Lily White

by Susan Isaacs

“Come on,” Terry demanded. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” Norman said, directing his answer to me, as if I’d posed the question. “Like maybe Mary got insecure about me. I mean, it’s crazy, but … I stayed over at Bobette’s a couple of times. Bobette really wanted it, expected it, wouldn’t take no for an answer, and I didn’t want to queer the deal. It was too close to the big finish. Maybe Mary thought …” His voice trailed off.

  “What did she think?” I asked. Norman shrugged, so I repeated the question.

  “Maybe she thought I might actually go through with it this time. You know.”

  “Know what?”

  “That I would marry Bobette.”

  “Did you give Mary any indication you were going to?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Are you kidding? Of course not!”

  “Because you weren’t going to marry Bobette? Or because you didn’t want Mary to know what you were thinking?” Norman looked down at his big hands, noticing them as if for the first time. His nails had grown long. Their unkempt length was highlighted by arcs of greenish dirt beneath them. He folded his fingers to hide the nails but continued to stare down at them in something approaching horror, as if the first two joints had suddenly been lopped off. “Norman, try and answer my question.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, hiding his fingers under his armpits. Looking above the crowd, he stared up into the glassy eye of the guards’ closed-circuit camera. He didn’t speak for almost a minute. Finally, he said: “Look, you know what I do, what I am. So my word probably doesn’t mean anything to you. But I swear to God, I would never have left Mary for anyone.” He took a deep, agonized breath. “I admit”—another breath—“I thought of it. Bobette had around fifty thou stashed in the bank. Over two hundred in a brokerage account. And she netted around a hundred twenty-five a year from the bars and a couple of buildings she owned. I could have managed her holdings for her. She was dying to give up all that responsibility and just stay home, be taken care of. But I only considered it for … seconds, just seconds. You know why?”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I didn’t like her.” His eyes drifted toward Terry, but he pulled them back to me. “I know that may sound funny to you, but I honestly like some of my marks. Some of them are really sweet. But Bobette was a pain in the butt most of the time. And when she wasn’t”—a shiver of disgust went through him—“she would act cute. ‘Am I your bunny, Denton?”’ he mimicked. “Marry that loser? Not for all the money in the world! Not when I have someone like Mary!”

  “So what was Mary doing at Bobette’s?” Terry asked.

  “Have you met her?” Norman inquired, his chest puffing with anticipatory pride.

  “Mary? Not yet.” Terry bunched his features together, angry with Norman’s attempt at male camaraderie. Not truly angry: Whenever Terry wanted to move things along, he’d frighten someone. On a busy day, he could put on his scary face ten or twenty times. He leaned forward as if ready to spring. On the other side of the barrier, Norman pressed his spine as hard as he could against the back of his chair. “You didn’t answer my question,” Terry persisted. “I want an answer now. Why are Mary Dean’s fingerprints all over that house?”

  “Maybe she was looking for …” But Norman Torkelson couldn’t think of a thing.

  A half hour later, Mary stood in her living room, held up her left hand, and swore: “Honest to God, I wasn’t in her house!” I watched as Terry Salazar’s hard features softened into that squishy, low-IQ expression of the sexually besotted male.

  “If you weren’t there,” I snapped, “then someone borrowed your fingers and put your prints all over Bobette Frisch’s house.”

  The furnished apartment Mary shared with Norman wasn’t as bad as the Love Nest, although all the furniture was grim, covered in variations of institutional-strength nubby beige and brown. In her kelly green silk bathrobe, Mary was far too dazzling for such a dreary place. “Well …,” she said, trying to buy time.

  But I wasn’t selling it. “When were you at Bobette’s?”

  She glanced over at Terry, hoping to be rescued, but he was still wearing that moronic smile and was useless. So she turned back to me: “Please. Don’t tell Norman.”

  “When were you at Bobette’s?”

  “Oh, God,” she squeaked. I waited. “It was … It turns out …” Mary flashed an apologetic smile to Terry. I was hoping he had come to his senses enough to flash back his hard-boiled private-eye piercing stare, but not only did he beam back at her, but the beam—goofy-grinned, glazed-eyed—was proof that the sight of her had transformed his brain to butterscotch custard. Mary went on: “The day I was there … It turned out to be the day she got killed.”

