Long Time No See

Six

South Edgeheath Road was in a section of Riverhead that was still relatively untouched by urban deterioration. The street itself was rather less rural than its name suggested, but it nonetheless gave the impression of somewhat more stately living than areas as close as two miles away. Apartment buildings lined both sides of the short street, but at the northern end there was a park with a public golf course and even in November there was a sense of wide-open green space and a sky uncluttered by sharp architectural angles.

The street at nine a.m. that Saturday morning seemed only half awake. Carella parked his car, and then walked toward the entrance doors of the redbrick building in which Frank Preston lived. In the lobby he passed a woman in a black coat carrying an empty cloth shopping bag in her right hand. She seemed already cold in anticipation of the weather outside, her face pinched in dire expectation. He searched out Preston’s name in the lobby directory, took the elevator up to the fifth floor, went down the corridor to apartment 55, and rang the doorbell.

The woman who opened the door was in her mid-fifties, Carella guessed, brown hair cut in a stylish bob, brown eyes inquisitive behind eyeglasses too small for her face. The face itself gave an impression of angular sharpness, pointed chin and pointed nose, slender oval exaggerated by the narrow glasses and squinting eyes behind them. Carella had once worked with an English cop who told him that in England a person with a “squint” was a person who was cross-eyed. The woman standing in the doorway was not cross-eyed. She was peering out at him from behind narrow eye-slits; she was squinting.

“Let me see your badge, please,” she said.

He showed her the badge and the I.D. card. She studied both carefully, and then nodded and said, “Yes, what is it?”

“I'm Detective Carella, I called—”

“Yes, I saw that on the card. What is it, Mr. Carella?”

“I’d like to talk to Frank Preston, if he’s here.”

“I thought you talked to him last night.”

“Are you Mrs. Preston?”

“I am.”

“Mrs. Preston, there are some things I’d like to ask him in person. Is he home?”

“He’s home. I’ll see if he can talk to you.”

“Thank you.”

She closed the door. He stood in the hallway for several moments. The building was silent. These old buildings with thick walls... The door was opening again.

“Come in,” Mrs. Preston said.

The apartment was shaped like an upside-down L. The door opened at the bottom of the long branch of the L, a corridor running its entire length, and then angling to the left at the far end. Carella followed Mrs. Preston down the corridor, passing a kitchen on his left, and then a living room, and then a bedroom on the right, where the short tail of the L began. At the end of this shorter corridor, there was a small room, its door open.

Preston was sitting in an easy chair watching television. He was wearing a maroon bathrobe and brown house slippers. He seemed to be in his early sixties, a massive man with a large head and enormous hands. A thin fringe of white hair clung to his head, around his ears and the back of his skull. He was bald above that. His eyebrows were white and shaggy over piercing blue eyes. His nose would have been large in any other face, but seemed perfectly proportioned for his. He might have made a good stage actor; most stage actors had large heads and prominent features. One of the early morning news-talk shows was on. Preston rose ponderously from the chair, went immediately to the television set, and turned it off.

“You’re here early,” he said.

“I didn’t want to miss you.”

“Why didn’t you call first?”

“I was in the neighborhood, I thought I’d just stop by.”

“I thought we’d said everything there was to say last night on the phone.”

“Few more things I wanted to ask you.”

“Then go ahead and ask.”

“I’d rather talk to you privately. Mrs. Preston, would you mind...”

“I’ll leave you,” she said, and immediately turned and walked up the corridor.

Carella closed the door behind him. Preston looked suddenly worried. He fished in the pocket of his robe, came up with a crumpled package of cigarettes and offered one to Carella. Carella shook his head. Preston put a cigarette between his lips, fished again in the robe, found a matchbook. He struck a match, held the flaming end to his cigarette and then shook the match out and dropped it in an ashtray on the television set. There were two windows in the room. Through them Carella could see across the street and beyond to where the elevated train tracks ran above Barbara Avenue.

“Mr. Preston,” Carella said, “I want to ask you about your relationship with Isabel Harris.”

“My relationship?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you mean, my relationship? She worked for me.”

“Mr. Preston, is it true that you began crying yesterday morning when you learned she was dead?”

“Who told you that?”

“Is it true?”

“Yes.”

“Is it also true that you and she met for a drink on at least one occasion?”

“Is there something wrong with that?”

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it, Mr. Preston. I simply want to know if it’s true.”

“Yes, it’s true.”

“When was this?”

“Last week.”

“You met her for a drink, is that right?”

“It wasn’t the way you make it sound.”

“How was it?”

