.

  Like a woman in her tenth month, the clouds over the city twisted and roiled in angry discomfort but refused to deliver the promised snow. The citizens grew anxious. Hurrying to their jobs, dashing into subway kiosks, boarding buses, climbing into taxicabs, they glanced apprehensively at the bloated skies and wondered if the weather bureau, as usual, was wrong. To the average city dweller, being alerted to a snowstorm was like being alerted to the bubonic plague. Nobody in his right mind liked snow. Nobody liked putting on rubbers and galoshes and skid-chains and boots; nobody liked shoveling sidewalks and canceling dinner dates and missing theater parties; nobody liked slipping and sliding and falling on his ass. But worse than that, nobody liked being promised all that, and being forced to anticipate all that, and then not having all that delivered. The city dweller, for all his sophistication, was a creature of habit who dreaded any break in his normal routine. He would accept blackouts or garbage strikes or muggings in the park because these were not breaks in the routine, they were the routine. And besides, they reinforced the image he carried of himself as an urban twentieth-century swashbuckler capable of coping with the worst disasters. But threaten a taxicab strike and then postpone or cancel it? Promise a protest and have it dispersed by the police? Forecast snow and then have the storm hover indefinitely over the city like a writhing gray snake ready to strike? Oh no, you couldn’t fool with a city person that way. It made him edgy and uncomfortable and insecure and constipated.

  “So where the hell is it?” Meyer asked impatiently. One hand on the door of the police sedan, he looked up at the threatening sky and all but shook his fist at the gray clouds overhead.

  “It’ll come,” Carella said.

  “When?” Meyer asked flatly, and opened the door, and climbed into the car. Carella started the engine. “Damn forecasters never know what they’re doing,” Meyer said. “Last big storm we had, they were predicting sunny and mild. We can put men on the moon, but we can’t tell if it’s going to drizzle on Tuesday.”

  “That’s an interesting thing,” Carella said.

  “What is?”

  “About the moon.”

  “What about the moon?”

  “Why should everything down here be expected to work perfectly just because we’ve put men on the moon?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Meyer said.

  “We can put men on the moon,” Carella said, “but we can’t get a phone call through to Riverhead. We can put men on the moon, but we can’t settle a transit strike. We can put men on the moon . . .”

  “I get your point,” Meyer said, “but I fail to see the parallel. There is a connection between the weather and the billions of dollars we’ve spent shooting meteorological hardware into space.”

  “I merely thought it was an interesting observation,” Carella said.

  “It was very interesting,” Meyer said.

  “What’s the matter with you this morning?”

  “Nothing’s the matter with me this morning.”

  “Okay,” Carella said, and shrugged.

  They drove in silence. The city was a monochromatic gray, the backdrop for a Warner Brothers gangster film of the thirties. The color seemed to have been drained from everything—the most vivid billboards, the most vibrant building façades, the most lurid women’s clothing, even the Christmas ornaments that decorated the shop windows. Overhung with eternal grayness, the trappings of the yuletide season stood revealed as shabby crap, tinsel and plastic to be exhibited once a year before being returned to the basement. In this bleak light, even the costumes of the streetcorner Santa Clauses appeared to be a faded maroon rather than a cheerful red, the fake beards dirty, the brass bells tarnished. The city had been robbed of sunshine and denied the cleansing release of snow. It waited, and it fretted, and it grew crankier by the minute.

  “I was wondering about Christmas,” Carella said.

  “What about it?”

  “I’ve got the duty. You feel like switching with me?”

  “What for?” Meyer said.

  “I thought I’d give you Chanukah or something.”

  “How long do you know me?” Meyer asked.

  “Too long,” Carella said, and smiled.

  “How many years has it been?” Meyer said. “And you don’t know I celebrate both Chanukah and Christmas? I’ve had a Christmas tree in the house ever since the kids were born. Every year. You’ve been there every year. You were there last year with Teddy. You saw the tree. Right in the living room. Right in the middle of the goddamn living room.”

  “I forgot,” Carella said.

  “I celebrate both,” Meyer said.

  “Okay,” Carella said.

  “Okay. So the answer is no, I don’t want to switch the duty.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  In this mood of joyous camaraderie, Meyer and Carella parked the car and went into the building at 480 Reed Street, and up the elevator to the sixth floor—in silence. Hart and Widderman manufactured watchbands. A huge advertising display near the receptionist’s desk in the lobby proudly proclaimed H & W BEATS THE BAND ! and then backed the slogan with more discreet copy that explained how Hart and Widderman had solved the difficult engineering problems of the expansion watch bracelet to present to the world their amazing new line, all illustrated with photographs as big as Carella’s head, in gleaming golden tones he felt certain he could hock at the nearest pawnshop. The receptionist’s hair was almost as golden, but it did not look as genuine as that in the display. She glanced up from her magazine without much interest as the detectives approached her desk. Meyer was still reading the advertising copy, fascinated.

  “Mr. Hart, please,” Carella said.

  “Who’s calling?” the receptionist asked. She had a definite Calm’s Point accent, and she sounded as if she were chewing gum, even though she was not.

