"It shouldn't take long."
There were two women in the warm, comfortable living room. Both were in bathrobes and slippers. A hatchet-faced blonde, smoking a cigarette in a long holder, was standing.
The other, younger, with softer features, was in a wheelchair.
There was an afghan across her lap, concealing her legs.
Beele made the introductions. The blonde was his wife, Teresa. The girl in the wheelchair was his wife's sister, Evelyn Packard. Calazo bowed to both women, smiling. Like most veteran detectives, he knew when to play Mr. Nasty and when to play Mr. Nice. He reckoned niceness would do for this household. That wife looked like she had a spine.
"I want to apologize for disturbing you at this hour," he said smoothly.
"But it's a matter of some importance concerning Isaac Kane."
"Is Isaac all right?" a jittery Evelyn Packard said.
"He hasn't been in an accident, has he?"
"Oh, no," Calazo said, "nothing like that. He's fine, as far as I know.
Could I sit down for a few minutes?"
"Of course," the wife said.
"Let me have your hat and coat. We were just having coffee. Would you care for a cup?"
"That would be fine. Black, please."
"Judson," she said, "bring the coffee."
Calazo made a few comments about the weather and what an attractive home they had. Meanwhile he was taking them in, trying to figure the tensions there, and also eyeballing the apartment. The first things he noted were five of Isaac's pastels on the walls. Someone had done a nice job framing them.
"Good coffee," he said.
"Thank you. Well, about Isaac Kane… I notice you have some of his drawings here. Pretty things, aren't they?"
"They're beautiful!" Evelyn burst out.
"Isaac is a genius."
Her sister laughed lightly.
"Picasso he ain't, dear," she advised. "They're really quite commercial.
But remarkable, I admit, considering his-his background."
"I've been thinking of buying one of his things," the detective said.."Would you mind if I asked how much you paid for these? Without the frames."
"Oh, we didn't buy them," Teresa Beele said.
"They were gifts to Evelyn. Isaac is madly in love with her."
"Teresa"' her sister said, blushing.
"You know that's not so."
"It is so. I see how he looks at you."
"Isaac is a lonely boy," Judson Beele said in a troubled voice.
"I don't think he has many friends. Evelyn is…" He didn't finish.
Calazo turned to the young woman in the wheelchair.
"How did you meet him, Miss Packard?"
"At the Center. Teresa took me there once, and I never want to go again; it's so depressing. But I met Isaac, and he asked if he could come visit me."
"A perfect match," her sister murmured, fitting another cigarette into the long holder.
Bitch, Calazo thought.
"And how long have you known him, Miss Packard?"
"Oh, it's been about six months now. Hasn't it, Judson?"
"About," her brother-in-law said, nodding. Then to Calazo: "Can you tell us what this is all about?"
"In a minute," the detective said.
"Does he come to visit you every Friday night, Miss Packard?"
"He comes a-courting," Teresa said blithely, and Calazo realized he could learn to hate that woman with very little effort.
"Yes," the girl in the wheelchair said, lifting her chin.
"He visits on Friday night."
"Every Friday night? Hasn't he ever missed? Come to see you some other night?"
She shook her head.
"No. Always on Friday night." She looked at the other two.
"Isn't that right?"
They agreed. Isaac Kane visited only on Friday nights.
Every Friday night. For almost six months.
"You're always here when he comes?" Calazo asked the Beeles.
"You're never out-to a movie or somewhere else?"
"We're here," the wife said grimly.
"I wouldn't leave Evelyn alone with that person. Considering his mental condition, I think it best that we be present."
"Teresa!" her sister said angrily.
"Isaac has always been perfectly well behaved."
"Still, you never know with people like that."
"Look," Calazo said.
"There was a very minor robbery in the brownstone where Kane lives. It doesn't amount to much, but it's my job to check the whereabouts of everyone in the building at the time it happened. It was four weeks ago, at about nine-thirty on a Friday night."
"He was here," Evelyn said, promptly and firmly.
"He couldn't have done it because he was here. Besides, Isaac wouldn't do anything like that."
"all of you would swear that he was here?" the detective said, looking from one to another.
They nodded. it wasn't complete. It wasn't absolutely perfect. But it never was.
There were always possibilities: forgetfulness, deliberate lying, unknown motives. But it would take a hundred years to track down everything, and even then there might be blanks, questions, doubts.
Calazo couldn't recall ever clearing a case where every goddamned thing was tied up neatly. You went so far and then decided on the preponderance of evidence and your own instinct. There came a time when more investigation and more and more was just gunning an engine with no forward motion: a waste of time.
"I think Isaac Kane is clean," he declared, standing up.
"Of course he is," Evelyn Packard said stoutly, "He's a dear, sweet boy.
He'd never do anything bad."
"Sure," her sister said skeptically.
Her husband blinked behind his rimless glasses.
"How did you connect Isaac with us?" Teresa Beele asked.
"I followed him to this building last night," he told her.
"Then, this morning, I rang every bell until I found someone who knew him."
"My," she said mockingly, "aren't you the smart one."
"Sometimes," he said, staring at her coldly.
"Judson," she said, "bring the policeman his hat and coat."
Calazo drove home and spent Saturday afternoon working on a report for Boone. He wrote that in his opinion Isaac Kane could be cleared, and further investigation was unwarranted.
When he had finished, he read over what he had written and reflected idly on the relationship between Teresa and Judson Beele, and between Evelyn Packard and Isaac Kane, and between Teresa and her sister, and between Evelyn and her brother-in-law.
"You know, han," he said to his wife, "life really is a fucking soap opera."
"I wish you wouldn't use words like that," she said.
"Soap opera?" he asked innocently.
"What's wrong with soap opera?"
"Oh, you," she said.
He laughed and goosed her.
"What's for dinner?" he said.
Calazo wasn't the only one thinking about Saturday night dinner.
Detective Timothy (Big Tim) Hogan was beginning to wonder if he would ever eat again.
It had been a long day. Hogan was parked outside Ronald J. Bellsey's high-rise by 8:00 A.M and sat there for almost an hour. Just when he thought it might be safe to make a quick run for a coffee and Danish, he saw Bellsey's white Cadillac come out of the underground garage.
The subject was alone in the car, and Hogan tailed him over to the wholesale meat market on West 18th Street. Bellsey parked and went inside.
Hogan had no idea how long he'd be there, but figured this would be a good chance to brace Bellsey's wife without her husband being present.
Hogan was not a great brain and he knew it. So he always did his best to go by the book, thinking that would keep him out of trouble. It hadn't, but none of his stupidities had been serious enough to get him broken back to the ranks-so far.
It wasn't strictly true that Big Tim was stupid, but he was unimaginative and not strong at initiating new avenues of investigation.