Lullaby

by Ed McBain

  'Was everything okay?' Byrnes asked.

  'According to Hodding, she sounded fine.'

  'No strain, no forced conversation, nobody there with her?'

  'He said she sounded natural.'

  'And this was at twelve-thirty, huh?' Willis asked.

  'Yeah. According to Hodding.'

  'Who'd had a little to drink, huh?' Brown said.

  'Well, a lot to drink, actually,' Meyer said.

  'So there's your problem,' Parker said. 'One end of your timetable is based on what a fuckin' drunk told you.'

  Carella looked at him.

  'Am I right?' he asked.

  'Maybe,' Carella said.

  'So can we go home now?'

  * * * *

  It broke her heart sometimes, this city.

  On a day like today, with the storm clouds beginning to gather over the river, gray and rolling in over the gray rolling water, the certain smell of snow on the air ...

  On a day like today, she remembered being a little girl in this city.

  Remembered the playground this city had been, winter, summer, spring and fall. The street games changing with the changing seasons. A children's camp all year round. In the wintertime, on a day like today, all the kids would do their little magic dance in the street, praying that the snow would come soon, praying there'd be no school tomorrow, there'd be snow forts instead and snowball fights, the girls shrieking in terror and glee as the boys chased them through narrow canyons turned suddenly white. Eileen giggling, her cheeks red, her eyes flashing, bundled in a heavy parka, a woolen pom-pommed hat pulled down over her ears, her red hair tucked up under it because she was ashamed of her hair back then, made her look too Irish, whatever that was, too much the Mick, her mother used to say, We're American, you know, we didn't just get off the boat.

  She loved this city.

  For what it had inspired in her.

  The need to compete, the need to excel in order to survive, acity of gutter rats, her father had said with pride in his voice. Michael Burke. They called him Pops on the beat, because his hair was prematurely white, he'd looked like his own grandfather when he was still only twenty-six. Pops Burke. Shot to death when she was still a little girl. A liquor store-holdup. The Commissioner had come to his funeral. He told Eileen her father was a very brave man. They gave her mother a folded American flag.

  Her Uncle Matt was a cop, too. She'd loved him to death, loved the stories he told her about leprechauns and faeries, stories he'd heard from his mother who'd heard them from hers and on back through the generations, back to a time when Ireland was everywhere green and covered with a gentle mist, a time when blood was not upon the land. Her uncle's favorite toast was 'Here's to golden days and purple nights,' an expression he'd heard repeated again and again on a radio show. Recently, Eileen had heard Hal Willis's new girlfriend using the same expression. Maybe her uncle had listened to the same radio comic.

  Chances were, though, that Marilyn's uncle hadn't been killed in a bar while he was off duty and drinking his favorite drink and making his favorite toast, here's to golden days and purple nights indeed. Not when the color of the day is red, the color of the day is shotgun red, Uncle Matt drawing his service revolver as the holdup man came in, red plaid kerchief over his face, blew him off the barstool and later took fifty-two dollars and thirty-six cents from the cash register. Uncle Matt dead on the floor in a pool of his own blood. Another folded American flag for the family. The shooting took place in the old Hundred and Tenth in Riverhead. They used to call it The Valley of Death, after the Tennyson poem about into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred. How this applied to the Hundred and Tenth, God alone knew; the lexicon of cops was often obscure in origin.

  She wondered if she should tell Karin Lefkowitz that the main reason she'd joined the force was so that someday she could catch that son of a bitch with the red plaid kerchief over his face, rip off that kerchief, and look him dead in the eye before she blew him away. Her Uncle Matt was the reason. Not her father who'd been killed when she was still too young to have really known him. Her Uncle Matt.

  Who still brought tears to her eyes whenever she thought of him and his leprechauns and faeries.

  This city . . .

  It ...

  It taught you how to do something better than you'd ever done anything else in your life. Taught you how to be the best at it. Which was what she'd been. The best decoy cop in this city. Never mind modesty, she'd been the best, yes. She'd done her job with the sense of pride her father had instilled in her and the sense of humor her uncle had encouraged, never letting it get to her, balancing its risks and its rewards, eagerly approaching each new assignment as if it were an adventure, secure in the knowledge that she was a professional among professionals.

  Until, of course, the city took it all away from her.

  You either owned this city or you didn't.

  Once upon a time, when she was good, she owned it.

  And now she owned nothing.

  Not even herself.

  She took a deep breath and climbed the low flat steps in front of the old Headquarters Building, and went through one of the big bronze doorways, and wondered what she should tell Karin Lefkowitz today.

