Melancholy Baby

by Robert B. Parker

“About what?”

  “Birth control?”

  Millie laughed. It was a deep, smoke-cured whiskey-soaked laugh.

  “George? George thought pregnancy was a woman’s problem.”

  “So he didn’t use birth control.”

  “No.”

  “Did you get pregnant?” I asked.

  “I thought it was a woman’s problem, too,” Millie said.

  “So you were careful.”

  “I was.”

  “How about Lolly Drake?”

  “How would I know?” Millie said.

  “You never saw her pregnant?”

  “No,” she said. “But I wouldn’t have, anyway. She got the big syndication break on Heartland Media and moved on, and I never saw her again. I read about her sometimes. The way you do someone you knew once. I never heard about a kid.”

  “Did she and George stay in touch?”

  “Not that I know of. When she left, he moved right on to the new girl that replaced her . . . and I do mean onto.”

  “Did she ever get pregnant?”

  “Yes, but with a guy she married the next year. They got three more kids since.”

  “Did you know anyone besides Lolly that George slept with who moved on shortly afterwards?”

  Millie finished her Manhattan while she thought back.

  “No,” she said, and gestured to the bartender.

  “How long was George here after Lolly?”

  “Oh, maybe a year. Then he said he got a big job back East and he left.”

  “Ever hear from him again?”

  “No.”

  “While they lived here, did his wife fool around?”

  Millie laughed the deep mahogany laugh again.

  “Maybe with herself,” she said.

  “She didn’t have an affair.”

  “God, no. I’m telling you. She was a prude. She showed no interest in any man I ever saw her with, and no man I know ever showed any interest in her. Including George.”

  “Could they have adopted a child?” I said.

  “Here? When I knew them? I doubt it. If they did, it was a big secret. Which is unlikely. The Quad Cities aren’t that big,” Millie said. “The local announcers are celebrities.”

  “Are you a local celebrity?” I said.

  “Hell, no, honey,” Millie said, and gestured at me with her fresh Manhattan. “I’m a local drunk.”

  53

  After I returned to Boston, I took the Acela express train to New York, and Corsetti met me in Penn Station. He took my bag and swaggered ahead of me, plowing through the crowded station as if he and I were the only ones there. His car was parked up on the sidewalk by the entrance, with its blue light flashing. He popped the trunk, put my bag in, and closed the trunk. I noticed that he had a Kevlar vest in there and a pump shotgun.

  “How’d you find her,” I said in the car.

  “July’s in the system,” Corsetti said. “She got into it with a parking enforcement woman giving her a ticket. Whacked her with her purse. Got booked for assault on a law enforcement officer.”

  “How’d the parking woman make out?” I said.

  “She was built like me, grew up in Bed-Stuy. Was kicking July’s ass by the time the local precinct guys arrived.”

  “Surprised she didn’t charge meter-maid brutality,” I said.

  “She did, that’s why they let her go. We won’t bust your chops for the assault charge, you forget us on the excessive-force complaint.”

  We were going down Seventh Avenue with the light still turning and the siren going.

  “Is there an emergency?” I said.

  “Naw,” Corsetti said, “I hate poking along in traffic.”

  “I gather July lives downtown?” I said.

  “She lives in the Bronx,” Corsetti said, “but there’s less traffic in this direction.”

  I smiled.

  “Cute,” I said. “Where in fact does she live, Eugene?”

  “West Village,” Corsetti said. “Twelfth Street.”

  “Wherever will you park?” I said.

  Corsetti glanced at me and smiled. When we got to the address, Corsetti slid his car up beside a tow-zone sign on a corner near St. Vincent’s Hospital. We got out. Corsetti swaggered, and I walked, west.

  “I coulda reported to you on the phone,” Corsetti said.

  “I wanted to be in on it,” I said.

  “Y’all come,” Corsetti said.

  We crossed Hudson Street against the traffic, with Corsetti stopping the cars by holding his badge up as we crossed.

  “You ever get in trouble?” I said.

  “For what?”

  “You know,” I said. “Using the siren when there’s no need. Stopping traffic when there’s no reason to.”

  “Oh,” Corsetti said, “yeah, I do.”

  The address was a two-level brownstone-and-brick townhouse between Washington Street and the river. Corsetti rang the bell. In a moment, we heard a woman’s voice over the intercom.

  “Who is it?”

  “Detective Eugene Corsetti, New York City Police.”

  He put the emphasis on the first syllable of Eugene.

  “What do you want?”

  “Need to speak with you, ma’am.”

  There was a security camera above the door. Corsetti took his badge out and held it up. After a moment, the door buzzed and Corsetti pushed it open. We were in a small foyer with a closed door in front of us and a stairway against the right wall. There was a woman at the top of the stairs.

  “Up this way,” she said. “We do things backwards here. The bedroom is downstairs, and the living room is up.”

  We went up into a big, bright, many-windowed space that looked like it had been assaulted by a decorator. Into the early-nineteenth-century building someone had stuffed enough glass, stainless steel, white wood, abstract sculpture, and ivory wall-to-wall carpet, which looked dirty next to the white wood, to furnish the Trump Tower. In the jumble of styles, textures, tones, and shapes, there seemed no comfortable place to sit.

