Nocturne Read Free Page A

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.
Osteo
arthritis, 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. Or
her
story. Although the world’s politically correct morons would have it “Everyone’s a suspect until
their
story checks out.” Which was worse than tampering with the jars and bottles on supermarket shelves—and ungrammatical besides.
    “I met her when I moved in,” Karen said.
    “When was that?”
    “A year ago October. The fifteenth, in fact.”
    Birthdate of great men, Hawes thought, but did not say.
    “I’ve been here more than a year now. Fourteen months, in fact. She brought me a housewarming gift. A loaf of bread and a
     box of salt. That’s supposed to bring good luck. She was from Russia, you know. They used to have the old traditions over
     there. We don’t have any traditions anymore in America.”
    Wrong, Carella thought. Murder has become a tradition here.
    “She was a big star over there,” Karen said. “Well, here, too, in fact.”
    Bad verbal tic, Hawes thought.
    “She used to tell me stories of how she played for