Calypso (14 page)

    "It was empty when the killer tried to finish him off," Carella said.

    "Is that right? Mmm. Well, in any case, the recovered bullets all measured.3585 inches in diameter, which tells us we're dealing with a.38-caliber Smith & Wesson cartridge. Your twist in inches was 183/4 to the right, and your groove diameter was.357, which would be the markings a.38 Smith & Wesson revolver would leave on a bullet, and which-when combined with the six lands we found-would seem to point pretty conclusively toward a.38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver firing.38-caliber Smith & Wesson cartridges. You've got your Regulation Police Model 33 taking Smith & Wesson.38s, and you've got your Terrier Model 32, which also takes the Smith & Wesson.38s, and both guns have a five-shot capacity. Now your Chiefs Special and your Bodyguard Model and also your Centennial take.38 S & W
Specials,
which have the same twist and groove as your regular.38, but your.38 Special has a different diameter than your.38, and the reading we got-as I told you-was.3585, which is the diameter of a.38 bullet and not a.38
Special
bullet. Our micrometers here are calibrated to one one-thousandth of an inch, so I don't think we've made any mistake about the caliber of this gun, it's a.38, all right, and given all the other factors, I'd say a Smith & Wesson.38, either the Regulation Police or the Terrier, both of which have five-shot capacities. Your Regulation Police-what do you carry, Carella?"

    "The Special."

    "Mm, well, your Regulation comes only with a four-inch barrel. Your Terrier comes with a two-inch barrel, and it's a lighter gun, seventeen ounces as opposed to eighteen for the Regulation. Are we dealing with a man or a woman here?"

    "We don't know yet."

    "Not that the ounce makes any difference, but the shorter barrel might. Easier to get in a handbag, do you see?"

    "Yes," Carella said.

    "So that's it," Gombes said. "A.38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, either the Regulation Police Model 33 or the Terrier Model 32. Hope I was able to help you," he said, and hung up.

    Meyer was still on the phone. Carella went down the hall to the Clerical Office and asked Miscolo to contact Communications and ask them to send out an interdepartmental flyer to all precincts asking for any information bearing on a suspect.38 Smith & Wesson revolver, Regulation Police Model 33 or Terrier Model 32, used in a fatal shooting on the night of September 15. Miscolo said he would call Communications as soon as his coffee perked. Carella went back up the hall to the squadroom, where Meyer was just putting up the phone.

    "Any luck?" he asked.

    "It wasn't Muscular Dystrophy, and it wasn't Multiple Sclerosis," Meyer said. "Maybe it
was
a wedding, after all. Maybe the groom
was
a Dr. Harvey Cooper and maybe-"

    "Let's try the A.F. of M.," Carella said. "Find out if they've got a member named Harvey Cooper. If they do-"

    "Yeah, but will their job records go back seven years?"

    "It's worth a try. If you get anything, move on it. I want to start visiting some of these people who were in Chadderton's appointment calendar."

    "How many names you got there?"

    "Ten or so. Let me see," Carella said, and began counting the names he'd listed in his notebook. "Eight that Chloe Chadderton could identify, two she didn't know, and two sets of initials-C. J. and C. C."

    "Have you called any of them yet?"

    "I was about to do that now."

    "Want to split the list with me?"

    "First see what you get at the A.F. of M."

    

    

    Cynthia Rogers Hargrove was wearing a quilted dressing gown over what appeared to be a granny nightgown with a lace Peter Pan collar. A pearl choker was around her neck. Mrs. Hargrove was seventy-six years old if she was a day. She sat opposite Meyer Meyer at a damask-covered table in the dining alcove of her Hall Avenue apartment, the pouring rain streaking eastern windows that might otherwise have been streaming sunshine. Mrs. Hargrove spoke with the sort of voice Meyer associated with only the very wealthy-it was not only in Britain that a person's vocal inflections gave away his class. Mrs. Hargrove was Vassar out of Rosemary Hall out of private elementary school someplace in the city. Mrs. Hargrove was sleek-lined sloops racing off Newport. Mrs. Hargrove was afternoon tea in Palm Beach. Mrs. Hargrove was breakfast at ten o'clock on a Monday morning when almost everyone else in the city had been up since seven and had consumed his first meal of the day before eight. In this land of the free and home of the brave, in this nation where all men were created equal, Mrs. Hargrove was nonetheless living testament to the wag's adage that
some
men were created
more
equal than others. Meyer felt somewhat intimidated in her presence. Perhaps because he'd never eaten a toasted English muffin with genuine Scottish gooseberry jam on it. As he bit into it, he was certain the crunch could be heard clear uptown and crosstown in the very muster room of the Eight-Seven. Hastily, he sipped at his coffee, hoping to muffle the sounds of mastication.

