address for Lauralie was given as 1386 Ravenswood, Chicago, Illinois. The mother's address was on North Groiler.
'Alcoholic poisoning, just as Mother Elizabeth said,' Meredyth almost whispered.
'She didn't say anything about sleeping pills. Man, the lady was only a couple of years older than us, Mere.'
'Do you suppose Lauralie is living at Katherine's address?'
'It's certainly worth our while to find out.'
'Stakeout?'
'I think we have enough for a warrant to search. I'll make the call.' Lucas went for his car radio, leaving Meredyth in the mortuary office with Carlotta Fellini, the proprietor.
'Do you recall anything at all about the daughter?' Meredyth asked the flamboyantly dressed, heavyset, buxom Carlotta, who acted as secretary and gofer for her husband, Giorgio. When Lucas and Meredyth had first arrived, Mr. Fellini, according to the name tag on his lapel, had greeted them at the door. Giorgio-in black bow tie against a ruffled baby-blue shirt beneath a navy-blue blazer a size too small, his ruffled cuffs flitting about on nervous wings at seeing Lucas's gold shield-had sent them to the office to speak to his wife about records. Giorgio was in the middle of a wake just the other side of the door.
Carlotta stopped chewing her gum at Meredyth's question, as if doing so might help her think. 'I remember her, sure. Flirtatious bitch…all over my Giorgio. And cheap, paid in cash, said little, no tears…showed no emotion at all.' The emphatic at all was condemnation and curse rolled into one in Carlotta jargon.
'Anything else you recall, anything at all?'
Carlotta's jaws worked the gum again. 'Let me get Giorgio in here. He dealt with her more'n I did. I just took her money.'
'Did she say she was staying at her mother's address on Ravenswood?' Meredyth held up the file card to her.
'Said she was at some Best Western, I think. Said she had come in from out of town to make arrangements is all. She left an out-of-town address, Chicago. It's on the card.'
Meredyth had already jotted the two addresses down on a notepad she carried with her. She imagined the Chicago address a fake, a dead end. Certainly, Lauralie was closer than Chicago, and like Lucas, Meredyth wondered if sweet daughter Lauralie had perhaps taken up residence at Mom's old place.
Carlotta buzzed Giorgio on his pager, and Lucas reentered the office alongside Giorgio, who, smiling beneath his handlebar mustache, greeted them as if meeting them for the first time. 'How much more can we help you?' he asked, his arms expansively opening to them, his smile a commercial habit.
Meredyth showed him the three-by-five card and asked, 'Do you recall anything at all, sir, about the daughter?'
'Was she with anyone to lean on, a man?' asked Lucas.
'No, alone she was…all alone. I recall how sad that was, but she was stern, you know, like a rock'-he held out a fist to emphasize this point-'how do you say it, stoic…yes, stoic. Said her mother was a lifelong alcoholic, a victim of her chosen lifestyle, and as sad as it was, you know, a wasted life, that her overdosing came as no surprise to her, the daughter, I mean.'
'That was her attitude? Matter-of-fact?' asked Lucas.
'She was under a lot of stress…depressed, you know,' said Giorgio. 'It is common under the circumstances of a death in the family. It is something I see every day.'
Carlotta, who obviously did not work the wakes, wore a multicolored neck scarf, a halter top, and jeans. Hearing Giorgio's words, she leaped to her feet and came around from behind her desk like a charging bull, getting into Giorgio's face, shaking her head and waving a stem index finger. 'She wasn't all that broke up, Giorgio! Don't confuse a stone-cold heart with honest depression!'
'You are too harsh, Carlotta!'
'She took you, Giorgio! We lost on that service, thanks to your thinking with your little head!' She said to Lucas, 'That tramp was stone cold and cheap and flirting with my man the whole time. You…you men!'
Giorgio piped in. 'Flirting? Come on! Yeah, all right, she was cool perhaps, and cheap, sure. I give you that, but she said the trip to get here on a moment's notice had emptied her bank account, and that she had only come in to bury her mother. I told her all about our memory-preservation and plot-maintenance programs, you know, how we send out anniversary cards with Mom or Dad's picture each year on the date of death, and how we keep up the grounds, place flowers on the grave every other week, but-'
'— but she wanted no frills, just the pine-box special,' finished Carlotta. 'She went all out for dear ol' Mom,' Carlotta facetiously added. 'She walked in here wanting to pay nothing, and short of that, as little as possible. And when I told her how easy it would be to take the maintenance plan out of her credit card each month, she said she didn't do credit cards. I had to pry a home address out of her.'
'Did you see what kind of vehicle she arrived in?'
' 'Fraid not,' replied Giorgio.
'And at the funeral service?'
'Arrived in a cab.'
'Alone or with a man?'
'Alone, always alone, she was.'
Carlotta let out a low growl like an angry cat. 'All I know, she kept coming onto you, Giorgio, to get the price down, and you dummy, you let her. She got a sweet deal on a plot out at Berwyn too, I can tell you.'
'Is this her?' asked Meredyth, flashing the open yearbook before the pair.
'Ahhh…hmmm…' hedged the man. 'She was older, sexier. No kid like this,' he emphasized, as if to say he didn't chase kids.
His wife disagreed. 'It's her in the picture, Giorgio, only not wearing that skintight dress she came in here with.'
'Yeah, if Carlotta says it's her, it's her. She's got a thing for faces.'
Carlotta laughed. 'And you, you got a thing for asses.'
'Hey, so I got a thing for bodies-ain't it my business? Look around you, Carlotta. Come on, I'm jokin' here. Don't you get it?' Giorgio's arms went up and out, the ruffled cuffs flitting like two downy birds as he spoke. In an aside to Lucas, he winked. 'Get it, my business? Bods?'
Carlotta gave her man a cold glare, her arms folded.
Lucas thanked them for their time and escorted Meredyth, clutching the yearbook to herself, out and onto Lowe Street. A ship came into view at the end of the street as if cruising the neighborhood, and it gave a blast of its fog horn, startling Meredyth. 'Houston Ship Canal,' Lucas explained as she watched the giant dark side of the ship disappear behind warehouses lining the canal. 'Doubt you've ever had occasion to visit this side of town.'
'What next?' she asked. 'Raid Momma Croombs's house?'
'May be impossible to get a warrant. I spoke to Jorganson. He thinks we've got flimsy cause, a string of coincidences, he calls it, but he's going to wake up Judge Diehl. She's our best hope for a warrant.'
'Meanwhile?'
'I'd like to see the police report on Katherine Croombs's death. How 'bout you?'
'Well…we have the date of death and her address. Getting hold of the report should be a simple matter.'
They drove back for the precinct house and made inquiries, soon getting hold of a computer-generated copy of the police report on the death of one Katherine Croombs, occurring July 17th in the 29th Precinct. The body was autopsied in Leonard Chang's crime lab by Dr. Lynn Nielsen.
The police report, on the surface, appeared a routine mop-up after an unintentional death by overdose of sleeping pills and drink. Lucas commented on how cut and dried the report read, and in fact he thought aloud, 'Perhaps too cut and dried.'
'Meaning?'
'Meaning when cops don't want to spend all night in the station filling out a report, they resort to generalities like the ones we're seeing here. A cliche-ridden report is like a good paint job-covers a multitude of sins in quick time.'
'What're you saying, Lucas?'
'In all my time with the COMIT program, going through all those thousands of Cold Case files, I know when a
