Hark! (2 page)

N
OW THAT IS WHAT
I call a zaftig woman,” Monoghan said.

“How do you happen to know that expression?” Monroe asked.

“My first wife happened to be Jewish,” Monoghan said.

Monroe didn't even know there'd
been
a first wife. Or that there was now a second wife. If in fact there was a second wife. The woman's skirt had pulled back when she fell to the expensive Oriental carpet, exposing shapely thighs and legs, which, in concert with her ample breasts, justified the label Monoghan had just hung on her. She was indeed zaftig, some five feet nine inches tall, a woman of Amazonian proportions, albeit a dead one. The first bullet hole was just below her left breast. The second was a bit higher on her chest, and more to the middle, somewhere around the sternum. There were ugly blood stains around each bullet hole, larger stains in the weave of the thick carpet under her. The detectives seemed to be staring down at the wounds, but perhaps they were just admiring her breasts.

Today was Tuesday, the first day of June, the day after Memorial Day. The dead woman lying there at Monoghan's feet looked to be in her mid-thirties, still young enough to be a mother, though not what anyone would call a young mother, which was the juiciest kind. Monroe's thoughts were running pretty much along similar lines. He was wondering if the woman had been sexually compromised before someone thoughtlessly shot her. The idea was vaguely exciting in an instinctively primitive way, her lying all exposed like that, with even her panties showing.

Monoghan and Monroe were both wearing black, but not in mourning; this was merely the customary raiment of the Homicide Division. Their appearance here was mandatory in this city, but they would serve only in an advisory and supervisory capacity, whatever that meant; sometimes even they themselves didn't know what their exact function was. They
did
know that the actual investigation of the crime would be handled by the detective squad that caught the initial squeal, in this instance the 8-7—which, by the way, where the hell were they? Or the ME, for that matter? Both detectives wondered if they should go down for a cup of coffee, pass the time that way.

The handyman who'd found the dead woman was still in the apartment, looking guilty as hell, probably because he didn't have a green card and was afraid they'd deport him back to Mexico or wherever. The super had sent him up to replace a washer in the kitchen faucet, and he'd let himself in with a passkey, figuring the lady…

He kept calling her the lady.

…was already gone for the day, it being eleven o'clock in the morning and all. Instead, the lady was dead on her back in the bedroom. The handyman didn't know whether or not it was okay to go back downstairs now, nobody was telling him nothing. So he hung around trying not to appear like an illegal, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as if he had to pee.

“So how do you wanna proceed here?” Monoghan asked.

Monroe looked at his watch. “Is there traffic out there, or what?” he said.

Monoghan shrugged.

“You wanna hear what happened yesterday?” he asked.

“What happened?”

“I go get some takee-outee at this Chinese joint, you know?”

“Yeah?”

“And I place my order with this guy behind one of these computers, and I tell him I also want a coupla bottles non-alcoholic beer. So he…”

“Why you drinking non-alcoholic beer?”

“I'm tryin'a lose a little weight.”

“Why? You look okay to me.”

“I'm tryin'a lose ten, twelve pounds.”

“You look fine.”

“You think so?”

“Absolutely.”

Together, the detectives looked like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. But Monroe didn't seem to realize this.

“Anyway, that ain't the point of the story,” Monoghan said. “I told him I wanted two non-alcoholic beers, and he told me I'd have to get those at the bar. So I go over to the bar, and the bartender—this blonde with nice tits, which was strange for a Chinese joint…”

“Her having nice tits?”

“No, her being blonde…can you please pay attention here? She asks me, ‘Can I help you, sir?' And I tell her I'd like two non-alcoholic beers, please.”

“When you say ‘nice tits,' is that what you really mean? ‘Nice tits'?”

“What?”

“Is that a truly accurate description? ‘Nice tits'?”

“Can you please tell me what that has to do with my story.”

“For the sake of accuracy,” Monroe said, and shrugged.

“Forget it, then,” Monoghan said.

“Because there's an escalation of language when a person is discussing breast sizes,” Monroe said.

“I'm not interested,” Monoghan said, and looked down again at the breasts of the dead woman.

“The smallest breasts,” Monroe said, undeterred, “are what you'd call ‘cute boobs.' Then the next largest breasts are ‘nice tits'…”

“I told you I'm not…”

“…and then we get to ‘great jugs,' and finally we arrive at ‘major hooters.' That's the proper escalation. So when you say this blonde bartender had nice tits, do you really mean…?”

“I really mean she had ‘nice tits,' yes, and that has nothing to do with my story.”

“I know. Your story has to do with ordering non-alcoholic beer when you don't even need to lose weight.”

“Forget it,” Monoghan said.

“No, tell it. I'm listening.”

“You're sure you're not still distracted by the bartender with the great tits or the cute hooters or whatever the hell she had?”

“You're mixing them up.”

“Forgive me, I didn't know this was an exact science.”

“There's no need for sarcasm. I'm tryin'a help your story, is all.”

“So let me tell it then.”

“So tell it already,” Monroe said, sounding miffed.