    "The Blondie Ball, we called it," Mrs. Hargrove said.

    Meyer blinked at her, and then said, "The Blondie Ball?"

    "Yes. Do you know the comic-strip characters? Blondie and Dagwood? Are they familiar to you?"

    "Yes, certainly," Meyer said.

    "That was our theme. The comic strip. More coffee?" she asked, and reached for the silver coffeepot just to the right of her plate. "How did you happen to get to me?" she asked, pouring.

    "I called the A.F. of M.," Meyer said, "and they-"

    "A.F. of M.?"

    "American Federation of Musicians."

    "Yes, surely," Mrs. Hargrove said.

    "Yes," Meyer said, "and asked them if they could check their records… I discovered the leader has to file contracts with them, the band leader…"

    "Oh, yes, I would imagine," Mrs. Hargrove said.

    "Yes," Meyer said, "and I asked them to check on a musician named Harvey Cooper…"

    "Oh, yes."

    "The name means something to you?"

    "Yes, he's the man I hired for the job."

    "Yes," Meyer said, "this was seven years ago, September the eleventh, to be exact, this is all information the union gave me. And they also supplied me with your name and address, which was on the contract you signed."

    "Yes, how simple really."

    "It took us a little while to get there," Meyer said. "Earlier, we were looking for something sponsored by either the Muscular Dystrophy Association or the National Multiple Sclerosis-"

    "Oh no, nothing quite that grand," Mrs. Hargrove said. "Do have another muffin, Mr. Meyer. They will go to waste otherwise."

    "But it
was
a charity ball, isn't that so?"

    "Yes. But what one might call a
private
charity, rather than one of the national organizations, do you understand?"

    "What was the charity?"

    "We were trying to establish a scholarship fund for the local high school. So that deserving youngsters might go on to college. Most of the local residents, as you can appreciate, send their children to preparatory schools when they're of age. But the neighborhood high school is really quite good, and we felt the youngsters there should be given the same opportunities the more privileged youngsters enjoy."

    "I see," Meyer said. "So the purpose of the ball was to raise money for this scholarship fund?"

    "Yes."

    "How much did you hope to raise?"

    "The estimated four-year tuition and living expenses for a student at a quality institution of higher learning was approximately twenty thousand dollars. We hoped to raise enough to send three students to college for the full four-year terms."

    "Then you hoped to raise sixty thousand dollars?"

    "Yes."

    "And how much did you actually raise?"

    "Twenty thousand more than that. The ball was quite successful. I imagine the Blondie theme had a lot to do with it."

    "What does that mean actually," Meyer asked, "the Blondie theme?"

    "Well, it was a fancy-dress ball, you understand. The women all had to come as Blondie and the men had to come as Dagwood. Some of them brought along their dogs, of course, posing as Daisy, the dog in the comic strip. I tried to discourage that, I made it clear in the preball announcements that animals were not encouraged, hoping of course they would understand we didn't want a
plethora
of Daisys. But some people missed the point, however bluntly I'd worded it. We had three hundred and twenty Blondies, an equal number of Dagwoods, and at least a dozen Daisys."

    "Dogs running around, do you mean?"

    "Yes. Well, not precisely running around. We were prepared for such an occasion, you see. We had contacted an organization that supplies dog-walkers-"

    "Dog-walkers?"

