“Just the possible perps,” Meyer said.
“Makes it easy then, don’t it?” Epworth said, and grinned.
CARELLAwas sound asleep when Lieutenant Byrnes called him at twelve-thirty that Sunday. He waited a respectable four rings before remembering that this was Fanny’s day off and Teddy was taking the twins to the park, and then hastily yanked the receiver from its cradle.
“Carella,” he said.
“Steve, it’s Pete.”
“Yes, Pete.”
“I spoke to the Commish. First off, you’d better get that tape back to Honey Blaine…”
“Blair.”
“Whoever, before the city lands a very big law suit. Channel Four has already contacted the Mayor, who is not particularly known for courageous stands, anyway, and he got on his lawyerly high horse and lectured the Commish about illegal search and seizure and all that bullshit…”
“Yeah,” Carella said wearily.
“So you’d better…where is it, anyway, that tape?”
“In my bottom desk drawer.”
“I’ll call in, have a uniform run it over to the…”
“No, the drawer’s locked. I’ve got the key here.”
“This Blaine woman…”
“Blair.”
“…is sitting down there in the Channel Four offices with a battery of network lawyers, waiting for us to deliver that tape. We’ve got till three o’clock. Otherwise, they file. Can you get the tape over there by then?”
“Yes. But I still think it’s evidence.”
“The network thinks it’s a scoop worth forty million dollars…”
“More than I make in a week,” Carella said.
“…which is what they’ll sue for if they don’t get that tape by three o’clock. Can you run down to the squadroom? Messenger the tape over?”
“Sure,” Carella said, and yawned. “What time is it?”
“Twelve-thirty-five.”
“Shall I wake Cotton? Are we still on this case, or what?”
“Far as I know. Nobody’s heard a peep from the Feds, so I guess it’s still ours. Ain’t we lucky?”
“Oh my yes.”
“I guess this singer isn’t very important, huh? Did Meyer and Bert get anything on the boat?”
“I’ve been asleep, Pete.”
“Right, I’m sorry. Stick with it, the four of you. Call Loomis, see if there’s been a ransom demand yet. If this is really ours…”
“You just said it was, Pete.”
“Well, it is.”
“But you sound dubious.”
“I’m just surprised. I thought the Feds would’ve come knocking by now. Anyway, call Loomis. Is his office open today?”
“I have no idea.”
“You said he thought the perps might ask him for the money.”
“That’s what he told me, yes.”
“So how will they know where to reach him? Did you get his home number?”
“Yes, Pete.”
“Do you think
“I doubt it.”
“So they’ll call at his office tomorrow, right? So let’s get our Tech Unit to set up some stuff for us. We won’t need a court order for a Tap and Trap, Loomis is a friendly, it’s his own phone. But you’ll need one for a Trap and Trace, maybe more than one. Try to get the equipment set up today, ready for when they call tomorrow, if they call.”
“I’ll get on it right away.”
“I hate kidnappings,” Byrnes said, and sighed.
Both men fell silent.
“I sure would like a look at that tape,” Carella said.
“I have a feeling you’ll be seeing it on television. Over and over again. But you’ve got till three o’clock. Play it before you take it back. Who’s to know?”
“Is that an order?”
“It’s a suggestion,” Byrnes said.
THE WATCHMAN’Sname was Abner Carmody.
He was asleep when Detectives Meyer and Kling knocked on his door at one that afternoon. He complained that he hadn’t got to bed till eight this morning, time he got home from the marina and all, and he usually slept till three or four, had a late lunch (or early dinner, depending how you looked at it), and went to work again at six, putting in a twelve-hour day (or night, depending how you looked at it), from sixP.M. to sixA.M.
“ ‘A man works from sun to sun,’ ” he quoted out of the blue, “ ‘but a woman’s work is never done.’ So why are you waking me up?”
Carmody was in his sixties someplace, the detectives guessed, wearing striped pajamas and eyeglasses he’d put on when he came to answer the door. He hadn’t invited the detectives in yet. They didn’t care to go in, either. The man wasn’t a suspect, there was nothing they wanted to see in his apartment.
“Sometime last night, maybe eleven-thirty, twelve o’clock,” Meyer prompted. “Twenty-seven-foot Rinker came in, passengers tied her up and drove off in a black Ford Explorer. Happen to see them?”
“What’s this about?”
“Maybe nothing.”
“So why’re you waking me up the crack of dawn, it’s nothing?”
“We can come back later, if you like,” Kling said. With a warrant, he almost added, but didn’t.
“Well, I’m up now,” Carmody said.
“Did you see the boat come in?”
“No, I must’ve been making rounds, other end of the marina. But I saw them carrying the box to the van, and driving off in it.”
“What box, sir?”
“This carton, maybe yay big,” he said, using his hands. “Two by two, three by three, no bigger’n that.”
“Heavy box? Did it seem to be heavy?”
“Not especially. Woman was carrying it. Couldn’t have been too heavy, could it?”
“The masks,” Meyer said.
Kling nodded.
“What’d they look like?” he asked.
“Was only one of them. Just a plain cardboard box. Brown, you know. What they call corrugated.”
“I mean the people who got in the van. Did you happen to get a look?”
“Oh, yeah, the van was parked right under one of the sodium lights.”
“Two men and a woman, were they?” Kling asked.
“Yessir, two men and a woman. All of them wearing black all over—jeans, sweatshirts, jogging shoes. One of the men had curly black hair, the other one straight blond hair. The girl was a redhead.”
“How old would you say?”
“The girl? Early twenties.”