“Something was bothering her. She wanted to talk about it. We went for a drink after work. Period.”

“What was bothering her, Mr. Preston?”

“Well, it was something personal.”

“Yes, what was it?”

“Well, really, I think that was her business, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, I think it was.”

“What was bothering her, Mr. Preston?”

“It doesn’t matter, that’s not the point. I was merely trying to explain that whatever you were suggesting—”

“What was I suggesting?”

“That Isabel and I were having an affair or something.”

“I didn’t suggest you were having an affair, Mr. Preston.”

“Well, all right. But if we were, I wouldn’t have taken her to a place just up the street from the office. There was nothing clandestine about our meeting. I had nothing to hide. An employee came to me with a problem, and I was trying to help her.”

“Don’t you have a private office at Prestige Novelty?”

“Yes. What’s that got to—”

“Couldn’t you have talked to her there?”

“This was something that couldn’t be handled in ten minutes.”

“All right, tell me what happened that afternoon.”

“She got there at about three, I was waiting for her in a booth at the back of the place. I saw her when she came in and went to meet her, and led her back to the booth.”

“What did she say?”

“At first she didn’t want to tell me what was bothering her.”

“Yes, what was it?”

“Jimmy. Her husband.”

“What about him?”

“Well, as I said before—”

“Mr. Preston, both of them are dead, and if whatever was bothering Isabel had anything to do with—”

“No, it didn’t.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well, I just... I don’t think it did.”

“How about letting me judge? What was it?”

“Well... she thought he had another woman.”

“Ah,” Carella said.

“So naturally, it... it troubled her. She was a lovely person it... troubled her to think her husband was being unfaithful.”

“Why’d she think so?”

“She just thought so.”

“Intuition, huh?”

“I suppose so.”

“But no real reason. She just assumed he was playing around, is that right?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so.”

“No whispered telephone conversations, no shirts smelling of perfume...”

“No, no.”

“And that’s what was bothering her. That’s why she came to you, and that’s why you went for a drink together last week. To discuss the possibility that Jimmy Harris was playing around with another woman.”

“Yes.”

“What did she expect you to do about it. Mr. Preston?”

“Oh, I don’t think she expected me to do anything.”

“Then why did she come to you?”

“To... just to talk.”

“Nobody she could talk to at the office, I guess.”

“I guess not.”

“None of the other girls.”

“I guess not.”

“Just you.”

“Well...”

“Was this the first time she came to you with a problem?”

“Yes.”

“First time you ever had a drink together?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure about that?” Carella said.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Because, you see,” Carella said, “my information indicates otherwise.” He paused. He looked into Preston’s eyes. He had no information other than what Jennie D’Amato had given him: she had seen Preston and Isabel together once, last week. That’s all he had. Period. He was lying, and he was gambling, and the gamble paid off.

“Well... perhaps we had a drink together once or twice before,” Preston said.

“Which was it, Mr. Preston? Once or twice?”

“Twice.”

“Now you’re sure about that, are you?”

“Yes.”

Carella raised his eyebrows. That was all he had to do.

“Actually, I suppose it was several times,” Preston said.

“How many times?”

“Half a dozen times.”

“Same little bar up the street?”

“Well... no.”

“Another bar?”

“Yes.”

“A lot of different bars?”

“Yes.”

“Anywhere besides a bar?”

“Mr. Carella—”

“Mr. Preston, a man and a woman have been murdered, and I’m trying to find out why. A few minutes ago you told me there was nothing between you and Isabel Harris except an employer-employee relationship. You took her out for a drink because she had a problem she wanted to discuss. Okay, fine. Now you tell me you met her away from the office on at least six occasions—”

“That’s all it was.”

“Six times, right, that’s what you said, half a dozen times. Did you go to bed with her, Mr. Preston?”

“I don’t see what—”

“Please answer the question. Did you go to bed with Isabel Harris?”

“Yes.”

“Then you were having an affair with her.”

“I didn’t think of it as an affair.”

“How did you think of it, Mr. Preston?”

“I loved her. I planned to marry her.”

“Ah,” Carella said, and nodded. “Did your wife know this?”

“No.”

“Did Jimmy?”

“No. That’s what we talked about last Wednesday. Telling them.”

“Then all this stuff about Jimmy having a woman...”

“I made that up,” Preston said.

“It was a lie.”

“If that’s what you want to call it.”

“What would you call it, Mr. Preston?”

“A lie, I suppose.”

“So the reason you met last— When was it?”

“Wednesday afternoon.”

“Wednesday afternoon was to discuss how you and Isabel would tell your respective...”