  “It turned out?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What a coincidence.”

  “I know.”

  “What time were you there?”

  “Not when she got killed.”

  “What time, Mary?”

  “Like, um, most of the afternoon.”

  “You were in her house?”

  “No! Outside.”

  “What were you doing outside?”

  “Watching.” She pretended to adjust the cuff of her robe. “I was, like, jealous. Okay? I watched the house. They were inside the whole day.”

  “Where were you when you were doing your watching?”

  “Just hanging out. Walking around the block. I couldn’t just stand out in front and look. And I don’t drive, so I couldn’t rent a car or anything and sit and wait there. But around three o’clock, my feet hurt. I was scared if they came out, you know, that Norman would spot me and have, like, a total shit fit. So I went and I sat …” She hung her head and mumbled the rest: “I sat on her back stoop.”

  “Did you look inside?”

  “Every once in a while.”

  “From the rear of the house?”

  “Yes. And from the sides too. But I was scared her neighbor would see me. Her neighbor on one side. On the other side there’s big bushes. Then, when I stopped looking, I went back to the back stoop.” She sighed. “I shouldn’t have worn heels.”

  I told Terry to find out if the cops had checked for footprints and if there was any indication of high-heel marks. Then I turned back to Mary: “Weren’t you afraid Bobette would come out and spot you?”

  “No. It was super-cloudy. Very chilly too. She wouldn’t want to sit out in back.”

  “What if she’d left something outside? What if she wanted to empty her garbage?” Mary clearly had not thought of that. “What if her tenant saw you?”

  “I didn’t remember about him. He came out, though, and I heard him on the other side of the house, giving Norman a lot of grief. You know, about his car blocking the driveway.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Late. I was starved. I kept thinking about fajitas. It was after they got back from their nature walk. Must have been after six. Then the tenant drove away and Norman and Bobette went back in. Chicken fajitas. The beef ones are too greasy.”

  “So how did you get inside?” I asked her.

  “I heard the front door open and someone come out. So I kind of snuck around and peeked. It was Norman. Then he drove off, and then I heard the shower. So with him being gone, I went around to the front. He always presses that teeny little button on the lock of the door of our apartment because he always forgets his key. Sure enough, the door was open! He must have done it. Or maybe Fatso unlocked it for him to get back in. Or maybe she forgot about it. Anyway, I walked right in.”

  “What did you plan to do?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t have any plan.”

  “Come on, Mary,” I said, my patience running out. Also, I was experiencing a near-irresistible urge for chicken fajitas. “You must have had something on your mind, going into Bobette’s.”

  “Well, you can imagine what I was thinking.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Terry nodding like a lunatic
. “I’m sorry,” I replied, not at all snidely. “I can’t imagine what you were thinking.”

  “I wanted to see … Like maybe Bobette bought plane tickets ’cause they were going to go away for a honeymoon. Or something. I just wanted to know.” She hugged her green robe tighter against her. “I can’t help it. I get jealous.”

  “Did you search the house?”

  “I went upstairs first, to her bedroom. I figured it would be safe with her in the shower.” I waited. “I went through her drawers. Nothing. Just her stupid, ugly fat-bras. Then the shower went off. I almost had a heart attack, I was so scared.” She put her hand over her left breast and gave it a series of rapid pats. I deliberately avoided looking at Terry looking at Mary. “I didn’t have time for her closet. I ran back down.”

  “And?”

  “Oh, God, my heart was pounding! Boom! Boom! I could hear her footsteps upstairs! Clomp! Clomp! Clomp! And then I got even scareder, because I thought: Oh God, what if Norman comes back and finds me?”

  “So what did you do next?”

  “I just ran out.”

  “You didn’t look around anymore?”

  “Maybe for, like, a second, before I got totally petrified. But I didn’t find anything.”

  “Did you take anything?”

  “No!”

  “You didn’t, for example, take Bobette’s wallet?” Mary’s tongue darted back and forth over her lower lip. “You didn’t then take a local cab or a bus and go up to the Americana Shopping Center? Maybe buy a bag at Louis Vuitton?”

