The Right Jack (Sigrid Harald)

by Margaret Maron

  “Go away, Alan,” Sigrid said. “I’m not going to have you stand there and nag me for the next forty minutes. Go torpedo something in the bay.”

  “A real cut,” Alan begged the beautician. “Something wild and completely different.”

  “I’ll meet you back at the car,” Sigrid said in a voice that brooked no further argument.

  He went.

  The beautician loosened the thick braid. “Your hair’s as fine as baby silk. Doesn’t hold much curl either, does it?”

  She lifted the soft dark mass in her capable hands and looked at Sigrid in the mirror, considering the younger woman’s thin face, high forehead, and wide gray eyes.

  “Have you ever worn bangs?” she asked.

  At 12:35, the car door opened and Sigrid got in beside him.

  Alan Knight lowered his newspaper and his jaw dropped.

  “Don’t say a word!” Sigrid said in a strangled voice. “Not a single word. I mean it, Alan.”

  A light misting rain had begun and Sigrid stared through the windshield, straight out at the steel gray water. One of the half-day charter boats had returned but it was not the Margie Q.

  “Couldn’t I please say just one word?”

  “Well?”

  “Wow!” he breathed.

  She looked at him anxiously. “Honest? Do you like it?”

  “It’s terrific,” he assured her. “God, it looks great! I can’t believe you really did it.”

  Gone was the bun and the pulled-back severity. The silky dark hair was now feathered and full on top and very short on the sides and back. Wisps of bangs softened her high forehead. Freed of the heavy mass of hair, the newly defined shape of her head sat more elegantly on her long neck.

  She ran the tips of her fingers through the ragged bangs experimentally. “It’s going to be easier to take care of, I think. Ida showed me how to use a blow-dryer to give it more body.”

  “Ida?”

  “The beautician. She was really rather nice.”

  “I bet she could sell Chryslers to the Japanese,” said Alan, peering at her more closely. In the overcast daylight, it was hard to tell. “Are you wearing blusher?”

  “What do you know about blusher?”

  “My six sisters,” he reminded her. “And is that eye shadow, too?”

  Sigrid tilted the rearview mirror so she could examine her face. “It’s not too much, is it? I’ve never felt comfortable with makeup before, but Ida took some of the mystery out of these things.”

  She opened the pink plastic bag she’d brought from the shop to show Knight an assortment of small bottles and tubes.

  “I always thought you had to use a lot and I hated all that thick goop. It’s the first time anybody’s ever explained the theory to me,” she confessed almost shyly. “Ida says there are books in the library.”

  He was touched by her delight in her new look yet he couldn’t help laughing. “Trust you to approach the frivolity of makeup in a rational, systematic way.”

  “I don’t have six sisters,” she replied with some of her usual tartness.

  Ahead of them out in the bay, the shape of a trim little fishing boat emerged from the foggy gray of sky and water.

  The Margie Q was heading in.

  Val Sutton had remembered Victor Earle as short and getting thin on top. Seventeen years later, Earle was completely bald. Even his eyebrows were scanty. All the hair on his head seemed to have repositioned itself around his mouth. His top lip supported a thick brown handlebar moustache that swirled out with exuberant panache on either side of his mouth. He had very pale blue eyes and a disconcerting stare.

  After identifying themselves, they had led him to a table in the Lobster Pot Cafe and he had followed without protest, still wearing his rubber waders. His yellow slicker hung across the back of his chair. He gazed straight into the eyes of his questioners and long minutes seemed to pass before he blinked. The last time Sigrid had seen that sort of unblinking gaze was in the eyes of a man who had killed and then sodomized the bodies of three small boys.

  There seemed to be a momentary pause between the end of each question and the beginning of his response, almost like the two-second delay when a question is bounced off a satellite to someone being televised halfway around the world. Earle answered them willingly enough, but that spaced out stare and the hesitation before his response made Sigrid suspect he might be on drugs.

