Ed McBain - Eighty Million Eyes

“I’m sorry.”

“Does part of your ‘routine questioning’ involve badgering a man’s widow?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Gifford,” Carella said. “We’re only trying to investigate every possibility.”

“Then how about investigating the possibility that I led a full and happy life with Stan? When we met, I was working in summer stock in Pennsylvania, earning sixty dollars a week. I’ve had everything I ever wanted from the moment we were married, but I’d gladly give all of it—the furs, the jewels, the house, even the clothes on my back—if that’d bring Stan to life again.”

“We’re only—”

“Yes, you’re only investigating every possibility, I know. Be human,” she said. “You’re dealing with people, not ciphers.”

The detectives were silent. Melanie sighed.

“Did you still want to see my housekeeper?”

“Please,” Meyer said.

Melanie lifted the small bell near her right hand, and gave it a rapid shake. The housekeeper, as though alert and waiting for the tiny sound, came into the dining room immediately.

“These gentlemen would like to ask you some questions, Maureen,” Melanie said. “If you don’t mind, gentlemen, I’ll leave you alone. I’m late for an appointment now, and I’d like to get dressed.”

“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Gifford,” Carella said.

“Not at all,” Melanie said, and walked out of the room.

Maureen stood by the table, uncertainly picking at her apron. Meyer glanced at Carella, who nodded. Meyer cleared his throat, and said, “Maureen, on the day Mr. Gifford died, did you set the breakfast table for him?”

“For him and for Mrs. Gifford, yes, sir.”

“Do you always set the table?”

“Except on Thursdays and every other Sunday, which are my days off. Yes, sir, I always set the table.”

“Did you put Mr. Gifford’s vitamin capsules on the table that morning?” Meyer asked.

“Yes, sir. Right alongside his plate, same as usual.”

“How many vitamin capsules?”

“Two.”

“Not three?”

“I said two,” Maureen said.

“Was anyone in the room when you put the capsules on the table?”

“No, sir.”

“Who came down to breakfast first? Mr. Gifford or Mrs. Gifford?”

“Mrs. Gifford came in just as I was leaving.”

“And then Mr. Gifford?”

“Yes. I heard him come down about five minutes later.”

“Do these vitamin capsules come in a jar?”

“A small bottle, sir.”

“Could we see that bottle, please?”

“I keep it in the kitchen.” Maureen paused. “You’ll have to wait while I get it.”

She went out of the room. Carella waited until he could no longer hear her footfalls, and then asked, “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know. But if Melanie Gifford was alone in the room with those two capsules, she could have switched one of them, no?”

“The one he was taking to lunch, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Only one thing wrong with that theory,” Carella said.

“Yeah, I know. He had lunch seven hours before he collapsed.” Meyer sighed and shook his head. “We’re still stuck with that lousy six minutes. It’s driving me nuts.”

“Besides, it doesn’t look as though Melanie had any reason to do in her own dear Godlike husband.”

“Yeah,” Meyer said. “It’s just I get the feeling she’s too cooperative, you know? Her and the good doctor both. So very damn helpful. He right away diagnoses poison and insists we do an autopsy. She immediately points to him as a suspect, then changes her mind when she finds out about the poison. And both of them conveniently away from the studio on the night Gifford died.” Meyer nodded his head, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Maybe that six minutes is supposed to drive us nuts.”

“How do you mean?”

“Maybe we were supposed to find out which poison killed him. I mean, we’d naturally do an autopsy anyway, right? And we’d find out it was strophanthin, and we’d also find out how fast strophanthin works.”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“So we’d automatically rule out anybody who wasn’t near Gifford before he died.”

“That’s almost the entire city, Meyer.”

“No, you know what I mean. We’d rule out Krantz, who says he was in the sponsor’s booth, and we’d rule out Melanie, who was here, and Nelson, who was at his own house.”

“That still needs checking,” Carella said.

“Why? Krantz said that was where he reached him after Gifford collapsed.”

“That doesn’t mean Nelson was there all night. I want to ask him about that. In fact, I’d like to stop at his office as soon as we get back to the city.”

“Okay, but do you get my point?”

“I think so. Given a dead end to work with, knowing how much poison Gifford had swallowed, and knowing how fast it worked, we’d come to the only logical conclusion: suicide. Is that what you mean?”

“Right,” Meyer said.

“Only one thing wrong with your theory, friend.”

“Yeah, what?”

“The facts. It was strophanthin. It does work instantly. You can speculate all you want, but the facts remain the same.”

“Facts, facts,” Meyer said. “All I know—”

“Facts,” Carella insisted.

“Suppose Melanie did switch that lunch capsule? We still haven’t checked Gifford’s will. She may be in it for a healthy chunk.”

“All right, suppose she did. He’d have dropped dead on his way to the studio.”

“Or suppose Krantz got to him before he went up to the sponsor’s booth?”

“Then Gifford would have shown symptoms of poisoning before the show even went on the air.”

“Arrrggh, facts,” Meyer said, and Maureen came back into the room.

“I asked Mrs. Gifford if it was all right,” she said. She handed the bottle of vitamin capsules to Carella. “You can do whatever you like with them.”

“We’d like to take them with us, if that’s all right.”

“Mrs. Gifford said whatever you like.”

“We’ll give you a receipt,” Meyer said. He looked at the bottle of vitamins in Carella’s hand. The capsules were jammed into the bottle, each one opaque, and colored purple and black. Meyer stared at them sourly. “You’re looking for a third capsule,” he said to Carella. “There’re a hundred of them in that bottle.”

He blew his nose then, and began making out a receipt for the vitamins.

Dr. Carl Nelson’s office was on Hall Avenue in a white apartment building with a green awning that stretched to the curb. Carella and Meyer got there at 1:00, took the elevator up to the fifth floor, and then announced themselves to a brunette nurse, who said the doctor had a patient with him at the moment, but she’d tell him they were here, wouldn’t they please have a seat?

They had a seat.

In ten minutes’ time, an elderly lady with a bandage over one eye came out of the doctor’s private office. She smiled at the two detectives, either soliciting sympathy for her wound, or offering sympathy for whatever had brought them to see a doctor. Carl Nelson came out of his office with his hand extended.

“How are you?” he said. “Come in, come in. Any news?”

“Well, not really, doctor,” Carella said. “We simply wanted to ask you a few questions.”

“Happy to help you in any way I can,” Nelson said. He turned to his nurse and asked, “When’s my next appointment, Rhoda?”

“Two o’clock, doctor.”

“No calls except emergencies until then, please,” Nelson said, and he led the detectives inside. He sat immediately at his desk, offered Carella and Meyer chairs, and then folded his hands before him in a professionally relaxed, patiently expectant way.