  Mary’s eyes filled up. “How did you find out?” she managed to ask. Then she started to weep.

  “You want to help Norman, don’t you?”

  Mary was sobbing too hard to answer. Terry eyed me as if I’d committed a major human rights violation. Finally, I heard a hiccupy “Of course I want to help him. I love him.”

  “Do you want him to go to prison for a crime he didn’t commit?” She shook her head. “So, Mary, we have to get at the truth.”

  She lifted her tear-drenched face. Terry looked as if his heart would explode. “I bought a shoulder bag,” Mary admitted, wiping away a mascara-blackened tear. “The big one. And a cocktail dress at another store.” Suddenly she tore away from us. She seemed to be rushing headlong toward the bedroom. I realized that if she could climb out the window, she’d disappear along with Norman’s small shot at freedom. I followed her. Terry started to follow me, probably to protect her, but suddenly Mary was hurrying back to us—carrying a shirred white cocktail dress with spaghetti straps, a minuscule thing about the size of a hand towel. “Isn’t it, like, the best dress ever?” she demanded. “Feel it. It’s the silkiest silk.” I kept my hands at my sides. But I watched her hands as her fingers caressed the fabric.

  “Mary …”

  “I know I shouldn’t have. But it was sooo silky. I mean, how should I know she’d go and get murdered? I thought: Well, Norman’s going to score, and why shouldn’t I get something nice for myself from her? Not what Norman would give me: something straight from her. I mean, look what she has! Her own house. She can buy all kinds of clothes, that fatso pig, and she has two VCRs. So big deal: Why can’t I have a little shopping spree before we leave town?”

  “But I thought you were afraid that he might stay and actually marry Bobette.”

  “Not deep, deep down.”

  “Deep down enough to sneak into her house when she was there and risk getting caught.”

  “I was just … you know. Wanting to reassure myself. And the wallet just happened to be there. You know, that old blobbo had an American Express and a Visa and a MasterCard! I’ve been dying for one of those Vuitton bags for, you know, about a hundred years. And when I saw that dress, it had, like, my name on it! It said: Mary, this is yours. Your dream dress for when you go to some really, really expensive club to celebrate after you and Norman get married.”

  Little Chuckie Phalen was attachéd to a big tan machine by a clear plastic hose. The machine extracted oxygen from the air and pumped it straight up his nose. He kept the thing right beside his desk; that way, he could, with a quick flip of his scuffed cordovan shoe, turn off the flow of oxygen so he could light up a Camel.

  My partner, Chuckie, had always been an affable man. Despite his diminutive size, he was the rare sort who could break off a bar fight with a few good-humored words. He was a great storyteller, too, and was always being asked to emcee some judge’s retirement party, or to say a few words on behalf of So-and-so, who was being honored by the Nassau County Guild for Something Legal and/or Catholic. Being so outgoing, Chuckie had naturally chosen the most sociable means of suicide, and I had no doubt there were bets among the boys at TJ’s Taproom as to what would get him first: his smoked-out lungs or his Scotch-saturated liver.

  He used oxygen only in the office, convinced that whatever compassion points he could score with a jury by being hooked up to a portable tank would be offset by their annoyance at having to feel sympathy for a sick man. “It’s not a good handicap, like being blind. Or having a leg off and being able to roll right up to them in a wheelchair,” he’d informed me. We tried to meet at the end of every day for a drink, a Sam Adams for me, a J&B for him, and to shoot the breeze about our cases and office matters before I went home to meet the man in my life and he to the boys at TJ’s.

  “My heart is in smithereens,” Chuckie commented, after I’d told him about my day on the Torkelson case. “You don’t think it really could have been the beauti-full girl who killed the old maid, do you? I hate the thought of beauty behind bars.”

  “What if she were ugly?”

  “Throw ’er in the clink!”

  “Her killing Bobette does sound pretty improbable,” I mused, “at least when you first think about it. But Mary has very big hands. Like the hands that left those marks on Bobette’s throat. And she certainly has the size and strength to strangle someone.”

