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.
8
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.
“Are you a general practitioner, Dr. Nelson?” Meyer asked.
“Yes, I am.” Nelson smiled. “That’s a nasty cold you’ve got there, Detective Meyer. I hope you’re taking something for it.”
“I’m taking everything for it,” Meyer said.
“There’re a lot of viruses going around,” Nelson said.
“Yes,” Meyer agreed.
“Dr. Nelson,” Carella said, “I wonder if you’d mind telling us a little about yourself.”
“Not at all,” Nelson said. “What would you like to know?”
“Well, whatever you feel is pertinent.”
“About what? My life? My work? My aspirations?”
“Any of it, or all of it,” Carella said pleasantly.
Nelson smiled. “Well…” He paused, thinking. “I’m forty-three years old, a native of this city, attended Haworth University here. I was graduated with a BS in January 1944, and got drafted just in time for the assault on Cassino.”
“How old were you at the time, Dr. Nelson?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Was this Army?”
“Yes. The Medical Corps.”
“Were you an officer or an enlisted man?”
“I was a corporal. I was attached to a field hospital in Castelforte. Are you familiar with the country?”
“Vaguely,” Carella said.
“There was some fierce fighting,” Nelson said briefly. He sighed, dismissing the entire subject. “I was discharged in May 1946. I began medical school that fall.”
“What school was that, Dr. Nelson?”
“Georgetown University. In Washington, DC.”
“And then you came back here to begin practice, is that it?”
“Yes. I opened my own office in 1952.”
“This same office?”
“No, my first office was uptown. In Riverhead.”
“How long have you been at this location, doctor?”
“Since 1961.”
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“Have you ever been married?”
“Yes. I was divorced seven years ago.”
“Is your former wife alive?”
“Yes.”
“Living in this City?”
“No. She lives in San Diego with her new husband. He’s an architect there.”
“Do you have any children?”
“No.”
“You said something about your aspirations, doctor. I wonder…”
“Oh.” Nelson smiled. “I hope to start a small rest home one day. For elderly people.”
“Where?”
“Most likely in Riverhead, where I began practice.”