Flesh and Blood (3 page)

“Are you here on business?” Frank asked crisply.

“Well, as a matter of fact, I am,” Imalia said, now suddenly very formal. “Last night, at Karen's, Zack mentioned that you were a private investigator.”

“That's right.”

“Well, I think that's what I need.”

Frank stepped around her and headed toward his desk. “Okay,” he said. “Come in.”

The air inside the office was still faintly musty, and Imalia sniffed at it uncomfortably as she closed the door behind her.

“Have you been here long?” she asked after a moment.

“A few months.”

“And before that, you were a policeman?”

“Yes.”

She glanced silently about the room, and from the look in her eyes, Frank couldn't tell whether she approved or not, but only that some final judgment was being made.

After a moment, she looked back at him. “It looks like a place where a secret would be safe,” she said.

Frank sat down behind his desk and lit a cigarette. “What can I do for you, Miss Covallo?” he asked.

Imalia slipped into the rickety wooden chair which rested a few feet from Frank's desk. “I don't exactly know where to begin,” she said. “It was such a shock.” She nodded toward the half-empty pack of cigarettes on Frank's desk. “May I have one?” she asked.

Frank slid the pack over to her.

Imalia lit the cigarette, then sat back slightly in her seat. “Obviously, I've never dealt with anything like this before.”

“What is it, exactly?” Frank asked immediately.

Once again, Imalia seemed to hesitate slightly, as if she could not get to the words she needed.

“Well,” she said finally, “I suppose you could say that it's about murder.” Suddenly, a high, trembling laugh broke from her. “Sorry, sorry,” she said quickly as she broke it off. “It's an odd problem I have, nervous laughter.” She shook her head angrily. “I hate it. It makes me look like a hysteric.”

Frank leaned toward her slightly. “Who was murdered, Miss Covallo?”

“A woman,” Imalia told him. “A woman named Karlsberg, Hannah Karlsberg.”

“A relative?”

“No. An employee.”

Frank took out a small green notebook, flipped to the first page and wrote Hannah Karlsberg's name at the top. “When did this happen?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“Where?”

“Here in New York,” Imalia said. “Seventy-sixth Street. You may have read about it. It was in the
Post
, but I don't think it made the
Times.
”

“What was the address?”

“Three fifty-seven Central Park West.”

“Do you know the time?”

“Early in the morning,” Imalia said. “That's all I can tell you.”

“And you said she was an employee of yours,” Frank said.

“Yes.”

“What do you do?” Frank asked.

Imalia smiled quietly. “You don't know?”

Frank shook his head.

“I'm a designer,” Imalia explained. “I don't want to sound arrogant, but, the truth is, I'm very well known. …”

“What do you design?”

“Clothes. Very fine clothes.”

Frank wrote it down. “And what did Miss Karlsberg do for you?”

“She worked for me in several different ways,” Imalia said. “She'd been doing it for many years.” She took a long draw on the cigarette, then blew a thin column of smoke into the air. “Many years,” she repeated, her eyes darting to the left. “There's no calendar on your wall. Don't you need a calendar?”

“How many years?” Frank asked.

Imalia hesitated slightly. “Does that matter?”

“I like to know as much as I can,” Frank explained.

Suddenly Imalia looked reassured. “Yes, of course. I'm sorry.” She took another long draw on the cigarette. “Hannah was a very valuable employee. She had worked for me for over twenty years.”

“As what?”

“First as a seamstress, then, later, as a floor manager. For the last ten years she'd been my most important assistant.”

Frank wrote it down quickly, then looked back up at Imalia. “This next question may seem a little strange, but it's important.”

Imalia stiffened slightly, as if bracing herself against it.

“Is there any doubt that it was a homicide?” Frank asked. “I mean, could she have killed herself, something like that?”

“Hannah was slashed to death, Mr. Clemons,” Imalia said darkly. “She didn't do that to herself.”

