Second Chance (20 page)

* * *

I didn't know what to think when I finished the
folder. By definition suicides always leave unanswered questions
behind them, and Estelle Pearson was no exception. If you were
convinced from the start that she'd killed herself, then you accepted
the fact that those questions would never be satisfactorily answered.
Which was precisely what the cops and the coroner had done. If like
Ethan Pearson you were convinced that the woman had been kidnapped
and murdered, the least you could say, on reading through the
reports, was that the evidence didn't rule out the possibility.

The coroner hadn't been thinking rape and assault
when he examined the corpse, so some of the tests that would have
normally been administered in a criminal investigation—tests for
semen, tests for blood type, tests that would have been consistent
with the woman's injuries—simply weren't performed. The cops hadn't
been thinking homicide either, which is why they hadn't bothered to
record Ethan's testimony or come up with anything other than a spotty
timetable of Estelle Pearson's last few hours on earth. Perhaps
self-protectively Shelley Sacks had convinced himself that his friend
was hopelessly psychotic, so he didn't really have to face the
question of why, after several months of progress, the woman had
suddenly decided to end her life.

There was room for doubt,
all right. And yet, even playing devil's advocate, I couldn't
honestly say I believed Estelle Pearson had been murdered by Herbert
Talmadge. The woman's mental balance was very fragile. And even if
the evidence of her suicide had a few holes in it, it was still
persuasive. While Talmadge would help to explain the unexpected
suddenness and violence of her death, his pattern of assaults didn't
really lit the case. He'd always picked on girlfriends—women he
knew. If he'd attacked Estelle Pearson he'd stepped out of character
and assaulted a virtual stranger. On the basis of the evidence I
couldn't see any reason why.

* * *

I'd just finished with the transcripts when the phone
rang. I was glad of the interruption—glad to get away from the
pictures and the autopsy report. I dropped the folder on the table
and walked over to the wallphone in the kitchen. It was Louise
Pearson at the other end.

"How's Phil?" I asked after saying hello.

"He gets a bypass tomorrow morning."

"And the chances . . . ?"

"Not good," she said.

"I'm sorry to hear it."

"So am I," Louise said sadly. "We
haven't had a happy marriage, Phil and I. Not a . . . happy marriage.
But we're tied to one another, nevertheless?" She cleared her
throat. "Shelley said you needed to talk to me?"

"
A couple of questions about the kids."

"Why bother? It's pretty clear that Kirsty and
Ethan aren't coming home, isn't it?"

"It looks that way," I admitted.

"Then why bother? Why bother about any of this
hopeless mess?"

I didn't say anything.

"I'm sorry," Louise said after a moment.
"It's been awful being in this goddamn hospital for ten hours.
Dead time—time to think about all the mistakes. Phil and the kids.
Frank."

"Your first husband."

"
I was trying to remember why I married him."

"What did you come up with?"

"I loved him, I guess," she said with mild
astonishment, as if it surprised her to admit it, as if the love
itself surprised her. "At least I don't have to cope with that
anymore. It was pure business with Phil. He got what he wanted—me.
And I got the life of the country club. It was a fair trade, I
suppose. The country club set for Frank"

She cleared her throat again. "What is it you
wanted to ask me?"

Rita Scarne was on my mind—because of the police
report—so I asked about her.

"How in the world did you come up with that
woman's name?" Louise said with a laugh.

"I didn't. Ethan did. He tried to call her Last
night. At least, I think he did—sometime before he and Kirsty ended
up with Talmadge in that clearing above the river. The Scarne woman
claims he didn't call."

"You've talked to her?"

"Severa1 hours ago."

"Rita was a hot ticket back in the old days,"
Louise said.

"
You knew her?"

"Phil and I would occasionally run into her at
parties after we were married. She was always with someone new—and
young. Rita had a bit of a reputation with the hospital personnel."

"For what?"

"For being wild. You know, sexually uninhibited.
It was rumored that she liked her sex rough."

"Rough enough to interest a man like Talmadge?"

"I wou1dn't know. I shouldn't have been
repeating thirteen-year-old gossip in the first place."

"Phil hired her to look after Estelle, didn't
he?"

"Yes. He'd worked with Rita at Rollman's and
thought I she was a competent nurse. I guess she was—I never heard
anyone say different. I can't see why Ethan and Kirsty went looking
for her unless they associate her with Estelle."

"Or with Talmadge," I said. "Herbie
had a white girlfriend who was a nurse."

"It's possible, I guess. What do you think?"

"I think I'm going to have to talk to her again.
Soon."

Before hanging up I told Louise that the cops wanted
to know Kirsty's blood type. "I know," she said. "I've
already spoken with them."

"When?"

"Lieutenant Parker called here at the hospital
about an hour ago. He also wanted to talk to you."

"Did he say what about?"

"That man, Talmadge, I think."

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After finishing with Louise I phoned Parker at the
Miamitown PD—and got one of his deputies.

"This is Stoner. I hear your boss is looking for
me."

"Yeah, he is," the cop said. "You got
a pencil?"

I took out my notebook.

"
Six forty-four Reading Road, Apartment five.
Park's there, and so are the Cincinnati police."

"What happened?" I said, writing the
address down.

"This guy you're
looking for—Talmadge. They found him about an hour ago."

* * *

Six forty-four Reading Road was right in the heart of
the Avondale ghetto—a grimy four-story apartment house with a
thirties Moderne facade of black marble window bands and smooth grey
block. Small spotlights lit the walkway and the door. The building
itself was dark, save for scattered lights in the apartments.

