“I see,” Carella said.
“But you went into his dressing room to chat, anyway,” Meyer said through his nose, and then sniffed.
“Well, there wasn’t a feud between us or anything like that. It's just that every once in a while, we yelled at each other a little, that's all. Because he didn’t know a damn thing about costumes, and I happen to know a great deal about costumes, that's all. But that didn’t stop me from going into his dressing room to chat a little. I don’t see anything so terribly wrong about going into his dressing room to chat a little.”
“No one said anything was wrong, Miss Vallejo.”
“I mean, I know a man's been murdered and all, but that's no reason to start examining every tiny little word that was said, or every little thing that was done. People do argue, you know.”
“Yes, we know.”
Maria paused. She stopped rocking, and she turned her head toward the curtained windows streaming sunlight and very softly said, “Oh, what's the use? I guess they’ve already told you Stan and I hated each other's guts.” She shrugged her shoulders hopelessly. “I think he was going to fire me. I heard he wouldn’t put up with me any longer.”
“Who told you that?”
“David. He said—David Krantz, our producer—he said Stan was about to give me the ax. That's why I went to his dressing room Wednesday night. To ask him about it, to try to…well, the job pays well. Personalities shouldn’t enter into a person's work. I didn’t want to lose the job, that's all.”
“Did you discuss the job with him?”
“I started to, but then Art came in, and right after that George, so I didn’t get a chance.” She paused again, “I guess it's academic now, isn’t it?”
“I guess so.”
Meyer blew his nose noisily, put his tissue away, and then casually said, “Are you very well known in the field, Miss Vallejo?”
“Oh, yes, sure.”
“So even if Mr. Gifford had fired you, you could always get another job. Isn’t that so?”
“Well…word gets around pretty fast in this business. It's not good to get fired from any job, I’m sure you know that. And in television…I would have preferred to resign, that's all. So I wanted to clear it up, you see, which is why I went to his dressing room. To clear it up. If it was true he was going to let me go, I wanted the opportunity of leaving the job of my own volition, that's all.”
“But you never got a chance to discuss it.”
“No. I told you. Art walked in.”
“Well, thank you, Miss Vallejo,” Carella said, rising. “That was very good coffee.”
“Listen…”
She had come out of the bentwood rocker now, the rocker still moving back and forth, and she stood in the center of the room with the sun blazing on the curtains behind her. She worried her lip for a moment, and then said, “Listen, I didn’t have anything to do with this.”
Meyer and Carella said nothing.
“I didn’t like Stan, and maybe he was going to fire me, but I’m not nuts, you know. I’m a little temperamental maybe, but I’m not nuts. We didn’t get along, that's all. That's no reason to kill a man. I mean, a lot of people on the show didn’t get along with Stan. He was a difficult man, that's all, and the star. We blew our stacks every now and then, that's all. But I didn’t kill him. I…I wouldn’t know how to begin hurting someone.”
The detectives kept staring at her. Maria gave a small shrug.
“That's all,” she said.
The afternoon was dying by the time they reached the street again. Carella glanced at his watch and said, “Let's call Bob, see if he had any luck with our friend Wetherley.”
“You call,” Meyer said. “I feel miserable.”
“You’d better get to bed,” Carella said.
“You know what Fanny Brice said is the best cure for a cold, don’t you?” Meyer asked.
“No, what?”
“Put a hot Jew on your chest.”
“Better take some aspirin, too,” Carella advised.
They went into the nearest drugstore, and Carella called the squadroom. O’Brien told him he had tried Wetherley's number three times that afternoon, but no one had answered the phone. Carella thanked him, hung up, and went out to the car, where Meyer was blowing his nose and looking very sick indeed. By the time they got back to the squadroom, O’Brien had called the number a fourth time, again without luck. Carella told Meyer to get the hell home, but Meyer insisted on typing up at least one of the reports on the people they’d talked to in the past two days. He left the squadroom some twenty minutes before Carella. Carella finished the reports in time to greet his relief, Andy Parker, who was a half hour late as usual. He tried Wetherley's number once more, and then told Parker to keep trying it all night long, and to call him at home if he reached Wetherley. Parker assured him that he would, but Carella wasn’t at all sure he’d keep the promise.
He got home to his house in Riverhead at 7:15. The twins met him at the door, almost knocking him over in their headlong rush to greet him. He picked up one under each arm, and was swinging them toward the kitchen when the telephone rang.
He put down the children and went to the phone.
“Hello?” he said.
“Bet you thought I wouldn’t, huh?” the voice said.
“Who's this?”
“Andy Parker. I just called Wetherley. He told me he got home about ten minutes ago. I advised him to stick around until you got there.”
“Oh,” Carella said. “Thanks.”
He hung up and turned toward the kitchen, where Teddy was standing in the doorway. He looked at her silently for several moments, and she stared back at him, and then he shrugged and said simply, “I guess I can eat before I leave.”
Teddy sighed almost imperceptibly, but Mark, the elder of the twins by five minutes, was watching the byplay with curious intensity. He made a vaguely resigned gesture with one hand and said, “There he goes.” And April, thinking it was a game, threw herself into Carella's arms, squeezed the breath out of him, and squealed, “There he goes, there he goes, there he goes!”
Art Wetherley was waiting for him when he got there. He led Carella through the apartment and into a studio overlooking the park. The studio contained a desk upon which sat a typewriter, an ashtray, a ream of blank paper, and what looked like another ream of typewritten sheets covered with penciled hen scratches. There were several industry award plaques on the wall, and a low bookcase beneath them. Wetherley gestured to one of the two chairs in the room, and Carella sat in it. He seemed extremely calm, eminently at ease, but the ashtray on his desk was full of cigarettes, and he lighted another one now.
“I’m not used to getting phone calls from the police,” he said at once.
“Well, we were here—”
“Especially when they tell me to stay where I am, not to leave the apartment.”
“Andy Parker isn’t the most tactful—”
“I mean, I didn’t know this was a dictatorship,” Wetherley said.
“It isn’t, Mr. Wetherley,” Carella said gently. “We’re investigating a murder, however, and we were here yesterday, but—”
“I was staying with a friend.”
“What friend?”
“A girl I know. I felt pretty shook up Wednesday night after this…thing happened, so I went over to her apartment. I’ve been there the past two days.” Wetherley paused. “There's no law against that, is there?”
“Certainly not.” Carella smiled. “I’m sorry if we inconvenienced you, but we did want to ask you some questions.”