Eight Black Horses

CHAPTER TWO

The woman who had identified Jane Doe was staying at a once-elegant midtown hotel that now emanated an air of shabby dignity, like an exiled dowager empress praying for return to the throne. Huge marble columns dominated the lobby, where sagging sofas rested on frayed Persian rugs. The ornately carved and gilded mahogany registration desk was cigarette-scarred. Even the clerk who told them what room Miss Turner was in looked faded, his gray hair a shade lighter than his gray suit, his black tie as funereal as his dark somber eyes. The elaborate brass fretwork on the elevator doors reminded Carella of something he had seen in a spy movie.

Inge Turner was a slender blonde in her late thirties, they guessed, her complexion as fair as her sister’s had been, her eyes the same shade of blue. She was wearing a simple blue suit over a white blouse with a stock tie. Medium-heeled blue pumps on good legs. A gold pin in the shape of a bird pinned to the lapel of the suit jacket. Blue eyeliner. Lipstick that was more-pink than red.

‘Gentlemen,’ she said. ‘Please come in.’

The room was small, dominated by a king-size bed. Inge sat on the edge of the bed, crossing her legs. The detectives sat in upholstered chairs near musty drapes hanging over a window that was open to the sounds of traffic on the avenue six stories below. Already the second of November, and Indian summer was still with them. It would come with a vengeance, winter. It would come suddenly and unexpectedly, hurling false expectations back into their teeth.

‘Miss Turner,’ Carella said, ‘Detective Lipman at Missing Persons tells us...’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘... that you’ve identified a photograph in his files as ...’

‘Yes,’ she said again.

‘... your sister, Elizabeth Turner.’

‘That’s correct.’

‘Miss Turner, I wonder if you could look at that picture again ... I have a print here...’

‘Must I?’ she said.

‘I know it’s difficult,’ Carella said, ‘but we want to make sure...’

‘Yes, let me see it,’ she said.

Carella took the photograph from the manila file envelope. As photographs of corpses went, it was not too grisly—except for the exit wound in the hollow of the throat. Inge looked at it briefly, said, ‘Yes, that’s my sister,’ and then reached for her handbag, took a cigarette from it, said, ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ and lighted it without waiting for an answer.

‘And her full name is Elizabeth Turner?’ Carella said.

‘Yes. Well, Elizabeth Anne Turner.’

‘Can you tell us how old she was?’ Brown asked.

‘Twenty-seven,’ Inge said.

Both detectives thought, at precisely the same moment, that for once in his lifetime Monoghan had been right.

‘And her address?’

‘Here or in California?’ Inge said.

‘I’m sorry, what... ?’

‘She used to live with me in California.’

‘But she’d been living here, hadn’t... ?’

‘Yes. For the past three years now.’

‘What was her address here, Miss Turner?’

‘Eight-oh-four South Ambrose.’

‘Any apartment number?’

‘Forty-seven.’

‘Do you still live in California?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re just visiting here, is that it?’

‘Yes. Well, I came specifically to see my sister. We—do I have to go into this?’ She looked at the detectives, sighed, and said, ‘I suppose we do.’ She uncrossed her legs, leaned over to an ashtray on the night table beside the bed, and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘We had a falling-out,’ she said. ‘Lizzie moved east. I hadn’t seen her in three years. I felt it was time to ... she was my sister. I loved her. I wanted to ... set things straight again, on the right course again.’

‘You came here seeking a reconciliation?’ Brown asked.

‘Yes. Exactly.’

‘From where in California?’ Carella asked.

‘Los Angeles.’

‘And when did you arrive?’

‘Last Thursday.’

‘That would have been...’

‘The twenty-seventh. I was hoping ... we hadn’t seen each other for such a long time ... I was hoping I could convince her to come home for Christmas.’

‘So you came here to...’

‘To talk to her. To convince her that bygones should be bygones. I think I had in mind ... I guess I thought if I could get her to come home for Christmas, then maybe she’d stay. In California, I mean. We’d ... you know pick up where we left off. We were sisters. A silly argument shouldn’t...’