    "Yes. College students, usually, who will take dogs for their ritual walks during the
day,
for example, in a situation where both people in a marriage are working people, or at
night,
should anyone simply not desire the responsibility of walking an animal-a position I find quite understandable, by the way. I loathe dogs, don't you?"

    "Well, I wouldn't say I-"

    "Positively loathsome," Mrs. Hargrove said. "Then again,
all
animals are. Why people would want to keep pets is beyond my imagination. Filthy little things, all of them. In any event, we had this cadre of trained dog-walkers on hand to redeliver, so to speak, any wayward pup whence it had come. Only two of the patrons objected. One of them had a dachshund that was supposed to represent Daisy, can you visualize that, and the other had a Pekingese. We put them in separate cloakrooms-the dogs, not the patrons-and solved the problem that way. But really, can you imagine what bedlam we would have had if everyone were allowed to bring a dog? Some people have no sense at all when it comes to animals. None whatsoever. Loathsome beasts, all of them."

    "When you say you had three hundred and twenty Blondies…"

    "Yes, we sold that many admission tickets. Two hundred and fifty dollars a couple. Three hundred and twenty women masquerading as Blondie and three hundred and twenty men with their hair sticking up in front, the way Dagwood's sticks up-the poor man has a cowlick at the front of his head-and wearing bow ties. Blondie and Dagwood."

    "What was the purpose of that, Mrs. Hargrove?"

    "The purpose? Oh, it was just a gimmick, Mr. Meyer. But it earned us eighty thousand dollars in admissions, which wasn't bad. And the Cadillac we gave as first prize for the best impersonation was donated by a local dealer."

    "Was there a contest or something for the best costume?"

    "Well, not merely the costume. Dagwood and Blondie, after all, are not that distinctively dressed in the comic strip. In fact, I think it was the very simplicity of the theme that accounted for its success, don't you see? The women, after all, could wear whatever they chose, so long as they were blond in the bargain. And the man needed only a bow tie and a little hair pomade. But it was for the overall
impression
that the prize was awarded. The way a couple walked and moved, the representation, the impersonation of Blondie and Dagwood. They were all masked, you understand…"

    "Masked, yes."

    "Yes. So there was absolutely no question of favoritism on the part of the judges. They could judge only by… oh, intangibles. Whether a couple actually created the
image
of the comic-strip characters come to life."

    "I see. If I understand this correctly then,
all
of the women were wearing blond wigs."

    "Well, not all of them."

    "You said…"

    "Yes, but some of them were natural blondes."

    "Oh, yes, of course."

    "Or if not natural blondes, at least accepting a little assistance from a beautician.
Those
women, of course, did not
need
wigs."

    "Of course not."

    "But you are correct in assuming that the overall impression was of a ballroom
full
of three hundred and twenty blondes, yes."

    "Yes," Meyer said.

    "Yes."

    "All of them masked," Meyer said.

    "Yes. Which is where I think the fun came in, don't you? Can you picture a room full of masked blond women? Doesn't it sound a great deal of fun?"

    "Yes," Meyer said, "it does. Mrs. Hargrove, the musicians union told me the affair was held at the Hotel Palomar…"

    "Yes, downtown, directly opposite the Palomar Theater."

    "Which ballroom, ma'm, can you remember?"

    "Yes, the Stardust Ballroom."

    "Is that a large ballroom?"

    "Not so large as their
Grand
Ballroom, but we didn't want a room so enormous that the people would rattle around in it. We rather cherished the notion, you see, of all those masked blondes and masked men in polka-dot ties dancing cheek to cheek and buttock to buttock in a more intimate ballroom. That's why we chose the Stardust Ballroom. That was the fun of it, you see, that was the point."

    "Did you have any opportunity to talk with any of the musicians that night, Mrs. Hargrove?"

    "Only Mr. Cooper. Mr. Cooper handled all the arrangements for me, my contract was with Mr. Cooper, he supplied both bands. They were quite good actually. The other band played Latin-type music, do you know?" she said, and lifted both hands and snapped her fingers.

    "But aside from Mr. Cooper, you didn't talk to any of the musicians in either band?"