Part 11 (1/2)
Reluctantly she took out a photo she had taken of Stacy at a soccer game. ”What about this woman?”
Because of the mud and the unfamiliar surroundings this one took a little longer.
”I think so,” Carla fatally said uncertainly. ”Isn't this that tall woman with the curly hair? The one with the funny name?” She waited, looking to Alison to supply it, but she was silent. ”Kind of old-fas.h.i.+oned, like a flower? And she does the same thing as Dominique, only not as rough and not at the bar?”
”Have you ever been a customer of hers?” Alison asked the question quietly, almost holding net breath. Because if the answer was yes, she would have to consider something she had been keeping herself from thinking. That perhaps the connection was not Dominique, but Stacy.
”No, I told you, I don't buy it. But, I know that remark of mine was kind of piggy-that I don't have to. I'm sorry I said that. I have a friend who goes to see a dom regularly, and she says it doesn't have anything to do with being able to find a lover. It has to do with getting exactly what you want with no strings attached. Sorry about that.”
”But you've never been with her, even not as a customer?” Alison had let out a breath of relief when she'd answered, but she felt duty bound to pursue the question as far as she possibly could.
”No.” Carla shook her head again, impatient to get off talking about other people and back to talking about what had happened to her. To mollify her Alison walked quickly through the attack. Jones and Jorgensen had prepped her beautifully. She automatically went into all the details about what she had seen, heard, felt, smelled. Unfortunately it was precious little. The bare bones of the story were just what Alison had surmised. Carla had not realized that she was not right behind her. She had turned to speak to her and had felt herself grabbed from behind. Because of the van no one at the door had seen it happen. The attacker had clamped a gloved hand over her mouth and pulled her behind the Volkswagen. She had struggled, had ducked her head down instinctively to protect her throat. She had smashed it back to hit him-which was how she insisted on referring to the a.s.sailant- several times, she thought. She had heard the one shot, then the a.s.sailant had dropped her and run. It could have been the Pope, the President, or her own father. She just didn't know.
”Hmm. Let's get back to the night of the contest. Did you by any chance see this one leave?” Alison tapped the picture of Tamara. She was not expecting much but Carla was surprisingly positive.
”Yeah, I did. You see, there was a cover charge that night, and it was my turn to work the door. I had just come on-I remember that, because she was like the first woman to get her jacket after I took over. It was the last s.h.i.+ft, eleven to midnight. We stopped charging at midnight.”
”Wasn't the contest over by eleven?”
”The prelims were. But there were five women who were going to run through one more time to get the final winner. We were having a break, you know, so that we could stretch things out and people would stay longer and spend more money.”
”But wasn't she one of the finalists?”
”Yeah, that's one reason I remember her. But there was another reason, too. See the earrings she's wearing?” She pointed to the photo. ”They were really hot. You don't see a butch who can get away with dangly earrings very often. But the hook on one had slipped while she was dancing or something. She was about to lose it. I fixed it for her, and I told her how hot I thought they were. One of the stars was about to fall off, and she handed it to me like a token.” A faint little smile appeared on her lips, and Alison wondered if she had also told Tamara how hot she thought she was.
An idea. ”You didn't by any chance go out with Tamara, did you? A little quickie in the parking lot or the bas.e.m.e.nt?”
”I wish,” Carla responded wistfully. In spite of her own close call it seemed not to have sunk in to her that the woman about whom they were speaking was dead, for she did not hold back. Her voice did not contain any of the reverence that people tend to have when speaking about those who have pa.s.sed over. In a way it was repelling to hear her openly l.u.s.ting over the dead woman, but Alison knew all the same that Carla would be a good witness. She would not censor anything she had heard or seen out of respect for the woman who had been killed.
”But I had to work the stupid door. Margie would have skinned me alive if I had left. I did once, an offer was just too good to turn down, and she said she'd fire me if it happened again.” Carla pouted, obviously feeling her employer should have been more understanding about losing revenue while she was tricking. ”But even if I hadn't been working I wouldn't have stood a chance with her. Maybe on another night. But she had just been in the contest and she was so hot.”
”Good stage presence, huh?” suggested Alison.
”I'll say! She just....” For a moment Carla's admiration put her at a loss for words. ”When she was up there it was like she was flirting just with you, like she was the only one in the world who knew just what you wanted, and that she could give it to you. I'll bet she could have gone home with any woman in the place-even old Margie, and she's been married for years!”
Unexpectedly, Alison felt a rush of tears. She had never seen Tamara when she was decked out, flirting, in her long, dangling earrings, but only as a corpse in a drawer with a sheet pulled up to her chin. There was something she was missing, teasing her mind, but she was distracted by the sadness, and then it was gone.
She blinked back the tears, trying to get into the hard-core cop mode again. ”But she wasn't with anyone when she went out?”
”No, but I'll bet she was meeting someone.” Carla smiled, a faraway smile Alison recognized, and she knew that she must be fantasizing about Tamara trysting in a car.
”Why do you think that?”
”Huh?”
That, Alison said to herself, as she watched Carla struggle for composure, is how silly you've been looking, too. You've got to start being more cool. ”Why did you think she was going to meet someone outside?”