‘What did you argue about?’ Brown asked. ‘If you’d like to tell us,’ he added quickly.

‘Well...’

The detectives waited.

‘I guess she didn’t approve of my life-style.’

Still they waited.

‘We led very different kinds of lives, you see Lizzie worked at a bank, I was...’

‘A bank?’ Carella said at once.

‘Yes. She was a cashier at Suncoast Federal. Not a teller, you understand, but a cashier. There’s a big difference.’

‘And what sort of work do you do?’ Brown asked.

‘I’m a model,’ she said.

She must have caught the glance that passed between the detectives.

‘A real model,’ she said at once. ‘There are plenty of the other kind out there.’

‘What sort of modeling do you do?’ Carella asked.

‘Lingerie,’ she said. ‘Mostly stockings and panty hose.’ She reached into her bag, took out another cigarette, lighted it, and said, ‘I have good legs,’ and crossed them again.

‘And you say your sister disapproved of this?’

‘Well, not the modeling as such ... though I don’t suppose she was too happy about my being photographed in my underwear.’

‘Then what was it about your life-style... ?’

‘I’m a lesbian,’ Inge said.

Carella nodded.

‘Does that shock you?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘You’re supposed to say something like, “What a waste,”’ Inge said, and smiled.

‘Am I?’ Carella said, and returned the smile.

‘That’s what most men say.’

‘Well,’ Carella said, ‘actually we’re only interested in finding whoever killed your sister. You don’t believe your life-style—quote, unquote—had anything to do with her murder, do you?’

‘Hardly.’

‘But you did argue about it.’

‘Yes.’

‘In what way?’

‘She disapproved of the friends I invited to the house.’

‘So she came all the way east...’

‘Not immediately. She moved into an apartment on La Cienega, a temporary arrangement until she could find work here.’

‘Did she find work here?’ Brown asked.

‘Yes,’ Inge said.

‘Where?’

‘A bank someplace.’

‘Here in the city?’

‘Yes.’

‘Which bank?’

‘I have no idea. This was all hearsay. A friend of mine used to live here in the city, and occasionally she’d run into my sister...’

‘Does that mean you’d had no word from her ... directly, I mean ... in the past three years?’ Carella said.

‘That’s right. Not since she left California.’

‘But you came here to see her...’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you know where she lived?’

‘Her address is in the phone book.’

‘Did you write to her first?’

‘No, I was afraid to do that. Afraid she wouldn’t want to see me.’

‘So you just came east.’

‘Yes.’

Carella looked at his notes.

‘Would you know your sister’s social security number?’ he asked.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t.’

‘The bank she worked for was Suncoast Federal, did you say? In California, I mean.’

‘Yes.’

‘And the bank she worked for here in the...’

‘I told you. I don’t know which...’

‘Yes, but when was this, would you know? When you heard from your friend that she was working for a bank here.’

‘Oh. Two years ago? Perhaps a year and a half. I couldn’t say with any accuracy.’

‘Would you know if she was still working at this bank? Immediately before her death, I mean.’

‘I have no idea.’

‘You haven’t stayed in touch with your friend?’

‘I have. But she’s living in Chicago now.’

‘Then for the past two years—a year and a half, whatever it was—you really didn’t know what your sister was doing.’

‘That’s right. We lost touch completely. That’s why I came here.’

‘And you arrived on October twenty-seventh, is that right?’ Carella said.

‘Yes. Last Thursday.’

‘Checked into this hotel, did you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Planning to stay how long?’

‘As long as was necessary. To see my sister, to ... make amends ... to ask her to come home.’

‘For Christmas.’

‘Forever.’ Inge sighed heavily and leaned over to the ashtray again, crushing out her cigarette. ‘I missed her. I loved her.’

‘When you arrived, Miss Turner, did you try to contact your sister?’

‘Yes, of course. I phoned her at once.’