  “She’s a big, beauti-full girl?” The glimmer in his eye suggested he was recalling something specific: In Chuckie’s case, it was probably a porn film he’d seen in 1947.

  “She’s tall, not big. But she looks pretty strong to me.”

  “Happen to notice any marks on her forearms? I mean, if she strangled the old maid—”

  “Bobette.”

  “Right. Bobette. If she strangled her, and if the old maid was no weakling—”

  “The autopsy report puts her at five-four, a hundred and sixty-one pounds. She was what you could call solid.”

  “—then Beauti-full would likely have had scratches or bruises on her hands or arms, where the old maid would’ve tried to pull her off.”

  “Possibly. But then again, Norman didn’t, either, right after he was arrested.”

  “So what are you saying: Someone else did it?”

  I sipped my Sam Adams from a blue plastic beer stein, a grotesque thing with football helmets embossed on it. Sandi, my secretary, had bought it for me at a flea market. For all its hideousness, it was a great find, with a freezy liquid trapped in its innards that kept the beer at ice-cold perfection. “No, it would really be pushing it to say someone else did it. I mean, there’s a tenant, but from what Terry could find out, he’s just a creep, not a psycho. But what about Mary Dean? She had motive—in her mind, anyway. She was terrified Norman would stay with Bobette, marry her. Maybe she felt she had to get rid of her. And she knew the layout of Bobette’s house amazingly well. My guess is Mary had been stalking them for some time, not just the day of the murder. And I bet you anything it wasn’t the first time she’d broken into Bobette’s house. She wanted the threat of marriage to Bobette eliminated. There’s your motive. Now think about this: Norman had no motive.”

  “Lee, you’re talking to me, Charles Michael Phalen, your partner,” Chuckie wheezed. “Or do you think I’ve lost all sense?”

  “Listen, what could have motivated Norman to commit murder? He has an absolutely predictable M.O. He gets their money, goes out to buy champagne,
brings it back, and toasts the mark—so the mark feels confident he’s not running off with her life savings. At which point he runs off with her life savings. He doesn’t have a violent nature.”

  “Then why were you so sure up to now that he did it?” Chuckie asked.

  I was dying for another beer, but I allow myself only one, and a glass of wine at dinner. For that pleasure, I have to run three miles a day, forgo dessert eternally, and eat more fish than is necessary for human happiness. If I had even a single extra sip, I would gain so much weight so fast that I would make Bobette look like Audrey Hepburn. “This is what I thought happened,” I said slowly, “when I still was convinced Norman did it: He was at Bobette’s. She’d taken the money out of the bank, but maybe she wouldn’t let him have it. She wasn’t a born patsy. She was a shrewd businesswoman; she might have had second thoughts. Or maybe … I don’t know why I think this, but maybe she expected fireworks along with the champagne and Norman wasn’t able to perform. He was really turned off by her. I know he found her very demanding, insisting he sleep over.”

  “But why would he kill her?”

  “I just had a gut feeling she may have taunted or condescended to him and she did it at the wrong moment. He’s a worn-out man. Tired of the game. Wants desperately to be a big shot to this beautiful young woman he’s in love with and senses she suspects he’s getting weary. So he has this—what do you call it?—performance anxiety. And so if Bobette ridiculed him, he might have snapped.”

  “Are you defending him? It sounds like you’re prosecuting him.”

  “I’m ruminating, Chuckie.”

  “Ruminate away, dearie.”

  “My guess is, Norman was afraid that if he showed Mary how exhausted he really was, she’d run. He was also afraid that Bobette would figure out he was just going through the motions.”

  “Why? Wasn’t he good at the con?”

  “Sure, but no one’s at his best when he’s tired, and Norman was so exhausted he might not have had the energy to be a great lover. I’m not just talking about the sex part; I’m talking about the stamina it takes to be charming to someone you’re either indifferent to or you can’t stand. But the irony of it is, that’s all he’s equipped to do. He couldn’t hold down a real job. And he sure as hell can’t live off his investments. He’s in his mid-thirties. He’s been doing the con since he was a teenager. Want to bet that he’s never saved any money?”