Speak for the Dead (13 page)

“It sounds like a lot of work—a lot of time.”

“You better believe it! And a portfolio has to be updated every couple years. Even if a girl’s working a lot, her agent can use only a few finished shots for the portfolio. They need a variety of poses—not everybody wants the same thing.”

“Did Miss Crowell have many jobs?”

“She was starting to get a few.” The pink blur of face moved from side to side. “With good training, she could have made it all the way, man.”

“I thought she already had lessons.”

“Shit. Those sons of bitches didn’t teach her a thing about posing. I must of thrown away nine out of ten pictures at our first session. In fact, I remember I asked her if she was really serious about this modeling trip—I couldn’t figure anybody that bad would be that serious about it, you know?”

“What happened when you said that?”

“She didn’t like to hear it. Most of these broads think they’re Margaux Hemingway or somebody, and no modeling school wants to tell them different. But Tommie didn’t get pissed—she just said, ‘You tell me what you want and I’ll do it.’ And, by God, she did!”

“So she got better?”

“It took a hell of a lot of work. And a hell of a lot of money.”

“Why so much?”

“Figure it out: the cost of materials plus studio time. I run a business, man, not a charity.”

“Did she pay cash for it?”

“Sure. The most I give on margin is ninety days, but she always paid when due. That’s why I put in a little extra. That, and she was getting good. She was really starting to groove it. God, it’s too bad.”

“She had an appointment with you last Friday and didn’t show up. Did you try to call her?”

“If a broad misses, I don’t call them; they call me. Like, I’m too busy, you know? It’s their loss, not mine.” The cap of hair bobbed once.

“Did she miss any other times?”

Bennett thought back, drawing his hand down the band of whiskers. “Not one time, man. A lot of the girls get last-minute jobs—that’s the business—so they might miss a session. But Tommie wasn’t working that much, and she never missed one.”

Business. That led to another question. “Did you ever date her?”

“Date? I took her out a time or two for drinks. I do that with most of the girls.”

“You’re married?”

“Hell, no. Who needs to be married these days?”

“You mean with all the models around?”

“No, man. I keep things strictly professional. I don’t mess with the customers. Like, some photogs take what they can get—fringe benefits, say. But they don’t last long in this business. Either the customers pay in trade instead of cash, or the good models drop you. Top models don’t have to put up with that kind of stuff, man. I’ve seen it happen.”

“But you do go out with them.”

“That’s rap time—we talk to each other, get into each other’s vibes a little. That helps in front of the camera; if I know a little about them, I can help them unlax.”

“Was Miss Crowell relaxed?”

“Not right off. I mean, that was her big problem, and this rip-off place she went to didn’t do a thing for her. I’d ask for a pose, and it was like she was reading it line by line. It was a real effort for her, she was trying so hard, like. That’s why we’d go out for a drink and shoot the shit awhile; when we came back, she could really get it on.”

“Do you know if she ever visited the Botanic Gardens?”

The pink glow of Bennett’s face turned aside as he thought. “She never said so. I don’t remember that she said so.”

“Did she talk about boyfriends or people she knew?”

The cap of hair glinted as he shook his head. “There’s not much time for talking when you work. Sometimes we rapped about her agent.”

“What about her agent?”

“Well, that was another thing the modeling school screwed her on. They handed out this crap about placing her with a top agency and then steered her to Jeri Roberts, who just happens to be a partner in the school, and who just happens to be lining up a stable of her own.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“It’s a new agency. Jeri doesn’t have any ins. This town’s not the fashion center of the world, man, and there’s only so much action to go around. The established places have the big accounts pretty well sewed up.”

“What’s the agency’s name?”

“New Faces. As a matter of fact, Tommie was talking about getting out of her contract. She was getting a lot of free-lance calls and Jeri didn’t do a damn thing except take 10 percent off the top.” Bennett tested a corner of the film strips with his finger and then washed his hands in the large sink centered on the bench. “I got to print now. These are due first thing tomorrow, and when I print, I concentrate—alone.” He turned on a radio adjusted to the wailing of a rhythm-and-blues station.

“Do you know the name of the modeling school Miss Crowell went to?”

“Who doesn’t? Famous Faces. They should call it Two Faces.”

