Singer 02 - Long Time No See (36 page)

All I could truthfully say to her was: “I would have said, ‘Are you nuts, Kate? Leave it alone!’”

“I rest my case,” my daughter said softly.

The minute I hung up, however, I went right back to the degumming dilemma. Peanut butter was a substance, along with bittersweet chocolate, that I dared not allow in the house. Not that I would employ something so blatantly gooey as peanut butter to separate paper from gum. However, I did stick the receipt into a plastic bag, pop it in the freezer, and got busy quartering an orange. I’d only halved it when I retrieved the bag.

What should I do with this evidence? Turn it over to Nelson so he could give it to a police laboratory—if he thought it a lead worth pursuing? That made sense, except the police lab might turn it over to Homicide, and they, in their proven idiocy, might conclude that the Jane Doe who’d bought a $3,078.62 sable boa or whatever had absolutely zero to do with Courtney Logan’s murder. Thus the cops would continue on their merry way, looking for a smoking gun to help them nab Greg.

A laboratory, I was thinking as I returned to the orange. A laboratory I could trust. I considered calling Fancy Phil and asking if he knew any drug kingpins and whether they might have a rogue chemist on their payrolls. But what if the kingpin had an unstated beef with my client? Or what if there was a DEA bust and the receipt was seized along with forty-three tons of cocaine? Besides, I concluded, a rogue chemist might not agree to chat with the cops if he/she discovered anything worth pursuing.

It wasn’t until a few hours later, when I was in the middle of the householder’s chore I most detested, bill paying, that it dawned on me that although I didn’t know a lab, I did know a chemist. Jenny McFarland and I had been on a committee to try to improve the lot of adjunct professors. I’d always felt that she and I could have been great friends if not for vast differences in age, politics, religion, marital status, and cultural interests. We disagreed on everything except that we were awfully fond of each other. So I called her at her house in Forest Hills Gardens, in Queens. While I babysat for her five children (who were so well behaved I wondered if Jenny had been sprinkling some tranquilizing chemical over their Cocoa Puffs), she drove over to St. Elizabeth’s to try to separate American Express receipt from grape gum. She didn’t even ask why. I’d told her it was important and a personal favor and that was enough for her.

Three hours, six diapers, and untold readings of
Where’s My Teddy?
later, Jenny returned with a huge grin and a piece of purple gum in a small, transparent container—as well as a slightly holey, somewhat oily receipt from Louis Vuitton on East Fifty-seventh Street in Manhattan for three-thousand-bucks-plus worth of luggage. For all I knew, that could wind up being one small duffel bag. The lucky owner was not Courtney Logan, not Emily Chavarria, and not Vanessa Russell. Standing beside Jenny, gazing at the receipt, I experienced what the heretofore meaningless cliché—jumping out of one’s skin—meant.

“Another name! Samantha R. Corby!” I crowed into my cell phone as I sat in my Jeep in front of Jenny’s house. When I explained who Samantha R. was and how I’d learned about her by going into the Logan house, and finding and ungumming the receipt, Nelson threw a fit that included using every curse word he’d learned since fifth grade. I promised him I would go straight home and call no one, especially Fancy Phil, until he came over after work. He ordered me to put the receipt on top of a piece of plain paper, not paper towel, not newspapers, and
leave it alone
.

Well, I needed to get back to what that ass Warren G. Harding called a “return to normalcy.” When I got home, I returned to my month’s stack of bills and praised myself for being, unlike Samantha R., so restrained a consumer. I spent the rest of the day pruning whatever tree or bush happened to get in my way. Then I sat on the patio listening to Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald sing together. When they got to “I Won’t Dance,” I thought how easy it was to say that in song, how hard in life. I was dancing. Having started again with this man I felt I’d been born to dance with, what was going to happen to me? An endless adulterous whirl? A gentlemanly thank-you to me as the song ended, then a return to the lady he’d brought to the ball? It wasn’t that I was trying to avoid thinking about the receipt. The truth was after so many years of lifelessness, I was so overstimulated I couldn’t think straight.