  “Nice place you got here,” Corsetti said.

  July herself was wearing shiny black capri leggings and a lavender DKNY sweatshirt that was much too big. She had a lot of curly blond hair, and very bright, glossy lips. On her left hand she wore a huge diamond with a matching wedding band. Her legs were skinny.

  Corsetti nodded at me.

  “Sunny Randall,” he said.

  “How do you do,” July said.

  “What did you wish to talk with me about?” July said.

  “Could we sit down?” I said.

  “Oh, sure, excuse me. Come sit in the kitchen. Would you like coffee? I have some all made. What is this about?”

  We sat in her kitchen, which was right out of 1956.

  “We haven’t redone the kitchen yet,” she said as she poured us coffee. “I’m sorry it looks so hideous.”

  We sat on one-piece stainless-steel chairs with yellow plastic cushions.

  “Very homey,” Corsetti said.

  “So, what do you want to talk to me about?” July said.

  The coffee was very good.

  “You’re a trustee of Bright Flower Charitable Foundation,” Corsetti said.

  “Excuse me,” July said.

  Corsetti said it again.

  “I don’t know what that is,” July said.

  “Every month, you authorize a wire transfer from a bank in Gillette, Wyoming, to an account in Walford, Massachusetts,” Corsetti said.

  “Wyoming?”

  “Gillette, Wyoming,” Corsetti said. “Wellington Bank.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I never heard of the place in Wyoming, or the bank, or the place in Massachus
etts. I don’t know anything about Bright whatsis. I don’t know what to say.”

  Corsetti nodded. He took out a photocopy of a wire-transfer order and showed it to her.

  “That your signature?” he said.

  She studied it.

  “No,” she said.

  “Is Mr. Fishbein at home?” Corsetti said.

  “I use my birth name,” July said. “My husband’s name is Delk.”

  “Delk?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Harvey Delk?” I said.

  “Yes, do you know him?”

  “Is he home right now, Ms. Fishbein?” Corsetti said.

  “No, he is at work. Do you know him?”

  “When do you expect him?” Corsetti said.

  “He’s quite an important person,” she said. “He’s the manager of a very famous star.”

  “Lolly Drake,” I said.

  “Yes. You do know Harvey.”

  I smiled.

  “We’ve met.”

  “When he comes home, I’ll tell him. I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”

  “Randall,” I said. “Sonya Randall.”

  “How do you know him, Ms. Randall.”

  “We met casually a few days ago,” I said.

  “You know,” July said. “I’m not really comfortable talking with you like this. I think you should come back when my husband is home.”

  “Which would be?”

  “Oh, Lord, I don’t know,” she said. “He is so busy. He often works very late.”

  Corsetti took out his card.

  “Ask him to call me,” Corsetti said. “We can set up an appointment.”

  She took the card and didn’t say anything.

  “That signature look anything like yours?” Corsetti said.

  “I’d really rather wait for my husband.”

  “I got my wife’s down pretty good,” Corsetti said. “I been signing her name for years.”

  July was quiet.

  “Most people, been married awhile,” Corsetti said, “probably do the same thing.”

  July didn’t answer.

  “You think?” Corsetti said.

  “I really don’t know,” she said. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I will wait for my husband.”

  “Loyalty’s a good thing in a wife,” Corsetti said.

  “Or a husband,” I said.

  “People should care about each other,” Corsetti said. “No husband’s gonna sign his wife’s name to something was gonna get her into trouble . . . is he?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “Harvey wouldn’t do that, would he, Ms. Fishbein?”

  July didn’t say anything. So, after giving her ample chance to do so, we stood and showed ourselves out.

  54

  Corsetti and I went like hell down to Hudson Street, the next afternoon, to meet with Harvey Delk in his lawyer’s office, on the third floor of a big office building near Canal Street. We sat in a conference room opposite Delk and his wife, with a dandy view of the Holland Tunnel entrance. There was fresh fruit on a platter, and cookies, and a selection of sparkling waters.

  Delk’s lawyer was a smallish red-haired woman with bold eyes. Her name was Doris Katz.

  “Coffee?” she said.

  “You bet,” Corsetti said. “Got to get my heart started.”

  He smiled at her. She smiled back automatically. I could almost see her mind form the word “jerk.” The rest of us all wanted coffee, too. Doris went to a side table, picked up the phone, spoke a few words, hung up, and sat down again. I admired the black wool suit she was wearing.

  “It’ll be in shortly,” she said. “Now, just to be sure we’re all on the same page, you are Detective Eugene Corsetti?”

  “NYPD,” Corsetti said.

  “May I look at your badge?”

  “You bet,” Corsetti said, and produced it.

  Doris examined it and handed it back.

  “And you are?” she said to me.

  “Sunny Randall,” I said. “My real first name is Sonya, but I dislike it.”

  “And you’re a detective, too?”

  “Private,” I said.

  “Ah,” Doris said, “I’m not sure we knew that.”

