Cinderella

4

During the summer months, the weather forecasts in Calusa were the same day after day after day. Temperature in the nineties. Humidity in the nineties. Showers in the afternoon. Clearing before evening. Temperature in the nineties again. Humidity the same as it was before the showers. There was, Matthew supposed, something to be said for dependability. On the other hand, there was nothing quite so boring as predictability.

He had put on a tan tropical-weight suit when he’d left for the office that Tuesday morning. By two o’clock that afternoon, as he started the drive out to Sabal Key from downtown Calusa, the suit was rumpled and limp. He drove with the windows of the Karmann Ghia closed tight, the air-conditioning up full blast. To his left was the Gulf of Mexico, the water still green under broken clouds close to shore, the sky much darker to the west where thunderheads were already building. By three, three-thirty — four at the very latest — it would rain. Visitors, of which there were only a handful during the summer months, always thought the rain would mean a break in the humidity.

He had already driven past most of the Gulfside condos; the remainder of Sabal Key, running northward, was virtually as wild as when it had been inhabited by the Calusa and Timicua tribes of Indians back in the good old days. Flanked on the west by the Gulf and on the east by Calusa Bay, the key here at the northern end narrowed to a tangle of mangrove and pine and sabal palm in which only a few isolated houses nestled. Carla Nettington lived in one of those houses.

A woman in her thirties, not spectacularly beautiful — what a discreet journalist might have called “handsome” — she had come to the offices of Summerville and Hope on the twenty-third of May, elegantly dressed, slender and tall, somewhat flat-chested, and wearing a telltale sorrowful look that had nothing to do with preparing a will. There had been something very old-fashioned, almost Victorian, about Carla Nettington. At the time, Matthew had found it difficult to visualize her in a swimsuit.

She was, nonetheless, wearing a swimsuit when he arrived at the house that afternoon. She expected him, he had called first. In fact, she had told him on the phone that she’d probably be out back. Matthew rang the front doorbell. When he got no answer, he started around back, past a garden lush with red bougainvillea and yellow hibiscus. As he came around the corner of the house, Carla rose from a lounge chair and walked toward him with her hand extended.

The swimsuit was a black bikini, a bit more than nothing in its bra top, its black panty bottom snugly brief below her angular hips. She looked tall and leggy, her skin very white against the patches of black, the whiteness totally unexpected here in Florida, a stark paleness of flesh that caused her to appear somehow fragile and vulnerable and inexplicably sexy. He had not supposed she would look more exciting with her clothes off than she had with them on. With most women, in fact, the opposite was usually the case. But undeniably sexy she was, in spite of her virtually adolescent figure, the angular hips and collarbones, a coltish look — well, boyish to be more exact — dark hair cut close to her narrow face, eyes hidden behind overly large sunglasses, no lipstick on her generous mouth, lips wide in a smile now as she came closer.

“Mr. Hope,” she said, “how nice to see you.”

Her voice was somewhat husky, a cigarette-smoker’s voice, or a drinker’s, he couldn’t tell which.

She took his hand.

“I hope this isn’t a bad time for you,” he said.

“No, no, not at all. Well, as you can see, I was just sitting here reading.” She released his hand and gestured languidly to the lounge chair she had just vacated, and to the magazines strewn on the table beside it. A pitcher of lemonade and an ice bucket were on the table. Two empty glasses, both upside down, rested on a tray beside the bucket.

“Some lemonade?” she asked.

“Please,” he said.

She filled both glasses with ice cubes. She poured lemonade. All angles in the sun. Black and white and yellow in the yellow sunshine. His shirt and jacket were sticking to him. She handed him one of the glasses. He waited for her to fill her own glass.

“Please sit down,” she said.

He sat on the chaise beside hers. They sipped at the lemonade. A pelican swooped in low over the mangroves, settled on the water. The pool was a rippled blue under a patchy blue sky, the patio and pool ending at the line of mangroves, the bayou water beyond that a grayish green. In the distance, the storm clouds were closer. There was the smell of rain in the air. But the sun was lingering, if tentatively, for yet a little while. She crossed one ankle over the other, white on white.

“So,” she said, “has your man learned anything?”

All business now. She had not known the name of the private investigator he’d hired; she had come to him specifically to avoid personal contact with such a scurrilous breed. Ergo, she did not know that the man he’d hired was dead, the victim of gunshot wounds inflicted on a hot summer night, though the eighth day of June couldn’t be considered summertime except in the state of Florida. In the state of Florida, summertime sometimes came at the end of April. In the state of Florida, violent death sometimes came, too, and it had come on Sunday night to a nice guy named Otto Samalson who smoked too damn much, and coughed a lot, but who did a good job. “Your man,” she had called him. Matthew wasn’t so sure Otto would have enjoyed being called anybody’s man. If nothing else, Otto was his own man.