The last thing on my mind was sex—except around five-thirty I admit I did take a second shower, then spritzed a little Femme in strategic areas. But having exhausted myself thinking about my future or the lack of it, I somehow found the energy to obsess about the case again, trying to figure out a way to discover if “Vanessa Russell” or “Samantha R. Corby” had left any trace at all. I couldn’t imagine calling some banker in the Bahamas and saying: Listen, I know you’re not supposed to give out information on your depositors, but could you make an exception in this case because I’m a nice person? I don’t need much, just the address where you send the statements.

A little after six, I opened the door for Nelson. His slow step over the threshold and his pulling me toward him in the most leisurely way was a clue I didn’t have to be a detective to decipher. I was about to suggest Work first, play later, but the warm path his hand made as it snaked under my blouse and made its way up my back changed my mind.

The only awkward half-moment was when we reached the top of the stairs. I realized I couldn’t bring him into my bedroom. God knows why. Rationally, I knew Bob’s ghost would not suddenly materialize in his customary stance—arms crossed over chest, lips compressed in vexation. Still, I stood unmoving, until Nelson suggested quietly: “How about one of your kids’ rooms, or a guest room or something?” I led him into my office, where I took
Mr. Truman’s War: The Final Victories of World War II and the Birth of the Postwar World
off the couch. We made such splendid love that when it was finally over, I virtually floated down the stairs, back to the American Express receipt on a piece of white printer paper on the kitchen counter.

I didn’t mention I’d already made two copies of it and put one of them in the mailbox to Fancy Phil. As
Cosmopolitan
used to instruct us girls in the sixties, there’s no need to tell your man everything. The two of us gazed down at the receipt. I said: “Now don’t tell me getting out the grape gum is a felony with a minimum ten-year sentence at a maximum-security institution because I won’t believe it.”

But Nelson wasn’t listening. He was mechanically buttoning his shirt and staring at the receipt. “This is the place for the expensive pocketbooks, right?” he asked.

“Right.”

“And you found this in one of Courtney Logan’s pocketbooks.”

“Yes. In a shoulder bag. Not a Vuitton. Nice leather, though, if I remember correctly.”

“Let’s get back to this.” Nelson pointed to the receipt. “Either the card she used was a fake or stolen or a legitimate card she got using a false name. Unless it turns out it was Emily’s card, and Courtney just happened to pick up that receipt. Or maybe there really is a Samantha R. Corby around, and when the kid or whoever spit out the gum, Courtney just picked up that piece of paper.”

“They’re all possibilities,” I agreed. “But listen, Nelson. Under normal circumstances, you get a receipt, you put it in your bag. It’s yours. If you’re insanely organized you keep it. Or you throw it out when you get home. But most of the time a receipt just lives there for a while, until spring-cleaning or whatever. Now, if you’re preoccupied with more important things—the way Courtney was after the summer—and you catch your kid chewing gum, you reflexively wrap it up in whatever you’ve got—a tissue or in any piece of paper you’ve thrown into your handbag.”

“So you’re saying that in your opinion, most likely Samantha R. and Courtney are one and the same.”

“Well, this isn’t a normal situation, what with suburban women being missing or getting murdered and fake credit cards and questionable stock trades and all that, but still, yes, in my opinion they’re one and the same.”

“So how come”—he broke down and borrowed my reading glasses—“how come it says ‘Luggage’ here?”

“Because they sell luggage, too,” I explained.

“Courtney was murdered on the thirty-first?”

“That’s right.”

“Doesn’t it strike you as funny,” Nelson said, “that six days before she was killed, at a time of year hardly anyone takes a vacation, and a little too early for Christmas shopping, she was buying luggage? Where was she planning to go?”

I
BEAMED AT
Nelson. “You can find out where Courtney was planning to go!” Standing motionless about two feet apart in front of the cabinet where I stored my mixing bowls and baking gear, we were gazing down again at the American Express receipt. I’m not sure why we couldn’t seem to move from it—whether we were still awed at finding that rectangle of paper that could prove a memento of Courtney Logan’s secret life or if each believed the other would make a grab for the receipt and run like hell: him to police headquarters, me to Fancy Phil.

“What do you mean, I can find out?”

“I mean, don’t you have a number to call and get a printout of whatever charges were on that card?”

