The Helper cd-2

by David Jackson

  ‘I don’t think I ever saw a DOA in this particular position before,’ says Kravitz.

  ‘Me either. Certainly draws the eye, don’t it?’

  ‘That it does. Quite the focal point. I’m thinking of suggesting it to my wife.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Certainly. For one thing, the height is exactly right.’

  As he says this, Kravitz puts his hands out in front of him, as if imagining holding onto his wife’s hips, and gently pulsates his groin. In and out. In and out.

  ‘Yeah, the height,’ says Folger with obvious distaste, since any use of the word in his presence tends to be pejorative. His own contribution to the pleasure of any woman in the position now under discussion would have to be strictly oral, unless he brought a stepladder.

  ‘And the angle is perfect. Both for me and for her.’

  ‘For your wife too?’

  ‘Absolutely. She’s suffered from lower back pain for years. I think this would do her the world of good. Much better than those balls she keeps rolling around the house on.’

  ‘Your wife rolls around the house on balls?’

  ‘Well, ball, singular. You know, one of those big-ass balloon things for exercises? I’m convinced that regular adoption of the bath-based posture being demonstrated for us by this young lady here would be much more beneficial than any amount of ball-supported locomotion.’

  Folger nods with enthusiasm. ‘Plus,’ he says, perhaps too hastily, ‘you wouldn’t have to look at her face.’

  Kravitz turns a stony glare on his shorter compatriot.

  ‘What are you saying about my wife?’

  Only then does Folger seem to realize what he has just said. ‘Uhm, I have a thing about people looking at me while I’m doing it.’

  ‘An audience, you mean?’

  ‘No. I mean the female. I don’t like to make eye contact. I find it puts me off my stride. For you I’m sure it’s not a problem. Especially with someone as attractive as your wife.’

  Kravitz maintains his stare for a while, as if unsure whether to take offense.

  ‘You should talk to somebody about that problem. Some women, they like to see what’s going on when they’re in the sack. Could be the reason your relationships are always so short.’

  Folger merely nods, even though he resents the return insult. Resents, too, the word ‘short’ being thrown at him like that.

  Standing a few feet behind the two Homicide dicks, Doyle tries to avoid being distracted by their inane drivel. He watches while Norman Chin, the Medical Examiner, performs some initial scrutiny, directs the taking of numerous photographs from various angles, and supervises the extraction of the body from its watery grave. Then he concentrates on what Chin has to say about the victim.

  He listens to Chin’s description of the injury to the girl’s throat, the pressure marks on her shoulders, her broken nails and the scratches in the tile grouting, the bloodstained frothing in her nasal passages and in her mouth. He listens to the academic asides on oxygen deprivation, hemodilution, body chemistry disruption, diatoms, and cadaveric spasm. And he listens to Chin’s tentative conclusion — wait for the damn autopsy, goddamnit — that death was due to forcible drowning caused by an assailant or assailants unknown. In short, ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is a murder case. Who would have guessed?

  But it’s not just any old run-of-the-mill murder case, is it now? Oh, no.

  ‘Well, look who it is,’ says Folger, spotting Doyle behind him. ‘Thank Christ for that. We can all go home now. The case is solved.’

  ‘How do you figure that?’ says Kravitz.

  ‘Didn’t you hear? Doyle here has a theory that all homicides recently committed in this city are connected. They’ve all been carried out by the same killer. Whatever the precinct, whatever the MO, it don’t matter. Same guy every time.’

  ‘Is that so? Kinda like a unified field theory, huh?’

  Folger looks puzzled. ‘Uh, yeah.’

  ‘Well that certainly makes our job easier. What do you think, Doyle? Is this another victim we can chalk up to your Mysterious Manhattan Murderer?’

  Actually, yes, is what Doyle wants to answer. That’s precisely what he thinks. He could be wrong, and he hopes he is. But what worries him about this scene is that there is no sign of forced entry to the apartment. Which suggests either that the victim knew her killer, or else she was somehow tricked into allowing him into her apartment. And lulling his victims into a false sense of security before he strikes is the thing at which Doyle’s oh-so-helpful enemy excels.

