Long Time No See

Seven

The two coffins were angled into the chapel so that a passage ran between them, and those coming to pay their respects could walk past both biers simultaneously. There were white men and black men in the funeral home, chatting in whispers in the carpet-covered lobby outside, or sitting in the chapel itself on folding wooden chairs, or kneeling in prayer at the wrought-iron railings behind which the coffins rested on sawhorses draped in satin.

Sophie Harris sat on a chair in the first row, dressed entirely in black — black shoes and stockings, black dress and black veiled hat. She reminded Carella of the family women he had known as a boy, distant widowed aunts or cousins whom he had never seen wearing anything but black. He sat beside Sophie now, and she turned to look at him, and then turned away again.

“Mrs. Harris,” he said, “could we step outside a moment, please?”

“I got nothing more to say to you,” she said.

“Let’s not argue here,” he said.

She looked at the coffins.

“I’d like to talk to you,” he said. “Would you please step outside?”

Reluctantly, she rose from her chair and walked silently through the open arched doorway into the lobby. Carella followed immediately behind her.

“You satisfied about Charlie?” she whispered. Her mouth was tight, her hands clenched one over the other at her waist.

“I had to talk to him,” Carella said.

“Why? I told you he didn’t do it.”

“He was a possibility.”

“You still think he’s a possibility?”

“No.”

“You hassled him cause he’s black,” Sophie said.

“No. That isn’t true, Mrs. Harris. I didn’t hassle him, I questioned him. And only because he might have killed your son and daughter-in-law.”

She looked into his face.

“I want to find whoever killed them,” Carella said.

She kept looking at him.

“Believe me.”

“All right,” she said, and nodded.

“I have nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all. I need your help. I need you to remember anyone Jimmy or his wife might have argued with, or—”

“No,” Sophie said, and shook her head. “No one. There was no one.”

“Or even disagreed with. Sometimes a person will take offense at something, and allow—”

“No one. You didn’t know Jimmy, he never said a harsh word to anyone in his life.”

“Mrs. Harris, whoever killed Isabel seemed to be searching for something. Do you have any idea what it might have been?”

“No.”

“Did Jimmy ever mention any hidden money or jewelry, anything like that?”

“No.”

“Some people try to hide their valuables from burglars—”

“He had no valuables to hide.”

“Mrs. Harris, was Jimmy involved with anyone who had a criminal record?”

“No,” Sophie said, and immediately asked, “Would you put that question to a white man?”

“Listen,” Carella said, “Let’s get off that, okay? Your son was brutally murdered, that’s the worst crime there is, I want to know if he knew any criminals. That’s a logical question, black or white, so let’s cut it out.” He had raised his voice, and mourners in the lobby were turning to look at him. He lowered his voice to a whisper again and said, “Did he know anyone with a criminal record?”

“No. Not that he ever spoke of directly.”

“What do you mean? Did he speak of criminal friends indirectly?”

“No, he never spoke of no criminal friends.”

“Then what did you mean by the word ‘directly.’ ”

“My son would never do nothing wrong in his life,” Sophie said.

“Mrs. Harris, you just said he never spoke directly of any criminal friends. Now what does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Did your son ever mention some sort of criminal activity in which he was involved?”

“He wasn’t involved in no criminal activity.”

“Was he planning some sort of criminal activity?”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. He was a troubled person.”

“How? Troubled how?”

“The nightmares.”

“What nightmares?”

“From when he first got home from Fort Mercer.”

“Fort Mercer?”

“The Army hospital there. Upstate. Near the prison.”

“What kind of nightmares?”

“He’d wake up hollering. I’d go in his room, he’d be sitting up in the middle of his bed, staring into the darkness like he could see. I’d take him in my arms, he’d be covered with cold sweat. I’d say, ‘Jimmy, what is it? What is it, son?’ Nothing. No answer. He’d be shaking in my arms.”

“Did he ever mention these nightmares when he was awake?”

“No. But Isabel told me he was still having them.”

“When did she tell you that?”

“Just recently.”

“Mrs. Harris, you said you honestly didn’t know if Jimmy was planning some sort of criminal activity. Is it possible that he was?”

“I guess.”

“Did he say anything about it to you?”

“He said he was going to make them rich.”

