Like Love (87th Precinct), page 6
In the silence of the living room, a small porcelain clock, delicately wrought and resting on a small inlaid end table, began chiming the hour. Silently, Carella counted the strokes. One, two, three, four. The echo of the chimes faded. The room was still again. Hawes shifted his position on the uncomfortable caned chair.
“I’ve made a hundred lists,” Mrs. Tomlinson said. “Of things to do. Michael is of no help, you know, no help at all. I’m all alone in this. If Margaret were only alive to—” And then she stopped because the absurdity of what she was about to say suddenly struck her. “If Margaret were only alive to help with her funeral preparations” were the words in her mind and on her tongue, and she swallowed them at once because the presence of death was suddenly very large in that small room. She shivered all at once. She stared at Carella and Hawes in the deepening silence of the room. Outside on the street, a woman called to her child. The silence lengthened.
“You…you wanted the lawyer’s name,” Mrs. Tomlinson said.
“Yes.”
“Arthur Patterson. I don’t know his address.”
“In the city?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Tomlinson shivered again. “I’m telling you the truth, you know. Margaret was leaving him.”
“I believe you, Mrs. Tomlinson,” Carella said. He rose suddenly and crossed the room. Gently, tenderly, he took her huge hand between both his own and said, “We appreciate your help. If there’s anything we can do, please call us.”
Mrs. Tomlinson looked up into the face of the tall man who stood before the couch.
In a very small voice, she said, “Thank you.”
Arthur Patterson was a man in his middle thirties who had recently shaved off his mustache. Neither Carella nor Hawes knew that Patterson had performed the mustachectomy only two days before, but had they been alert detectives they would have noticed that Patterson touched the area over his upper lip rather frequently. The area looked very much like the stretch of skin above any man’s upper lip, but it didn’t feel that way to Patterson. To Patterson, the tiny stretch of skin felt very large and very naked. He kept touching the area to reassure himself that it wasn’t getting any larger or any more naked. He didn’t feel at all like himself, sitting there and discussing Margaret Irene Thayer with two men from the police department. If he stared down the sides of his nose, he could see his upper lip protruding and swollen and nude. He felt as if he looked very silly, and he was sure the detectives were smiling at his nakedness. He touched the skin above his mouth again, and then hastily withdrew his hand.
“Yes,” he said, “Irene Thayer came to me to see about a divorce.”
“Had you ever handled any legal matters for her before, Mr. Patterson?” Carella asked.
“I prepared a will. That was all.”
“You prepared a will for Irene Thayer?”
“For both of them actually. The usual thing, you know.”
“What usual thing, Mr. Patterson?”
“Oh, you know. ‘I direct that all my debts and funeral expenses be paid as soon after my death as may be practicable. All the rest, residue, and remainder of my estate, whether real or personal, and wherever situate, I give, devise, and bequeath to my wife.’ That sort of thing.”
“Then in the event of Michael Thayer’s death, Irene Thayer would have inherited his entire estate?”
“Yes, that’s right. And the reverse was, of course, also true.”
“How do you mean?”
“In the event that Michael Thayer survived his wife, well, anything she owned would go to him. That was one of the will’s provisions.”
“I see,” Carella said. He paused. Arthur Patterson touched his missing mustache. “Did she own anything?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t seem likely. She seemed concerned about the expense of getting a divorce.”
“She told you this?”
“Yes.” Patterson shrugged. “I was in a peculiar position here, you understand. It was Thayer who first came to me about drawing the will. And now I was handling a divorce proceeding for his wife. It was an odd feeling.”
“You mean, you felt as if you were really Michael Thayer’s lawyer?”
“Well, not exactly. But…let’s put it this way…I felt as if I were attorney for the Thayer family, do you know what I mean? And not for Irene Thayer alone.”
“But she nonetheless came to you?”
“Yes.”
“And said she wanted a divorce.”
“Yes. She was going to Reno next month.”
“In spite of the expense involved?”
“Well, that was a serious consideration. She initially came to me to find out what the Alabama divorce laws were. She had heard it was a good jurisdiction. But I advised her against an Alabama divorce.”
“Why?”
“Well, they’ve been getting a little rough down there. In many cases, if it appears that a couple came to the jurisdiction only to get a divorce and not to establish bona-fide residency, the state will void the divorce of its own volition. I didn’t think she wanted to risk that. I suggested Mexico to her, where we can get a divorce ruling in twenty-four hours, but she didn’t like the idea.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not sure. A Mexican divorce is as good as any you can get. But the layman has the mistaken impression that Mexican divorces aren’t legal or are easy to upset. Anyway, she didn’t go for the idea. So, naturally, I suggested Nevada. Are you familiar with the Nevada divorce laws?”
“No,” Carella said.
“Well, they require a six-weeks’ residency in the state, and the grounds range from…well, adultery, impotence, desertion, nonsupport, mental cruelty, physical cruelty, habitual drunkenness… I could go on, but that’ll give you an idea.”
“On what grounds was she suing for divorce?”
“Mental cruelty.”
