“It’s an unusual name,” Sussman said. “A computer search might turn him up, if there’s any reason to look for him. I think you said she was seeing somebody.”
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“Yes, and he was very secretive.”
“I don’t suppose you met him.”
“No. She wouldn’t even tell me his name. At first I figured it was because he was married, although we met a few of her married boyfriends over the years.”
“She did this a lot? Dated married guys?” It should have been an easy question to answer, but Elaine didn’t want to make her friend sound easy, or undiscriminating. “If she was dating somebody,” she said after a moment, “he generally turned out to be married.”
“She kept making the same mistake?”
“No, she liked it that way. She didn’t want to get married again, she didn’t want to be all wrapped up in another person.”
“This mystery man, how long had she been seeing him?”
“Not long. Two weeks? Three? Less than a month, anyway.”
“What do you know about him?”
“Oh, gosh, let me think. He was very secretive, he would have to leave town and not be able to tell her where he was going. She had the idea that he was working for the government. Or a government. You know, like some kind of an agent.”
“She give you any kind of a description?”
“He dressed nicely, he was well groomed. But then I never saw her with anybody who wasn’t. Oh, I know. He had a mustache.”
“Yeah, that fits.” He put down his pen, looked up at us. “The doorman sent somebody up to her apartment last night around nine-thirty or ten. Guy gave the doorman his name and she said send him up.”
“If he gave the doorman his name—”
“Yeah, well, I think we’re lucky this particular genius remembers the mustache. And the flowers.”
“Flowers?”
“Which checks out, because we found fresh flowers in a vase on the mantel. He must have had his hands full, too, because he had to set something down on the floor so he could stroke his mustache while he was waiting for the elevator.”
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“It was more like he was grooming it. You know, like this.” He put his thumb and forefinger together in the center of his bare upper lip, then spread them apart. “Making sure he looked all right before he went upstairs. Anyway, that’s how come”—he checked his notes—
“how come Hector Ruiz noticed the mustache.” He looked at Elaine.
“That’s all she mentioned about his appearance? He dressed nicely and wore a mustache?”
“That’s all I can remember. She said he was a good lover. Very force-ful, very imaginative.”
“More than she knew.” She looked questioningly at him, and he said, “You’re going to get this anyway from the media, as much as we’d like to keep a lid on it. There’s evidence of ligatures on her wrists and ankles, and tape residue in the area of her mouth. Was she into that whole scene, would you happen to know?”
“She was a sophisticated woman of a certain age,” she told him.
“Living alone in Greenwich Village. I mean, you do the math.”
“Okay, but—”
She stopped him. “I don’t think she was kinky,” she said. “I don’t think she was into anything in particular. I think, you know, if she liked a guy and he wanted to do something, she wouldn’t run out of there screaming for her mother.”
“That’s just a figure of speech, right? Because what I’ve got is both parents are deceased.”
“Yes, a long time ago.”
“And no relatives that you know of.”
“She had a brother who died. There could be, I don’t know, an aunt or a cousin somewhere, but nobody I knew about. Nobody she kept in touch with.”
He said, “As far as her not being into bondage, S & M, whatever you want to call it, that would actually fit right in with our take on it.” To me he said, “I don’t know if you ever ran into this, but you must have if you worked this precinct. Anybody who’s at all serious about kink, they’ve got a closet full of gear, leather and rubber and masks and chains, you’d almost think the equipment’s more important to them than what they do with it. She didn’t have a thing, no handcuffs, no All the Flowers Are Dying
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whips, none of that garbage. Not that—” He stopped short, started to laugh. “You watch Seinfeld? I was starting to say ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with that.’ You remember that episode?”
“Sure.”
