The scenario proposed by Monoghan and Monroe sounded like a possible one. Woman goes down to buy herself a bottle of booze. Burglar comes in the window, thinking the apartment is empty. Most apartments are burglarized during the daytime, when it's reasonable to expect the place will be empty. But some "crib" burglars, as they're called" are either desperate junkies or beginners, and they'll go in whenever the mood strikes them, day or night, so long as they think they'll score.
Okay, figure the guy sees no lights burning, he jimmies open the window though the techs hadn't found any jimmy marks goes in, is getting accustomed to the dark and acquainted with the pad when he hears a key sliding in the keyway and the door opens and all at once the lights come on, and there's this startled old broad standing there with a brown paper bag in one hand and a pocketbook in the other. He panics. Shoots her before she can scream. Shoots the cat for good measure. Man down the hall hears the shots, starts yelling. Super runs up, calls the police.
By then, the burglar's out the window and long gone.
"You gonna want this handbag?." one of e techs asked.
Carella turned from where he and Hawes were going through the small desk in the living room. "Cause we're done with it," the tech said. Any prints?"
"Just teeny ones. Must be the vie's."
"What was in it?"
"Nothing. It's empty."
"Empty?"
"Pew must've dumped the contents on the floor, grabbed whatever was in it."
Carella thought this over for a moment.
"Shot her first, do you mean? And then emptied the bag and scooped up whatever was in it?"
"Well… yeah," the tech said.
This sounded ridiculous even to him.
"Why didn't he just run off with the bag itself?."
"Listen, they do funny things."
"Yeah," Carella said.
He was wondering if there'd been money in that bag when the lady went downstairs to buy her booze.
"Let me see it," he said The tech handed him the bag. Carella peered into it, and then turned it upside down. Nothing fell out of it.
He peered into it again. Nothing.
"Steve?"
Cotton Hawes, calling from the desk.
"A wallet," he said, holding it up.
In the wallet, there was a Visa card with a photo ID of the woman called Svetlana Helder in its left-hand corner.
There was also a hundred dollars in tens, fives and singles.
Carella wondered if she had a charge account at the local liquor store.
They were coming out into the hallway when a woman standing just outside the apartment down the hall said, "Excuse me?"
Hawes looked her over.
Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, he figured, slender dark-haired woman with somewhat exotic features spelling Middle Eastern or at least Mediterranean. Very dark brown eyes. No makeup, no nail polish. She was clutching a woolen shawl around her. Bathrobe under it. Red plaid, lambskin-lined bedroom slippers on her feet. It was slightly warmer here in the hallway than it was outside in the street. But only slightly. Most buildings in this city, the heat went off around midnight. It was now a quarter to one.
"Are you the detectives?" she asked.
"Yes," Carella said.
"I'm her neighbor" the woman said.
They waited.
"Karen Todd," she said.
"Detective Carella. My partner, Detective Hawes. How do you do?"
Neither of the detectives offered his hand. Not because they were male chauvinists, but only because cops rarely shook hands with so-called civilians. Same way cops didn't carry umbrellas. See a guy with his hands in his pockets, standing on a street corner in the pouring rain, six to five he was an undercover cop.
"I was out," Karen said. "The super told me somebody killed her."
"Yes, that's right," Carella said, and watched her eyes. Nothing flickered there. She nodded almost imperceptibly.
"Why would anyone want to hurt her?" she said. "Such a gentle soul."
"How well did you know her?" Hawes asked. "Just to talk to. She used to be a famous piano player, did you know that? Svetlana Dyalovich.
That was the name she played under."
Piano player, Hawes thought. A superb artist who had made the cover of Time magazine. A piano player.
"Her hands all gnarled," Karen said, and shook her head.
The detectives looked at her.
"The arthritis. She told me she was in constant pain. Have you noticed how you can never open bottles that have pain relievers in them? That's because America is full of loonies who are trying to hurt people. Who would want to hurt her?" she asked again, shaking her head. "She was in so much pain already. The arthritis.
Osteoarthritis, in fact, is what her doctor called it. I went with her once. To her doctor. He told me he was switching her to Voltaren because the Naprosyn wasn't working anymore. He kept increasing the doses, it was really so sad."
"How long did you know her?" Carella asked. Another way of asking How well did you know her? He didn't for a moment believe Karen Todd had anything at all to do with the murder of the old woman next door, but his mama once told him everyone's a suspect till his story checks out.