Suddenly, Frank felt his fingers squeezing more tightly around the pen, felt its point bearing down more firmly on the page as his energy began to flow through it, building steadily with each passing second, the way it always did when suddenly, from out of nowhere, something mattered.

“Then the police have been looking into it,” Frank said.

“Yes.”

“Have they talked to you?”

“Yes, several times.”

“About what?”

“Just if I knew anything about Hannah,” Imalia said. “Which I really didn't. She kept to herself. That's just the way she was.”

“Do you have any idea about what the police think?”

“None whatsoever,” Imalia said. “I guess they're a little like Hannah. They keep things to themselves.”

“But have they told you anything at all about their investigation?”

“Only that nothing was missing from Hannah's apartment.”

“Did she have anything worth stealing?” Frank said. “Not everybody does.”

“Well, she had jewelry,” Imalia said. “And I don't mean the sort of junk you buy at Woolworth's. Her jewelry box was open, but nothing had been taken.”

“How about a safe?”

“The police didn't mention it. I don't think she had one.”

Frank took a map of New York City and spread it out across his desk. It was a police sector map, and it indicated that Hannah's address was in the Midtown North Precinct. “Do you know who's in charge of the case?” he asked.

“Quite a few policemen came marching through my office,” Imalia said. “They have a way of all looking the same.” She smiled. “It's those polyester jackets.” Then the smile vanished, her face softened, and her voice took on a gentle, apologetic quality. “I don't mean to be snide, I really don't. It's just that Hannah was very loyal to me, and I want her to have a decent burial.”

“Burial?”

“Yes.”

“She's not been buried?” Frank asked unbelievingly.

“No,” Imalia said. “And that's why I've come to you.”

Frank looked at her, puzzled.

“The police won't release the body until a relative claims it,” Imalia explained.

“Did Miss Karlsberg have any relatives?”

“I don't know,” Imalia told him. “That's what I want you to find out.” She shifted uneasily in her chair. “She mentioned a sister once. Maybe she had a sister. I don't know.”

Frank wrote it down, then glanced back up at Imalia. “Do you have any idea why the police are trying to hold on to the body?”

“No.”

“Have you asked them to release it?”

“Yes, of course. Right away.”

“And what did they say?”

“That for now, they required a relative,” Imalia said. “Otherwise, they won't release it.”

“Who's in charge of the case?”

“A man named Tannenbaum, I think,” Imalia said. “At least he's the one I've spoken to a few times.” She looked suddenly puzzled. “They wanted to know if Hannah had any enemies at work, things like that. They wanted to know what she did at work, who she knew at work. That's what Mr. Tannenbaum was always asking about.”

“Leo Tannenbaum?”

“That sounds right,” Imalia said. “Do you know him?”

“We've had some contact,” Frank told her without elaborating. It had been a missing-person case. Kidnapping was suspected. Maybe murder. Frank had talked to a few people in Midtown North, Tannenbaum among them. A few weeks later the missing person had turned up again with a trunk full of souvenirs he'd bought in Honolulu.

“Anyway, that's the name, I believe,” Imalia said. “We spoke a few times. He seemed to be in charge of everything. The whole investigation, I mean.”

“Sounds like he asked the usual questions.”

Imalia shrugged. “I suppose so,” she said. “But he kept looking at me like he hated me. Like he wanted to hurt me in some way.”

“Why would he want that?”

“I don't know,” Imalia said quietly. “I really don't.” She took a quick puff on the cigarette. “I told him that Hannah worked for me, but that I didn't know her that well. What else could I say? It was the truth.”

“And so you couldn't help them?”

“I don't think so,” Imalia said. She shook her head. “I didn't know much about Hannah's personal life. She was an employee. I was her, well, her boss. You know what that is. You don't always have any other kind of relationship.” She shrugged helplessly. “She'd worked for me for a long time. At this point, I only want her to have a decent burial. I think she deserves that.” She took a final drag on the cigarette, then snuffed it out in the small tin ashtray on Frank's desk. “This really isn't a personal thing,” she added, as her eyes shot up to him. “She wasn't my surrogate mother or anything like that. She was a very valuable employee, and because of that, I don't want the police to keep her body locked up in the morgue.”