  Except that this time he wasn’t helpful, was he? No phone calls for Doyle to reject. No phone number on the victim’s arms. No pretending to be Doyle in a call to the victim. Nothing.

  Not that Doyle wants any of that. He’s glad to be out of it. He wanted a conventional murder case and now he’s got it. He should be celebrating. He should be running around this corpse, singing and clapping.

  But he’s not. And he knows why. It’s because a part of him is saying, Maybe you could have prevented this. If you hadn’t slammed the door on your only source of information, maybe you could have listened to the clues and interpreted them correctly for once and prevented the death of this pretty young girl. For the others, the clues were there every time. You just didn’t know how to read them. And now people are still dying and you have no clues at all. Is that really what you wanted?

  He has no answer. He is being pulled in opposite directions simultaneously. To listen to the helper or to ignore him. He has to decide, because right now it’s tearing him apart.

  ‘Who found the body?’ he asks Kravitz, ducking the homicide detective’s question.

  Kravitz gives him a long look, and Doyle wonders whether the man is going to give him a hard time. He is mildly surprised when he gets a straight answer.

  ‘Roomie. Even better-looking than this one. She’s in quite a state.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘With the landlady downstairs. Apartment 1A.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Kravitz, and it seems to Doyle that there is almost a hint of respect there. He tells himself that Kravitz must be having an off day.

  After the problems he’s had with Holden, it occurs to Doyle that he should at least mention to him that he intends talking to the roommate. But Holden is already engaged in conversation with a thin bald man — presumably one of the tenants.

  Fuck it, thinks Doyle.

  He trudges down the stairs to the first floor. When he knocks on the door of apartment 1A, it opens within seconds.

  He guesses that the woman before him is about sixty, even though her over-tanned skin has the appearance of antique leather. She wears a dazzling flower-print dress that Doyle thinks is far too short for a woman of her advanced years. Her hair, sculpted into a gravity-defying beehive, has been dyed a shade of red not found in nature. Minus the hair, she’d struggle to hit the five-foot mark. She reminds Doyle of the little old lady in Rosemary’s Baby — the one who befriends Rosemary only so that she can use her to carry the Devil’s child.

  ‘Police,’ says Doyle as he shows his shield.

  ‘Big surprise,’ says the woman. ‘The building is crawling with them right now. Where were you when I got burglarized last Christmas?’

  ‘This is a little more serious than that, Mrs. .’

  ‘Serafinowicz. With a z.’

  ‘With a z, huh?’ says Doyle, wondering where it goes.

  ‘Yes. And don’t tell me how serious this is. I know how serious this is. There’s a beautiful young girl lying dead in one of my apartments up there. You better catch the son of a bitch who did that, or else you’ll have me to answer to.’

  Doyle decides that answering to Mrs Serafinowicz with a z is the last thing he wants.

  ‘That’s why I’m here. I need to talk to the roommate who found the body, and I’m told she’s here with you.’

  ‘She already spoke with the other cops.’
/>   ‘That’s okay. I just want to make sure that we’ve covered everything.’

  ‘She’s upset. She can’t stop crying, the poor girl. Can’t you come back later?’

  ‘Time is of the essence, ma’am, as I’m sure you appreciate.’

  She studies him for a while. Listening to the demonic voices in her head, no doubt.

  ‘All right,’ she says. ‘Just go easy on her.’

  She opens the door wide, and Doyle steps into a room that seems to be filled with junk. Almost every available surface is covered with items that look like they’ve come from all corners of the globe. Swiss cuckoo clocks, bears dressed in London Beefeater outfits, Japanese fans, Mexican sombreros, Australian boomerangs — she’s got them all. Doyle notices that there’s even a section of a shelf devoted to all things Irish, including a bobble-headed leprechaun exactly like the one he has on his desk in the squad-room.

  Sitting on a chintz sofa in the center of this organized chaos is a young woman. She has curly blond hair and is wearing a very low-cut brown top. Her eyes and nose are red from crying. She looks frightened and vulnerable.