  Earle expressed neither surprise nor resentment at being sought out by the police and only minimal curiosity that they should be interested in Red Snow.

  “Hell of a way to die,” he told them, his fingers tapping the rubber waders. “Messing around with C-4.”

  “Is that what it was?”

  “That’s what Fred said. I never messed with that stuff. M-4’s and Uzis, even hand grenades, okay, but—”

  “Fred? Fred Hamilton? When did he tell you that?”

  Victor Earle turned his pale-eyed stare upon Sigrid. “In France. One of those resort towns on the Mediterranean.”

  “Where is Hamilton now? Still in Europe?”

  Earle continued to gaze at her. “Yeah, he’s still there.”

  His moustache twitched up and down and it took a moment to realize that he was laughing. There was no sound and no change in the expression in his eyes, just that jerk of brown handlebars and the flash of teeth beneath.

  “He loaded his needle with the wrong stuff one night and woke up dead the next morning.”

  “When?”

  “Seventy-one. April, I think it was.”

  “What about the girl that was with him?”

  “Brooks Ann?” He shrugged. “Who knows? She split. She was walking the streets for rent money and one night she didn’t come back. Probably went home with one of the Johns.”

  “Did you ever hear of any others getting out alive from that burning lodge?” asked Sigrid.

  “Nah.”

  As the interview continued, they learned that Victor Earle did not watch television or read the papers, so he claimed to know nothing about the Maintenon bombing or John Sutton’s death. In fact, he seemed not to know who Sutton was.

  “McClellan? Nah. I was never at McClellan.”

  Alan Knight showed him the group photo taken of the McClellan SDS group and. asked him whom he recognized. He picked out Fred Hamilton, a couple of the women, and Tris Yorke, but not Sutton. Even when they pointed to him, Earle shook his head.

  Then they spread out the photographs taken at the hotel over the past weekend. Knight had remembered to bring along Sigrid’s magnifying glass for studying the tiny faces in the background.

  Absentmindedly rubbing his bald head, Earle moved the glass methodically across the pictures. A surprising number of cardplayers and hotel workers were to be seen in the background and the two officers pointed to those of main interest: Haines Froelick, Vassily Ivanovich, Molly Baldwin, and, of course, Ted Flythe. He admitted knowing none of them.

  “Who are those geeks?” he asked, pointing to a view of the Bontemps Room Sunday afternoon.

  The photographer had taken it in an attempt to get Flythe’s profile without her target noticing, so Flythe was well to the right of the picture. On the left, Madame Ronay seemed to be instructing the remaining busboys and Mr. George, the head steward. Every face was in sharp detail.

  Sigrid explained who they were.

  Earle’s pale blue eyes gazed vacantly into her face. “This George guy. He works for her?”

  “They all do. It’s her hotel,” Knight said impatiently. “Do you recognize them? Have you seen this George before?”

  Another pause.

  “Nah.”

  Before they started the rainy drive back to town, Sigrid telephoned headquarters and left a message for Eberstadt or Peters to start checking Mr. George’s background.

  CHAPTER 28

  Sigrid had never before realized how many reflective surfaces she passed every day, nor how often she saw herself subliminally. Not just mirrors, but window
s, glass partitions, doors, polished vinyl or metal. Each time came as a fresh shock. She rather liked her new haircut, the way it looked and felt, but those unexpected reminders of it were disconcerting. Even more, she wished her co-workers didn’t feel compelled to stare and comment. It was bad enough feeling the silent looks that followed her through the halls when they returned to headquarters Tuesday afternoon. Things were no better in what should have been the sanctuary of her office.

  Alan Knight was beginning to act as if he had cut her hair himself; and when Elaine Albee came in to report that Jill Gill thought no one had followed Pernell Johnson through the staff door Sunday, Sigrid cut through her startled compliments and crisply asked if anyone could alibi Ivanovich between ten-forty-five and eleven o’clock.