  * * * *

  Carella did not get to the Hammond apartment in Calm's Point until almost ten o'clock that night. He had phoned ahead and learned from Melissa Hammond that her husband usually got home from the office at seven, seven-thirty, but since he'd been away from work for almost a week now and since there was a lot of catching up to do, he might not be home until much later. Carella asked if she thought eight would be okay for him to stop by, and she told him they'd be having dinner as soon as her husband got home, so if he could make it a bit later . . .

  It was five minutes to ten when he knocked on the door.

  He'd been on the job since a quarter to eight that morning.

  Before he'd left the office, he'd called a woman named Chastity Kerr, who'd given the party the Hoddings had attended on New Year's Eve. He'd made an appointment to see her at ten tomorrow morning. So if he got out of here by eleven, he'd be home by midnight. Have a snack with Teddy before they went to bed, wake up early in the morning so he could have breakfast with the twins before they caught their seven-thirty school bus, leave for the office at eight, catch up on the reports he hadn't got to yesterday or today, and then go see Mrs Kerr. Just thinking about it made him more tired than he actually was.

  The Hammonds were still at the dinner table, lingering over coffee, when he arrived. Melissa Hammond, a very attractive, pregnant blonde with the same green eyes her sister had listed as 'Best Feature' on the Cooper-Anderson background form, asked Carella if he'd care for a cup. 'I grind the beans myself,' she said. He thanked her, and accepted the chair her husband offered. Richard Hammond - his wife called him 'Dick' - was a tall, good-looking man with dark hair and dark eyes. Carella guessed that he was in his late thirties, his wife a few years younger. He had obviously changed from the clothes he'd worn to work this morning, unless his law office was a lot more casual than the ones Carella was accustomed to. Hammond worked for the firm of Lasser, Bending, Merola and Ross. He was wearing jeans, a sweat shirt with a Washington State University seal on it, and loafers without socks. He offered Carella a cigar, which Carella declined.

  Melissa poured coffee for him.

  Carella said, 'I'm glad you agreed to see me.'

  'We're eager to help in any way possible,' Melissa said.

  'We were just sitting here talking about it,' Hammond said.

  'The coincidence,' Melissa said.

  'Of this baby getting killed.'

  'Joyce's baby, yes,' Carella said and nodded.

  'Well, you don't know that for sure,' Hammond said.

  'Yes, we do,' Carella said, surprised.

  'Well,' Hammond said, and looked at his wife.

  'I'm not sure I understand,' Carella said.

  'It's just that this baby' Melissa said, and lo
oked at her husband.

  'You see,' he said, 'this is the first we're hearing of it. When you called Melissa earlier today and told her Joyce's murder might be linked to the death of her baby . . .'

  'I mean, as far as I knew, Joyce never had a baby.'

  'But she did,' Carella said.

  'Well, that's your contention,' Hammond said.

  Carella looked at them both.

  'Uh . . . look,' he said. 'It might be easier for all of us if we simply accept as fact…'

  'I assume you have substantiating . . .'

  'Yes, Mr Hammond, I do.'

  'That my sister-in-law gave birth to . . .'

  'A baby girl, yes, sir. Last July. At St Agnes Hospital here in the city. And signed it over for adoption to the Cooper-Anderson Agency, also here in the city.'

  'You have papers showing . . . ?'

  'Copies of the papers, yes.'

  'And you know for a fact that this baby who was murdered on . . . ?'

  'Yes, was your sister-in-law's baby. Adopted by Mr and Mrs Peter Hodding, yes.'

  Hammond nodded. 'Well,' he said, and sighed.

  'This is certainly news to us,' Melissa said.

  'You didn't know your sister had this baby?'

  'No.'

  'Did you know she was pregnant?'

  'No.'

  'Never even suspected she might be?'

  'Never.'

  'How often did you see her?'

  'Oh, on and off,' Melissa said.

  'Every few months or so,' Hammond said.

  'Even though you lived here in the same city, huh?' Carella said.

  'Well, we didn't move here till last January,' Hammond said.

  'And, anyway, we were never very close,' Melissa said.

  'When would you say you'd seen her last?'

  'Well, in Seattle. All the while we were in Seattle. I saw her the night she was killed, in fact. We were at the hospital together.'

  'I meant before then.'

  'Well, we flew out together. When it looked as if my father might . . .'

  'What I'm trying to ask . . . your sister gave birth in July. When did you see her before that?'

  'Oh.'

  'Well, let's see, when was it?' Hammond said.

  'We moved here last January . . .'

  'So it must've been . . .'

  'My birthday, wasn't it?' Melissa said.

  'I think so, yes. The party here.'

  'Yes.'

  'And when was that?' Carella asked.

  'February twelfth.'

  'March, April, May, June, July,' Carella said, counting on his fingers. 'That would've made her four months pregnant.'

  'You'd never have known, I can tell you that,' Hammond said.

