Evan Hunter - Romance

“When you say you think he may have…”

“I seem to remember him asking me… I don’t even remember when this was… but I think he once asked me if I had anything that could help him sleep.”

“But you don’t remember when?”

“No, I don’t. I’m telling you the God’s honest truth,” she said.

Sure, Carella thought.

“Do you think he may have helped himself to some Dalmane last night?” he asked. “To take to his apartment?”

“He may have, I can’t say for sure. He knew I had Dalmane, you see…”

“Then again, you say he didn’t go back to your apartment from the theater.”

“That’s right, he didn’t.”

“So if he did take any from the bottle in your bathroom, he must have done that before he left the apartment for the day.”

“I would guess so. I really don’t know what he did.”

“Because we didn’t find any Dalmane in his apartment, you see. Or any empty bottles that might have contained Dalmane. Which is odd, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know if it’s odd or not. I don’t know what he took or didn’t take last night. Or anytime yesterday, for that matter.”

“Well, he took Dalmane, that’s for sure. It showed in his blood work this morning.”

“I don’t know anything about blood work.”

“Neither do I, actually,” Carella lied. “What I’m wondering — out loud really — is how that Dalmane could possibly have…”

“If you’ve got anything to ask my client,” Bertinotti said, “please ask it. No wondering, please. Wonder is for sliced bread. Stick to the questions.”

“Certainly, Counselor. Question, Miss Packer. Did you go to Mr. Madden’s apartment at any time last night?”

“No, I did not.”

“You didn’t go there with him directly from the theater, did you?”

“No.”

“Or at any time later?”

“I didn’t go there at all. I was home last night. All night .”

“Did you know where Mr. Madden was?”

“Of course I did. He told me he was going to the apartment to work on his play.”

“Told you that when?”

“When we were leaving the theater.”

“After rehearsal.”

“Yes.”

“At which time you went home, and he went to the apartment on River Street.”

“Yes. He used it as a sort of office.”

“I see.”

“After he moved in with me. He would go there periodically to work on the play. He was writing a play with Jerry Greenbaum.”

“So I understand.”

“The Wench Is Dead.”

“Christopher Marlowe,” Carella said.

Andrea looked surprised.

“Do you think Mr. Greenbaum was there with him last night?” Carella asked.

“You would have to ask Mr. Greenbaum.”

“We already have.”

“Was he?”

“No.”

“Then he couldn’t have pushed Chuck out that window, could he?” Andrea said, and smiled.

“I guess not,” Carella said. “But someone did. Because a sleeping man can’t drag himself out of the bedroom and into the next room, you see.”

“He could if he was only half asleep,” Andrea said. “Maybe he took a Dalmane, as you say…”

“Which he may have got from your medicine chest that morning…”

“Well, I don’t know whether he did or not…”

“But if he did.”

“I only said he might have. I didn’t follow him around to see if he was snitching sleeping pills from the medicine chest.”

“Of course not.”

“Miss Packer, I feel I should warn you,” Bertinotti said.

“I’m only saying if he did,” Andrea said, “as you seem to think he did.”

“Well, it was in his blood,” Carella said. “I was simply repeating what’s in the toxicology report. But what you’re suggesting is he may have been wandering around in this drugged state, and just accidentally…“

“Exactly.”

“That’s something I hadn’t thought of,” Carella said. “He could have taken the Dalmane…”

“Sure.”

“… and then was… well… walking around the apartment before he went to bed, and all of a sudden he got drowsy and just fell out the window.”

“As an actress, I can see that happening,” Andrea said.

“Pardon?” Carella said.

“A scene like that.”

“Oh.”

“It would play.”

“Him falling out the window in a half-stupor, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Miss Packer,” Bertinotti said, trying to warn her again that this smart-ass detective was closing in and she’d better watch her onions, “I think…”

“We know there was a woman in that apartment with him last night,” Carella said.

“It wasn’t me,” Andrea said. “Anyway, how do you…?”

“Miss Packer,” Bertinotti said again, more sharply this time. “I think we…”

“We have vaginal stains,” Carella said. “From the sheets on the bed.”

Andrea looked at him.

“What I’d like to do,” he said, “even though I’m certain we can do this under Miranda without a court order…”

“Do what?” Bertinotti asked at once.

“Have a vaginal smear taken, Counselor.”

“You’d damn well better get a court order before you invade her privacy that way!”

“I intend to do that, sir.”

“Good, go do it. Meanwhile, the questions are finished.”

“Counselor,” Carella said, “if Miss Packer wasn’t in that bed with Mr. Madden last night, she’s got nothing to worry about. But if we come up with a DNA match, then we’ve got her there with him before he went out that window. You might want to discuss this with her in private.”

Bertinotti looked at her.

“Give us fifteen minutes alone,” he said.

He was back in ten.

“Is there a D. A. on this case?” he asked.

Nellie Brand got uptown at two minutes past midnight. Officially it was Palm Sunday, but she wasn’t dressed for church. They had caught her at a dinner party, and she was wearing her basic black and pearls with high-heeled black patent pumps. She apologized for her improbable appearance, talked to Carella to find out what they had, and then went in to talk to Andrea’s lawyers.

Foley just sat there with his finger up his ass.

Bertinotti did all the bargaining for their client.

Nellie knew her evidence wasn’t overwhelming, but she wasn’t ready to let Bertinotti plead her down to a stroll in the park. The very fact that he was willing to bargain at all told her that Packer had been in Madden’s apartment on the night he’d taken the plunge. But she knew she had nothing that really tied Packer to the Cassidy murder. Even so, she told Bertinotti she was going for Murder Two on both cases, under the theory that Packer had acted in concert with Madden on the Cassidy murder. Murder Two was an A felony that carried a lifetime sentence. Bertinotti knew she was being ridiculous, otherwise why were they here talking?

He told her he’d agree to Man One on the Madden case, if she forgot the Cassidy case entirely. She told him that was out of the question, the two cases were irrevocably linked, and if she couldn’t wrap both, she wasn’t going to deal at all. He reminded her that she already had somebody in jail for the Cassidy murder…

“Please, Counselor,” she said. “You’re not suggesting I send an innocent man to prison, are you?”

“Perish the thought,” Bertinotti said.

Foley, the jackass, actually chuckled.

“I was merely positing the notion that perhaps the voracious appetite of the public for mystery, intrigue and revenge would be sated if you dropped the A felony on the earlier murder…”