  “Not yet, Lieutenant. Everybody went home Sunday night and I’m having trouble locating some of the witnesses.”

  “Wouldn’t it be simplest to ask Ivanovich himself and go from there? Or is it too complicated?”

  “You’re better than those knives they sell on late-night television,” Knight scolded when Albee escaped. “You can slice through steel easy as butter.”

  “Since you have all the data on Ivanovich, why don’t you go help lighten her task?” Sigrid asked irritably.

  “All she wanted to do was make nice about your hair.”

  “Then let me reciprocate,” Sigrid said sardonically. “Albee asked me about your wife yesterday morning.”

  Alan Knight perked up. “She did? What did you tell her?”

  “I said I thought you two were separated.”

  He got up and ambled toward the door. “Now that was real sisterly of you,” he drawled.

  Sigrid worked undisturbed for another half hour until Jim Lowry tapped on her open door. He’d spent the previous afternoon up in Harlem talking to Pernell Johnson’s aunt, a tougher interview than usual. Quincy Johnson had been devastated.

  “They’re taking his body back to Florida today,” said Lowry. “That’s what the grandmother wants. You know, Lieutenant, every time a kid gets killed, his family will tell you what a Boy Scout he was; and then later his friends and neighbors will tell you what he was really like. This time it sounds true. Everybody says he was hard-working and clean—no drugs, not even beer or cigarettes—church on Sunday, respectful of his aunt. I’d stake my career that if Pernell Johnson knew something about that bomb, he didn’t even know he knew it.”

  “So that he might have made an innocent remark that panicked the killer?”

  “Something like that.”

  For a moment, Sigrid was silent, remembering the slender youth in his white linen pants and short green jacket. “I spoke to him, you know. On Saturday. He told me about putting out the fire and about his duties that night. I wish I’d pushed him more.”

  Sigrid glanced up and saw that Lowry was looking at her oddly. Quickly she said, “What did the desk clerk and bellman say about Baldwin’s story? Can they confirm it?”

  “Not really. They think she came downstairs sometime after Madame Ronay showed up looking for her and that she did go down the hall that leads to her office, but they don’t know if she stayed there. No one noticed when she left again.”

  “Too bad.”

  “What about you? Anything new on Fred Hamilton?”

  “According to Victor Earle, he OD’d in France in the spring of seventy-one.”

  “Merde!”

  “My sentiments, too.”

  Lowry stood to go and there was indecision on his good­natured face. “Did you do something to your hair, Lieutenant? It looks different.”

  “I had it cut.”

  “Looks nice.”

  “Thanks. Was there something else, Lowry?”

  “Well, I was wondering if you’d seen Albee. She’s not at her desk and—”

  “She’s out checking on Ivanovich’s movements Sunday morning,” Sigrid answered guiltily, and was relieved when a uniformed officer from Communications stuck her head in the door and said, “Lieutenant Harald? This just came in for you.”

  Lowry started to leave; but as Sigrid scanned the telex, she called him back and handed it to him. According to the Michigan branch of a certain religious denomination which presently held all the records of Carlyle Union College from its founding in 1883 till its closing in 1979, the only Theodore Flythe ever to graduate from dear old CUC was an Alfred Theodore Flythe, Class of 1907.

  “Funny, he doesn’t look that old,” said Lowry.

  “Want to go talk to him about it?”

  “Sure.”

  “And now that we know he’s not Fred Hamilton, you might ask him where he was between 10:41 and 10:55 on Sunday morning. One thing more, Lowry. It doesn’t look as if Flythe was one of the Red Snow terrorists; but just the same, take somebody with you. Eberstadt maybe. Or Peters. Whoever killed Pernell Johnson was quick with his hands.”

  “You don’t suppose Albee’s coming back soon?”

  “I doubt it,” Sigrid said, and hoped he wouldn’t notice that Lieutenant Knight seemed to be missing as well.