“My man,” Matthew said, “is dead.”

“What?” she said, and took off the sunglasses.

She’d been wearing sunglasses on the day she came to the office, hadn’t taken the glasses off during her entire visit. Her face had looked long and sorrowful, the glasses adding a further dimension of mournfulness, black against her pale white skin, as impenetrable as a crypt. On the day of her visit, she had told Matthew that her husband was forty-five years old, and he had assumed she was in her mid- to late-thirties. Her eyes, revealed now, were a glade green, youthful and alive with intelligence, easily her best feature. Without the glasses, she seemed a decade younger. The adolescent body now seemed entirely appropriate.

“He was shot to death on the Tamiami Trail,” Matthew said. A blank stare from her. “This past Sunday night,” he said. “A man named Otto Samalson.” The green gaze unwavering. “You may have read about it in the papers. Or seen it on television.”

“No,” she said.

“In any event, he’s dead,” Matthew said.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, and then, almost at once, “Does this mean I’ll have to find another detective?”

Me, me, me, Matthew thought, how does this affect me? Does Otto Samalson’s untimely and inconsiderate demise mean I will now have to seek the services of another private detective, equally faceless and anonymous?

He almost sighed.

“If you feel you still want one,” he said.

“Well, if the man is dead...”

“He is dead, yes, Mrs. Nettington.”

“Then how can we continue...?”

“I’d already had a report from him, Mrs. Nettington. And yesterday I heard a tape that—”

“Why didn’t you tell me this?” she said. “When did you have this report?”

“Late Friday afternoon.”

“And you didn’t call me?”

“Otto was making a duplicate copy of the tape. I thought I’d wait till—”

“What tape? What do you mean?”

“Otto was able to plant a recorder...”

“Who is she?” Carla said at once. “Who’s the woman?”

“Someone named Rita Kirkman.”

The same blank green-eyed stare again. The name meant nothing to her.

“She lives in Harbor Acres,” Matthew said. “That’s where the tape was made. In her home there.”

“Where is it?” Carla said. “I want to hear it.”

“The tape? In Otto’s office. The police—”

“You don’t have it with you?”

“No, I don’t. The police are investigating a homicide, Mrs. Nettington—”

“You mean the police will be listening to that tape?”

“There’s a good possibility of that, yes.”

“Oh God,” she said. “What’s on it?”

“Everything you wanted,” Matthew said.

“When can I hear it?”

“I’ll check with the police. I’m sure—”

“I wish the goddamn police weren’t in this,” she said.

“Yes, it’s unfortunate that Otto was killed,” Matthew said dryly.

She looked at him, uncertain whether sarcasm had been intended.

“Was your husband home on Sunday night?” he asked.

She hesitated.

“Mrs. Nettington?”

She put the sunglasses on.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I was out myself. I went to a movie with a girlfriend.”

“You didn’t call home at any time Sunday night? From the theater? Or anyplace else?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t know whether your husband was here or not?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t.”

“What time did you get home, Mrs. Nettington?”

“At a little past midnight. We stopped for a drink.”

“You didn’t try calling your husband from where you were, did you? The bar, or the restaurant, or wherever.”

“We were at Marina Lou’s. No, I didn’t.”

“Was your husband here when you got home?”

“Yes, he was in bed. Asleep.”

“But you have no idea if he was here all night or if he—”

“No.”

“What movie did you see?”

“Dr. Zhivago. For the fifth time,” she said, and smiled. “They’re showing it again at the Festival.”

“Up on the North Trail?”

“Yes.”

“Good movie,” he said.

“Very romantic,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

There was a long silence.

“Mrs. Nettington,” he said, “do you think your husband knew he was being followed?”

“I have no idea.”

“He didn’t say anything to you about it, did he?”

“Nothing.”

“Didn’t accuse you of hiring—”

“No.”

“Didn’t hint that he knew—”

“No, nothing like that,” she said, and then, in sudden realization, “You’re asking exactly what they’ll ask, aren’t you? Daniel will be a suspect in this, won’t he? Because he was being followed by the man who was killed!” She swung her long legs over the side of the chaise, facing him now, lips compressed in a tight angry line, sunglasses reflecting the approaching storm clouds, towers of storm clouds hiding her green eyes, a cool wind blowing in suddenly off the bayou. “They’ll ask Daniel where he was Sunday night, and Daniel will want to know why they want to know, and they’ll have to tell him that a private investigator was killed, and my husband will ask what a private investigator has to do with him, and they’ll say he was being followed by this man who was killed, your wife hired this man to follow you — and there goes my goddamn marriage down the drain!”