  “Detectives Carella and Meyer.”

  “Just a minute, please,” she said, and lifted her phone, and pushed a button in the base. “Mr. Hart,” she said, “there are some cops here to see you.” She listened for a moment, and then said, “Yes, sir.” She replaced the receiver on its cradle, gestured toward the inside corridor with a nod of her golden tresses, said, “Go right in, please. Door at the end of the hall,” and then went back to discovering what people were talking about in Vogue.

  The gray skies had apparently got to Andrew Hart, too.

  “You didn’t have to broadcast to the world that the police department is here,” he said immediately.

  “We merely announced ourselves,” Carella said.

  “Well, okay, now you’re here,” Hart said, “let’s get it over with.” He was a big man in his middle fifties, with iron-gray hair and black-rimmed eyeglasses. His eyes behind their lenses were brown and swift and cruel. His jacket was draped over the back of the chair behind his desk, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up over powerful forearms dense with black hair. A gold expansion bracelet, undoubtedly one of his own, held his watch fastened to his thick wrist. “If you want to know the truth,” he said, “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing here, anyway. I told you I don’t know any Sarah Fletcher, and I don’t.”

  “Here’s her book, Mr. Hart,” Carella said, figuring there was no sense wasting time with a lot of bullshit. He handed the address book to Hart, opened to the MEMORANDA page. “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Hart said, and shook his head. “But how it got there is beyond me.”

  �
��You don’t know anybody named Sarah Fletcher, huh?”

  “No.”

  “Is it possible she’s someone you met at a party, someone you exchanged numbers with . . .”

  “No.”

  “Are you married, Mr. Hart?”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Are you?”

  “No.”

  “We’ve got a picture of Mrs. Fletcher, I wonder . . .”

  “Don’t go showing me any pictures of a corpse,” Hart said.

  “This was taken when she was alive. It’s a recent picture, it was on the dresser in her bedroom. Would you mind looking at it?”

  “I don’t see any sense in this at all,” Hart said. “I told you I don’t know her. How’s looking at her picture . . . ?”

  “Meyer?” Carella said, and Meyer handed him a manila envelope. Carella opened the flap and removed from the envelope a framed picture of Sarah Fletcher, which he handed to Hart. Hart looked at the photograph, and then immediately looked up at Carella.

  “What is this?” he said.

  “Do you recognize that picture, Mr. Hart?”

  “Let me see your badge,” Hart said.

  “What?”

  “Your badge, your badge. Let me see your identification.”

  Carella took out his wallet, and opened it to where his detective’s shield was pinned opposite his I.D. card. Hart studied both, and then said, “I thought this might be a shakedown.”

  “Why’d you think that?”

  Hart did not answer. He looked at the photograph again, shook his head, and said, “Somebody killed her, huh?”

  “Yes, somebody did,” Carella answered. “Did you know her?”

  “I knew her.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t know Sarah Fletcher, if that’s who you think she was. But I knew this broad, all right.”

  “Who’d you think she was?” Meyer asked.

  “Just who she told me she was.”

  “Which was?”

  “Sadie Collins. She introduced herself as Sadie Collins, and that’s who I knew her as. Sadie Collins.”

  “Where was this, Mr. Hart? Where’d you meet her?”

  “In a bar.”

  “Where?”

  “Who the hell remembers? A singles’ bar. The city’s full of them.”

  “Would you remember when?”

  “At least a year ago.”

  “Ever go out with her?”

  “Yes.”

  “How often?”

  “Often enough.”

  “How often?”

  “I used to see her once or twice a week.”

  “Used to? When did you stop seeing her?”

  “Last summer.”

  “But until then you used to see her quite regularly.”

  “Yeah, on and off.”

  “Twice a week, you said.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Did you know she was married?”

  “Who? Sadie? You’re kidding.”

  “She never told you she was married?”

  “Never.”

  “You saw her twice a week . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you didn’t know she was married?”

  “How was I supposed to know that? She never said a word about it. Listen, there are enough single girls in this city, I don’t have to go looking for trouble with somebody who’s married.”

  “Where’d you pick her up?” Meyer asked suddenly.

  “I told you. A bar. I don’t remember which . . .”

  “When you went out, I mean.”

  “What?”

  “When you were going out, where’d you pick her up? At her apartment?”

  “No. She used to come to my place.”

  “Where’d you call her? When you wanted to reach her?”

  “I didn’t. She used to call me.”

  “Where’d you go, Mr. Hart? When you went out?”

  “We didn’t go out too much.”

  “What did you do?”

  “She used to come to my place. We’d spend a lot of time there.”

  “But when you did go out. . . .”

  “Well, the truth is we never went out.”

  “Never?”

  “Never. She didn’t want to go out much.”

  “Didn’t you think that was strange?”

  “No.” Hart shrugged. “I figured she liked to stay home.”

  “If you never went out, what did you do, exactly, Mr. Hart?”

  “Well now, what the hell do you think we did, exactly?” Hart said.

  “You tell us.”

  “You’re big boys. Figure it out for yourself.”

  “Why’d you stop seeing her, Mr. Hart?”

