Evan Hunter - Romance

DEAR GOD, PLEASE FORGIVE ME

FOR WHAT I DID TO MICHELLE

“No signature,” Parker observed.

“They don’t always sign them.” Meyer said.

“If we’re about to step in shit here, we better at least have a signed note,” Parker said.

“The girl’s earring was under the bed,” Kling said.

“What girl?”

“The actress who took over the dead girl’s part.”

“We call them women these days,” Parker said.

They all turned to look at him.

“Girls are five years old and younger,” he said.

“Were they lovers or what?” Hawes asked. “The actress and the vie.”

“Not according to her.”

“Then how’d her earring get under his bed?”

“That’s what I’d like to ask her,” Carella said. “That’s why I’d like to bring her in.”

“Did you talk to Nellie about this?”

“Not yet.”

“About arresting her, I mean.”

“No.”

“Cause if we bring her in here…”

“I know.”

“She’ll be in custody…”

“We’re already into Miranda,” Parker said.

“We may even be jeopardizing the case Nellie already has.”

“How?”

“I don’t know how. Ask Nellie.”

“Have we got an autopsy report yet?” Brown asked.

“Verbal,” Carella said.

“Who examined him?” Hawes asked.

“Doctor named Ralph Dwyer.”

“Parkside?”

“Yeah.”

“Good man.”

“What’d he say?”

“Said Madden did a great job on himself. All four extremities fractured, bones of the cranium and face comminuted, brain enucleated. He must’ve hit the sidewalk on his right side because that’s where the ribs and pelvis were most severely broken. The fall also shattered his spine and burst his heart, a fine job all around.”

“Did he think…?”

“Did he say Madden was already…?”

“No. He found fat embolism, inhaled blood, and hemorrhages around the injuries, all signs that they were intravital. The injuries.”

“Meaning?” Parker asked.

“Meaning he was still alive when he hit the sidewalk.”

“Blood work show anything?” Byrnes asked.

“Traces of Dalmane.”

“Dalmane?”

“Enough for Dwyer to believe Madden was asleep when he went out that window.”

“How do you jump out a window if you’re asleep?”

“Somebody helps you,” Carella said.

“She won’t answer anything else unless we bring her in,” Kling said.

“She’s already got a lawyer,” Carella said.

“Our guess is she’s running scared.”

“We get her in here, she may bleat.”

“I doubt it,” Parker said. “Her lawyer’ll tell us to fuck off. He’ll ask us to void the arrest.”

“We’ve got plenty to charge her with. Conspiracy to murder…”

“Accessory before…”

“On what? A fuckin earring? ”

“And a suicide note.”

“The note doesn’t implicate her.”

“Have we got any latents?”

“Nothing wild. Almost everything in the apartment was wiped clean. The typewriter, the earring, the Scotch bottle, the club soda bottle…”

“Two glasses by the bed, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Must’ve been how he got the Dalmane in him, huh?”

“Must’ve been. yeah.”

“You think she was wearing gloves?”

“While they fucked?”

“No, when she was cleaning up.”

“Had to’ve done it before she tossed him out the window. Otherwise, there wouldn’t’ve been time.”

“Did she wipe the windowsill?”

“Yes.”

“Couldn’t’ve done that before.”

“No, that had to be after.”

“How about the sash ?”

“Clean.”

“The handles?”

“What handles?”

“The things you raise the window with, whatever the hell they’re called. The little things you grab with your hands to pull the window up.”

“Clean.”

“Fuckin cleaning woman.”

“The more I hear, the less I like it,” Byrnes said. “I don’t want to bring her in till we’ve got something better than this. We don’t need a pointless exercise here.”

“What if there’s Dalmane in her medicine chest?”

“You know any judge who’ll grant you a search warrant on the strength of an earring under a bed?”

“You’d never get a court order on such flimsy shit,” Parker said.

“If we arrest her, we could…”

“How the hell can we arrest her, Steve?” Byrnes asked irritably. “All you’ve got is an earring at the scene. She could’ve left it there last year, for all we know. She told you she lost the damn thing…”

“She also told us she doesn’t know where he lives,” Carella said.

“Never been to his apartment,” Kling said.

“So how’d the earring get there?”

“There’s too much bothering me about this,” Byrnes said.

“Me, too,” Parker said.

“Let’s say, just for the sake of argument,” Meyer said, “she put him up to doing the Cassidy girl…”

“Woman,” Parker corrected.

They all looked at him.

“It’s what they’re called,” he said apologetically.

“But let’s say she did that, okay?”

“Which would be conspiracy.”

“Sure. And let’s say her motive was she wanted the other gir…the other woman’s part in the play. So she gets this jackass to kill her, and she does get the part, it works just the way she planned it. Then why…?”

“Right,” Parker said. “Why the hell…?”

“…would she kill him?” Byrnes said.

“Cause he was the only link,” Carella said.

“The only one who tied her to it,” Kling said.

“They why’d she leave a phony suicide note?” Brown asked.

“To make it look like a suicide.”

“Why?” Hawes asked.

“So we wouldn’t carry it back to her.”

“But we are carrying it back to her.”

“Only because we found the earring!” Carella said, exasperated.

“You think she took off the earring, is that it?” Byrnes asked. “Before she shoved him out the window?”

“I think she took it off before they started making love.”

“And forgot to put it on again?”

“Yes. If you’d just killed someone…”

“Come on, Steve,” Hawes said. “She drugs the guy…”

“Yes.”

“Drops Dalmane into the Scotch they’re drinking…”

“Exactly.”

“And then takes off her earrings before they make love? Didn’t she have other things on her mind?”

“Like throwing him out the fuckin window?” Parker said.

“Wait a minute,” Brown said, “I think Steve’s right.”

“No, he’s not,” Meyer said.

“Lots of women take off their earrings before they climb into bed,” Brown said.

“Their watches, too,” Kling said.

“Sometimes even their rings,” Brown said. “So that’s not unusual.”

“Both earrings, right?” Hawes said. “She took off both earrings.”

“Well…yeah.”

“And then put on just one of them afterward?”

“Without noticing the other one was gone?”

“Without looking for the other one?”

“She’s just thrown a guy out the window, and she realizes she’s lost her earring, and she doesn’t go looking for it?”

“When did you notice the earring was gone?” Byrnes asked.

“What?” Carella said.

“Your report says she was wearing only one earring…”

“That was Thursday, Steve,” Kling said.

“When you noticed?”

“Yes.”

“And she told you she’d lost it?”