“Who?”

“Him and Isabel.”

“Did he say how?”

“Mr. Carella, I got to tell you the truth. I think he was maybe planning something would be against the law.”

“Did he say that?”

“No.”

“Then what makes you think...?”

“Well, why else would he need his old Army buddy?”

“What do you mean?”

“He told me he’d contacted one of his buddies.”

“An Army buddy?”

“I guess he meant an Army buddy.”

“Who?”

“I don’t remember his name.”

“Did he say why he’d contacted him?”

“He said the man was going to help him and Isabel get rich.”

“Did he say how?”

“No.”

“Then why do you figure he was planning something against the law?”

“I don’t know why. Maybe it’s cause soldiers are trained to use guns.”

“But your son never actually said—”

“No, he didn’t.”

"Well,” Carella said, and shrugged. He was thinking it sounded like a movie — a pair of old Army pals getting together to knock over a bank or a Las Vegas casino. He supposed it was possible; anything was possible. But he doubted it. Still — it was possible, what the hell.

“Thank you,” he said, “you’ve been very helpful.”

But he wasn’t sure she had been.

The squadroom looked rather like a cathedral that Saturday morning. Don’t laugh. November sunshine slanted through the wire-mesh grilles on the long windows, and shafts of golden light touched desk tops and typewriters. Dust motes sparkled in the fanning rays of the sun. The radio on Genero’s desk was playing organ music. Carella expected a religious miracle, but none came.

Genero was typing.

He had bought himself a paperback pocket dictionary and was looking up words. Repeatedly, he glanced from typewriter keyboard to open dictionary. His stop-and-go typing irritated Carella; it was obscene to be typing in church. Besides, there were no more miracles in the world, and the case was getting staler than yesterday’s bagels.

The organ music swelled into the squadroom. Carella felt like going to confession. He had not been to confession since he stopped going to church. That was when he was fifteen. Coincidentally, that was also when he lost his virginity on the roof of an apartment building in Riverhead, with a girl named Suzie Ryan, who was Irish. Suzie was seventeen. Woman of the world. She went to the same church Carella did. After his rooftop awakening, he figured he should go to confession and mention that he had sinned. Then he wondered if the priest would ask him who his sinful partner had been. He knew they could see your face in the dark there. The priest would know it was Stephen Louis Carella who had sinned, and then he would want to know who the willing young lady had been, and Carella would then have to implicate Suzie Ryan, who had been generous and passionate and whom he would have followed into the mouth of a cannon at that budding stage of his career. He wondered what to do. He decided not to go to confession. He also decided never to go to church again, but that had nothing to do with Suzie. He decided not to go to church because church put him to sleep. His father said, “Why don't you go to church no more?” Carella answered, “Why don’t you, Pop?” His father said, “Never mind.”

He realized now that if only he hadn’t stopped going to church when he was fifteen, he could pray to God for a miracle or at least a clue, and all his problems would go up the chimney. Instead, the radio was playing organ music and Genero was typing in a tempo out of meter with the fat chords that floated out on the air, and Carella not only did not have a clue, he also did not have an inkling of where to go next.

He decided to call Fort Mercer.

His reasoning had nothing to do with sound deduction. It had only to do with desperation. Before talking to Sophie, he had known next to nothing about the dead man. In any homicide it was essential to learn how the victim had spent his last twenty-four hours — where he’d gone, the people he’d seen, the events that had taken place. He knew where Isabel Harris had spent at least a portion of the twenty-four hours before her death; she had spent them in bed with Frank Preston. But all he knew about Jimmy was that he’d left the house at his usual hour in the morning, and presumably walked his usual beggar’s route on Hall Avenue throughout the day, and most likely stopped at a bar, as usual, before heading home after the rush hour.

Carella had neglected to ask Isabel whether Jimmy frequented the same bar each day. A mistake. Maybe a bad one. There was no Isabel to ask any more, but there existed nonetheless the possibility that Jimmy had met someone in the bar, argued with someone, antagonized someone — who the hell knew? The bar was still a mystery, solely because of Carella’s oversight. It bothered him that he had goofed. He fretted about it, but he didn’t agonize over it. Instead, he examined the two pieces of information he now possessed, a pair of seemingly unrelated fragments that changed Jimmy Harris from a corpse into a living, breathing human being.