“Not adultery?”
“No.” Patterson paused. “She wouldn’t have had to go all the way to Reno if she were claiming adultery, would she? I mean… after all…” He hesitated again. “I don’t know how much of this I should discuss with you. You see, I did suggest the possibility of she and her husband seeing a marriage counselor, but she wasn’t at all interested in that.”
“She wanted a divorce.”
“Yes, she was adamant about it.” Patterson stroked his lip, seemed to be deciding whether or not he should reveal all the information he had, and finally sighed and said, “There was another man involved, you see.”
“That would seem obvious, wouldn’t it, Mr. Patterson?” Hawes said. “They were found dead together.”
Patterson stared at Hawes, and then activated a voice he usually reserved for the courtroom. “The fact that they were found dead together needn’t indicate they were planning a future life together. Mr. Barlow…I believe that was his name…?”
“Yes, Mr. Barlow, that’s right.”
“Mr. Barlow may not even have been the man she intended marrying.”
“Irene’s mother seems to think he was.”
“Well, perhaps you have information I do not have.”
“Irene never told you the man’s name?”
“No. She simply said she was in love with someone and wanted a divorce as quickly as possible so that she could marry him.”
“She definitely said that?”
“Yes.” Patterson dropped his courtroom voice and assumed the tones of a friendly country lawyer dispensing philosophy around a cracker barrel. “It’s been my experience, however, that many women…and men, too…who are contemplating divorce aren’t always sure why they want the divorce. That is, Irene Thayer may have thought she was in love with this Barlow person and used that as a reason for escaping from a situation that was intolerable to her.”
“Did she say it was intolerable?” Hawes asked.
“She indicated that living with Michael Thayer was something of a trial, yes.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t say.”
“How did Mr. Thayer feel about the divorce?” Carella asked.
“I did not discuss it with him.”
“Why not?”
“Mrs. Thayer preferred it that way. She said she wanted to handle it herself.”
“Did she say why?”
“She preferred it that way, that’s all. In fact, she was going to serve him by publication, once she got to Nevada and started the proceedings.”
“Why would she want to do that?”
“Well, it’s not unusual, you know.” He shrugged. “She simply wanted to wait until next month. Considering the fact of the other man, I hardly think—”
“Next month when?” Hawes asked.
“The end of the month sometime.” Patterson tried hard to keep his hands clenched in his lap, but lost the battle. His fingers went up to his mouth, he stroked the stretch of barren flesh, seemed annoyed with himself, and immediately put his hands in his pockets.
“But she was definitely going to Reno next month, is that right?” Carella said.
“Yes.” Patterson paused and added reflectively, “I saw her several times. I gave her good advice, too. I don’t suppose anyone’ll pay me for my work now.”
“Doesn’t the will say something about settling debts and paying funeral expenses?” Carella said.
“Why, yes,” Patterson answered. “Yes, it does. I suppose I could submit a bill to Mr. Thayer, but…” His eyes clouded. “There’s a moral issue here, isn’t there? Don’t you think there’s a moral issue?”
“How so, Mr. Patterson?”
“Well, I am his lawyer, too. He might not understand why I withheld information of the pending divorce. It’s touchy.” He paused. “But I did put in all that work. Do you think I should submit a bill?”
“That’s up to you, Mr. Patterson.” Carella thought for a moment and then said, “Would you remember when she planned to leave, exactly?”
“I don’t remember,” Patterson said. “If I were sure Mr. Thayer wouldn’t get upset, I would submit a bill. Really, I would. After all, I have office expenses, too, and I did give her a lot of my time.”
“Please try to remember, Mr. Patterson.”
“What?”
“When she was planning to leave for Reno.”
“Oh, I’m not sure. The fifteenth, the twentieth, something like that.”
“Was it the fifteenth?”
“It could have been. Is the fifteenth a Tuesday? I remember she said it would be Tuesday.”
Carella took a small celluloid calendar from his wallet. “No,” he said, “the fifteenth is a Monday.”
“Well, there was something about the weekend interfering, I don’t remember exactly what it was. But she said Tuesday, that I remember for certain. Is the twentieth a Tuesday?”
“No, the twentieth is a Saturday. Would she have said Tuesday, the sixteenth?”
“Yes, she might have.”
“Would there have been any reason for this? Was she waiting for you to prepare papers or anything?”
“No, that would all be handled by her counsel in Reno.”
“Then leaving on the sixteenth was her idea?”
“Yes. But you know, local lawyers don’t usually prepare the papers in an out-of-state divorce case. So this wasn’t—”
“What?”
“I did a lot of work even if it didn’t involve the preparation of any legal papers.”
“What did you mean about a weekend interfering, Mr. Patterson?” Hawes asked.
“Oh, she said something about having to wait until Monday.”
“I thought you said Tuesday.”
“Yes, she was leaving on Tuesday, but apparently there was something to be done on Monday before she left. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific, but it was only a passing reference, and rather vague, as if she were thinking aloud. But she was leaving on the sixteenth, I’m fairly certain about that. And naturally, I put all of my time at her disposal.”