His eyebrows strained toward each other. He couldn’t figure out how come I was asking a question that had such an obvious answer. “Of course I do.” If he’d been his children’s age, he would have said Duh.

“I don’t get you,” I told him. “I know it’s not your unit, and maybe if this case gets solved you won’t get enough credit, or any credit. But don’t you have an overwhelming need to know?
Now?
”

“My sweetheart,” Nelson said sweetly. He’d always been a lot of good things—thoughtful, friendly, intuitive, tender, fair. Loving, too. But sweet he wasn’t.

“What’s the bad news?”

He put his arm on my shoulder and pulled me close so my head bent to his shoulder, the kind of playful embrace football players give each other. “Judith,” he said so warmheartedly that I immediately understood why a criminal would confess to him. “I’ve already done much more than I ought to. Going to New Jersey, checking Emily’s phone records, the cell phone purchase. And then talking to you about them. You may not think so, but I’ve gone out on a limb.”

I pulled away not so much in anger, though I was less than delighted, but because I couldn’t converse with my neck stretched out and my head resting on a shoulder that felt surprisingly bony for a guy with actual muscles. “I know you have. I appreciate it. I’m grateful for the faith you have in me.”

Thankfully, he dropped the sweetie-pie and good-buddy acts. “I haven’t told my guys in Homicide how come I’m so interested in the Logan case. They think it’s because of the Phil Lowenstein connection, or because I miss the unit so much. I definitely haven’t told Carl Gevinski. He’s the asshole in charge of the investigation. It’s been just you and you alone.”

I leaned against the cabinet, but far enough from the receipt that he’d be assured I couldn’t execute a deft spin and snatch, though I suspect he knew that for me, deft was not an applicable adjective. “I don’t know what to say, Nelson. The last thing I want is for you to get into trouble on my account. And I understand that it probably wouldn’t look good for you to be consorting with a person who has ties to Fancy Phil, a guy involved in a case you’re investigating—although obviously that could be explained.”

“Explained is one thing. Believed is another.”

“I don’t want you to compromise your integrity or your livelihood.”

“I know that.”

“The only solution I can think of is to let you call the shots if you can promise me an honest and thorough reinvestigation of Courtney’s murder. If you can’t, I have a responsibility to Phil and his son—” He didn’t like the last remark. He slammed his hands down into his pockets and began one of his staring contests. “If you can’t share any of this information with me, then I’ll write up whatever I already have and let Phil turn everything over to Greg’s lawyer.” Naturally, he was still looking directly into my eyes. Supposedly with men the staring business is about who gets to be the alpha male, but since I was willing to yield to Nelson the right to the biggest chunk of woolly mammoth, I didn’t have to feel like a bug-eyed fool. So I signaled my beta status by glancing back at the receipt. Nevertheless, I wasn’t about to forgo my argument. “Greg and his attorney have an absolute right to know what I’ve found,” I informed him. “Look, she won’t like it; no criminal lawyer is going to be thrilled that Fancy Phil has had a secret, parallel investigation going on, except her detective hasn’t produced any miracles. But chances are, the guy being a pro, he has a contact at American Express who’s either sympathetic or bribable. He can find out what Samantha R. was buying before Halloween.”

While Nelson stayed in the kitchen to make some calls, I went upstairs to slip into something more comfortable, which in my case was a pair of baggy navy shorts (my legs being fairly sensational until three inches above my knees), a big white shirt, sleeves rolled up, and thongs. Still, I didn’t know if Nelson was staying or going until I came back down and saw him standing before the open refrigerator with a bunch of tired parsley in his hand. “Believe it or not,” he told me, “you have a better refrigerator than most single women.”

“That’s because I eat more than most single women. Are you cooking?”

“Sure.” Right after high school, Nelson had gone into the air force and been assigned to a stove instead of a jet fighter. He bragged his most brilliant dish was barbecued chicken for three hundred, though he’d always claimed he could pull together a decent meal for a smaller group, like two.

“What are you making?” I asked.

“Pasta with a sauce made out of whatever you got.” He pulled out an onion, a stray clove of garlic, and a red pepper so old it had imploded upon itself, then opened the freezer and discovered half a French bread I had no memory of buying, eating, or serving.

“How do you know so much about single women’s refrigerators?” I asked.