At the moment there was nothing he could do about the first piece of information. If Jimmy Harris had indeed contacted an old Army buddy with some sort of get-rich-quick scheme, possibly illegal, Carella had no way of ascertaining this without talking to the old Army buddies. Right now he knew nothing about Jimmy’s Army career, except that he’d been in the 2nd Squad’s Alpha Fire Team and he’d been blinded in action. If he got lucky, Captain McCormick would get back to him before Monday with the service information he’d requested. He doubted he would get lucky. But there was one other thing he had learned from Sophie Harris.

Her son was having nightmares.

Carella dialed “O” for Operator, and asked for the area code for Fort Mercer. The operator said she didn’t have a town called Fort Mercer. Carella said it was upstate someplace near Castleview Prison. She said she didn’t know where Castleview Prison was. He told her it was in Rawley. She gave him an area code, and he dialed first the number 1, and then the area code, and then the numerals 555, and then the numerals 1212. By that time he’d forgotten why he was dialing this long succession of numbers, and he’d also forgotten his shield number, his social security number and his middle initial. Another operator said, “Information, what city?” and Carella told her he thought it was near Rawley, and said he was trying to reach Fort Mercer. The Operator said, “That’s in Paxton, sir,” and then said, “I have several listings for Fort Mercer, which one did you wish?”

“The hospital,” he said.

“I’ve got a General Hospital and an Evacuation Hospital.”

“Let’s try the General Hospital.”

“Do you wish to write the number down, sir?”

“Yes, please,” Carella said.

“963-7047,” she said.

“Thank you,” Carella said. “That’s 963...”

But she’d already hung up. He sighed, dialed the number 1, and then the area code, and then the numerals 963, and then the numerals 7047. The phone rang. Across the room, Genero, whose tastes were catholic, switched the radio to a rock-and-roll station. Up in Paxton, the phone was still ringing. Carella wondered if the hospital was closed.

“Hospital,” a man’s voice said.

“Is this the Fort Mercer General Hospital?” Carella asked.

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“This is Detective Carella, 87th Squad, Isola. I’m calling in regard to a patient you had there some ten years ago. I wonder if I could talk to someone who—”

“Who did you want to talk to, sir?”

“Whoever might have detailed knowledge of the patient.”

“Well, sir... how would I know who that might be, sir?”

“Is there anyone there who goes back ten years?”

“Yes, sir, I’m sure there is. But... sir, this is a very big facility, sir, I really wouldn’t know where to connect you.”

“May I speak to whoever is in command of the facility?”

“That would be General Wrigley, sir.”

“Could you connect me, please?”

“Just one moment, sir.”

Carella waited. A woman’s voice came on the phone almost instantly.

“General Wrigley’s office.”

“This is Detective Carella of the 87th Squad in Isola. May I please speak to the general?”

“I’m sorry, sir, he isn’t in today.”

“Perhaps you can help me,” Carella said.

“I’ll try, sir.”

“We’re investigating a homicide in which the victim was once a patient at Fort Mercer. I’m trying to learn whatever I can about him.”

“When was he a patient here?”

“Ten years ago.”

“Mm,” the woman said.

“I know that’s a long time ago.”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“But I’m sure your records go back that far.”

“Yes, sir, they do, that’s not the problem.”

“What is the problem?”

“Sir, I really don’t think this is something that can be handled on the telephone.”

“I was trying to save myself a trip upstate. This is a homicide.”

“Well, HI put you through to Records.”

“Thank you.”

“Just hang on,” she said. “It’ll sound as if I’m hanging up, but I’m only transferring the call.”

“Thank you.”

Again he waited. He decided that homicide was an intrusion. Nobody wanted intrusions in their lives, nobody wanted you calling from the big city to ask about a man who’d passed this way ten years ago. Hell with that. There was a hospital to run here, a facility. Lots of sick people here. I’ll put you through to Records. Records might be interested. Records dealt with history, the distant past and the more recent. I’ll put you through to Records because we here among the quick albeit sick just can’t be bothered, you see, with corpses who once lived in the neighborhood.

“Records, Sergeant Hollister speaking.”

“This is Detective Carella, 87th Squad, I’m looking for some information about a homicide victim.”