‘This was on the twenty-seventh of October?’

‘Yes. My plane got in at six, a little after six, and it took a half hour to get into the city from the airport. I phoned her the moment I was in the room.’

‘And?’

‘There was no answer.’

‘Was she living alone, would you know?’

‘Yes. Well, I didn’t learn that until later. When I went to her apartment.’

‘When did you do that?’

‘Two days later. I’d been calling her repeatedly and ... well ... there was no answer, you see.’

‘So you suspected something was wrong, did you?’

‘Well, I didn’t know what to think. I mean, I’d been calling her day and night. I set my alarm one night ... this was the night after I arrived ... for three a.m., and I called her then and still got no answer. I went to her apartment the very next day.’

‘That would have been...’

‘Well, the twenty-ninth, I suppose. A Saturday, I guess I was hoping she’d be home on a Saturday.’

‘But she wasn’t, of course.’

‘No. She ... was dead by then. But I ... didn’t know that at the time. I went up to her apartment and rang the doorbell and got no answer. I found the superintendent of the building, told him who I was, and asked if he had any idea where my sister might be. He ... he said he hadn’t seen her in ...in ... three or four weeks.’

‘What did he say exactly, Miss Turner? Three weeks, or four?’

‘I think that’s exactly what he said. Three or four weeks.’

‘And he told you that she was living there alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you do then?’

‘Well, I... I suppose I should have gone directly to the police, but I ... you see, I was somewhat confused. The possibility existed that she’d met someone, some man, and had moved in with him. That was a possibility.’ She paused. ‘My sister wasn’t gay,’ she said, and reached for her package of cigarettes again, and then changed her mind about lighting one.

‘When did you contact the police?’ Brown asked.

‘On Monday morning.’

Carella looked at his pocket calendar.

‘October thirty-first,’ he said.

‘Yes. Halloween,’ Inge said. ‘They told me they’d turn it over to Missing Persons and let me know if anything resulted. I gave them an old photo I had ... I still carried it in my wallet... and apparently Detective Lipman was able to match that against the ... the picture you just showed me. He called me yesterday. I went down there and ... and made identification.’

The room was silent.

‘Miss Turner,’ Carella said, ‘we realize you hadn’t seen your sister in a long time...’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘... and Los Angeles is a long way from here. But ... would you have heard anything over the years ... anything at all ... from your friend or anyone else ... about any enemies your sister may have made in this city...’

‘No.’

‘... any threatening telephone calls or letters she may have...’

‘No.’

‘... any involvement with criminals or...’

‘No.’

‘... people engaged, even tangentially, in criminal activities?’

‘No.’

‘Would you know if she owed money to anyone?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘She wasn’t doing drugs, was she?’ Brown asked.

The question nowadays was almost mandatory.

‘Not that I know of,’ Inge said. ‘In fact...’

She stopped herself mid-sentence.

‘Yes?’ Carella said.

‘Well, I was only going to say ... well, in fact, that was one of the things she objected to.’

‘What was that, Miss Turner?’

‘My friends and I did a few lines every now and then.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s common in Los Angeles.’

‘But your sister never, to your knowledge...’

‘Not in L.A., no. I don’t know what she might have got into once she came here.’ She paused, and then said, ‘L.A. is civilized.’

Neither of the detectives said anything.

‘You see,’ Inge said, ‘this whole thing is so unbelievable. I mean, you’d have to have known Lizzie to realize that... that dying this way, dying a violent death, someone shooting her ... well, it’s unimaginable. She was a very quiet, private sort of person. My friends used to speculate on whether she’d ever even been kissed, do you know what I’m saying? So when you ... when you ... when the mind tries to associate Lizzie, sweet goddamn innocent Lizzie with a ... with a gun, with someone holding a gun to the back of her head and shooting her ... it’s ... I mean, the mind can’t possibly make that connection, it can’t make that quantum leap.’

She looked at her hands. She had very beautiful hands, Carella noticed.

