The Missing Chapter

I allowed as to how I did have some business and pulled out the photo of Clarice, giving him what few particulars I had and conceding it wasn’t much to go on. Gilliam studied the picture, making a clucking noise with his tongue. “You say she hasn’t been reported as missing, huh? Well, the chances are that if she is in Manhattan and has disappeared, she doesn’t want to be located — probably for one, of two reasons.”

“Drugs or prostitution, right?”

Gilliam nodded. “Or more likely, both. But let me run a check to see if there’s another explanation.”

“Such as, an unidentified corpse that you now can put a name to?”

“You said it, Archie, I didn’t.” He narrowed his eyes. “By any chance are we looking for this woman, too?”

I grinned. “No, and it’s because you guys in authority don’t think a crime has been committed. But Nero Wolfe does.”

He returned the smile. “Why does that particular scenario sound familiar to me? And why does it take me back a whole bunch of years?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Yeah. Well, I’ve got to get back to work. We’re in the middle of something big right now. Then I’ll run a check on your Ms. Wingfield, or whatever she’s calling herself. Mind if I get back to you later today?”

What could I say to that? How many cops apologize for not being able to help instantly when you’ve barged in on them unannounced? But that’s LeMaster Gilliam for you.

I left one of the photos of Clarice with him and grabbed a northbound taxi on Centre Street. Eleven minutes later I was at Childress’s building in the West Village. In the entrance hall, I pushed the buzzer above CARLUCCI — SUPER, and I got a muffled “Yeah?”

“I’m here about Charles Childress,” I said into the speaker, getting an answer that, assuming I heard it right, I’m not going to share with you. I waited for close to a minute and was about to lean on the buzzer again when a scowling Carlucci burst into the foyer.

“You know, I’ve got a lot of work to do,” the super snarled. I don’t think he’d changed his clothes since I’d last seen him. “People all the time comin’ around and — hey, you been here before, right? Insurance investigation, right?”

I gave him my facts-and-figures nod. “Sorry to bother you again, but this won’t take long. We’re looking for some of Mr. Childress’s relatives, one of whom may have visited him here. Do you recognize this woman?” I pulled out a picture of Clarice and held it toward him.

He frowned, then squinted at the likeness. “Like I told you before, I don’t pay a lot of attention to comings and goings — I got plenty else to do. But she does look familiar, yeah. If I had to bet, I’d say she’s been here before. In fact...”

“Yes?”

He ran a thick paw over the off-white stubble on his jaw and took another look at the snapshot. “Now I can’t say for sure, because it was dark, but a few weeks back — more’n a month now — I was out in front of the building here, tapping down some of the bricks. A couple years ago, the guy who owns this place put a lot of dough into fixing it up — new windows, tuck-pointing, new iron railings, fancy coach lights, and a bunch of other stuff. Well, he also got the bright idea that it would look fancier to brick over the little patch of grass, which was mostly weeds and dirt anyway. Well and good, except the bricks were laid without mortar, and in the winter, the ground freezes and heaves ’em up so they’re uneven. So what happens? I end up trying to level ’em up again. And that’s what I was doing one night in March when a woman — coulda been the one in that picture, although the hair’s a little different now, shorter I think, she comes out the front door, and she’s screaming over her shoulder to Mr. Childress, who’s standing in the foyer.”

“Do you remember what she said?”

Carlucci looked sheepish. “I was mainly embarrassed to be in the middle of something, you know? She was carrying on and I just wanted to get out of there. I don’t like scenes. But the woman didn’t seem to notice me anyway. She was crying, that I know for sure, and she said something like ‘Money is not why I’m here.’ And then she really lit into the poor guy. She called him a bastard and a few other things that were even worse. She stood on the bottom step, right there” — Carlucci pointed a stubby finger out through the glass doors — “and yelled at him. Really yelled. You’d have heard her a block away, maybe even two.”

“Then what?”

He hunched his shoulders. “Then she left. Stormed past me like I was invisible — which truth to tell was what I wanted to be. After she tore out of here, Mr. Childress just looked down at me from the front door and shook his head. Didn’t say a word. But then, what could he say? I dunno who felt worse, him or me. I still get embarrassed just talking about it. It was a real scene. Hey, mind if I ask you a question?”

“Why not? I’ve just asked you a few.”

He crossed beefy arms over his chest and coughed nervously. “You think that woman might have been the reason Mr. Childress bumped himself off?”