He rang the bell, waited a second, then rang again too fast. He would wait longer before he rang the third time.
Then the door opened and he faced a man wearing a gray cotton jacket, white shirt, black slacks, and black tie, and realized he was being greeted by a butler for the first time in his life.
The man was almost as tall as Latovsky and about half again as wide, all of it solid. His thighs filled his pant legs, his neck bulged over an eighteen-inch collar.
He looked at Latovsky, then past him at the shabby Olds, and said, “Good. You’ve brought the TV. Miss Eve will be relieved.”
Miss Eve: This was her house, this brick shit-house on legs was her servant. Latovsky made a low snarling noise, ripped his ID case out of his pocket, and flipped it open. The badge caught the light, looked like a hunk of gold in the sun, and the man bent and looked at it, then at the ID card with Latovsky’s picture on it.
“I see,” he said quietly. “I believe we spoke on the phone last night. Please come in, Lieutenant.”
He let Latovsky into a marble-floored foyer bigger than his house, with a gigantic crystal chandelier and a staircase wider than his living room curving up one side of it.
“I have to see Mrs. Klein,” he said tightly.
“Of course. Please come this way.”
The man led him across the foyer to a set of double doors. He pulled one and both slid silently into the wall. “Please wait here.”
Latovsky stepped into a room about fifty by fifty, with French doors at one end, walls of bookcases, and carpet patterned in gold and a green he’d seen only on holly leaves.
“She’ll be right with you,” the man said, and slid the doors closed, leaving Latovsky alone. How do you know I won’t steal the fuckin’ ashtrays1 he thought.
Over a mantel of the same marble as the foyer floor was a painting of a woman. He tucked the recorder under his arm, stepped a little gingerly onto the carpet, and went up to it.
She looked like Eve, but was much, much prettier; beautiful in fact. She was dressed in a gown with dropped shoulders and the flowing cut of the thirties and was sitting on a stone bench in a garden.
The background was muted, romanticized, with the foliage behind her brushed softly, as if the artist wanted to compensate for the stark, almost harsh way he’d painted the subject. Her face leaped out of the canvas, her eyes were wide and dark, with the same green undercast he’d seen in Eve’s. She didn’t look like a woman having her portrait painted; she looked unhappy, almost frightened.
Of what, he wondered. What could scare someone with the dough to live like this?
Stepping out of a car, grabbing a swing chain, and seeing a woman slit open and bleeding to death miles away, he thought.
The doors slid again, and he whirled around to see Eve, but another woman came into the room.
She was much older than Eve, but looked like her and like the woman in the portrait. Her hair was dark, streaked with gray and done up in a rat’s nest of a bun at the nape of her neck. Her sweater was faded, with pulls in the yam, her slacks were baggy at the knees, and her loafers were runover. She looked like a cleaning lady or a destitute cousin who’d been kept on out of charity. Then she held out her hand and a gigantic diamond flashed at him.
“How do you do,” she said coolly. “I’m Frances Tilden, Mrs. Klein’s aunt.”
Tilden: mistress of this vast mansion.
He looked into her dark, cold, totally disinterested eyes and suddenly knew she dressed this way because she didn’t give a rat’s ass what he thought of her clothes, her hair, or anything about her. To her, he was another servant, and she expected him to clear the table, pour the wine, or whatever his job was and get out of her face.
His anger boiled into rage it took all his willpower to control. He looked at the hand with the diamond flashing at him and didn’t take it. She dropped it to her side without even raising her eyebrows; she didn’t give a rat’s ass if he shook hands with her, either.
“I asked to see Mrs. Klein.” His throat was so tight talking hurt.
“That’s impossible—my niece is resting.”
“I’ll wait.”
“Not possible either. I’m afraid you’ve made the trip for nothing. I’d offer you some refreshment, but I’m sure you want to get back on the road and not waste any more time. I’ll have Simms see you out.”
Simms must be the bouncer-butler, who outweighed him by fifty pounds.
She went to a phone on a table that looked like it had been lovingly polished every week for two hundred years. She was going to throw him out and there was nothing he could do to stop her short of pulling his gun on her. He had no warrant, and no judge was going to issue one for a “psychic” who’d “seen” a couple of murders.
He stood helplessly clutching Bunny’s recorder as she picked up the phone and punched a button on it. She looked at him without seeing him and said, “You’re from Glenvale, I understand. We used to pass through it on the way to our camp on Placid. It was just a small town in those days...” Then, into the phone, “Larry, the lieutenant’s ready to leave.”
She put the phone down.
“It was very pretty then, but that’s over forty years ago, before the Northway was built. I’m sure I wouldn’t recognize it.”
Chitchat that probably passed for courtesy with people like this. The doors, which must be on platinum bearings, started that smooth, almost soundless sliding again, and he braced himself for Simms to appear to “see him out.”
It was Eve.
“Auntie, my hairdryer blew—”
She saw Latovsky and stopped. Her hair was wet, she had on a faded blue terry-cloth robe that his ex-wife would’ve given to a thrift shop years ago.
“I told the lieutenant you were resting, which is exactly what you should be doing,” the aunt said.
She had that right, he thought, because Eve looked terrible. Saturday’s sallowness had turned to pallor, and the shadows under her eyes looked like berry stains. If she’d slept at all last night, her dreams had been lousy.
Quickly, he said, “I know you were the one who called, Eve. I know you tried to help, but the M.E. said it was already too late—nothing could’ve saved him.”
“You can use my hairdryer.” The aunt raised her voice and Latovsky raised his. “But I’ve got his recorder... the killer...”
“It should be in my vanity.” The aunt’s voice was even louder. Latovsky overrode her. “The killer touched it to take the tape Bunner made of him.”
“If not, ask Laura—”
“You can help!” Latovsky yelled, and the aunt rounded on him. “No she can’t. It never helps.”
“Sometimes it does,” Eve said mildly. “Look how happy Meg is.”
“And how miserable you are.” The aunt was right again, because Eve looked miserable and he had the feeling their verbal duel was battering her. She went to one of the chairs, sat down, and looked from one to the other.
“Eve, I’m sorry,” Latovsky said. “I’d leave you alone, but a man’s been killed. You can help find the killer.”
“Oh, and what about the next killer and the next?” the aunt asked. “And what happens when the press finds out, and the next lieutenant thinks a man’s been killed, she can help.”
He didn’t have an answer and they looked at Eve. It was up to her and Latovsky realized he was holding his breath.
She brushed the wet hair away from her face and looked from one to the other, but her eyes lingered on Latovsky, then went to the recorder, and she said, “I’ll dry my hair later, Auntie.”