  ‘Hi,’ says Doyle. ‘My name’s Cal Doyle. I’m a detective with the Eighth Precinct. You mind if I ask you a few questions?’

  The girl shakes her head and wipes her nose with a tissue clutched tightly in her fist.

  Doyle takes out his notebook and flips it open. ‘That’s great,’ he says. ‘Let’s start with your name.’

  She answers him honestly, but what Doyle doesn’t yet appreciate is how significant that answer is.

  ‘Tabitha,’ she says. ‘Tabitha Peyton.’

  NINETEEN

  ‘I’ll make some tea,’ says Mrs Whatever-with-a-z, and she toddles off to the kitchen.

  Doyle is relieved to be apart from her for a short while, but at the same time he feels a little awkward. Tabitha Peyton looks like she could break down at any second, and he is not good at dealing with females who go to pieces on him. He never knows what to say or do. He wishes now that Holden or one of his other male colleagues had come down here with him, so that at least if she did start bawling he could join with the other cop in a manly show of rolling his eyes at the weakness of the female sex.

  ‘You mind if I sit down?’ he asks.

  She nods, and he takes his seat.

  ‘Your roommate,’ he says. ‘Helena, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Helena Colquitt. I’ve known her a long time. I still can’t believe she’s. .’ She wipes her nose again.

  Don’t cry, thinks Doyle. Please don’t cry.

  ‘It’s okay to be upset. I understand,’ he says. And then he thinks, Why the hell am I saying that?

  ‘It’s just that. . I don’t know why anyone would do this to her.’

  Doyle doesn’t comprehend it either. The logic — if there is any — still escapes him.

  ‘Tell me what happened here tonight.’

  She stares at her hands while she casts her mind back. ‘We were in the apartment together — Helena and me. I ordered a pizza and then I asked her to run a bath for me while I came down to see Bridget — Mrs Serafinowicz. She’s been suffering with her arthritis lately, and so I wanted to see if there was anything I could do for her. She’s been so good to me since I moved here. She’s looked after me like I was her own daughter. I only intended to stay for a few minutes, but we got talking, you know? Maybe if I’d gone straight back upstairs. .’

  Her voice starts to break, and so Doyle urges her on before the floodgates can open: ‘So eventually you did go back up. Did you pass anyone on the stairs? See anything unusual?’

  ‘No. Everything was normal. I got to the apartment, I opened the door. Everything was as it should be. I didn’t suspect a thing. Only there was no sign of Helena. I called her, but there was no answer. And that’s when I went into the bathroom.’

  The word ‘bathroom’ comes out as a squeak that is so high-pitched it is almost inaudible. Doyle thinks it’s not going to take much more to make her lose it altogether, but he has to press on.

  ‘Okay, you’re doing great. Tell me what you saw.’

  She clears her throat. ‘I saw Helena. In the bathtub. In the water she’d run for me. Her head was. . she was under the water. She wasn’t moving.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I ran over to her. I tried to pull her out of the water. When her head came up, I could see blood all around her nose, and her eyes were wide open. I’ll never forget that look she was giving me. She was dead — I just knew it — and the shock of it made me drop her back in the water. That’s when I started panicking. I ran out of the apartment, screaming for help. Mr Casey, my neighbor from across the hall, came out to see what the noise was. He’s pretty old now, but he used to be a cop many years ago. I don’t remember what I said to him — it must have sounded complete nonsense — but he went into my apartment to check it out. I walked back into the living room, but I couldn’t go any farther. I could hear the movement of water in the bathroom for a few minutes, and then Mr Casey came back out. His arms were dripping wet. He didn’t have to say anything. The look on his face. .’

  The dam gives way then. She brings her hands to her face and her shoulders start to heave as she sobs.

  Oh, Christ, thinks Doyle. He starts to reach out a hand to her shoulder, then pulls it back again, not sure what to do.

  He is saved by the bell. Or rather the rattle of crockery announcing the return of Mrs S, now burdened with a silver tray. She takes one look at the pair on the sofa, then says, ‘What did I tell you? She’s too upset for this.’