”She didn't take her sweater or her purse with her, for one thing. I tried to give them to her-if you're working the door you're working the coat check, too-but she didn't want them. That's why I was so surprised when she didn't come back.”
”But you didn't think about checking on her?” .
”Why should I? There were a bunch of women in the parking lot smoking dope...oh, no, I shouldn't have said that, should I?” She put her hand over her mouth, looking dismayed. ”Is that going to get us in trouble?”
”Forget it.”
”Oh, good, Margie would kill me. Anyway, there were women out there Poking dope and looking at each other's bikes and getting away from the cigarette smoke and cooling off and making out and just plain coming and going. We have a real social parking lot. I never thought that anything was wrong. What I thought was that she got carried away with somebody who was just as hot as she was and they had decided to take it on home while it was still good.”
”Without her purse?”
Carla spread her hands in a 'Who knows?' gesture. ”Look, for all I knew she could have been a little high, she could have been a little drunk, she could have just been f.u.c.ked till she saw stars and was planning on coming back as soon as she could walk. How was I supposed to know there was something wrong? We'd never had trouble before.”
It was true. And how could Alison blame Carla for her lack of intuition when she herself, fully aware of the danger, had let her walk into the arms of a killer?
”Do you think this woman could have been the one she was meeting?” She pointed again to the photo of Dominique.
”Oh, of course! I'll bet you're right. Boy, that just goes to show you that buying it really doesn't have anything to do with being attractive, doesn't it? Yeah, I was kind of watching to see who else went out after her-you know, you make the job as interesting as you can-and I noticed Dominique because she was real loaded.”
”Oh? How could you tell?”
”I couldn't have except I'd been the one serving her, and I'd already gotten over five dollars in tips off her just for bringing her beer. You figure it out. But, hey, don't get down on me!” She spread her hands again. ”I'd seen her friend take her car keys a lot earlier-we're real careful about sending out drunk drivers. We have 'Designated Drivers' b.u.t.tons and everything.” She smiled proudly and for a moment Alison imagined her, shaved head and all, doing a spot with Nancy Reagan where she said earnestly, ”d.y.k.es, just say 'No!'”
”So was she staggering or what? I mean, why would Tamara do anything with her if she was that obviously drunk?”
”No, no, you don't get it. You have to know Dominique. Her eyes were like this,” she made her own round and staring, ”and they were real intense. And she was like I told you before, ready to start a fight. One minute she was really friendly with me, like 'Hey, cute thing, why don't you come outside with me sometime soon,' and the next she was all p.i.s.sed off because I told her I couldn't.”
”Would you have otherwise?” Alison asked just out of curiosity.
”I might have,” Carla replied honestly. ”Would have been a story, anyway. Except, you know what, I think Dominique must have hurt herself when she went out.”
”Why do you say that?”
”Because later on, when she came back in, she went right to the bathroom. And when I went in after, there was blood in the sink.”
The ride home was uphill, and Alison pumped furiously, as if this would somehow help her sort out the tangle Carla had given her to think about. The young woman had told her so innocently without prompting: there was blood in the sink. Had it been blood from Dominique's own hands or nose-had she fallen, drunk, in the lot-or had it been the blood of Tamara Garrity? Dominique and Tamara had left the bar at almost the same time, and only one of them had returned, much later. Dominique had also been at the Blue Ryder that night at the same time Melanie Donahue was murdered. Had she been in the crowd which surged out into the parking lot when Carla was attacked? Alison had not seen her, and little would have been proved even if she had. She could have easily stashed a disguise in her own car and rejoined the group in the confusion afterwards. No one was looking for a woman.
Except, if Dominique was the murderer, why had she attacked Carla? It didn't fit with the rejection theory that Alison had formulated for the first two killings. According to Carla she had nothing to do with Dominique outside the bar, and Alison saw no reason for her to lie. Unless it was pride? Had Carla perhaps 'had to pay for it' after all and was now embarra.s.sed to admit it? Perhaps. Or had Dominique become so sensitive that Carla's refusal to leave the door had been seen a sufficient reason for revenge? Either seemed like a long shot. Was she getting to the point where she was trying to twist die facts to fit the theory?
Alison had only asked one more question after Carla had dropped her bombsh.e.l.l. Carla was not like Dominique, who was reluctant, or like Krista, whom you wanted to question while she was still dull with grief. It was not essential that everything be covered Right Now lest there never be another opportunity. Carla she would be able to go back to again and again and she would enjoy the attention.
”Do you know this woman?” she had asked, showing the xeroxed copy of the morgue photo of Melanie Donahue. She hadn't expected a positive answer, asking it more in the manner of someone who is wrapping things up. She had four photos, she would show four photos. She didn't even take her fingers off the paper-Carla would say 'no' and she would stuff it back in the envelope and that would be that.
But Carla had surprised her. ”Yeah,” she'd said in a thoughtful voice. She slipped the paper out from beneath Alison's fingers and brought it up close, then set it back down. ”Yeah,” she said again and then as an aside, ”Those other guys had a better picture than this.”
”I'll bet they did. Where do you know Melanie from?”