  “Now you do,” I said, and smiled very sweetly.

  “Do you have some identification, Ms. Randall?”

  I took my license from my purse and gave it to her. She looked at it carefully and handed it back.

  “Boston,” she said. “Detective Corsetti, did you lead Ms. Fishbein to believe that Ms. Randall was a police officer.”

  “Oh, no, ma’am. That’s unethical.”

  “But you didn’t specifically identify her as a private detective.”

  “Gee,” Corsetti said, “I don’t think so. We were just talking to Ms. Fishbein. I mean, you know, have you actually told us you’re a lawyer?”

  I could see her mind begin to reexamine the word “jerk.” A young man with long, wavy blond hair came in with a tray and passed out cups and spoons and napkins. He put a large coffee carafe on the table and a pitcher of milk and a bowl of sugar and sugar substitute. Doris poured coffee for us all.

  When she finished, she said, “We’ll put Ms. Randall’s identity aside, for now, though should circumstance warrant, I can revisit it.”

  Corsetti nodded eagerly.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Is my client the object of a criminal investigation,” she said.

  “Your client being Mr. Delk?” Corsetti said.

  Doris looked annoyed.

  “Obviously,” she said.

  “Not Ms. Fishbein?” Corsetti said.

  “Both are my clients,” Doris said. “Are they under investigation.”

  “Sure,” Corsetti said.

  “Tell me about it,” Doris said.

  “A series of wire transfers from a purported charitable organization were authorized with the signature ‘July Fishbein.’ ”

  “So?”

  “The contributions figure in a murder investigation, and Ms. Fishbein denies any knowledge of the transactions.”

  “So?” Doris said. “Why isn’t that sufficient?”

  “Well, Ms. Fishbein is on the board of Bright Flower,” Corsetti said.

  “I . . .” July started to speak.

  Doris motioned for her to be quiet.

  “Which seemed to come as a surprise to her,” Corsetti said. “And which me and Sonya, here, found sorta puzzling, too.”

  “How so,” Doris said.

  Corsetti looked at me.

  “Your turn,” he said.

  “If Ms. Fishbein is on the board and did authorize the wire transfers, then why is she lying about them?” I said. “And if she’s not on the board, and didn’t authorize the wire transfers, then how did her name get on the board, and who did authorize the wire transfers?”

  “You have support for this?” Doris said.

  Corsetti took a manila folder out of his briefcase and slid it across the conference table to her. She studied the contents carefully. I drank some coffee. Corsetti stirred his noisily. I could tell that it irritated Doris Katz. She took a long time, reading everything. When she was through reading, she pushed the folder back across the table to Corsetti.

  “Do you have a theory?” she said.

  “Well, Sonya and I been thinking about it,” Corsetti said, “and it seems to us likely that her husband used her name on the board of directors, and signed the wire transfers. Husbands and wives often have that kind of common-identity thing.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Harvey said.

  “Harvey, please,” Doris said.

  She looked thoughtfully at both of us.

  “Why would he do tha
t?” she said.

  “Because he works for Lolly Drake,” I said. “And every time we go around a corner in this case, there she is.”

  “Other than that sort of sequential coincidence,” Doris said, “have you anything concrete to implicate either my clients or Ms. Drake?”

  “All the other women on the board of Bright Flower have husbands who work for Lolly Drake,” I said.

  Doris paused for a moment. Then she said, “My question stands. Is there anything that proves anything?”

  “Not yet,” Corsetti said.

  “Then I suggest you leave my clients alone.”

  “A handwriting analysis might firm things up a little,” Corsetti said.

  Harvey Delk glanced at Doris. Doris ignored him.

  “Handwriting analysis is an inexact science,” Doris said.

  “Except when it clears your client,” Corsetti said. “We start pulling and tugging at this thing, and nothing good will come out of it for Mr. Delk or Ms. Fishbein or, for that matter, Lolly Drake.”

  “My God,” Harvey Delk said. “You can’t . . .”

  Doris cut him off with a hand gesture.

  “Do you think either of my clients killed anyone?” Doris said.

  “Jesus,” Harvey said.

  “I doubt it,” Corsetti said.

  “Then perhaps we have some room,” Doris said.

  “Tell me,” Corsetti said.

  “I’ll discuss it with my clients,” Doris said, “and get back to you.”

  “Don’t take too long,” Corsetti said. “I don’t want to have to come in and cuff him on the set.”

  “We will be expeditious,” Doris said. “And we won’t be intimidated.”

  “You might be,” Corsetti said.

  55

  Rosie and I were at our table in the corner at Spike’s, waiting for my father. He was on time, as he always was. It was why I was early. Being on time was hard for me. I saw him shake hands with Spike when he came in. And Spike walked to my table with him. They didn’t really understand each other, but neither of them felt a need to. They both cared about me, and I knew that seemed sufficient to them. When she saw my father, Rosie jumped up onto the table and wagged so hard I thought she’d fall off. My father picked her up and placed his nose against hers and gazed into her eyes.

  “Never let anyone,” he said to her, “tell you that you’re just a dog.”