“Yes.”

“And what did you decide? What scheme did you hit upon?”

“It wasn’t a scheme, Mr. Carella, I don’t like the way you use the word scheme, we weren’t scheming or plotting, we were...”

“Yes, what were you doing, Mr. Preston?”

“We were two people in love planning divorce and remarriage.”

“After having seen each other a total of half a dozen times?”

“Well...”

“Or was it more than that?”

“Well...”

“Was it?”

“We’d been seeing each other for the past year.”

“Ah.”

“We loved each other.”

“Yes, I understand that. Mr. Preston, where were you on Thursday night between six-thirty and seven-thirty P.M.?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because that’s when Jimmy Harris was killed.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“Then tell me where you were.”

“I was...”

“Yes?”

“With Isabel.”

“Where?”

“At a motel on Culver.”

“Did you register under your own name?”

“No.”

“What name did you use?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Mr. Preston, remember. I suggest that you remember. I strongly suggest that you remember right this minute.”

“I really don't remember. I used a different name each time.”

“Then I think you’d better put on some clothes and tell your wife you’re coming downtown with me.”

“Wait a minute.”

“I’m waiting.”

“It was Felix something.”

“Felix what?”

“Felix... something with a P.”

“Take your time.”

“Felix Pratt or Pitt — one of the two, I don’t remember.”

“Are those names you’d used before?”

“Yes.”

“All right, what’s the name of the motel?”

“The Golden Inn.”

“On Culver, did you say?”

“Yes, near the old Hanover Hospital.”

“I’m going to call and ask if you were registered there Thursday afternoon. Is that all right with you?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s your phone?”

“My wife...”

“You keep your wife busy while I make the call. Because if you weren’t there on Thursday when Jimmy Harris was having his throat slit, you’re coming with me. You understand what I’m saying?”

“I was there.”

“Okay, call your wife and tell her I want to use the phone in private.”

“All right.”

“Go ahead, do it.”

“You won’t...”

“No, I won’t tell her you were playing around.”

“Thank you.”

“Call her.”

Preston went to the door and opened it. He looked out into the corridor, and then turned back to look at Carella again. Carella nodded. Preston went into the corridor and shouted, “Sylvia?” From somewhere in the apartment she answered, “Yes, Frank?”

“Sylvia, Mr. Carella wants to use the phone... come in here a minute, will you?”

“Yes, Frank.”

“The phone’s in the bedroom,” Preston said. “Down the hall.”

“Thank you,” Carella said.

As he walked down the corridor Mrs. Preston came around the bend in the L. “It’s in the bedroom,” she said

“Yes, thank you,” he said, and went into the bedroom and waited until he saw Preston and his wife entering the television room at the end of the hall. He closed the door then, and went directly to where the phone was resting on a night table alongside the bed. The elevated train rattled along the tracks a block away. Through the windows at the end of the room, he saw it moving against the sky, black against the cold gray of November. There was something oddly evocative about the sight of it. A toy train somewhere? The house in Riverhead when he was a boy. His father’s rich laughter.

He watched the train, and forgot for a moment that he was here to learn about murder. He kept watching it until it rumbled into the platform, and then he picked up the telephone receiver and dialed 411 for information. When the operator came on, he asked for the Golden Inn on Culver, and she gave him the number. He dialed it at once. Through the windows he could see the train moving away from the platform. A library. Something. Walking to the library with books under his arm. The elevated train overhead. Snow on the pavement.

“Golden Inn, good morning,” a man’s voice said.

“Good morning, this is Detective Carella, Police Department.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d check your register for a couple that may have been there this past Thursday, that would have been November eighteenth.”

“Sir?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll have to call you back on that.”

“I’m not at the office.”

“Well, it’s... How do I know you’re a policeman?”

“Call the 87th Squad, here’s the number, and ask whoever’s there if a Detective Carella works there. That’s Frederick 7-8024. Then call me back here as soon as you’ve checked — the number here is West-more 6-2275. Have you got both those numbers?” “Yes, sir.”

“Do it fast, please.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll do it right this minute.”

“Good,” Carella said, and hung up.

He waited. Another train pulled into the elevated platform. He waited. The train pulled out. He looked at his watch. On the dresser opposite the bed, there was a picture of Frank and Sylvia Preston, taken when they were much younger. There were pictures of grown children, presumably theirs. There was a wedding picture of two young people Carella assumed were also children of the Prestons. The sweep hand on the electric dresser clock wiped the dial relentlessly. Another train pulled into the station. Carella sighed. He waited. The train rumbled out again. Exasperated, he picked up the receiver and dialed the motel.