‘Detective Lipman said ... he’d read some sort of report that was sent to him ... he said she had to have been on her knees when she was shot. The angle, the trajectory, whatever the hell, indicated she’d been on her knees, with ... with ... with the ... person who ... who shot her standing behind her. Lizzie on her knees.’

She shook her head.

‘I can’t believe this has happened,’ she said, and reached into her handbag for another cigarette.

She was smoking again when the detectives left the room.

* * * *

‘His specialty is banks,’ Carella said.

‘Just what I was thinking,’ Brown said.

They were driving crosstown and downtown to Elizabeth Turner’s apartment and they were talking about the Deaf Man.

‘That’s if you consider two out of three a specialty,’ Carella said.

He was remembering that once, and only once, had the Deaf Man’s attempts at misdirection been designed to conceal and simultaneously reveal an elaborate extortion scheme. On the other two occasions it had been banks. Tell the police beforehand, but not really, what you’re planning to do, help them dope it out, in fact, and then do something different but almost the same—it all got terribly confusing when the Deaf Man put in an appearance.

Eight black horses, five walkie-talkies, and one white lady who probably had nothing whatever to do with the Deaf Man, except for the fact that she had worked in a bank.

‘Banks have security officers, you know,’ Brown said.

‘Yeah,’ Carella said.

‘And they carry walkie-talkies, don’t they?’

‘I don’t know. Do they?’

‘I guess they do,’ Brown said. ‘Do you think there might be a bank someplace in this city that’s got five security guards carrying walkie-talkies?’

‘I don’t know,’ Carella said.

‘Five walkie-talkies, you know?’ Brown said. ‘And she worked in a bank.’

‘The only real thing we’ve got...’

‘If it’s a connection.’

‘Which it probably isn’t.’

‘That’s the trouble with the Deaf Man,’ Carella said.

‘He drives you crazy,’ Brown said.

‘What’s that address again?’

‘Eight-oh-four.’

‘Where are we now?’

‘Eight-twenty.’

‘Just ahead then, huh?’

‘With the green canopy,’ Brown said.

Carella parked the car at the curb in front of the building and then threw down the visor on the driver’s side. A sign was attached to it with rubber hands. Visible through the windshield, it advised any overzealous foot patrolman that the guys who’d parked the car here were on the job. The city’s seal and the words isola p.d. printed on the sign were presumably insurance against a parking ticket. The sign didn’t always work. Only recently they had busted a cocaine dealer who’d stolen an identical sign from a car driven by two detectives from the Eight-One. In this city it was sometimes difficult to tell the good guys from the bad guys.

It was difficult, too, to tell a good building from a bad building.

Usually a building with an awning out front indicated that there would be a doorman or some other sort of security. There was neither here. They found the superintendent’s apartment on the street level floor, identified themselves, and asked him to unlock the door to Elizabeth Anne Turner’s apartment. On the way up in the elevator Brown asked him if she’d lived here alone.

‘Yep,’ he said.

‘Sure about that?’ Carella said.

‘Yep,’ the super said.

‘No girlfriend living with her?’

‘Nope.’

‘No boyfriend?’

‘Nope.’

‘No roommate at all, right?’

‘Right.’

‘When’d you see her last?’

‘Beginning of October, musta been.’

‘Going out or coming in?’

‘Going out.’

‘Alone?’

‘Alone.’

‘Carrying anything?’

‘Just her handbag.’

‘What time was this?’

‘In the morning sometime. I figured she was on her way to work.’

‘And you didn’t see her again after that?’

‘Nope. But I don’t keep an eye out twenty-four hours a day, you know.’

There is a feel to an apartment that has been lived in.

Even the apartment of a recent homicide victim can tell you at once whether anyone had been living there. There was no such sense of habitation in Elizabeth Turner’s apartment.