“Mrs. Nettington,” Matthew said, “I thought the reason you came to me—”

“Not because I wanted this to happen!”

“But... you told me... I’m sorry, but you said you were thinking of a divorce. You said that if your husband was in fact—”

“Never mind!” she said sharply.

Matthew almost flinched.

“Forget it,” she said. “Thank you very much, Mr. Hope, please send me your man’s report, and the tape, and of course your bill.”

He looked at her, still puzzled.

“Go now, would you? Leave me alone, okay?”

“Mrs. Nettington...”

“Would you please go?” she said.

Two men were sitting in Kate Carmody’s living room when she got home from work that Tuesday afternoon. Both of them Hispanic. One of them clean-shaven and as slender as a toreador, the other one a huge man with a slick little mustache. The clean-shaven one was reading a copy of People when she came in. The one with the pencil-line mustache was cleaning his fingernails with a switchblade knife. Kate took one look and turned to run out of the apartment.

The one with the knife was off the couch in a wink.

He grabbed her shoulder, spun her away from the door, hurled her back across the room, and closed and locked the door. The other one put down the magazine and said, “Miss Carmody?” Heavy Spanish accent. She immediately thought Miami. She next thought Alice. This had something to do with her dumb junkie sister in Miami.

“What do you want?” she said. “Who are you?”

“Ernesto,” he said, smiling. And then, indicating his pal, “Domingo.”

The one with the knife said nothing, and he didn’t smile, either. He was the one who bothered her.

“So what do you want here?” she said. She was frightened — two strange spics in her house, a knife that looked like a saber — but she was also annoyed. Come home after a day with Mickey Mouse, you wanted to grab a beer, change into some shorts and sandals. She was living in this really tiny place — closet-sized living room, kitchen too small even for roaches, a bedroom the size of a shoebox — six miles from Disney World, where she worked as a ticket taker for Jungle Cruise. She did not like working for Disney World, and she didn’t like Orlando, Florida, either, but she kept telling herself this was only temporary. Florida was supposed to be water and boats, not the middle of a damn desert like Orlando. Wasn’t for Disney World, nobody would’ve ever heard of Orlando. Orlando sounded like some kind of magician doing tricks in a sideshow. And now, ladies and germs, we are proud to introduce the Great Or-lan-do! Plus his two assistants, Ernesto and Domingo, who will show you how to break and enter a small apartment without using brute force. “How’d you get in here?” she asked Ernesto.

“Jenny Santoro,” he said. “Your sister.”

Accent you could cut with a machete. Jenny came out “Henny” and sister came out “seest’.”

“What about her?” Kate said. “Jenny, you mean? What about her?”

“Where is she?”

“How the hell do I know?” she said, and was starting to walk into the kitchen when Domingo stepped into her path.

“I’m only going for a beer,” she said. “You want a beer? Una cerveza,” she said. “You want one?” She turned to Ernesto. “How about you? You want a beer?”

“I want to know where your sister is. Jenny Santoro. That is her name?”

“Give or take,” Kate said, thinking Jenny, Henny, six of one, half a dozen of the other. She went to the refrigerator, opened the door, took out a bottle of Bud, twisted off the cap, and drank straight from the bottle. “And she’s not my sister, she’s my stepsister. Mi hermana política.”

Not many Anglos knew the Spanish word for stepsister. Ernesto looked at her admiringly and then said, “Usted habla español correctamente.”

“I picked some up in Puerto Rico,” Kate said in English — no sense showing off and making mistakes. “I used to be a cocktail waitress in a casino down there.”

Ernesto nodded. Domingo was looking her over, appraising her legs, her ass, her breasts, his eyes roaming insolently. Ernesto hoped Domingo wouldn’t cut her the way he had the other one. He was thinking she had no idea her sister was dead. Maybe this could be useful, her ignorance. He didn’t know how yet, but he thought perhaps it could be.

“You have two sisters, verdad?” he said, testing her.

“Two,” she said, nodding. “But only one of them’s my real sister. Mi propia hermana. Alice. She lives in Miami Beach. The other one, I don’t know where she is. Last I heard, it was LA. Why?” she said, and looked first at one and then at the other.

“We have to find your hermana política,” Ernesto said.

“That’s the one in LA. Have you tried LA?” she asked, making a joke — LA was so far away — but nobody smiled. “I haven’t seen her in six years, it has to be. She left Miami when she was sixteen, went to New Orleans, I heard, and then Houston, and then LA is what my mother told me. Seven years, in fact.”

“Where does your mother live?” Ernesto asked.

“In Venice.”

The two men looked at each other.

“Not Venice, Italy,” Kate said. “Venice, Florida. Near Sarasota. About fifteen, twenty miles south of Sarasota.”

