“Was it anthrax that killed him?” Coogan said, and raised his eyebrows, and nodded sagely.
11
IT TOOK THREE HOURSby train to the state capital. It would have taken them a half-hour to get to the airport and—with security what it was these days—another two hours to get to the gate, all for an hour-long flight. If Carella had opted to drive up, the trip would have taken almost four hours. He figured it was six of one, half a dozen of the other. Besides, on the train, he and Teddy could talk.
Communicating with a person who could neither hear nor speak required, first, that you be able to see each other’s hands (because that’s what signing was all about, Gertie) and next that the impaired (what a word!) partner be able to see the other person’s lips so that she could read them.
Car rides were difficult. Without risking an accident, Carella could not turn his head away from the road to look at Teddy. And without leaning over at an impossible angle and virtually flashing her fingers in his face, Teddy simply could not communicate. They had tried. They knew. The only way it worked was to translate through the kids, Carella speaking, the kids in the back seat signing, and then Teddy signing back to the kids, and the kids speaking the words out loud to their father. But alone in a car? Forget about talking.
The train was a good solution.
Besides, this was Saturday, and Carella’s day off, and he was entitled.
The morning train they caught was virtually empty. He bought coffee and donuts in the cafe car and carried them back to where they’d spread out like pashas on two reclining seats. Leisurely, they watched the countryside flashing by outside, and talked about things there hadn’t been time to discuss in their busy workaday schedules.
Carella was most concerned about having to give away both his motherandhis sister at their joint weddings this coming June. How was he supposed to do that? Come down the aisle with one of them on each arm? Or lead his mother down first, a nod to seniority, and then go back up for his sister. While Luigi…
“I really wish his name wasn’t Luigi,” he said, signing simultaneously. “It really makes him sound like a wop.”
He’s Italian,Teddy signed.That’s a very common name in Italy.
“Yeah, well, this is America,” he said, and then something occurred to him. “You don’t think she’ll bemovingto Milan, do you?”
Well, of course, she will,Teddy signed.That’s where he lives.
“How come I didn’t think of that till now?”
Maybe that’s what’s troubling you about taking them down the aisle.
“Maybeeverythingis troubling me about taking them down the aisle.”
Get over it,Teddy signed.
He nodded, and then fell silent for a while, thinking again that his mother shouldn’t be remarrying so soon after his father’s death, and his sister shouldn’t be marrying the man who’d unsuccessfully prosecuted his father’s slayer. Well, get over it, he thought. You should have got over it last Christmas already, put it to rest, okay? They’re getting married, you’re giving them away, put on a happy face.
Come June sixteenth, his mother would be Mrs. Luigi—Jesus, I hate that name!—Fontero, and his sister would be Mrs. Henry Lowell, whom he suspected he’d have to start calling “Hank,” the way his sister did, “Could you please pass the gravy, Hank?”
Luigi and Hank.
Jesus.
Teddy was talking again. He turned to watch her hands. He loved the way she signed, her fingers moving almost liquidly, her eyes and her face adding expression to what she was saying, her lips mouthing the words her hands signaled. She was telling him she had to find a job. She was telling him she was tired of addressing envelopes at home, she wanted to get out into the real workplace. She’d been checking the want ads, but these were difficult times, and being so limited…
“You’re not limited,” he told her.
Well, if I can’t hear, I won’t exactly be hired as conductor of the Philharmonic,she said, and burst out laughing.
Carella laughed with her.
“How about moderator on a talk show?” he suggested.
Good idea,she said.Or a translator at the UN.
The countryside flashed by.
Spring was alive out there.
It was a very short ride.
THEY TOOK A TAXIto the Raleigh Hotel, and Carella settled her in the coffee shop while he went to find the manager.
The manager’s name was Floyd Morgan. He told Carella at once that he hated the job up here because the winters were so damn cold. “Well, look at it,” he said. “It’s already the end of April, and there’s still snow on the ground up here, can you believe it?” He told Carella that the last managerial position he’d held was in the Bahamas, at the Club Med there on Columbus Isle. “Nowthatwas a job,” he said. “Great people to work with, wonderful food, and an atmosphere of…joy,do you know? Happiness. Not like here. Here it’s doom and gloom all winter long and by the time May rolls around, you’re ready to jump out the window. Have a seat,” he said, “let me get some coffee for us. You’ve had a long journey, you must have a lot of questions to ask.”
Carella did indeed have a lot of questions to ask.
In police work, it was always a matter of how best to utilize one’s time and assets, especially now that travel had become so difficult. It would have seemed simpler and cheaper all around to have done this by telephone; he’d had to call, anyway, to set up this Saturday appointment. But there were too many people he needed to talk to here, and he couldn’t have done that on the phone. Moreover, there were no nuances in a phone call. You could not see a person’s face, his eyes, you could not detect the tremor of a lip, or a slight hesitation. A catch in the voice, a change of tone, any of which might indicate a lie or merely a bit of information being withheld. Face to face, you saw and heard it all.
He let Morgan have it flat out.
“I’m trying to find out if Lester Henderson had a woman with him last weekend,” he said.
Morgan hesitated, and then said, “You understand, of course…”
Carella was about to hear the speech he’d already heard from 10,012 hotel managers, the one about the privacy of guests and the hotel’s responsibility to protect a guest’s rights and privileges, the same speech he’d heard from priests and lawyers and even accountants, on occasion, so he cut immediately to the chase by saying the magic words, “Yes, but this is a homicide.”
Smiling understandingly as he said the words.
Yes, I know the difficulties of weighing civic duty against corporate obligation. But a grievous breach has taken place here, and I am but a mere public servant attempting to address this wrong and correct it, so I truly would appreciate candor and honesty because this is a homicide, you see, and that is the worst possible crime, sir, so please help me solve it because this is a homicide.
“I would have to check our records, sir,” Morgan said.
He led Carella into the Business Office and asked someone there to pull up the registration records for the past weekend. As Carella suspected, Lester Henderson had occupied a single room, albeit with a king-sized bed, and had registered as he himself alone, Lester Lyle Henderson.
“The rate would have been higher for a double,” Morgan said.
Carella was tempted to ask why hotels charged more for double occupancy than single. A room was a room, wasn’t it? No matter how many people were in it? Well, maybe they provided more towels and little bottles of shampoo if they rented it as a double. He was sure there had to be a reason. Maybe this went back to the so-