It was past nine when I got there—full dark and
cold. But in spite of the bitter weather a small crowd of onlookers
had gathered in front of the building—men and women, all black,
peering curiously at the cops in the foyer. There were cops
everywhere, and patrol cars up and down the street.

I made my way through the crowd into the apartment
house lobby. A cop I knew—a patrolman named Klein—pointed me
toward Sergeant Larry Parker.

"
He's up on the second floor. Apartment five.
That's where most of them are."

I went up the staircase to the second floor. The
stairwell smelled of the dry rot that was eating into the banisters;
the stairposts shifted in their sockets like loose teeth. From the
landing I spotted Parker and Al Foster of the CPD, leaning against
the wall outside number 5. There were several other cops in the
hall—forensic specialists with evidence kits. A dozen neighbors
crowded in doorways and stared wide-eyed at the activity.

Inside apartment 5 a photographic strobe went off
with a brilliant flash, spilling harsh white light through the open
door. For a split second everyone in the hall was frozen in the
glare. The detectives, the wide-eyed bystanders. Like one of Weegee's
midnight crime-scene specials. I didn't want to think about what the
cops inside the apartment might be photographing.

I walked up to Parker and Foster.

"I been trying to get you for an hour,"
Parker said when he spotted me.

"You've been here that 1ong?"

He glanced at a wristwatch. "Since a quarter of
eight."

He looked at Al. "Isn't that when the call first
came in?"

Al nodded. "Around then."

I said, "What have you got?"

 
"What we got," Al said, pushing away
from the wall with his elbows and turning to the door, Herbert
Talmadge's apartment."

"What about Talmadge himself?"

"
Take a look," he said, waving me in like
an impresario. I walked through the door into a foursquare room,
empty except for a single folding chair and a new-looking portable
TV. The pine floors were swollen in ridges where the hot water pipes
ran underneath them, giving the place a wavy, seasick feel. There was
a stench, too. Not the dry rot smell of the stairs but a fecal smell
of decay, like a dead animal in a wall. I didn't know where the stink
was coming from until I glanced to my left through a portal leading
to a small kitchen.

I couldn't see him clearly because of the
criminalistics men surrounding him like mourners at a visitation. But
when one of the cops moved, I caught a glimpse of his legs, sprawled
at angles as if he'd been struggling to get up. Then I saw his
face—that devilish, V-shaped face—grotesquely purpled and swollen
in rigor. Herbert Talmadge. Streaks of blood, turned thick brown like
molasses, flowed from his body, from a wound I cou1dn't see.

I looked away, at the seasick room. There were no
decorations on the peeling yellow walls. No pictures or papers. A
bare mantel to the right with a small dusty mirror above it and a
dead fireplace below, charred like a burnt pot. Blinded windows on
the far wall, with a stertorous hot water radiator rattling beneath
them. Like Ethan Pearson's barren motel room it was the end of the
road for Herbert Talmadge.

When the smell began to get to me, I went back into
the hall. Al was standing just outside the door.

"You saw?"

I nodded. "How long has he been dead?"

"We won't know for sure until the coroner gets
him. But forensic is guessing about twelve hours—maybe a little
less."

"
So he died around six this morning?"

Foster nodded. "Give or take an hour."

The Pearson kids had left the motel room at midnight
Monday. Their abandoned car had been fonmd at six that morning—and
it had been in the clearing for an hour or two more than that,
judging by the dead battery. That meant that Talmadge could have left
his prints in the Volare anytime between midnight and four or live
a.m. After that he'd apparently come home to be murdered himself.

I stared uneasily through the door at the circle of
cops standing around Herbert Talmadge's corpse. "How did he
die?"

"Again, we're not sure," Foster said. "Drug
overdose, we think. At least we found an empty bottle of Demerol on
the floor—and enough drugs in the bathroom to have put him to sleep
forever. But there's a wound, too."

"What kind of wound?"

"Somebody stabbed him in the heart. What we
don't know is whether the stabbing occurred before or after Talmadge
was dead. Whoever stabbed him didn't like him—that's for sure. They
twisted the blade back and forth several dozen times, like a drill
bit."

In spite of myself I thought of Ethan and Kirsty
Pearson. They had motive, God knew. And Talmadge had died as Ethan
foretold in his poem—a knife blade in the darkness.

"Did you find any evidence connecting Talmadge
to the Pearson kids?"

"We found a woman's shoe in the fireplace,"
Parker said. "Size eight. There was some blood on it. Right now
we're not sure whose blood it is. There was some other stuff in the
fireplace, some paper—apparently he tried to burn it."

"Any idea what it was?"

"Forensic's got it. We'll know in a day or so."
Parker took a breath. "There's something else."

From the look on his face I knew I wasn't going to
like it. "What?"

"The back room. There's a mattress and . . .
well, it looks like someone was tied down to it and pretty badly
used. We found blood, hair, ropes, and a gag. Harry, the blood is
type O negative. Same as on the panties."

"
Kirsty," I said.

Parker nodded. "They must've found him in the
apartment. He overpowered them and .... When he was done he drove
them out to the Miami and tossed them in like a sack of kittens. It
almost looks like Talmadge was waiting for them. I mean, the ropes
and gags."

I said, "Didn't anyone in the building hear
anything, for chrissake?"

Parker shook his head. "No. At least no one's
saying they did."

"Who called the thing in?"

"A neighbor-woman up the hall," A1 said. He
pulled a notebook from his coat, flipped it open, and glanced at his
notes. "When she got home from work today, she smelled that
stink in Small's room and phoned us."