'Don't pull that sweet talk on me,' I said.
'I beg your pardon.'
'I know what you're thinking, and I'm sorry, but I'm on duty.'
'Of all the outer offices in all the towns in all the world,' she said, 'you had to walk into mine.' There was no change in her expression.
I started to say something about, 'If you want anything, just whistle,' but at that moment Carl Tower appeared at his office door and saw me. I was obviously not haunting his dreams.
'Spenser,' he said, 'get the hell in my office.'
I took off my wristwatch and gave it to the secretary. 'If I don't come out alive,' I said, 'I want you to have this.'
She giggled. I went into Tower's office.
Tower picked up a tabloid-size newspaper from his desk and tossed it across at me. It was the university newspaper. Across the top was the headline ADMINISTRATION AGENT SPIES ON STUDENT, and in a smaller drop head, PRIVATE EYE HIRED BY ADMINISTRATION QUESTIONS ENGLISH PROFESSOR. I didn't bother to read the story, though I noticed they spelled my name wrong in the lead paragraph.
'It's with an
Tower was biting down so hard on his back teeth that the muscles of his jaw bulged at the hinge.
'We won't ask for a return on the retainer, Spenser,' he said. 'But if you are on this campus again, ever, we'll arrest you for trespassing and use every influence we have to have your license lifted.'
'I hear you got the manuscript back,' I said.
'That's right. No thanks to you. Now beat it.'
'Who returned it?'
'It just showed up yesterday in a cardboard box, on the library steps.'
'Ever wonder why it came back?'
Tower stood up. 'You're through, Spenser. As of this minute. You are no longer in the employ of this university. You have no business here. You're trespassing. Either you leave or I call some people to take you out of here.'
'How many you going to call?'
Tower's face got quite red. He said, 'You sonova bitch,' and put his hand on the phone.
I said, 'Never mind. If I whipped your entire force it would embarrass both of us.'
On the way out I stopped by the secretary's desk. She handed me back my watch.
'I'm glad you made it,' she said.
On the inside of the watch strap in red ink she had written 'Brenda Loring, 555-3676.'
I looked up at her. 'I am, too,' I said, and strapped the watch back on.
She went back to typing and I went back to leaving the university in disgrace. Administration agent, I thought as I went furtively down the corridor. Zowie!
Chapter 15
Back to the Fenway to Cathy Connelly's apartment. I rang the bell; no answer. I didn't feel like swapping compliments with Charlie Charm the super, so I strolled around the building looking for an alternate solution. Behind the apartment was an asphalt courtyard with lines for parking spaces and a line of trash barrels, dented and bent, against the wall, behind low trapezoidal concrete barriers to keep the cars from denting and bending them more. Despite the ill-fitting covers on them, some of the trash had spilled out and littered the ground along the foundation. The cellar entrance door was open, but the screen door was closed and fastened with a hook and eye arrangement. It was plastic screening. I took out my jackknife and cut through the screen at the hook. I put my hand through and unhooked it. Tight security, I thought. Straight ahead and two steps down stretched the cellar. To my left rose the stairs. I went up them. Cathy Connelly was apartment 13. I guessed second floor, given the size of the building. I was wrong. It was third floor. Close observation is my business.
Down the corridor ran a frayed, faded rose runner. The doors were dark-veneer wood with the numbers in shiny silver decals asymmetrically pasted on. The knob on each door was fluted glass. The corridor was weakly lit by a bare bulb in a wall sconce at the end. In front of number 13 a faint apron of light spread out under the door. I looked at my watch; I knocked again. Same result. I put my ear against the door panel. The television was on, or the radio. I heard no other sound. That didn't prove anything. Lots of people left the TV running when they went out. Some to discourage burglars. Some because they forgot to turn them off. Some so it wouldn't seem so empty when they came home. I tried the knob. No soap. The door was locked. That was a problem about as serious as the screen door in the cellar. I kicked it open?which would probably irritate the super, since when I did, the jamb splintered. I stepped in and felt the muscles begin to tighten behind my shoulders. The apartment was hot and stuffy, and there was a smell I'd smelled before.
The real estate broker had probably described it as a studio apartment?which meant one room with kitchenette and bath. The bath was to my left, door slightly ajar. The kitchenette was directly before me, separated from the rest of the room by a plastic curtain. To my right were a day bed, the covers folded back as if someone were about to get in, an armchair with a faded pink and beige shawl draped over it as a slipcover, a bureau, a steamer trunk apparently used as a coffee table, and a wooden kitchen table, painted blue, which seemed to double as a desk. On it the television maundered in black and white. In front of the kitchen table was a straight chair. A woman's white blouse and faded denim skirt were folded over the back of it, underwear and socks tangled on the seat. A saddle shoe lay on its side beneath the chair and another stood flat-footed under the table. There was no one in the room. There was no one behind the plastic curtain. I turned into the bathroom and found her.
She was in the tub, face down, her head under water, her body beginning to bloat. The smell was stronger in here. I forced myself to look. There was a clotted tangle of blood in the hair at the back of one ear. I touched the water; it was room temperature. Her body was the same. I wanted to turn her over, but I couldn't make myself do it. On the floor by the tub, looking as if she'd just stepped out of them, were a pair of flowered baby doll pajamas. She'd been there awhile. Couple of days, anyway. While I'd been ringing her bell and asking the super if he'd seen her, she'd been right here floating motionless in the tepid water. How do you do, Miss Connelly, my name is Spenser, very sorry I didn't get to meet you sooner. Hell of a way to meet now. I looked at her for two, maybe three minutes, feeling the nausea bubble inside me. Nothing happened, so I began to look at the bathroom. It was crummy. Plastic tiles, worn linoleum buckling up from the floor. The sink was dirty and the faucet dripped steadily. There was no shower. Big patches of paint had peeled off the ceiling. I thought of a line from a poem; 'Even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course/Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot.' I forget who wrote it.
There were no telltale cigar butts, no torn halves of claim checks, no traces of lint from an imported cashmere cloth sold only by J. Press. No footprints, no thumb prints, no clues. Just a drowned kid swelling with death in a shabby bathroom in a crummy apartment in a lousy building run by a grumpy janitor. And me.
I went back out into the living room. No phone. God is my copilot. I went out to the hall and down the stairs to the cellar. The super had an office partitioned off with chicken wire from the rest of the cellar. In it were a rolltop desk, an antique television set, and a swivel chair, in which sat the super. The smell of bad wine oozed out of the place. He looked at me with no sign of recognition or welcome.
I said, 'I want to use your phone.'
He said, 'There's a pay phone at the drugstore across the street. I ain't running no charity here.'
I said, 'There is a dead person in room thirteen, and I am going to call the police and tell them. If you say anything to me but yes, sir, I will hit you at least six times in the face.'
He said, 'Yes, sir.' Pushing an old wino around always enlivens your spirits. I picked up the phone and called Quirk. Then I went back upstairs and waited for him to arrive with his troops. It wasn't as long a wait as it seemed. When they arrived Captain Yates was along.
He and Quirk went in to look at the remains. I sat on the day bed and didn't look at anything. Sergeant Belson sat on the edge of the table smoking a short cigar butt that looked like he'd stepped on it.
