Lena Santini, the divorced wife of the late Charley Hatch, agreed to speak to Detective Angelo Ortiz at eleven o’clock in Charley’s home in Mendham. A small, thin woman of about forty-five, with flaming red hair that had not been granted to her naturally, she seemed genuinely sorry about the death of her former husband. “I can’t believe anyone would shoot him. Doesn’t make sense. Why would they? He never hurt anybody.”
“I’m sad for Charley, not for myself,” she explained. “I can’t pretend that there was ever much between us. We got married ten years ago. I’d been married before, but it hadn’t worked. That guy was a drinker. It could have been good between Charley and me. I’m a waitress, and I make pretty decent money, and I like my job.”
They were sitting in the living room. Lena took a puff of her cigarette. “Look at this place,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “It’s so messy it makes my skin crawl. That’s the way it was when I was living with Charley. I used to say that it doesn’t take a nanosecond to put your underwear and socks in the hamper, but no, he always dropped them on the floor. Guess who picked them up? I’d say, ‘Charley, all you have to do when you have a snack is to rinse off the plate and glass and knife or whatever and put it in the dishwasher.’ It never happened. Charley left stuff on the table or on the rug near where he’d been sitting. And he’d complain. Let me tell you, he was a prize winner in the complaint department. I bet if he won ten million bucks in the lottery, he’d have been mad because the week before it had been worth ten times that. I finally couldn’t take it any more, and we split a year ago.”
Lena’s face softened. “But you know, he was really talented with his hands. Those figures he carved were beautiful. I used to tell him that he should start a little business selling them, but of course he wouldn’t listen. He only felt like carving them once in a while. Oh well, God rest him. I hope he likes heaven.” A brief smile appeared and then disappeared on her lips. “Wouldn’t it be a joke if St. Peter makes Charley head landscaper up there?”
Ortiz, perched on the edge of Charley’s lounge chair, had been listening sympathetically. Now he decided it was time to move into the questioning. “Did you see much of Charley in this year since you’ve been divorced?”
“Not much. We sold the house we had, and split the money we’d saved. I got the furniture and he got the car. It was even-steven. Every once in a while he’d give me a call and we’d have coffee for old times’ sake. He dated a little, I think.”
“Do you know if he was close to his half sister, Robin Carpenter?”
“That one!” Lena raised her eyes to the ceiling. “That was another thing. The people who adopted Charley were real nice folks. Very good to him. The father died about eight years ago. When the mother was dying, she gave Charley pictures of him as a baby, and told him his real name. I’m telling you, no one could have been more excited. I guess he hoped his birth family would turn out to be worth a lot of money. Boy, was he disappointed. His birth mother was dead and her husband wanted no part of him. But he met his half sister Robin, and ever since then she’s been playing him like a fiddle.”
Ortiz tensed and straightened up, but then, not wanting to alert Santini to be careful of what she told him, relaxed his posture again. “Then they saw each other regularly?”
“Did they ever! ‘Charley, can you drive me into the city? Charley, would you mind taking my car to be serviced?’ ”
“Did she pay him?”
“No, but she made him feel important. You’ve met her, I guess. She’s the kind that guys look at, liking what they see.” Lena looked over at Ortiz. “You’re a good-looking guy. Has she shined up to you yet?”
“No,” the detective answered honestly.
“Give her time. Anyhow, she used to take Charley out for dinner in New York sometimes. That made him feel special. She didn’t want anyone around here to know he was her half brother, and she didn’t want to be seen with him around here either, because she’s got a rich boyfriend. Oh, and get this. Charley told her that he sometimes stayed in the houses of people who were away. I mean, he had the keys to those houses because he was a caretaker for them and knew the security codes so he could go in and out of them. So Robin had the nerve to ask him to let her use those houses when she was with her boyfriend. Can you imagine that?”
“Ms. Santini, have you heard about the vandalism on Old Mill Lane in Mendham last week?”
“At Little Lizzie’s Place? Sure, everybody knows about it.”
“We have reason to believe that Charley was the one who committed that act of vandalism.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Santini said, astonished. “Charley would never do that. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Would he do it if he was paid to do it?”
“Who would ask him to do a crazy thing like that?” Lena Santini crushed the butt of the cigarette she was holding into the ashtray and slid a new cigarette out of the open pack in front of her on the table. “Come to think of it, the only person I know who could get Charley to do a stupid trick like that is Robin.”
“Robin Carpenter told us that she has not been in touch with Charley for three months.”
“Then why did she have dinner with him in New York recently at Patsy’s Restaurant on West 56th Street?”
“Do you happen to remember the exact date?”
“It was Saturday of Labor Day weekend. I remember because it was Charley’s birthday, and I called and offered to buy him dinner. He told me Robin was taking him out to Patsy’s.”
Lena’s eyes suddenly glistened. “If that’s all you want to ask me, I have to go. Charley left this place to me, you know. Not that it’s worth much, what with the mortgage so high. This morning I asked you to meet me here because I wanted to get a couple of Charley’s carvings to put in the casket with him, but they’re all gone.”
“We have them,” Ortiz told her. “Unfortunately, since these items are evidence, we have to keep them.”