The phone clattered as Vivian set it down. She returned after a moment.
“Sorry, Mario. That damn cat was up on the mantle again after the goldfish and knocked down a book. Now what were you wondering about?”
“Did Aggie spend the night with you by any chance?” Breath tight in his chest, he waited for her answer.
Vivian laughed. “Well, the honeymoon’s over already! What did she do, Mario, run home to mother?”
“No!” he said angrily. “I had to work last night and she probably got scared being by herself!”
“I don’t know,” laughed Vivian. “Sounds like Reno to me!” Her voice softened, becoming almost husky. “You know, Mario honey, I’m still carrying a big torch for you. I’ll be home tonight if you’d like to—”
“Thank you, but I’ll be busy.” Mario let the phone drop to its cradle.
As he replaced it, the doorbell rang with the high nervous tone of a spoon striking a glass of water.
He didn’t want to answer it. He had enough on his mind. But he knew whoever it was out on the small porch had seen him through the glass of the front door. He went over and opened the door.
Standing on the porch, revolving a faded green felt hat in his big-knuckled hands, was George Contrera. He didn’t say anything. He just looked at Mario.
Mario scowled and passed his hand impatiently across his forehead. “Sorry, George. Can’t go with you this morning. Something’s come up.”
Anger sprang into George Contrera’s eyes. They were oily brown eyes looking out of an oily brown face. Contrera was in his late thirties. He was tall and his hair was cut so short it stuck up like iron-gray pins. His thin denim shirt and pants had been washed and mended many times.
“You said you’d go!” he accused. “I need that job. And you promised!”
“I know, but we’ll have to do it tomorrow or some time.”
Contrera began to whine. “Look here, sir! If it hadn’t been for you I wouldn’t be out of a job. You arrested me, so I sat in that jail for one hundred and eighty-three days. You—”
“Shut up!” barked Mario. “It wasn’t my fault you tried to rob that gas station.” He started to shut the door. “I’ll get in touch with you later about the job.”
“Yes, sir!” There was little respect in the word and much bitterness. Narrow shoulders slumping, Contrera turned and went down the long flight of steps.
Mario closed the door.
He returned to the bedroom, the silent bedroom with the silent figure on his wife’s bed. Glancing briefly at Hern’s gray face, he picked up his tan gabardine slacks. His mind was made up. He’d have to go out and find her. Because until he could talk to her, until he could see the expression her blue eyes and hear her voice — not until then would he know for sure whether Aggie was guilty.
And all he could allow himself was an hour. He couldn’t delay phoning the homicide inspectors for more than an hour. He swore.
A short, rotten hour. One hour to find his wife in a city of three hundred thousand. One hour to find evidence to clear her if she wasn’t guilty. One hour to save her life and his.
Stepping into the slacks, he yanked up the zipper and adjusted the stiff new leather holster containing his service .38. Down in the alley, somebody screamed.
Mario sped to the open window. Two yelling boys in swim trunks were clapping their small hands across their mouths and performing an Indian war dance around a rusty trash barrel. Their faces and skinny chests were streaked with orange war paint.
Mario started to turn from the window — and then from the edge of his eye he saw her.
Aggie.
At the narrow mouth of the alley, half a block away. But she wasn’t coming home. She was walking quickly away.
There was a thick roaring in Mario’s ears as he poked his bare feet into his shiny cordovan oxfords and grabbed the blue shirt up off the rug. He ran through the kitchen, his left arm stabbing the air, trying to find the shirt sleeve flapping out behind him.
Down the front steps he went, taking them three at a time. He ran along the narrow concrete path past the purple dahlias and yellow nasturtiums and past the fat garbage can that was brown with running ants.
She’d crossed Twenty-third Street and was walking in the alley beyond. Stuffing in his shirt tail, Mario sprinted over the rutted earth.
When he was a hundred yards behind her, he shouted. “Aggie!”
She didn’t stop. She walked even faster, the paper shopping bag swinging in her hand.
His lungs were hot and heavy in his chest by the time he caught her elbow and yanked her to a stop.
He blurted: “Aggie!”
And then he felt is if he’d been slugged across the eyes with a night stick.
The girl wasn’t Aggie. This blonde had small brown eyes, a bump on her nose and a small, angry mouth.
“Say! What d’you think you’re doing!” She tore away from his grasp.
“Sorry,” said Mario. He took out his black leather wallet, fumbled it open and showed his identification. “Police Department.” he muttered. “Made a mistake...”
Turning, he walked slowly back down the alley, his sockless feet sliding around in the untied oxfords. He felt sick. From the back that girl had been a dead ringer for Aggie. She walked the same way, held her shoulders in the same erect manner. He should’ve known by the hair-do and the clothes that it wasn’t Aggie. But he’d wanted so desperately to believe it was her that his eyes had run away with his brain.
He went back to the bedroom and stood beside the dresser, his hands deep in his pockets. He’d been a fool. An apple-green rookie. Instead of thinking things through calmly, the way an experienced cop would’ve done, he’d bolted out of here like a scalded dog.
He glanced at the crystal face of his wrist watch. It was eight-twenty and he’d discovered the body nearly half an hour ago. By nine-fifteen at the latest he would have to phone headquarters — and they’d be sure to grill him about the delay. Hell, they might even figure he’d killed Bob Hern.
He forced himself to think slowly. There were two ways of looking at it. Either Aggie had killed Hern, or somebody else had. She didn’t like Bob Hern, there was no doubt about that. But did she hate him enough to kill?
He was one of the assistant managers at Hennesey’s where Aggie had worked in the cosmetic section. They’d been engaged, but Aggie had broken it off. She said Hern was too immature, too headstrong. He’d proved that later by having her fired for some small thing. Hern was quite a power around the store. Anybody could be a power if his father was the store’s vice president.
Thoughtfully, Mario scrubbed his fingertips through his thick dark hair. Hern’s body must have been in the bed all night. It was there when Mario came in. If he hadn’t been so careful not to wake Aggie, if he had put on the lights, he would have discovered the body then.
It had been a grim joke — hardly the sort of thing Aggie would do. Maybe it was somebody else’s idea of humor. Someone with a funny sense of proportion, funny enough to know what a shock it would be when Mario found the body beside him in the morning. It would have to be someone with a grudge against me, he thought. Someone who, at the same time, had a reason for wanting Hern dead.
What about George Contrera? He was a strange character, odd enough to pull such a trick. Contrera was the first guy Mario had ever arrested. Three days after he was sworn into the Department, Mario had caught Contrera robbing a gas station. It had been Contrera’s first offense and he’d gotten off lightly. After serving his time, he couldn’t get a job. Mario felt sorry for him and made arrangements to introduce him to the boss of a lumber yard this morning. But he hadn’t realized before what a character Contrera was. For that jail sentence Contrera blamed, not himself, but Mario.