The Empty Hours Read Free Page A

those checks. I can see a life. It’s like reading somebody’s diary. Everything
she did last month is right here, Meyer. All the department stores she went to,
look, a florist, her hairdresser, a candy shop, even her shoemaker, and look at
this. A check made out to a funeral home. Now who died, Meyer, huh? And look
here. She was living at Mrs. Mauder’s place, but here’s a check made out to a
swank apartment building on the South Side, in Stewart City. And some of these
checks are just made out to names, people. This case is crying for some
people.”
     
    “You
want me to get the phone book?”
     
    “No,
wait a minute. Look at this bank statement. She opened the account on July
fifth with a thousand bucks. All of a sudden, bam, she deposits a thousand
bucks in the Seaboard Bank of America.”
     
    “What’s
so odd about that?”
     
    “Nothing,
maybe. But Cotton called the other banks in the city, and Claudia Davis has a
very healthy account at the Highland Trust on Cromwell Avenue. And I mean very healthy.”
     
    “How
healthy?”
     
    “Close
to sixty grand.”
     
    “What!”
     
    “You
heard me. And the Highland Trust lists no withdrawals for the month of July. So
where’d she get the money to put into Seaboard?”
     
    “Was
that the only deposit?”
     
    “Take a
look.”
     
    Meyer
picked up the statement.
     
    “The
initial deposit was on July fifth,” Carella said. “A thousand bucks. She made
another thousand-dollar deposit on July twelfth. And another on the nineteenth.
And another on the twenty-seventh.”
     
    Meyer
raised his eyebrows. “Four grand. That’s a lot of loot.”
     
    “And
all deposited in less than a month’s time. I’ve got to work almost a full year
to make that kind of money.”
     
    “Not to
mention the sixty grand in the other bank. Where do you suppose she got it,
Steve?”
     
    “I don’t
know. It just doesn’t make sense. She wears underpants trimmed with Belgian
lace, but she lives in a crumby room-and-a-half with bath. How the hell do you
figure that? Two bank accounts, twenty-five bucks to cover her ass, and all she
pays is sixty bucks a month for a flophouse.”
     
    “Maybe
she’s hot, Steve.”
     
    “No.”
Carella shook his head. “I ran a make with C.B.I. She hasn’t got a record, and
she’s not wanted for anything. I haven’t heard from the feds yet, but I imagine
it’ll be the same story.”
     
    “What
about that key? You said . . .”
     
    “Oh,
yeah. That’s pretty simple, thank God. Look at this.”
     
    He
reached into the pile of checks and sorted out a yellow slip, larger than the
checks. He handed it to Meyer. The slip read:
     

     
    “She
rented a safe-deposit box the same day she opened the new checking account,
huh?” Meyer said.
     
    “Right.”
     
    “What’s
in it?”
     
    “That’s
a good question.”
     
    “Look,
do you want to save some time, Steve?”
     
    “Sure.”
     
    “Let’s
get the court order before we go to the bank.”
     
    * * * *

 
     
    4
     
     
    The manager of the Seaboard
Bank of America was a bald-headed man in his early fifties. Working on the
theory that similar physical types are simpático, Carella allowed Meyer to
do most of the questioning. It was not easy to elicit answers from Mr.
Anderson., the manager of the bank, because he was by nature a reticent man.
But Detective Meyer Meyer was the most patient man in the city, if not the entire
world. His patience was an acquired trait, rather than an inherited one. Oh, he
had inherited a few things from his father, a jovial man named Max Meyer, but
patience was not one of them. If anything, Max Meyer had been a very impatient
if not downright short-tempered sort of fellow. When his wife, for example,
came to him with the news that she was expecting a baby, Max nearly hit the
ceiling. He enjoyed little jokes immensely, was perhaps the biggest practical
joker in all Riverhead, but this particular prank of nature failed to amuse
him. He had