It was too late to go by the conservatory, and neither the modeling school nor the agency answered Wager’s telephone call. The first number just rang; the second had an answering device with a throaty voice that thanked him very much for calling and asked him to leave his message at the sound of the beep. Wager did not leave a message; instead, he lay on his bed in the dark and tried to stifle his restless thoughts until the snap of the clock radio told him it was 10:30. He swung his feet to the floor and rubbed at eyes puffy from the effort to sleep. Pouring a cup of coffee from the pot that stood on its warming plate in the small kitchen, he once more leafed through the little notebook, half aware of the night’s silence beginning to settle over the broad, shallow bowl that cradled Denver and its wide belt of suburbs. Rebecca Jean Crowell—Tommie Lee. Like connecting the dots in one of those children’s games, gradually an outline, a shape without depth; then, from one angle and another, the slow sketching of shadows and highlights. Tommie Lee—Rebecca Jean Crowell. Wager gazed at the glossy photograph of the smiling girl as if the rigid mouth could speak, as if it could give its own perspective. But of course it couldn’t. It was, as the bulldog said, a much different kind of police work from the narcotics section. But Wager felt it was also a hell of a lot different from the collection of facts that Doyle or Ross or Devereaux asked for, too. Somehow he had to move beyond those empty facts into the life of the victim and breathe for her, walk for her; somehow he had to speak for the dead person. He stared a long time at the picture, the details from the little book clustering in different patterns and shapes in his mind. But if he had been asked what he was thinking of, he could honestly answer, “Nothing.” Because it was not thought, exactly, that filled his head in the silence of the apartment.

Finally aware that his cup was cold, he sighed and added fresh coffee, then carried the cup with him as he dressed. The clock radio’s pale green numbers told him that if he hurried, he had time for one stop before reporting to work.

The Cafe Chanticleer looked like something out of a World War I movie: a French-style farmhouse complete with a tall, narrow barn adjoining and, tilted beside the entry, a two-wheeled cart spilling dried hay. The host smiled through the candlelight and lifted a menu from the stack on the reception stand. “
Oui, m’sieur
? Table for one?” Here and there in small alcoves, couples talked quietly or sat silent over final plates and glasses; a faint shout of male laughter came from a distant banquet room.

“Maybe next time.” Wager showed his badge and the photograph. “Can you tell me if this woman’s ever been here?”

The man glanced around the foyer, empty this late on a Wednesday, and then tilted the glossy sheet beneath the low bulb on the reception stand. “Very attractive. She does look kind of familiar… .” The French accent had disappeared.

Wager read his hesitation. “She’s a homicide victim and I’m trying to find out as much as I can about her.”

A small wrinkle came and went above the man’s nose. “If she was here, it was quite a while ago.”

“About four months? And before that, she came a lot of times?”

The man glanced up with faint surprise, then shrugged; it wasn’t his problem. “Yes. Maybe two dozen times over a year or so.”

“With the same person?”

“Yes. I suppose you know who it was.”

“You tell me.”

Another shrug. “Mr. Pitkin. He brings his friends here quite often.”

“Did they ever come with anybody else?”

“Mr. Pitkin and one of his friends? Never. He likes that table over there.” He discreetly pointed to a dim corner alcove where the glow of a single candle threw two faint shadows on the wall. Only from the kitchen door could anyone tell whom the shadows belonged to.

“Is he there now?”

“No.”

“Who’s he brought lately?”

“A blonde. A big one with a very nice figure.” He handed the photograph back. “You … don’t believe that Mr. Pitkin … is involved?”

“It’s not likely.” He could have added his thought that the unlikely often happened.

A sigh of relief. “I’m glad of that.”

“Why?”

“He never seemed like somebody who could—well, do something like that. And he’s a good customer—not a big tipper, but a steady one. He’s never caused a disturbance. A real gentleman.”

“How long has he been coming here?”

“Four or five years now.”

“With how many different friends?”

“Who keeps count? He has taste, though; they’re all
tres bonne
.”

Ross and Devereaux had gone home by the time Wager reached the homicide office. He glanced at the empty twenty-four-hour board and headed for the police lab where Baird was just putting his coat on a hanger.

“Good God, Wager. Do you live here?”

“I hear you got a report for me.”

“Maybe, maybe not. I haven’t had time to look yet.” He deliberately placed his coat on a rack and went to the file cabinet. “Right. Here’s a real nice report and a fat envelope, just for you.”

