'No, just the two of us. In fact, I don't think she had any other friends. She told me once that all the people she'd known when she was young and famous were dead now. All she had was me, I guess. And the cat. She was very close to poor Irina. What's going to happen to her now? Will she go to an animal shelter?' 'Miss, he killed the cat, too,' Hawes said.
'Oh dear. Oh dear,' Karen said, and was silent for a moment. 'She used to go out early every morning to buy fresh fish for her, can you imagine? No matter how cold it was, arthritic old lady. Irina loved fish.'
Her brown eyes suddenly welled with tears. Hawes wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her. Instead, he said, 'Did she have any living relatives?'
People to inform, Carella thought. He almost sighed.
'A married daughter in London.' 'Do you know her name?' 'No.'
'Anyone here in this country?'
'I think a granddaughter someplace in the city.' 'Ever meet her?' 'No.'
'Would you know her name?'
'No, I'm sorry.'
'Did Miss Dyalovich ever mention any threatening phone calls or letters?'
'NO.'
Run her through the drill, Carella was thinking.
'Had she ever seen anyone lurking around the building ... ?'
'No.'
'Following her... ?'
'No.'
'Do you know of any enemies she may have had?' 'No.'
'Anyone with whom she may have had a continuing dispute?'
'No.'
'Anyone she may have quarreled with?'
'NO o o o'
'Even anyone on unfriendly terms with her?'
'NO '
'Did she owe anyone money?'
'I doubt it.'
'Did anyone owe her money?'
'She was an old woman living on welfare. What money did she have to lend?'
Toast of six continents, Hawes thought. Ends up living on welfare in a shithole on Lincoln. Sipping tea and whiskey in the late afternoon. Listening to her own old 78s. Her hands all gnarled.
'This granddaughter,' he said. 'Did you ever see her?'
'No, I never met her. I told you.'
'What I'm asking is did you ever see her? Coming out of the apartment next door. Or in the hall. Did she ever come here to visit, is what I'm asking?'
'Oh. No. I don't think they got along.'
'Then there was someone on unfriendly terms with her,' Carella said.
'Yes, but family,' Karen said, shrugging it off.
'Was it Miss Dyalovich who told you they didn't get along?'
'Yes.'
'When was thisT'
'Oh, two or three months ago.'
'Came up out of the blue, did it?'
'No, she was lamenting the fact that her only daughter lived so far away, in London...'
'How'd that lead to the granddaughterT'
'Well, she said if only she and Priscilla could get
along...'
'Is that her name?' Hawes asked at once. 'The granddaughter?'
'Oh. Yes. I'm sorry, I didn't remember it until it popped out of my mouth.' 'Priscilla what?' 'I don't know.'
'Maybe it'll come to you.'
'No, I don't think I ever knew it.'
'The obit will tell us,' Carella said. 'Later this morning.'
It was now exactly one A.M.
The man who owned the liquor store told them Saturdays were his biggest nights. Made more in the hour before closing on Saturday nights than he did the rest of the entire year. Only thing bigger was New Year's Eve, he told them. Even bigger than that was when New Year's Eve fell on a Saturday night. Couldn't beat it.
'Biggest night of the year,' he said. 'I could stay open all night New Year's Eve and sell everything in the store.'
This was already Sunday, but it still felt like Saturday night to the guy who owned the store. It must have still felt like Christmas, too, even though it was already the twenty-first of January. A little Christmas tree blinked green and red in the front window. Little cardboard cutouts, hanging across the ceiling, endlessly repeated HAPPY HOLIDAYS. Gift-packaged bottles of booze sat on countertops and tables.
The store owner's name was Martin Keely. He was maybe sixty-eight, sixty-nine, in there, a short stout man with a drunkard's nose and wide suspenders to match it. He kept interrupting their conversation, such as it was, to make yet another sale. This hour of the night, he was selling mostly cheap wine to panhandlers who straggled in with their day's take. This became a different city after midnight. You saw different people in the streets and on the sidewalks. In
the bars and clubs that were open. In the subways and the taxicabs. An entirely different city with entirely different people in it.
One of them had killed Svetlana Dyalovich.
'What time did she come in here, would you remember?' Hawes asked.
'Around eleven o'clock.'
Which more or less tied in. Man down the hall said he heard the shots at about eleven-twenty. Super called
911 five minutes after that. 'What'd she buy?' 'Bottle of Four Roses.'
Exactly the brand that had dropped to the floor when someone shot her.
'How much did it cost?'
'Eight dollars and ninety-nine cents.' 'How'd she pay for it?' 'Cash.' 'Exact?'
'What do you mean?'
'Did she hand you exactly eight dollars and ninety-nine cents.'
'No, she handed me a ten-dollar bill. I gave her change.'
'Where'd she put the change?'
'In this little purse she was carrying. Took a ten out of the purse, handed it to me. Gave her one dollar and one cent in change. Put that in the purse.' 'The dollar was in change, too?' 'No, the dollar was a bill.'
'And you say she put the change in her handbag?'
'No, she put it in this purse A little purse. A change purse. With the little snaps on top you click open with your thumb and forefinger. A purse, you know?' he said, seeming to become inappropriately agitated. 'You know what a purse is? A purse ain't a handbag. A purse is a purse. Doesn't anybody in this city speak English anymore?'
'Where'd she put this purse?' Carella asked calmly. 'In her coat pocket.'
'The pocket of the mink,' he said, nodding.
'No, she wasn't wearing a mink. She was wearing a cloth coat.'
The detectives looked at him.
'Are you sure about that?' Hawes asked. 'Positive. Ratty blue cloth coat. Scarf on her head. Silk, I think. Whatever. Pretty. But it had seen better days.'
