The Night Remembers

25

Terri Jankov turned out to be in the book. She lived in one of the new apartment complexes out near Mt. Vernon. I’d thought of calling and then decided it would be too easy for her to say no. Turning me down in person might be more difficult for her.

On the way out, I counted three cars that had skidded off the road and ended up in the ditch, and two big city trucks hissing sand from their rear ends. For once the TV weathermen had been correct. A major storm was about to hit Cedar Rapids.

Terri Jankov’s parking lot ran to new sports cars, presumably for the single people, and fine expensive new station wagons. I knew just how expensive because on a day when I’d had nothing better to do, I’d spent several hours pricing them.

In the snowy darkness, the lights of the various apartments looked snug and warm. In a window here and there you could see the tiny faces of children staring out at the approaching storm. You could just hear them praying that the weather would get bad enough for school to be canceled.

I was careful going up the steps. I had to be. They hadn’t been sanded or shoveled, which was surprising in a place this expensive. You’d think all these yuppies would get collectively pissed off about such terrible service.

You had to be rung past the vestibule, which ended my plans for sneaking up on the poor unsuspecting widow of Karl Jankov.

I rang the bell.

“Yes?”

“Mrs. Jankov, my name is Walsh. I’m working for George Pennyfeather.”

“My God.”

“Pardon me?”

“I said ‘My God.’ You’ve got to be some sort of cop, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

She laughed a cigarette-and-whiskey laugh obvious even over the small tinny speaker. “I admire your nerve.”

“My nerve?”

“You want to come in and ask me questions that may help the man who murdered my husband. Isn’t that right?”

“Basically, I suppose.”

“Oh, this is delicious. It really is.” I hadn’t realized till then how drunk she was. “By all means, come up, Mr. Walsh. I’ll buzz you in. You come straight up the stairs and take a right. I’m down at the end of the hall, next to the large window.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, the pleasure’s all mine. The snow had started to make me feel cooped-up and restless. You’ll be much more interesting than TV.”

When you manage an apartment building yourself, you tend to notice how other such buildings are maintained. This one was enviable. Not only was the blue hallway carpeting fairly new, it was kept up. The faint tangy smell of cleaning solvent rose to my nostrils. The walls had been painted no more than a few months ago, and the trim was without any scarring. I was impressed.

The first thing I noticed about her was her size. She had to be sixty or seventy pounds overweight, a fact she tried to conceal by wearing a dark silk robe that hung from her shoulders without exactly touching any other part of her body. She wore festive red slippers and festive red nail polish and festive red lipstick, which contrasted with the dyed jet-black color of her hair. Even from here you could smell her perfume, heavy enough to sting the senses momentarily but not in any way unpleasant. But however much the rest of her had deteriorated, the beauty of her face had remained intact, almost eerily so, like a doll’s head that had been stuck on the wrong body, a sculpted face with high cheekbones and a gorgeous slash of a nose and a wry erotic mouth with the tiny white teeth of a little girl showing in the flash of her smile.

She put out a hand heavy with rings. If even half of the rings contained real diamonds, I was impressed.

“May I fix you a drink?”

“Coffee would be fine.”

Her dark eyes conveyed disappointment. She rattled her highball in my direction. “I hate to drink alcohol alone. It always makes me feel sinful.” She showed me her little girl’s teeth. “But then feeling sinful isn’t the worst feeling in the world, now, is it?”

I followed her inside. It was like stepping into a showroom. A Victorian sofa, with matching period chairs, dominated a living room impeccably appointed with what appeared to be a genuine Persian rug, a large round mahogany coffee table, and lacy curtains that trapped the soft pink light emanating from a small pink lamp in the corner. It was a room meant to impress, and it did.

“Cream?”

“Black is fine.”

“Some cake, perhaps?”

“No, thanks.”

She laughed. “Looking at me, you’d never think that I liked sweets, now would you?”

She spoke in the tone of all people who hate themselves for their weaknesses.

“I think I’ll just stick to coffee, thanks.”

Apparently, she didn’t like my answer. She stared at me as if appraising a dog she might consider buying, and said, “How old a man are you, Mr. Walsh?”

It was meant to put me in my place, and to establish her superiority. She might be fat but she was not old, her question said. She might be drunk but even sauced she had more bitchy wit than I did. We had one thing in common. She didn’t like herself, and I didn’t like her, either.

She disappeared then, smiling unpleasantly, as if a small victory in an endless war had just been won, leaving me to park one cheek on the edge of her sofa. I almost felt as if I were violating it in some way. Next to me lay a hardcover book that had been left open approximately in the middle. A new chapter heading read: “Getting Control of Your Impulses.”

I was scanning the first few paragraphs when she returned. She bore the pewter mug on the pewter saucer and sat them down on the coffee table with a model’s contrived and precarious grace.

“Do you suppose that will help?”

“Pardon me?” I said.

“I saw you were looking at the book. Do you suppose it will work for me?”

She enjoyed making you despise her. I suppose she hoped that somebody would despise her almost as much as she despised herself.

“I couldn’t say.”

“You’re uncomfortable, aren’t you?”

I shrugged.

“You’d rather sit here and pretend that I’m not fat at all, wouldn’t you?”

“I really came to talk about your ex-husband.”

“He’s the reason I’m fat.”

“I see.”

“No, I’m afraid you don’t, Mr. Walsh.”

“I’m trying to understand why George Pennyfeather would have killed him.”

“You think I don’t remember you, but I do, Mr. Walsh. You were the detective in charge of the case.”

“That’s right.”

“And now you’re working for George?”

“Yes.”

She laughed. It was a sexual laugh, bawdy in the way fat women are sometimes bawdy. But there was no enjoyment or freedom in it. It was still nasty. That never quite seemed to leave her, that nastiness, no matter what she did.