Sergeant Hollister whistled. “Shoot,” he said.

“The name is James Harris, he was in the Fort Mercer hospital ten years ago.”

“Any middle name?”

“Randolph.”

“This’ll take some time,” Hollister said. “Let me get back to you.”

“The number here is Frederick 7-8024. But, Sergeant...”

“Yes, sir?”

“I’m really more interested in talking to someone who might have known him while he was there. I mean, rather than you reading to me from his records.”

“Well, let me see what the records indicate, okay, sir? I’ll get back to you in a little while.”

“Sergeant, this is a homicide.”

“Yes, sir, I understand that.”

“Thank you, I’ll be waiting for your call.”

There was a click on the line. Carella looked up at the wall clock. The time was 10:37 a.m.

“How do you spell vehicular?” Genero asked

"You’ve got the dictionary right there, just look it up,” Carella said.

“How can I look it up if I don’t know how to spell it?”

“Well, you know it starts with a V, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but then what?” Genero said.

Carella looked up at the clock again.

The time was 10:38 a.m.

The call from upstate did not come till a few minutes past eleven. By then Carella had called the I.S. for a routine check on Charles C. Clarke, and had finished typing his updated reports in triplicate. The I.S. had promised to get back to him at once. He expected he would hear from them by Monday unless he called them again later in the day. He also expected he would have to call the hospital back. In America, and maybe throughout the whole wide world for all he knew, nobody ever got anything done unless you called twice. And then followed the second call with a letter. And then called again a week after the follow-up letter. He suspected it had been this way in ancient Rome, just before the barbarian hordes broke through the northern barricades and rode their ponies into the streets. Senators picking up the skirts of their togas and running for their lives, clutching unanswered tablets to their chests. Secretaries running along behind them, chewing gum, clothes in disarray.

“87th Squad, Carella.”

“This is Colonel Anderson, Fort Mercer Hospital.”

“Yes, sir,” Carella said.

“A Sergeant Hollister in Records called to say you were interested in a patient I treated several years back.”

“Yes, sir, a man named James Harris.”

“Hollister said he’d been murdered, is that true?”

“Yes, it is.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Anderson said. “What is it you want to know, Mr. Carella?”

“This will sound ridiculous.”

“Try me.”

“I was talking to his mother this morning, and she told me he was having nightmares.”

“Yes?”

“I’d like to talk to anyone who might know something about them.”

“The nightmares?”

“Yes, the nature of the nightmares.”

“I’m a plastic surgeon, I didn’t have anything to do with his mental rehabilitation. He’d been through three other hospitals before he reached us, you understand. Our goal was to prepare him for civilian life after the terrible trauma he’d suffered. The wound was a particularly vicious one, requiring a great deal of reconstructive surgery. But it was the psychiatric team who worked toward adjusting him realistically to his new situation. They’re the ones who’d know about any nightmares.”

“Who headed up the team, can you tell me that?” “That would have been Colonel Konigsberg.”

“I wonder if I could speak to him.”

“He’s no longer here. He was transferred to Walter Reed in Washington, you might try him there. That would be Colonel Paul — well, wait a minute, he was a colonel when he left here, he might well be a brigadier general by now.”

“Colonel Anderson, where would the psychiatric records be? Would they still be there at Fort Mercer?”

“I would imagine so, yes.”

“If I drove up there this afternoon, could I have a look at them?”

“That could be arranged.”

Carella looked up at the wall clock. “Would two o’clock be all right?”

“Yes, fine. I’ll leave word at the gate to pass you through. Could I have your full name, please?”

“Detective Stephen Carella. That’s C-a-r-e-l-l-a. And it’s Stephen with a p-h.”

“The General Hospital is to the right of the red-brick administration building. When you come through the main gate, keep to your right and park in the oval marked for visitors. There’s a receptionist just inside the entrance doors, she’ll tell you how to find me. My office is on the second floor.”

“I’ll be there at two,” Carella said.

“Yes, fine,” Anderson said. “I’ll see you then.”

Carella hung up, looked at the clock again, and then checked the duty chart on the wall. Today was supposed to be Meyer’s day off; he called him at home anyway. Sarah Meyer answered the phone, recognized his voice, and said, “Oh, no.”