“Does she know where your sister is?”

“Jenny? I got no idea.”

“But she was the one who told you Jenny was in Los Angeles, verdad?”

“Yes,” she said. He pronounced it so pretty. Los Angeles. The Spanish way. Los to rhyme with “gross,” the first syllable of Angeles sounding like “ahn,” all of it so pretty. But the other one had a knife.

“Did she also tell you when your sister was in Houston?”

“I guess it was her told me, yes,” Kate said.

“Your mother, verdad?”

“Yes.”

“Whose name is?”

“Annie.”

“Carmody?”

“No, Santoro. She remarried. I told you, Jenny’s my—”

“And she lives where? Your mother?”

“I told you where.”

“Venice, you said.”

“Yes.”

“Do you have the address?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Will you give it to me, please?” Ernesto said.

Kate looked at the knife in Domingo’s hand.

“Yes,” she said, and went into the bedroom for her address book.

Ernesto gestured with his head for Domingo to follow her. Domingo went into the bedroom. The telephone was on the bedside night table, and Kate was sitting on the edge of the bed, leafing through her address book when he came into the room. The telephone rang as he walked through the door. Without once thinking they might not want her to answer the phone, she picked up the receiver.

“Hello?” she said.

Domingo came across the room at once.

“Katie?”

“Yes?”

He was standing in front of her now.

“It’s Mother.”

“Oh, hi, Mom,” she said, and covered the mouthpiece. “My mother,” she said to Domingo. She uncovered the mouthpiece and was about to say that two men were here asking for her address when her mother said, “Alice is dead.”

“What?” she said.

“Alice. She was killed yesterday in Miami Beach.”

“Oh my God!” Kate said.

“She was stabbed,” her mother said, and suddenly the phone was trembling in Kate’s hand. “The police called me five minutes ago. Took them all that time to locate me. Because my name is different, you know? My last name. They think it was drug-related. They really don’t know, Katie. They see an addict, they automatically figure drug-related.”

“Oh God, Mom,” Kate said.

She got up suddenly, moving away from Domingo, trying to find some room for herself in the narrow space between the bed and the wall, Domingo still there crowding her, the open knife in his right hand.

“I have to go to Miami to identify the body,” her mother said. “Can you meet me there?”

“When?” Kate asked.

Domingo was watching her, listening to her end of the conversation.

“I thought I’d drive over there tonight. They’re holding her body in the morgue, they need a positive ID.”

“I... uh... I don’t know, Mom. I have to go to work tomorrow, tomorrow’s a workday. If you can handle it alone...”

“This is your sister,” her mother said.

“I know she’s my sister...”

Domingo looked suddenly alert.

“So?” her mother said.

“I’ll have to call you back later,” Kate said.

“I’m going to need help with the funeral arrangements, too.”

“Let me see what I can do about work, okay, Mom? Can I call you back?”

“I won’t be leaving for a while yet.”

“All right, I’ll get back to you,” she said, and put the receiver back on the cradle.

Ernesto was standing in the doorway to the room. She wondered how long he’d been there.

“Your mother?” he said.

“Yes.”

“What did she want?”

Kate hesitated.

“Yes?” Ernesto said.

“She... she...”

“Le contó de su hermana,” Domingo said.

“No, she didn’t!” Kate said.

“Did she tell you about your sister?” Ernesto asked. “That your sister is dead?”

Kate said nothing. If they knew her sister was dead... oh my God, if they knew...

Ernesto sighed deeply, and nodded to Domingo.

Kate broke for the door, screaming, tripping over Domingo’s immediately extended leg and foot, falling headlong across the room, twisting so she wouldn’t land square on her face, her left cheek nonetheless colliding with the floor. Pain rocketed into her skull but she started to get to her feet at once, coming up like a runner, palms flat on the floor, legs behind her and ready to push off, ready to propel her toward that bedroom door and into the living room, and out the front door and down the stairs to the street, screaming all the way. But Domingo jumped on her back and knocked her to the floor again, straddling her like a rider on a fallen animal, his left hand grabbing for her long hair, twisting it in his fist, pulling back on it, head and chin rising, his right hand — the hand with the knife — coming around her body instantly and slashing swiftly across her throat.

Her eyes opened wide.

She saw blood gushing from her throat in a torrent.

A scream bubbled soundlessly in her mouth.

In an instant, she was dead.

Domingo wiped the blade of his knife on her skirt, and then ran his hand up her thigh to her panties. Ernesto watched him and said nothing. He tore the page with Anne Santoro’s address and phone number from the address book, and then walked toward the bedroom door.

“Vienes?” he asked.

Domingo nodded.