Crawley nodded. “Architects,” he said.
Anderson’s brief smile fluttered on his face again, and he shook his head. “No, we work in conjunction with the architect, if it’s a new building. But most of our work is concerned with the modernization of old facilities. In a way, we’re a central clearing agency for new ideas in industrial plant procedures.” It was, thought Levine, an explanation Anderson was used to making, so used to making that it sounded almost like a memorized patter.
“You and Cartwright equal partners?” asked Crawley. It was clear he hadn’t understood a word of Anderson’s explanation and was impatient to move on to other things.
Anderson nodded. “Yes, we are. We’ve been partners for twenty-one years.”
“You know him well, then.”
“I should think so, yes.”
“Then maybe you know why he suddenly decided to go crawl out on the ledge.”
Eyes widening, Anderson shook his head again. “Not a thing,” he said. “I had no idea, nothing, I— There just wasn’t any warning at all.”
Levine stood off to one side, watching, his lips pursed in concentration. Was Anderson telling the truth? It seemed likely; it felt likely. The marriage again. It kept going back to the marriage.
“Has he acted at all funny lately?” Crawley was still pursuing the same thought, that there had to be some previous build-up, and that the build-up should show. “Has he been moody, anything like that?”
“Jason—” Anderson stopped, shook his head briefly, started again. “Jason is a quiet man, by nature. He — he rarely says much, rarely uh, forces his personality, if you know what I mean. If he’s been thinking about this, whatever it is, it — it wouldn’t show. I don’t think it would show.”
“Would he have any business worries at all?” Crawley undoubtedly realized by now this was a blind alley, but he would go through the normal questions anyway. You never could tell.
Anderson, as was to be expected, said, “No, none. We’ve — well, we’ve been doing very well. The last five years, we’ve been expanding steadily, we’ve even added to our staff, just six months ago.”
Levine now spoke for the first time. “What about Mrs. Cartwright?” he asked.
Anderson looked blank, as he turned to face Levine. “Mrs. Cartwright? I–I don’t understand what you mean.”
Crawley immediately picked up the new ball, took over the questioning again. “Do you know her well, Mister Anderson? What kind of woman would you say she was?”
Anderson turned back to Crawley, once again opening his flank to Levine. “She’s, well, actually I haven’t seen very much of her the last few years. Jason moved out of Manhattan five six years ago, over to Jersey, and I live out on the Island, so we don’t, uh, we don’t socialize very much, as much as we used to. As you get older—” he turned to face Levine, as though instinctively understanding that Levine would more readily know what he meant “—you don’t go out so much any more, in the evening. You don’t, uh, keep up friendships as much as you used to.”
“You must know something about Mrs. Cartwright,” said Crawley.
Anderson gave his attention to Crawley again. “She’s, well, I suppose the best way to describe her is determined. I know for a fact she was the one who talked Jason into coming into partnership with me, twenty-one years ago. A forceful woman. Not a nag, mind you, I don’t mean that at all. A very pleasant woman, really. A good hostess. A good mother, from the look of Allan. But forceful.”
The wife, thought Levine. She’s the root of it. She knows, too, what drove him out there.
And she wants him to jump.
Back in Cartwright’s office, the son Allan was once again at the phone. The patrolman Gundy was at the left-hand window, and a new man, in clerical garb, at the right-hand window.
Gundy noticed Levine and Crawley come in, and immediately left the window. “A priest,” he said softly. “Anderson said he was Catholic, so we got in touch with St. Marks, over on Willoughby.”
Levine nodded. He was listening to the son. “I don’t know, mother. Of course, mother, we’re doing everything we can. No, mother, no reporters up here, maybe it won’t have to be in the papers at all.”
Levine went over to the window Gundy had vacated, took up a position where he could see Cartwright, carefully refrained from looking down at the ground. The priest was saying, “God has his time for you, Mister Cartwright. This is God’s prerogative, to choose the time and the means of your death.”
Cartwright shook his head, not looking at the priest, glaring instead directly across Flatbush Avenue at the building across the way. “There is no God,” he said.
“I don’t believe you mean that, Mister Cartwright,” said the priest. “I believe you’ve lost faith in yourself, but I don’t believe you’ve lost faith in God.”
“Take that away!” screamed
Cartwright all at once. “Take that away, or I jump right now!”
He was staring down toward the street, and Levine followed the direction of his gaze. Poles had been extended from windows on the floor below, and a safety net, similar to that used by circus per formers, was being unrolled along them.
“Take that away!” screamed Cartwright again. He was leaning precariously forward, his face mottled red with fury and terror.
“Roll that back in!” shouted Levine. “Get it out of there, he can jump over it! Roll it back in!”
A face jutted out of one of the fifth-floor windows, turning inquiringly upward, saying, “Who are you?”
“Levine. Precinct. Get that thing away from there.”
“Right you are,” said the face, making it clear he accepted no responsibility either way. And the net and poles were withdrawn.
The priest, on the other side, was saying, “It’s all right. Relax, Mr. Cartwright; it’s all right. These people only want to help you; it’s all right.” The priest’s voice was shaky. Like Gundy, he was a rookie at this. He’d never been asked to talk in a suicide before.
Levine twisted around, looking up. Two stories up, and the roof. More men were up there, with another safety net. If this were the top floor, they would probably take a chance with that net, try flipping it over him and pasting him like a butterfly to the wall. But not here, three stories down.
Cartwright had turned his face away from the still-talking priest, was studying Levine intently. Levine returned his gaze, and Cartwright said, “Where’s Laura? She should be here by now, shouldn’t she? Where is she?”
“Laura? You mean your wife?”
“Of course,” he said. He stared at Levine, trying to read something to Levine’s face. “Where is she?”
Tell him the truth? No. Tell him his wife wasn’t coming, and he would jump right away. “She’s on the way,” he said. “She should be here pretty soon.”
Cartwright turned his face forward again, stared off across the street. The priest was still talking, softly, insistently.
Levine came back into the office. To Crawley, he said, “It’s the wife He’s waiting for her.”
“They’ve always got a wife,” said Crawley sourly. “And there’s always just the one person they’ll tell it to. Well, how long before she gets here?”
“She isn’t coming.”
“What?”
“She’s at home, over in Jersey. She said she wouldn’t come.” Levine shrugged and added, “I’ll try her again.”
The son was still on the phone, but he handed it over as soon as Levine spoke to him. Levine said, “This is Detective Levine again, Mrs. Cartwright. We’d like you to come down here after all, please. Your husband asked to talk to you.”