  She sets the tray down on a dark wooden table in front of Doyle, then tells him to move over. Doyle shuffles along the sofa to allow Mrs Serafinowicz to squeeze in and console the distraught Tabitha.

  While this is going on, Doyle busies himself with jotting a few things down in his notebook. The girl’s story seems entirely kosher. Casey would have been the old guy Doyle had seen talking to the detectives upstairs. As an ex-cop himself, Casey would have been equipped to confirm that the girl was dead, and he would have known to put the body back exactly as he found it.

  When the sniffling has subsided, Mrs Serafinowicz moves off the sofa and starts pouring the tea. Doyle takes a cup from her out of politeness.

  ‘I won’t take up too much more of your time,’ he tells Tabitha. ‘Just a few more questions, okay?’

  He gets a nod from Tabitha and a tut of disapproval from Mrs Serafinowicz.

  ‘Tell me about Helena. How did you meet? How did she become your roommate?’

  ‘I think it was, like, fate, you know? I moved to New York about a year ago, hoping to make a fresh start. See, both my parents were killed a few months before that in a car crash. I thought that maybe by making the move, taking a new job, meeting new people, I could move on with my life. Only it didn’t work out like that. I was a mess. I started drinking, hanging around with guys I didn’t really know. If it hadn’t been for Bridget here, taking me under her wing. .’

  Doyle looks across at Mrs Serafinowicz, and for the first time sees her for what she is: a woman who genuinely cares about the people living under her roof. It’s a rare thing, and Doyle is touched by it.

  ‘It was Bridget who told me that I needed to make some real friends, that I needed companionship. So I thought about a roommate. That way, I’d have company and someone to help with the rental. Not that Bridget charges me anywhere near the rent that some places ask.’

  Mrs Serafinowicz doesn’t react. Doesn’t appear smug or holier-than-thou. She simply looks Doyle in the eye, and he feels that he is actually starting to like this woman.

  ‘So I started searching. On the Internet mostly, until my computer broke down. But none of the women I interviewed seemed suitable. Some were downright flaky. The rest, I just didn’t see myself being able to live with them for God knows how many years. So I gave up. And then, about six weeks ago, I got a phone call. From Helena. We were at university together. Carnegie Mellon. We were be
st friends at the time. We dressed the same, we had the same interests. She even bought a Harley Davidson that was like mine. People used to call us the Turbo Twins. And here she was, calling me up. You know why? Because she was moving to New York and needed somewhere to stay. Just when I thought I was out of luck. See, that’s what I mean by fate.’ She reflects on that for a moment, then adds, ‘But I guess fate can work both ways. If I hadn’t asked her to move in with me. .’

  ‘You can’t think like that,’ Doyle says. ‘You can keep coming up with what-ifs till you’re blue in the face, but it doesn’t change things. What happened is what happened. You couldn’t have done anything to change that.’

  ‘First useful thing you’ve said since you arrived,’ says Mrs Serafinowicz.

  ‘Helena wasn’t running away from anything, was she? She didn’t come to New York to get away from someone who might want to hurt her?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. She seemed happy enough. Nothing was troubling her. I was the one who needed the emotional support.’

  ‘What about after she arrived here? She get on the wrong side of anyone?’

  ‘No. We went out, we shopped, we had fun. There was no trouble at any time.’

  It’s the answer Doyle expected, and the answer he didn’t want. He hoped there would be someone else he could tag for this, or at least hang a question mark over their head. As it is, it’s looking increasingly likely that Helena Colquitt is just the latest victim in a deadly sequence.

  ‘What about a key to the apartment? You or Helena ever give it out to anyone?’

  ‘No. Absolutely not.’

  ‘What about you, Mrs, uhm. .’

  ‘Serafinowicz. Maybe you should put it in your little notebook there. And don’t forget the z. But to answer your question, no, I do not give keys out to anyone but my tenants.’

  Which is also the response Doyle expected and feared. What confounds him is that the only sign of a struggle was in the bathroom. How does a complete stranger manage to talk his way into the apartment of a beautiful girl who isn’t even properly dressed, and then get her into the bathroom without a fight of some kind? How the hell does he do that?