The windows were closed tight and locked—not unusual for this city, even if someone were just going downstairs for a ten-minute stroll. But the air was still and stale, a certain indication that the windows hadn’t been opened for quite some time. Well, after all, Elizabeth Turner had been found dead eight days ago, and perhaps that was a long enough time for an apartment to have gone stale.

But a slab of butter in the refrigerator had turned rancid.

And a package of sliced Swiss cheese had mold growing on it.

And a container of milk was sour to the smell; the sell-by date stamped at the top of the carton read ‘oct. 1.’

There were no dishes on the drainboard, none in the dishwasher.

The ashtrays were spotlessly clean.

The apartment revealed none of the detritus of living—even if the living had been done by a compulsive house-keeper.

There was only one coat hanging in the hall closet.

The double bed in the bedroom was made.

A framed picture of Elizabeth was on the dresser opposite the bed. She looked prettier alive.

The three top drawers of the dresser were empty.

The middle row of drawers contained one blouse.

The bottom row of drawers contained two sweaters and a handful of mothballs.

Only a suit, a pair of slacks, and a ski parka were hanging in the bedroom closet. There were two pairs of high-heeled pumps on the closet floor. They could find no suitcases anywhere in the apartment.

The roll of toilet paper in the bathroom holder was almost all gone.

They could not find a toothbrush in the medicine cabinet.

Nor a diaphragm. Nor a birth control pill dispenser. Nor any of the artifacts, cosmetic or otherwise, they normally would have found in an apartment actively occupied by a woman.

They went back into the bedroom and searched the desk for an appointment calendar.

Nothing.

They looked for a diary.

Nothing.

They looked for an address book.

Nothing.

‘What do you think?’ Carella asked.

‘Flew the coop, looks like,’ Brown said.

* * * *

Another envelope was waiting when they got back to the squadroom.

Kling handed it to Carella and said, ‘It looks like your pen pal again.’

Carella’s name was typewritten across the face of the envelope.

No return address.

The stamp was postmarked November 1.

‘Shouldn’t we be checking these for fingerprints or something?’ Brown said.

‘If it’s the Deaf Man,’ Kling said, ‘we’d be wasting our time.’

He looked very blond standing alongside Brown. He was very blond, but Brown made him look blonder. And younger. And more like a hit-kicking farmboy than usual. Born and raised in this city, he nonetheless exuded an air of innocence, a lack of guile or sophistication that automatically made you think he’d migrated from Kansas or someplace like that, wherever Kansas was—the detectives on the 87th Squad all thought Kansas was ‘out there someplace.’

Kling looked as if he’d come from out there in the boon-docks of America someplace, where you rove your car two hundred miles every Saturday night to a hamburger stand. Kling looked as if he still necked in the back seat of an automobile. Hazel-eyed and clean-shaven, blond hair falling loose over his forehead., he looked like a bumpkin who had wandered into the police station to ask directions to the nearest subway stop. He was very good at the Mutt and Jeff ploy. In much the same way that any cop teamed with Brown automatically became Jeff, any cop teamed with Kling automatically became Mutt. Together Kling and Brown were perhaps the best Mutt and Jeff act to be found anywhere in the city. It was almost unfair to the criminal population of this city to foist such a Mutt and Jeff team upon it. There was no way you could win, not with Brown playing the heavy and Kling playing the good-natured soul trying to keep his partner from chewing you to bits. No way.

‘Even so,’ Brown said.

‘Been handled by ten thousand people already,’ Kling said. ‘Postal clerks, letter carriers...’

‘Yeah,’ Brown said, and shrugged.

‘You going to open it or what?’ Kling said.

‘You open it,’ Carella said, and extended the envelope to him.

‘It’s not my case,’ Kling said.

‘It’s everybody’s case,’ Carella said.

‘Throw it away,’ Kling said, backing away from the envelope. ‘He gives me the creeps, that guy.’

‘I’ll open it, for Christ’s sake,’ Brown said, and took the envelope from Carella.

He tore open the flap. He unfolded the single white sheet of paper that was inside:

‘Huh?’ he said.

* * * *