“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.
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.’ ”