“Mr. Patterson,” Carella said, “you don’t have to convince us.”
“Huh?”
“That you put in a lot of hard work.”
Patterson immediately stroked his upper lip, certain that no one in the world would have dared to talk to him that way if he were still wearing his mustache. “I wasn’t trying to convince anyone,” he said, miffed but trying hard not to show it. “I did do the work, and I will submit a bill.” He nodded vigorously, in agreement with himself. “I hardly think it should upset Mr. Thayer. The facts of his wife’s indiscretion were all over the newspapers, anyway.”
“Mr. Patterson, what do you think of that suicide note?” Hawes asked.
Patterson shrugged. “The one they ran in the newspapers? Sensationalism.”
“Yes, but did it seem consistent with what Mrs. Thayer was planning?”
“That’s a leading question,” Patterson said. “Of course not. Why would she kill herself after going through the trouble of arranging for a divorce? Assuming Barlow was the man she planned to marry…”
“You still seem in doubt,” Carella said.
“I’m merely exploring the possibilities. If there were yet another man—”
“Mr. Patterson,” Carella said, “the existing possibilities are confusing enough. I don’t think we have to go looking for more trouble than we already have.”
Patterson smiled thinly and said, “I thought the police were concerned with investigating every possibility. Especially in an apparent suicide that stinks of homicide.”
“You do believe it was a homicide?”
“Don’t you?” Patterson said.
Carella smiled and answered, “We’re investigating every possibility, Mr. Patterson.”
There are many many possibilities to investigate when you happen to run the police lab in a large city. Detective-Lieutenant Sam Grossman ran the laboratory at Headquarters downtown on High Street, and he would have been a very busy fellow even if the 87th didn’t occasionally drop in with a case or two. Grossman didn’t mind being busy. He was fond of repeating an old Gypsy proverb that said something about idle hands being the devil’s something-or-other, and he certainly didn’t want his hands to become idle and the devil’s something-or-other. There were times, however, when he wished he had six or seven hands rather than the customary allotment. It would have been different, perhaps, if Grossman were a slob. Slobs can handle any number of jobs at the same time, dispatching each and every one with equal facility, letting the chips fall where they may, as another old Gypsy proverb states. But Grossman was a conscientious cop and a fastidious scientist, and he was firmly rooted in the belief that the police laboratory had been devised to help the working stiffs who were out there trying to solve crimes. He took a salary from the city, and he believed that the only way to earn that salary was to do his job as efficiently and effectively as he knew how.
Grossman was a rare man to head a laboratory because in addition to being a trained detective, he was also a damned good chemist. Most police laboratories were headed by a detective without any real scientific training but with a staff of qualified experts in chemistry, physics, and biology. Grossman had his staff, but he also had his own scientific background, and the mind of a man who had long ago wrestled with burglaries, muggings, robberies, and anything a precinct detective could possibly encounter in his working day. There were times, in fact, when Grossman wished he were back in a cozy squadroom somewhere, exchanging crummy jokes with weary colleagues. There were times, like today, when Grossman wished he had stayed in bed.
He never knew what governing law of probabilities caused the laboratory to be swamped with work at times and comparatively idle at other times. He never knew whether a phase of the moon or the latest nuclear test caused a sudden increase in crimes or accidents, whether people declared a holiday for violence at a specific time of the year or month, or whether some Martian mastermind had decided that such and such a day would be a good time to bug Grossman and his hard-pressed technicians. He only knew that there were days, like today, when there was simply too much to do and not enough people to do it.
An amateur burglar had broken into a store on South Fifteenth by forcing the lock on the rear door. Grossman’s staff was now involved in comparing the marks found on the lock with specimen marks made with a crude chisel that the investigating detectives had discovered in the room of a suspect.
A woman had been strangled to death in a bedroom on Culver Avenue. Grossman’s technicians had found traces of hair on the pillow, and would first have to compare it with the woman’s own hair and, in the likelihood that it was not hers, run tests that would tell them whether the hair had been left by an animal or a human, and—if human—which part of the body the hair had come from, whether it had belonged to a man or a woman, whether it had been dyed, bleached, or cut recently, the age of the person who had carelessly left it behind, and whether or not it had been deformed by shooting, burning, or scalding.
A holdup man, retreating in panic when he’d heard the siren of an approaching squad car, had fired three bullets into the wall of a gasoline station and then escaped. Grossman’s technicians were now involved in comparing the retrieved bullets with specimen bullets fired from guns in their extensive file, attempting to determine the make of firearm the criminal had used so that the cops of the 71st could dig into their m.o. file for a possible clue.
A ten-year-old girl had accused the janitor of her building of having lured her into his basement room, and then having forced her to yield to his sexual advances. The child’s garments were now being examined for stains of semen and blood.
A forty-five-year-old man was found dead on a highway, obviously the victim of a hit-and-run. The glass splinters embedded in his clothing were now being compared against specimens from the shattered left front headlight of an abandoned stolen car in an effort to identify the automobile as the one that had struck the man down.
