The doorbell burred again, patiently. Curt lurched to his feet, forked shaky fingers through his hair while the dizziness passed. Hadn’t undressed, hadn’t even removed his shoes. Passed out. Paula was dead.
Paula was dead. Goddamned doorbell again. Ought to...
He went unsteadily down the stairs and crossed to the front door. It opened to let spring into the house like the voice of a friend long absent. He stared at the man on the porch, a tall stranger.
“Maybe you remember me, Professor. Monty Worden. I was in charge of the men from the sheriff’s office on Friday night.”
“Of course.” Curt stood aside, searching impressions blurred by shock, by the interim drinking, by his incredibly pounding head. “That is, a... Detective-Sergeant Worden, isn’t it?”
Worden, he decided, must have stopped on his way home from Sunday services. The policeman’s suit was a dark blue with a wicked gray stripe in it, and his tie was tasteful enough to have been picked by his wife. He was a good four inches taller than Curt’s five-ten, with thick-fingered hands and the bull neck of a wrestler. By his presence in the middle of the living room, he made it a position he was defending. The busy gray eyes were a cop’s eyes, full of sadly won wisdom and totally observant. All of the exceptional combat officers Curt had known in the military had regarded life through similar hard and wary eyes.
“Sit down, Sergeant. I drank too much yesterday and last night...”
“That dago red really puts the blast on you, all right.”
So those observant eyes had noted and catalogued the bottle Paula had put out on Friday night. Curt said, “There’s coffee or tea...”
“Tea’s fine.” Relaxed on the couch, Worden brought out and extended a manila envelope. “Her note. The lab boys are through with it.”
Curt carried the note down to the kitchen, ran the teapot full of tap water, hot, filled the kettle with cold and put it on a burner, and then smoothed the note on the counter top. He had not been allowed to handle it on Friday night. It was a measure of Paula, he thought, that her writing had not been at all shaky.
Curt darling,
Here it is, the traditional note with the touch of sadness assumed appropriate for such occasions. Please understand that I am doing this because of something intolerable in myself, not in our marriage. I would like to do it in style, like the worthy consul of Bithynia, with light poetry and playful verse; but time is short, and to be brought back when halfway there would be degrading. It has been good over the years, darling, so please try to forget this.
Something intolerable in myself. What? What could she have discovered in those few hours that would explain such a terminal act? He shook his head, set cups, sugar, spoons, milk, napkins, and lemon slices on a TV tray to carry into the living room.
“The water will be hot in just a few minutes.” His mind was clearer now, but his head ached abominably; perhaps he would lace his tea with brandy. He measured his next words to the detective. “You mentioned that your criminology lab was ‘through’ with the note. Might I ask what they were doing with it?”
“Paper often takes good fingerprint impressions, so we checked. We found only your wife’s on the note and on the pen which was used.”
Curt was stirred by a breath of emotion almost too slight to be identified as anger. “What other prints were you expecting to find?”
“You said you hadn’t seen the note.” He shrugged. “Routine.”
“What about the razor blade?” Curt demanded sarcastically. “Why didn’t you check that for prints, too, see if I—”
“Too much blood for impressions.”
“You mean that you actually—”
“Just routine, Professor. Like I said.” Worden’s apologetic tone did not reach his eyes. “A suicide is a crime against the person, so it comes under the jurisdiction of the Criminal Division. The investigation is carried out by the Detective Bureau, Homicide Detail. Since I was in the barrel on Friday night, I got the case.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you fingerprinted Paula’s note.”
Worden shrugged heavy shoulders. “Since I’m in charge, Professor, subject to review, and one or two little points bothered me — we checked fingerprints.”
The teakettle’s mournful whistling brought Curt to his feet. Out in the kitchen, he emptied the pot, spooned in strong black Keeman, covered it with boiling water. His hands were shaking: Worden was probing wounds which still were bleeding, and Curt didn’t know why. He carried a bottle of Korbel into the living room along with the tea.
“Would you like some brandy in yours, Sergeant?”
Worden shook his head. His gray eyes watched Curt with such a pitiless and avid concentration that it was almost contempt, and Curt paused with the cap halfway screwed off. The spark of anger glowed more brightly. To hell with you, Worden. Plain tea for me, then, too. Then a new thought struck him with the force of a bucket of ice water dashed in the face.
“Paula’s suicide was a suicide, wasn’t it, Sergeant?”
Worden sipped his tea tentatively. “Say, this is good; you’ll have to tell me what kind you use.” Without waiting for Curt’s reply, he went on, “Yeah, it was suicide. I been in the Detective Bureau for ten years, Professor, and I’ve found that pills are the usual for a woman unless she’s spiting — then they’ll use the damndest things. But your wife chose the razor blade instead.” Then he rapped out, “Why?”
“Why... why because... Her note explained it, she didn’t want to be brought back when she was halfway... was halfway there...”
Curt stopped; the hand holding the teacup was shaking again. His face felt like carved stone. Was this why criminals so often broke down under police questioning? Because of the steady relentless pressure that only a cop knew how to exert? But Curt wasn’t a criminal. Paula had killed herself, so why was Worden pressuring him?
“Okay,” conceded the detective, “say that explains the razor blade. But what about this, ah... the consul of something...”
Curt found himself answering almost eagerly, for the ground was less painful here and he felt an absurd urge to justify himself. “Consul of Bithynia. Paula is — was — the daughter of a professor in classics. The reference is to the Annals of Tacitus, I can’t remember which book — anyway, where he mentioned Caius Petronius, consul of Bithynia and Nero’s Master of Orgies. When Petronius fell from favor, he chose to kill himself by bleeding to death a little bit at a time, conversing with his friends meanwhile, eating, drinking — even sleeping — and being entertained by frivolous poetry and light verse until he died. Paula... the passage always appealed to her as sort of epitomizing the civilized man, so I suppose... when she wanted...”
“Yeah.” Worden’s eyes were flat and gray as stagnant water. “But there’s one other little thing, Professor. No hesitation nicks. Usually suicides, they got dozens of little cuts near the veins where they were getting up the nerve to do it. Your wife didn’t have any.”
“But I told you, Paula was very... very strong-willed.”
“Yeah. You know, Professor, we performed an autopsy on her.”
Curt was out of his chair. “Autopsy? You mean that you... Paula? But goddamnit, man, I didn’t give any permission—”
“It ain’t necessary in deaths by violence, Professor.”