“Golden Inn, good morning.”

“Good morning, this is Detective Carella again. Did you check with the squad?”

“Sir, the phone rang the minute I hung up, I haven’t had a chance to—”

“What’s your name?” Carella asked.

“Gary Otis.”

“All right, Mr. Otis, listen to me,” Carella said. “This is a homicide I’m investigating here, and I haven’t got time for you to go checking all over the city to see whether I’m a bona fide cop or not. My name is — have you got a pencil? — Stephen Louis Carella, that’s Stephen with a p-h, I'm a Detective Second/Grade working out of the 87th Squad in Isola. My shield number is 714-56-32, and my commanding officer’s name is Detective-Lieutenant Peter Byrnes. Have you got all that?”

“Well, I... I think so.”

“Good. If it turns out I’m a fake cop, you can sue the city. In the meantime, Mr. Otis—”

“How can I sue the city?”

“Mr. Otis, you’re irritating me,” Carella said.

“I’m sorry, sir, but how can I sue the city? Let’s say you’re somebody’s husband calling to find out—”

“Let’s say I’m a real cop who’s getting very irritated. Have you got your register there in front of you?”

“Yes, sir, but I think you can understand why I’m not at liberty to reveal the names of any of our guests.”

“Mr. Otis, I can go downtown for a court order to look at your register, but that's going to make me even more irritated than I am right now. If I’m forced to do that, and I come over to the Golden Inn and find so much as a cockroach in one of the rooms, I'll call the Department of Health and have the place closed down. So you’d better make sure your establishment is spotless, you’d better make sure it's absolutely pristine if you’re asking me to go all the way downtown for a court order on a Saturday morning.”

“Is that a threat of some kind, Mr. Carella?”

“That is whatever you choose to consider it, Mr. Otis. What do you say?”

“There are no cockroaches in the rooms here.”

“Fine. In that case, I’ll see you later with the court order.”

“But if you’re really a cop—”

“I’m really a cop, Mr. Otis.”

“And if this is really a homicide—”

“It’s really a homicide. Mr. Otis, why are you a desk clerk? Why aren’t you a noted Philadelphia lawyer?” “I’m not a desk clerk. I own the Golden Inn.”

“Ah,” Carella said. “I see.”

“So of course I’m eager to protect my guests.”

“Of course. Mr. Otis, did you register a Mr. and Mrs. Pratt Thursday afternoon? Or a Mr. and Mrs. Pitt? Felix would have been the first name.”

“Just a moment.”

Carella waited.

“Yes, I have a Mr. and Mrs. Felix Pitt.”

“Were you at the desk when they registered?”

“I don’t recall. Oh, wait a minute. Was she the blind girl?”

“Yes,” Carella said.

“Yes, I registered them. Beautiful woman, married to a much older man. I didn’t realize she was blind at first. She was wearing very large sunglasses, I had no idea she was blind. Until he led her to the elevator, of course, and then I realized.”

“What time did they check in?”

“The register entry doesn’t indicate that.”

“Would you remember?”

“Sometime in the late afternoon.”

“And when did they check out?”

“At about eight o'clock, I guess it was. I’d stepped out for a bite to eat, and when I came back they were leaving. He paid me in cash. I remember.”

“Thank you, Mr. Otis,” Carella said.

“I hope you understand why—”

“Yes, I understand. Thank you,” Carella said, and hung up.

He sat with his hand on the receiver for quite some time. He had just confirmed that Isabel Harris and Frank Preston had indeed spent at least an afternoon and evening together in a motel on Thursday. Locked as they'd been in blind passionate embrace, so to speak, neither of the pair could have scooted uptown to Hannon Square to slit the throat of Jimmy Harris between six-thirty and seven-thirty p.m. At eight, in fact, they had been seen leaving die establishment by none other than Gary Otis the Golden Innkeeper. Isabel Harris had probablv got to her apartment just a few minutes before Carella knocked on her door. By that time her husband had been dead for at least two hours, and possibly longer.

He thought back to the questions he’d asked her on the night of the murder, thought back to the specific question: “Are you involved with another man?” The terse answer: “No.” Liars didn’t surprise him. In the murder business, there were lots of liars. Tears didn't surprise him, either. You sometimes got tears for somebody who'd been hated for years. They came unbidden, the response as primitive as the howl of the first man who pulled a burning stick from a fire. He rose, went down the hallway, and thanked the Prestons for the use of the telephone. Preston’s eyes met his questioningly. Carella nodded briefly, feeling like a conspirator.