“I ask the bartender for two non-alcoholic beers, and a Chinese manager or whatever he was, standing there at the service bar says, ‘We can't sell you beer to take home, sir.' So I said, ‘Why not?' So he says, ‘I would lose my liquor license.' So I said, ‘This isn't alcohol, this is non-alcoholic beer. It would be the same as my taking home a Diet Coke.' So he says, ‘I order my non-alcoholic beer from my liquor supplier. And I can't sell it to customers to take home.' So I said, ‘Who
can
you sell it to if not customers?' He says, ‘What?' So I say, “If you can't sell it to
customers
, who
can
you sell it to? Employees?' So he says, ‘I can't sell it to
anyone.
I would lose my liquor license.' So I say, ‘This is
not
liquor! This is non-alcoholic!' And he says, ‘I'm sorry, sir.' ”

“So did you get the beer or not?”

“I did not get it. And it wasn't beer. It was non-
alcoholic
beer.”

“Which you don't need, anyway, a diet.”

“Forget it,” Monoghan said, sighing, and a voice from the entrance door said, “Good morning, people. Who's in charge here?”

The ME had arrived.

Detectives Meyer and Carella were just a heartbeat behind him.

 

Y
OU COULDN'T MISTAKE
them for anything but cops.

Monoghan and Monroe might have been confused with portly pallbearers at a gangland funeral, but Meyer and Carella—although they didn't look at all alike—could be nothing but cops.

Detective Meyer Meyer was some six feet tall, a broad-shouldered man with China-blue eyes and a completely bald head. Even without the Isola PD shield hanging around his neck and dangling onto his chest, even with his sometimes GQ look—on this bright May morning, he was wearing brown corduroy slacks, brown socks and loafers, and a brown leather jacket zipped up over a tan linen shirt—his walk, his stance, his very air of confident command warned the criminal world at large that here stood the bona fide Man.

Like his partner, Detective Stephen Louis Carella exuded the same sense of offhand authority. About the same height as Meyer, give or take an inch or so, dark-haired and dark-eyed, wearing on this late spring day gray slacks, blue socks, black loafers, and a blue blazer over a lime-green Tommy Hilfiger shirt, he came striding into the room like an athlete, which he was not—unless you counted stickball as a kid growing up in Riverhead. He was already looking around as he came in just a step behind both Meyer and the Medical Examiner, who was either Carl Blaney or Paul Blaney, Carella didn't know which just yet; the men were twins, and they both worked for the Coroner's Office.

In answer to Blaney's question, Monroe said, “We
were
in charge until this very instant, Paul, but now that the super sleuths of the Eight-Seven…”

“It's Carl,” Blaney said.

“Oh, I beg your parmigiana,” Monroe said, and made a slight bow from the waist. “In any event, the case is now in the capable hands of Detectives Meyer and Carella, of whose company I am sure you already have had the pleasure.”

“Hello, Steve,” Blaney said. “Meyer.”

Carella nodded. He had just looked down at the body of the dead woman. As always, a short sharp stab, almost of pain, knifed him between the eyes. He was looking death in the face yet another time. And the only word that accompanied the recognition was
senseless.

“Nice jugs, huh, Doc?” Monoghan remarked.

“
Great
jugs,” Monroe corrected.

“Either way, a zaftig woman,” Monoghan said.

Blaney said nothing. He was kneeling beside the dead woman, his thumb and forefinger spreading her eyelids wide, his own violet-colored eyes studying her pupils. A few moments later, he declared her dead, said the probable cause of death was gunshot wounds, and ventured the wild guess that the lady had been shot twice in the heart.

Same words the handyman had used.

The lady.

 

T
HE HANDYMAN TOLD THEM
the lady's name was Gloria Stanford. He told Meyer and Carella what he'd already told the Homicide dicks. He'd come up to change a washer in the kitchen faucet and had found the lady dead on the bedroom floor.

“What were you doing in the bedroom?” Meyer wanted to know.

“
Señor
?”

“If you came up to change a washer in the kitchen, what were you doing in the bedroom?”

“I alwayss check the apar'menn, make sure anybody's home.”

“So you went into the bedroom to see if the lady was in there, is that right?”

“
Sí.
Before I begin work.”

“And what if the lady'd been in bed or something?” Meyer asked.

“Oh no. It wass eleven o'clock. She hass to be gone by then, no?”

“Then why'd you go look in the bedroom for her?”

“To see if she wass there,” the handyman said, and shrugged elaborately.

“This guy sounds like my Chinese manager,” Monoghan said.

“What'd you do when you found her in here dead?” Carella asked.

“I run down get the super.”

“He's the one called it in,” Monroe said. “The super.”

“Where is he now?”

“You got me. Probably hiding in the basement, keeping his nose clean.”

The boys from the mobile crime lab were just arriving.

It was going to be a long day.

 

A
LONG ABOUT THREE-THIRTY
every afternoon, the squadroom's often frantic boil dissipated, to be replaced by a more relaxed ambience. The shift would be relieved in fifteen minutes, and usually all the clerical odds and ends were tied up by now. This was a time to unwind, to relax a little before heading home. This was a time to enter the mental decompression chamber that separated the often ugly aspects of police work from the more civilized world of family and friends.

Meyer and Carella had jointly composed the Detective Division report on Gloria Stanford, the woman who'd been found dead this morning in a fourteenth-floor apartment on Silvermine Oval, an area that passed for the precinct's Gold Coast. One copy of this DD report would go to Homicide, another would go to the Chief of Detectives, and the third would be filed here. Meyer was on the phone with his wife, Sarah, discussing the bar mitzvah of his nephew Irwin's second son—my how the time does fly when you're having a good time; it seemed like only yesterday that they'd attended Irwin the Vermin's own bar mitzvah. But Irwin was a grown man now—albeit a lawyer, so perhaps the sobriquet still applied.