  'Well, lots of women carry small,' Melissa said.

  'And she was a big woman, don't forget. Five-ten . . .'

  'Big-boned . . .'

  'And she always wore this Annie Hall sort of clothing.'

  'Layered,' Melissa said. 'So it's entirely possible we'd have missed it.'

  'Her being pregnant,' Hammond said.

  'She never confided it to you, huh?' Carella asked.

  'No.'

  'Didn't come to see you when she found out . . . ?'

  'No. I wish she would have.'

  'Melissa always wished they were closer.'

  'Well, there's the age difference, you know,' Melissa said. 'I'm thirty-four, my sister was only nineteen. That's a fifteen-year difference. I was already a teenager when she was born.'

  'It's a shame because . . . well . . . now there's no changing it. Joyce is dead.'

  'Yes,' Carella said, and nodded. 'Tell me, did she ever mention anyone named Michel Fournier? Mike Fournier?'

  'No,' Melissa said. 'At least not to me. Dick? Did she ever . . .'

  'No, not to me, either,' Hammond said. 'Is he the father?'

  'Yes,' Carella said.

  'I figured.'

  'But she never mentioned him, huh?'

  'No. Well, if we didn't know she was pregnant . . .'

  'I thought maybe in passing. Without mentioning that she was pregnant, do you know what I mean? Just discussing him as someone she'd met, or knew, or . . .'

  'No,' Melissa said, shaking her head. 'Dick?'

  'No,' he said. 'I'm sorry.'

  'Did she have any boyfriends back in Seattle?' Carella asked.

  'Well, no one recent,' Melissa said. 'She moved here right after high school, you know . . .'

  'Graduated early . . .'

  'She was only seventeen . . .'

  'She was very smart . . .'

  'Wanted to be a writer ..."

  'You should see some of her poetry.'

  'She was studying here with a very important man.'

  'So she came east . . . when?' Carella asked. 'June? July?'

  'It would've been two years come July.'

  'And we came here in January,' Melissa said. 'Dick had a good job offer . . .'

  'I'd been practicing out there, but this was too good to refuse,' Hammond said.

  'So when you got here in January . . .'

  'Yes, toward the end of . . .'

  '. . . your sister was already pregnant,' Carella said.

  'Was she?' Melissa said.

  'Yes. She would've been three months pregnant,' Carella said. 'Did you look her up when you got here?'

  'Yes, of course.'

  'But you didn't notice she was pregnant.'

  'No. Well, I wasn't looking for anything like that. And, anyway, what'd you say it was? Three months?'

  'Three, yes.'

  'Yes,' Melissa said. 'So she wouldn't have been showing, would she? At least, not so I could notice.'

  'All the Chapman women carry small,' Hammond said. 'Melissa's eight months pregnant now, but you'd never guess it.'

  Carella had the good grace not to look at her belly.

  'Who was Joyce's most recent boyfriend?' he asked. 'Out there in Seattle?'

  'I guess it would have been Eddie,' Melissa said.

  'She was seeing a lot of him in high school.'

  'Eddie Gillette'

  'Pretty serious' Carella asked.

  'Well, high school stuff,' Hammond said. 'You know.'

  'Have the Seattle police talked to him?'

  'I really couldn't say.'

  'Didn't mention his name as a possible suspect or anything, did they?'

  'Didn't mention anyone's name.'

  'They're pretty much scratching their heads out there,' Melissa said.

  'A thing like this . . . it's not too common out there,' Hammond said.

  'Well, people get killed,' Melissa said.

  'Yes, but not like here,' Hammond said. 'Is what I meant.'

  'Big bad city, huh?' Carella said, and smiled.

  'Well, it is, you know,' Hammond said, and returned the smile.

  'What sort of law do you practice?' Carella asked.

  'Not criminal,' Hammond said. 'The firm I'm with now specializes in corporate law.'

  'And out there in Seattle?'

  'General law. I had my own practice.'

  'He was his own boss out there,' Melissa said, and smiled somewhat ruefully.

  'Yes, but the opportunities were limited,' Hammond said. 'You make certain trade-offs in life. We may go back one day, Lissie, who knows?'

  'Time we go back, there'll be no family there anymore,' she said.

  'Her father's very ill, you know,' Hammond said.

  'Yes,' Carella said.

  'Never rains but it pours,' Melissa said, and sighed heavily.

  Carella looked at his watch.

  'I don't want to keep you any longer,' he said. 'Thanks very much for your time, I appreciate it.'

  'Not at all,' Hammond said.

  He walked Carella into the entry foyer, took his overcoat from the closet there, and helped him on with it. Carella thanked him again for his time, called 'Good night' to Melissa, who was clearing the dining room table, and then went out into the hallway a
nd took the elevator down to the street.