“They may have their reasons. Miss Covallo,” Frank told her.

Imalia stared at him icily. “If they have such compelling reasons, then why won't they tell me what they are?”

“I don't know,” Frank admitted, “But I don't think they'd hold on to it for no reason at all.”

“Perhaps,” Imalia said, as if giving in to his professional judgment. “But I have no confidence in the police, Mr. Clemons … Frank.” She looked at him closely. “May I call you Frank?”

He nodded.

Imalia smiled slightly. “As far as I know, they've made absolutely no progress in finding whoever it was who killed Hannah.”

“You haven't given them much time.”

“Two weeks,” Imalia said with a sudden sharpness. “It's disrupting everything.”

“Disrupting?”

“My life,” Imalia said. “The people who work for me, do you think they like being questioned? This has been going on for two weeks. How much longer will it take to put Hannah to rest?”

“Miss Covallo, if a murder isn't solved in twenty-four hours, it may not be solved for years. It may never be solved.”

“Are you saying that you don't want the job?” Imalia asked bluntly.

“No,” Frank said. “But if you wait a few more days, you might save yourself some money.”

“I don't care about your fee, Mr. Clemons,” Imalia said softly. “I can afford it.” She glanced away from him, as if in an effort to control herself. “I just want Hannah to have a decent burial. That's all I want.”

Frank closed the notebook. “All right,” he said. “I'll do what I can.”

Imalia turned back toward him, and for a moment, an odd, pleading quality came into her face. Then, in an instant, she swept it out again and stared at him stiffly, Her head lifted slightly in an attitude of hard command. “I hope you can help me. Please try.”

“I can only let you know what I find out,” Frank replied firmly. “I can't do more than that.”

“Money is no object.”

“That may be true,” Frank said, “but if you start spreading too much of it around, you'll start buying lies.”

Imalia did not seem convinced. “I just want you to know that whatever it costs, I'll pay it,” she said. Then she stood up and walked to the door.

“I'll talk to Tannenbaum,” Frank called to her. “I'll let you know what I find out.”

“I'd like to be able to reach you, too,” Imalia said. “When you're not here, I suppose I can reach you at Karen's?”

“Most of the time.”

“Anywhere else?” Imalia asked. She smiled tentatively. “Some private haunt?”

“I go to a little after-hours drinking place sometimes,” Frank told her reluctantly.

“Telephone number?” Imalia asked matter-of-factly.

“Not for this kind of place.”

Imalia's eyes darted away from him shyly. “I guess I don't know much about places like that,” she said, embarrassed.

“It's at the corner of Tenth Avenue and Fiftieth Street,” Frank said. “Second floor. It's open from two until dawn.”

“I'd only come in some sort of emergency,” Imalia assured him. Then she allowed her eyes to wander over his office once again, her head turning slowly to the left so that her face was caught suddenly in the dusky light. “This place,” she said, “it's like a cave, like a room in the underworld.” Then she turned abruptly and walked away.

4

The large brick facade of the Midtown North precinct house sat in the middle of the street, huge and unmoving, like a gigantic red watchdog. Blue and white patrol cars lined the sidewalks left and right, along with several police scooters and an array of unmarked cars, usually dark blue or dark green, all of them bearing a police code on their license plates which identified them almost as clearly as their dusty, unwashed blackwall tires.

A long wooden desk stretched for nearly the entire width of the front room, and several people stood at various points along its length, some staring sourly at the bleak world which surrounded them, their hands cuffed behind their backs, their upper arms grasped loosely by the cops who stood next to them. To the right, a continuous stream of people moved in and out of the building, cops, witnesses, complainants, women with black eyes and broken arms, pimps, and gamblers in bright-colored jackets, chubby, middle-aged detectives who ponderously mounted the stairs toward the separate units of Vice, Narcotics, and Homicide.