“Why do you think your husband was murdered?”

“You don’t think it was the reason given in court? That little Lisa Pennyfeather was considering having an affair with Karl, and that little George Pennyfeather couldn’t handle it?”

“Do you think that was the reason?”

“If that was what was decided in court, then that must be the reason, don’t you think, Mr. Walsh?” She spoke in broad ironic tones. She even batted her eyelashes at me.

“Then, I take it, you don’t believe that?”

Her mouth drew tight. “With Karl, you could never be sure. Things were almost never what they seemed.” Rancor narrowed her eyes; her tiny teeth took on a feral sharpness now.

“Did he ever mention anything that made you suspect any other reason for his death?”

Her bawdy laugh again. “You certainly didn’t find out much about Karl, did you? There were dozens of people who would have been happy to kill him. Dozens. Literally. And I’m not just talking about angry husbands. I’m also talking about all the people at the office he’d stepped on. There were a number of them, too.”

“Such as?”

“Such as dear sweet Richard Heckart.” She smiled again. “Don’t you just love men who devote their entire lives to interior decoration?”

“Richard didn’t like him?”

“Of course Richard didn’t like him. The only two people who had any real power in that company were Paul and Karl.”

“How did Karl get so much power?”

“Would you like a cigarette? I’ve been noticing your pack in your shirt. And maybe you could give me one — I don’t inhale them but they do slow down my need for — food.”

I got out two cigarettes, giving her one. I almost hated lighting it for her. It was like lighting another man’s cigarette.

“Karl was so indispensable that he took over the number two spot, even though it would ordinarily have gone to Richard Heckart?”

“You don’t understand, dear. Karl was a kiss-ass. That and his looks were his only talents. Believe me, he certainly wasn’t very bright and he certainly wasn’t very good in bed. But he had this earnest boyish quality that men seemed to trust and women found very appealing.” She smiled. “And he looked wonderful in a three-piece suit.”

“So he kissed Paul Heckart’s ass?”

“Shamelessly.”

“What form did it take?”

“Oh, there was the makeover.”

“I don’t understand what that means.”

“Well, in female terms, it means you take a very drab girl and with makeup and the right clothes, you turn her into a fox. You see?”

“All right.”

“And that’s one of the things he did for Paul, who was strictly brown shoes when Karl met him. Paul was this sort of chubby, sweaty guy who spent a lot of time serving on church committees and giving money to his wife’s various Junior League activities. But Karl changed him.”

“How?”

“Well, dear, you could start with the hair. Paul always used to get one of those bowl jobs — literally, it looked as if his barber had put a bowl on his head and just sheared off the bottom half.”

“That was Karl’s idea?”

“That, and the Savile Row suits and the sports car and the business trips to Los Angeles and New York. Karl introduced Paul to a variety of things, if you know what I’m trying to say here.”

“Sex?”

She smiled. “Yes, if you can imagine poor Paul actually getting an erection, I’m sure there was sex.”

“How did Paul’s marriage fare?”

“Oh, Nedra Heckart loathed Karl. Absolutely loathed him.”

“Did she ever try to get him fired?”

“Many times.”

“It apparently didn’t work.”

“No, but it did succeed in bringing Nedra and sweet brother Richard together. They’d never been close until they joined forces against the dreaded Karl.”

“So that was the basis of their relationship, Karl and Paul Heckart’s, that he introduced Paul to a different lifestyle.”

“That and some kind of power game.”

“What kind of power game?”

“I was never sure.” She paused. She took a heavy drag off the cigarette. She inhaled it. “Karl didn’t confide in me much the last few years of our marriage. We were both unfaithful, it was the seventies and that sort of thing was very much in vogue at the time, but Karl never learned that it’s possible to give your body without giving your soul. He always convinced himself that he was in love with these skinny little bitches.” She exhaled now, her wrath formidable. “Anyway, something was going on between Karl and Richard Heckart.”

“Richard? I thought he and Karl didn’t get along.”

“They didn’t. That’s what was so surprising. One night, Richard came over very late. I was up in bed, exhausted from a trip I’d taken to a fat farm. At first, I thought it was just some kind of weird, late-night social call. But then I heard them argue and Richard did something most uncharacteristic.”

She wanted to play this out like a Saturday afternoon serial, with me asking questions, her teasing me. I played my part and asked, “What did he do?”

She laughed. “He beat the hell out of my husband.”

“That night?”

“Yes. There was a great row. Things got thrown around and smashed. And Karl got a black eye. He was mortified. He felt it ruined his looks, of course.”

“That may shoot your theory.”

“What theory?”

“About Richard. The way you portray him.”

“Oh, no need to defend Richard. He is what he is.”

We were back into her parlor games. There were better ways to spend an evening than with a fat, bitter woman who hated herself far more than you could ever hate her, anyway.

“You never found out what the disagreement was about?”

“No. And I really didn’t worry about it. I was becoming very successful in insurance, and it was obvious Karl and I were through. I’d humiliated myself enough for him. There’s a limit to everything, don’t you think, Mr. Walsh?”

“What did Karl do about Richard coming over here?”

“Oh, he told Paul, of course, and Paul and Richard had this terrible argument. And Richard had even less power afterwards.”

I could see the alcohol begin to drain her. You reach a point where it really is a depressant, and she’d reached that point now.

I stood up.

“You’re hurrying off?”

“I appreciate the time.”

She tried to stand up. With her weight and the booze, she was a pathetic sight. I wondered if she knew just how pathetic. No amount of expensive clothes, no amount of clever patter, could disguise it.

“You don’t need to get up,” I said.

“Are you implying that I can’t get up?” she said.

I said good night and let myself out.