Wager carried them back to his desk like a dog with a bone and started down the itemized lists. He was finishing the section describing the contents of the vacuum bag when knuckles rapped once on the doorframe of the office. A uniformed sergeant leaned in. “You’re Gabe Wager, aren’t you?”

Wager vaguely remembered the face from somewhere in District 2—maybe the Traffic Division—but he still needed help from the man’s name tag: I. Meyer. Beneath that little chrome rectangle was a newer one: Staff Inspection Bureau. It was a two-year assignment that most experienced officers got and few of them liked; the duty was to make certain that fellow cops did their jobs. “Hello, Irv.” Wager held out a hand. “Long time.”

“I thought that was you, but I wasn’t sure. Putting on a little weight, eh, Gabe?”

He wasn’t. But Irv was one of those people who had to say something cute to put themselves at ease.

“The—ah—bulldog asked me to drop by. To see how things are going.”

“Why didn’t he come himself?” Wager asked.

“He needs his sleep; he’s getting old, Gabe, like all of us. And he’s got a touch of the flu. There’s a lot of that going around.”

“What’s he want you to snoop at?”

“Hey, nothing like that. Just routine crap—you know how it goes.”

Wager knew that it wasn’t routine for a captain to ask the S.I.B. to check up on an officer. “He has a reason, Irv. What is it?”

“The reason is he doesn’t feel like getting out of bed at one o’clock in the morning. You’re on the graveyard shift, you know. Hey, that’s pretty good—the graveyard shift of homicide!”

Wager waited.

“Anyway, he just asked me to ask you—very politely, and only because I was coming down here anyway—how things are going on that Crowell case.”

Wager thought so. He pointed to the desk top covered with a stack of canceled checks and papers spilled from the laboratory envelope. “The state’s getting its money’s worth.”

“Don’t it always. And then some. So I can tell him things are moving O.K.?”

“As smooth as Ex-Lax.” His flare of anger faded as quickly as it came; Meyer didn’t like the job he had to do. No cop would. “There’s fresh coffee in the machine—help yourself.”

“I’d like to, but I got to get out and get seen.” A pause told Wager he wasn’t through yet.

“What the hell else did Doyle want?”

“Ah—he wanted me to tell you—very politely—that if the case was hung up, not to waste much time on it. Your new partner’s due back on the fifth of November, and—ah—the bulldog thought maybe since nothing’s turned up yet, you might file the case until you get a little—ah—help.”

Wager held himself rigid against the desk. “That’s very thoughtful of him, Irv. I’ll do my best not to catch the killer.”

“Doyle didn’t mean it that way!” Meyer rubbed at the hairline far beneath his hat. “He was just a little worried that maybe you might waste time on this when you’re needed on the street. Or maybe get in too much of a hurry and use some procedures that were—ah—unorthodox. You know how he feels about narcotics procedures.”

“I’m not in narcotics. I’m in homicide.”

“I know that! But the bulldog—well …”

“He has already told me, Irv. Twice.”

“All I’m doing is my job, all right?” It was Meyer’s turn to get pissed because he didn’t like what the bulldog made him do, and if Wager had not been an ex-narc, he wouldn’t be doing it.

“Fine. And I’ll do mine. Sergeant,” said Wager.

“Fine. Detective.”

The S.I.B. man’s heels smacked against the tiles of the hallway.

Screw Doyle and Meyer both. Wager couldn’t decide which he disliked more, Doyle’s nervousness about his narcotics background, or Meyer’s pussyfooted way of trying to do a job. Screw both of them. He sipped once at his coffee to burn out the bilious taste of his anger and then turned back to the papers on his desk.

The canceled checks were in numerical order, beginning with number 237 and dated January 2, 1976. It was to Conoco Oil Company for $14.19. He leafed through the slips, noting a monthly payment to Famous Faces for $50, occasional payments to High Country Profiles ranging from $26.23 to $131.11. He counted five of those checks, the last dated in September. Other payments were for rent, for “cash”—usually in twenty-dollar amounts—to King Soopers or Safeway, to half a dozen department or clothing stores. Something about those store names—something half familiar in those names; Wager thumbed through the appointment book that was becoming as well known to him as his own notebook. There: three sets of initials that fit three of the names on the checks—”A.I.,” Ardree Innis; “F.W.,” Fashion Wear; “E,” Emporium. The only Ardree Innis in the telephone book was a boldface entry repeated in the yellow pages: “Exquisite Fashions for Women.”