  Her wristwatch showed well past four now and she’d promised to meet Nauman at Piers Leyden’s art exhibit before six. Normally she’d have gone straight from work, but today . . . Her hand touched the back of her neck and that strange lightness returned, almost as if the cutting of her hair had also cut away some of her inhibitions.

  She thought of a certain claret-colored dress Anne had brought her from London last fall. Nauman had never seen her in red.

  She was halfway down the hall before she remembered and went back for the little pink plastic bag of cosmetics.

  Daylight was fading as Sigrid stepped from the cab a few doors off Fifth Avenue. The small elevator that conveyed clients to the third-floor gallery was lined with smoky gold-threaded mirrors and she gave her reflection a final worried inspection.

  The purplish-red dress was simply cut, with a softly flared skirt and long full sleeves that nicely concealed her bandaged arm.

  It was topped with a short paisley-embroidered tabard of rich jewel tones, and she’d found a small black patent leather shoulder bag with skinny straps to match her shoes.

  There hadn’t been time to do her nails, but she’d followed Ida’s instructions exactly on the makeup and come away with a new respect for women like Madame Ronay and Commander Dixon. It had taken her four tries before she got the eyeliner on straight. Under the fluorescent light in her bathroom, it had looked a little exaggerated, but Ida was right: in this subdued lighting, her eyes did look deeper and more interesting.

  The elevator came to a stop and a small empty spot of stage fright settled in Sigrid’s’ diaphragm. As the doors opened, she took a deep breath and stepped out into a babble of voices.

  “Still no answer, huh, kid?” asked Eberstadt as Jim Lowry came back to the car parked in front of Flythe’s apartment after trying Elaine Albee’s telephone number again.

  “We didn’t actually have a date,” said Lowry. “I said something this morning about a movie, but nothing definite.”

  He settled back in the seat disconsolately. They had missed Flythe at his office and it was beginning to look as if the Graphic Games rep had his own plans for the evening.

  “Let’s give him another twenty minutes and then call it a day,” suggested Eberstadt, rummaging in the bottom of the bag which had held their greasy cheeseburgers for the last stray french fry. His kids were teenagers, his wife on half a dozen church committees, so he was in no hurry to get home; but he remembered how it used to be.

  Even as he spoke, they saw Ted Flythe swing down from a city bus on the corner and head toward them, jingling his door keys.

  They got out of the car. “Mr. Flythe? NYPD. About the Maintenon case.”

  “Yeah?” He stood with his key ring dangling from his index finger. “I remember you guys. What’s happening?”

  “We wondered if we could ask you a few more questions.”

  “Sure. Come on up.”

  Fl
ythe’s apartment was not all that different from his, thought Jim Lowry, looking around. A little bigger maybe, a little neater, but definitely the space inhabited by a man living without a woman. He’d never quite understood why a woman’s apartment differed from a man’s. It was the same sort of furniture, the same rugs on the floor, and sometimes the same stacks of newspapers and magazines and dirty dishes piled just as high; and yet there was always something. Lamps maybe? Light always seemed softer in a woman’s place.

  “How about a beer?” asked Flythe from the kitchen.

  “Sure,” said Eberstadt.

  “Nothing for me, thanks,” said Lowry, prowling the living room restlessly. Should he call Lainey again? It wasn’t like her not to leave a message.

  “So, gentlemen,” said Flythe as he opened their beers. “What would you like to know?”

  “More routine,” said Eberstadt, co-opting the most comfortable chair in the room. There were no coasters on the end table, so he used a magazine for his beer can. “Just getting the loose ends straight. This was your first tournament with Graphic Games?”

  “Right.” Flythe blotted the foam from his neat Vandyke beard and repeated what he’d told them before: how long he’d been with Graphic Games, a bit of his previous history. He seemed almost as relaxed as Matt Eberstadt.

  Jim Lowry was still roaming the room and he paused before a framed diploma over the stereo. “Carlyle Union College,” he read, then peered closer at the faded ink. “June 1967.”