The woman must have lurched against the couch; it was canted out from the wall and she was leaning on the back of it, bent over, her face turned sideways so that she seemed to be looking up from under, in Tamara’s direction. Bad news. Big lemon-colored bruise on the left side under the eye, cuts and swelling on the right cheekbone, puffed lip, more cuts and scrapes on the chin. No blood, dried or otherwise, on her face. No blood on the jacket, blouse, or jeans she wore. The pounding she’d taken was at least a day old.
Tamara registered all of that before she recognized the woman.
“Remember me?”
“Janice Krochek. What happened to you?”
Krochek didn’t answer. She sank onto the couch, sat with elbows resting on her knees. Pale, sweaty. Exhausted. Tense, too, the way she’d been in the Hillman last week. And scared. Trying to hide it behind a half smile and a flip tone, but her eyes gave her away; the scare was big and wormy in them.
“Who did that to you, Mrs. Krochek?”
“Nobody did it. I fell down some stairs.”
Yeah, sure.
“You wouldn’t have anything to drink, would you? Bourbon, Scotch?”
“Just coffee and water.”
“I thought all private detectives kept a bottle of booze around.”
“Yeah, well, that’s crap. This is a business office.”
“All right, coffee. Lots of cream and sugar. How about a cigarette?”
“Nobody here smokes.”
“Figures. Aspirin? My head hurts like hell.”
Tamara went and got the tin of aspirin from her purse, poured the coffee. She had to open the tin herself; Krochek’s hands were too shaky. The woman slurped down four of them. Inside of her mouth must’ve been cut; she made a face and dribbled coffee out of the side with the puffed lip.
“You need a doctor,” Tamara said.
“No. No doctor. I’m all right.”
“You don’t look all right.”
“I walked all the way here. Fifteen goddamn blocks.”
“Why? Why’d you come here?”
“No place else to go.”
“What about your friend?”
“I don’t have any friends.” Bitterly.
“Woman you’re staying with, Ginger Benn.”
“Not staying there anymore.”
“Why not? Because you got beat up?”
Slurp, slurp. She was holding the cup in both hands, tight and up close to her face, alternately slurping and breathing in the steam like an asthmatic. Marks on both wrists, too, Tamara saw then-red chafe marks.
She said, “So you remembered the business card we left last week. South Park-easy address to remember.”
“I don’t know what I’d’ve done if I hadn’t. Where’s your boss? Not here?”
“No. And he’s not my boss.”
“Lover?”
“Business partner,” Tamara said.
“You’re kidding.”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
“Black-white, May-December. What kind of partnership is that?”
Tamara bit back the sharp retort that crawled out on her tongue. The woman was hurt; you couldn’t tell a beating victim to go fuck herself, even one as snotty as this one. Not yet, anyway.
“Why don’t you tell me who beat you up, Mrs. Krochek?”
“Nobody beat me up. I told you, it was an accident.”
“Accident with somebody’s fist. Like maybe Carl Lassiter?”
“No.”
“Because of the money you owe him or his boss?”
“I said no. Accident, accident-how many times do you want to hear it?”
Could be Lassiter she was afraid of, could be somebody else. Tamara couldn’t tell with Krochek’s eyes cast downward and steam from the coffee smearing her expression.
“What do you care anyway?” Krocheck said.
“I don’t like to see anybody get beat up. Women especially.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“You’re in my offices, that makes it my business. Police business, too. Assault is a felony.”
The word “police” seemed to scare Krochek even more. “I wasn’t assaulted! I don’t want anything to do with the law, you understand?”
“Yeah, I understand. Just why’d you come here?”
“Didn’t I just tell you that, too? I didn’t have any place else to go.”
“What do you want us to do for you?”
“Get me home.”
“Oakland Hills?”
“Where the hell else. That’s the only home I’ve got-for now anyway. Can I have some more coffee? More sugar this time.”
What am I, Tamara thought, some kind of servant? Fetch this, fetch that. Yassum, Miz Scarlett. Grumbling to herself, she went and got the refill. When she brought it back, she said, “So you changed your mind after all. Now you want to go back to your husband.”
“Woman’s prerogative.”
“If you weren’t coerced into it.”
“It’s changed, isn’t that enough? Enough questions! Can’t you see I’m hurting?”
“Offered to get you a doctor.”
“I don’t want a doctor. I want to go home.”
“So why didn’t you call your husband, have him come get you?”
“With what? I don’t have my cell anymore. No money, either. Why do you think I walked all the way over here?”
“Where’s your purse?”
Shrug.
“Whoever beat on you take it?”
Slurp.
“You could’ve called from Ginger’s room, or the lobby desk.”
Krochek winced, pressed fingers gingerly against her puffed lip. “For God’s sake. Will you just call Mitch for me? Will you do that, please?”
Tamara said with sour irony, “Quicker the better,” and went into her office to make the call.
But getting rid of Janice Krochek wasn’t going to be that easy. Her husband was away from Five States Engineering today, out on some job site. Tamara pried his cell number out of Krochek’s assistant, but when she called it she got his voice mail. She left a curt message, saying it was urgent he return the call as soon as possible.
Back to the anteroom, where she found Janice Krochek curled up in a fetal position on the couch. Sound asleep, making little wheezing, moaning noises in her nose and throat. She’d spilled some of the coffee on the low table and carpet and hadn’t bothered to wipe it up.
Oh, yeah, great. Terrific. Just what the agency needed for an advertisement if a client should happen to walk in-a banged-up gambling junkie passed out on the anteroom couch.
Krochek had shed her coat; it was crumpled on the floor. Tamara picked it up, started to drape it over the woman, and then hesitated. Might as well play detective here, just for practice. She ran her a hand into each of the