“Is he in the middle of something?”

“We’re going to a wedding.”

“What time?”

“No trick questions, Steve,” Sarah said. “I’ll put him on.”

Carella waited. When Meyer came on the line, he said at once, “No way.”

“I‘m driving up to Fort Mercer,” Carella said.

“Where’s Fort Mercer?”

“Up near Castleview.”

“Have a nice drive.”

“Who’s getting married?”

“Irwin the Vermin.”

“Your nephew?”

“My nephew. Only he grew up to be a mensch, can you imagine? Steve, I can’t go with you, I’m sorry. I still have to pick up my tuxedo.”

“Will you have time to make just one stop?”

Meyer sighed.

“Meyer?”

“Yeah, yeah. Where do you want me to go?”

“Sam Grossman told me there was soil under Jimmy Harris’ fingernails. Check out the apartment, will you? Maybe he buried whatever the killer was looking for.”

“Where do you bury something in an apartment?”

“Did you notice any window boxes?”

“I wasn’t looking for any.”

“Well, check out the sills, and if there aren’t any boxes, you might go down to the back yard, see if anything’s been buried recently.”

“That’s a nice job for a person on a Saturday when he has to get dressed for a wedding?”

“What time is the wedding?”

“Three o’clock.”

“That gives you almost four hours.”

“To go digging up a back yard and get my tuxedo, and shower and shave, and drive the whole family to Adams Boulevard. Why are you going to Fort Mercer?”

“Jimmy Harris was having nightmares.”

“So am I,” Meyer said, and hung up. Carella smiled and put the receiver back on its cradle.

The phone rang again almost at once. It was the I.S. calling back to say that Charles C. Clarke had no criminal record.

The apartment was heavy with the stillness of death.

Someone had swept up the garbage that was strewn over the kitchen floor, but the rest of the place was still a shambles. Meyer wondered who would eventually clean it up. The chalked outline of Isabel’s body marked the place near the refrigerator where she’d lain crookedly in death. Sooner or later someone would wash the kitchen floor, wash away the chalked outline and the bloodstains on the linoleum. Sooner or later someone else would rent the apartment. One day the new tenant would casually mention that a murder had taken place in this kitchen. Found the woman right here near the refrigerator, her throat was slit. No kidding? his visitor would say, and then they would go on to discuss the latest baseball standings.

For now, Isabel Harris was vaguely defined by her chalked outline on the floor and the dried blood on the linoleum. And in the other rooms, her torn furniture and scattered clothing. He had read someplace that blind people put clothing of different colors in different drawers, so that they would not inadvertently wear a green tie with a purple shirt, or a red blouse with an orange skirt. They identified clothing, too, by different stitches sewed into hems or shirttails, their fingers becoming eyes, touch becoming sight. He could not imagine being blind. He thought he would kill himself if suddenly he lost his eyesight.

Above the kitchen sink, there was a small window covered with frost; the apartment was cold, the super had undoubtedly turned off all the radiators the moment the police were gone — waste not, want not, and no sense making the farshtinkener Arabs richer than they already were. With the heel of his gloved hand Meyer rubbed at the frost, clearing a rough circle through which he saw first the brick wall of the building opposite and then the outside window sill.

There was a flower box on the sill.

The dried and withered stalks of last summer’s blooms lay like casualties across the frozen soil in the box. Meyer tried the window; more often than not, they were painted shut in city apartments. It opened easily. He took the box in off the sill, put it on the counter top, and closed the window again. From the tangle of forks, knives and spoons on the kitchen floor, he picked up a tablespoon and began digging at the soil in the box. The crusted upper layer resisted his initial thrusts, and then suddenly gave way to softer earth. Someone had been digging here recently; the soil was loose, the spoon moved it without effort. He took off his gloves and shoved his hands deep into the soil. Nothing. He looked around for something he could dump the soil onto or into, opened the door to the cabinet under the sink and found a nest of brown paper bags. Tearing one of these open, he spread it on the counter top and began spooning earth onto it.

In a little while the window box was empty.

There had been nothing in it but soil.

Meyer shoveled a spoonful of that soil into an evidence envelope for transmission to Grossman at the lab. Then he left the apartment and went down to the back yard.