  “I met somebody else. A nice girl. I’m very serious about her. That’s why I thought . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Nothing.”

  “That’s why you thought what, Mr. Hart?”

  “Okay, that’s why I thought this was a shakedown. I thought somebody had found out about Sadie and me and . . . well . . . I’m very serious about this girl, I wouldn’t want her to know anything about the past. About Sadie and me. About seeing Sadie.”

  “What was so terrible about seeing Sadie?” Meyer asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why would anyone want to shake you down?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If there was nothing terrible . . .”

  “There wasn’t.”

  “Then what’s there to hide?”

  “There’s nothing to hide. I’m just very serious about this girl, and I wouldn’t want her to know . . .”

  “To know what?”

  “About Sadie.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I just wouldn’t.”

  “Was there something wrong with Sadie?”

  “No, no, she was a beautiful woman, beautiful.”

  “Then why would you be ashamed . . . ?”

  “Ashamed? Who said anything about being ashamed?”

  “You said you wouldn’t want your girlfriend . . .”

  “Listen, what is this? I stopped seeing Sadie six months ago, I wouldn’t even talk to her on the phone after that. If the crazy bitch got herself killed . . .”

  “Crazy?”

  Hart suddenly wiped his hand over his face, wet his lips, and walked behind his desk. “I don’t think I have anything more to say to you, gentlemen. If you have any other questions, maybe you’d better charge me with something, and I’ll ask my lawyer’s advice on what to do next.”

  “What did you mean when you said she was crazy?” Carella asked.

  “Good day, gentlemen,” Hart said.

  In the lieutenant’s corner office, Byrnes and Carella sat drinking coffee. Byrnes was frowning. Carella was waiting. Neither of the men said a word. A telephone rang in the squadroom outside, and Byrnes looked at his watch.

  “Well, yes or no, Pete?” Carella asked at last.

  “I’m inclined to say no.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t know why you still want to pursue this thing.”

  “Oh come on, Pete! If the goddamn guy did it . . .”

  “That’s only your allegation. Suppose he didn’t do it, and suppose you do something to screw up the D.A.’s case?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know like what. They’ve got a grand jury indictment, they’re preparing a case against Corwin, how the hell do I know what you might do? The way things are going these days, if you spit on the sidewalk that’s enough to get a case thrown out of court.”

  “Fletcher hated his wife,” Carella said calmly.

  “Lots of men hate their wives. Half the men in this city hate their wives.”

  “According to Hart . . .”

  “All right, so she was playing around a little, so what? She had herself a little fling, who doesn’t? Half the women in this city are havi
ng little flings right this minute.”

  “Her little fling gives Fletcher a good reason for . . . look, Pete, what the hell else do we need? He had a motive, he had the opportunity, a golden one, in fact, and he had the means—another man’s knife sticking out of Sarah’s gut. What more do you want?”

  “Proof. There’s a funny little system we’ve got here in this city, Steve. It requires proof before we can arrest a man and charge him with murder.”

  “Right. And all I’m asking is the opportunity to try for it.”

  “Sure. By putting a tail on Fletcher. Suppose he sues the goddamn city?”

  “For what?”

  “He’ll think of something.”

  “Yes or no, Pete? I want permission to conduct a round-the-clock surveillance of Gerald Fletcher, starting Sunday morning. Yes or no?”

  “I must be out of my mind,” Byrnes said, and sighed.

  8

  A t 7:30 P . M . on the loneliest night of the week, Bert Kling did a foolish thing. He telephoned Nora Simonov. He did not expect her to be home, so he really did not know why he was calling her. He could only suppose that he was experiencing that great American illness known as the Saturday Night Funk, not to be confused with the Sunday Evening Hiatus or the Monday Morning Blues, none of which are daily newspapers.

  The Saturday Night Funk (or the Snf, as it is familiarly known to those who have ever suffered from it) generally begins the night before, along about eight o’clock, when one realizes he does not have a date for that fabulous flight of **FUN** and **FRIVOLITY** known as S*A*T*U*R*D*A*Y N*I*G*H*T U*S*A.

  There is no need for panic at this early juncture, of course. The mythical magical merriment is not scheduled to begin for at least another twenty-four hours, time yet to call a dozen birds or even a hundred, no need for any reaction more potent than a mild sort of self-chastisement for having been so tardy in making arrangements for the gay gaudy gala to follow. And should one fail to make a connection that Friday, there is still all day tomorrow to twirl those little holes in the telephone dial and ring up this or that hot number—Hello, sweetie, I was wondering whether you’d be available for an entertaining evening of enjoyment and eventual enervation—plenty of time, no need to worry.

  By Saturday afternoon at about three, the first signs of anxiety begin to set in as this or that luscious lovely announces that, Oh my, I would have been thrilled and delighted to accompany you even into the mouth of a cannon, but oh goodness here it is Saturday afternoon already and you can’t expect to call a girl at the last minute and have her free on D*A*T*E N*I*G*H*T U*S*A, can you? Last minute? What last minute? It is still only three in the afternoon, four in the afternoon, five in the evening. Evening? When did it become evening? And desperation pounces.