Yeah? Not me, brother, not me!
Decker stared at the beefy hunk of beatnik in front of him and said, “Okay, let’s go over it once more. You got to the cottage around five, her folks were already gone, and so you and Jodie rehearsed for a couple of hours. You left her a little before seven, walked up the path to the top of the cliff where your car was parked, and nobody saw you. A damn freak like you, and nobody ever noticed you!”
“The invisible man,” London said tauntingly. His deep, resonant, troubadour voice separated every word and enunciated it with care. “I left, didn’t I? Or do you think I’m still there?”
Decker knew that the car had been driven away around seven, although nobody could identify London as the driver. “You got into your car,” Decker said crisply, “drove home and took a shower. Presumably to wash off the blood.”
“There was no blood.”
“What did you do with the towel?” Decker asked. That was one of the few points he had. London’s landlady was certain that a towel was missing from London’s bathroom, and Decker was convinced the folk singer had used it to wipe off the blood and then had disposed of it, along with the white polo shirt he’d been wearing. “What did you do with the towel?” Decker asked again.
“I buttered it, put pepper and salt on it, and cut it into terrycloth canapés. My usual dinner.”
That was the way the interrogation had been going. London kidding him, skating rings around him, and enjoying every minute of it. Always the showman, always putting on an act. And then London pulled a masterpiece of pure gall. He took the unbelievably long braids of that fancy mustache of his, pulled one ropy end straight up, over his nose, and stretched the other end at a right angle, to his right. With Decker facing him, the mustache now looked like the two hands of a clock, pointing to nine o’clock.
Nine o’clock — the crucial time.
He did it solemnly, deadpan, and then he twisted his mustache back into its usual pretzel shape, sat there with that maddening smirk on his face, and clammed up. That was his answer: nuts to you, Lieutenant Decker. And somehow, Decker felt he’d been given the clue to the puzzle — been given it by the man’s brag and conceit; but Decker was just too dumb to figure it out.
Restraining an impulse to smack the guy, the Lieutenant thought-back to the first, futile interview between them. He’d been pretty sure, even then. He’d asked questions, listened to answers, then sent London back to a cell for the night, while the Homicide Squad checked up on what London had said.
Orthodox procedure, and Decker thought he had the guy cold. Duck soup, he’d told himself. London’s alibi depended on the time when the murder had been committed, and so he had simply set a clock on the scene of the crime to the hour of his alibi. Which was a trick that had never fooled anybody, once a case was properly investigated.
Except this time.
Decker scowled. “Then you went to the Red Grotto for your evening performance. Jodie didn’t come, and you went on stage alone.”
“The show must go on,” London said smugly.
Decker’s adrenaline oozed out, and his face turned red. “You sang Frankie and Johnny,” he said tightly. “Then you sang a new song, one you say you had just made up. A few people remembered some of the words. It started off—”
He picked up the sheet of paper on which he’d scrawled the beginning of the ballad, as some of the audience had recalled it. He read it off starkly, prosaically. “ ‘My love has gone to a far country, My love has gone away from me, Sing die, goodbye, Oh, sigh, sigh, sigh.’ ”
“Nice song,” London said judiciously.
“Where’d you learn it?”
“I made it up as I went along. It came naturally.” London gave Decker a self-satisfied grin and added, “That’s genius for you.”
“You were singing her requiem. How did you know she was dead?”
“I didn’t. I felt sad. Maybe it was telepathy. Maybe her spirit was in me, for those few minutes. The audience was so touched that for a few seconds nobody even applauded. Then their cheers rang to the rafters. It was a great moment.”
The folk singer cocked his head to one side and grinned like an overfed gargoyle. “It was nine o’clock, exactly.”
Decker glared, then spun around in his chair. The swivel squeaked. He reached for the doorknob, twisted it. He swung the door outward and gave it a kick. “Okay,” he said in a dead voice. “You can go. You’re free.”
London jumped up with a shout and held out his hand. “Lieutenant, that’s great! Thanks, Lieutenant, thanks.”
Decker turned away.
“Look,” London said, “don’t take it like that. So you were wrong. Forget it. Enjoy yourself. I’m going to throw a party at the Red Grotto that this town’s going to remember for years. I’m going to have all my friends there, including you. Lieutenant, be my guest — the guest of honor.”
“Get the hell out of here,” Decker said, barely spitting out the words.
London shrugged, grinned, and left.
Decker frowned as he slid his finger along the pieces of paper on his desk — the sheets with the words of the song and the timetable of the murder.
It was years since he’d blown his top and let a suspect see how infuriated he could become. Alone now, Decker asked himself where he’d gone wrong.
His investigation had been thorough, he’d examined the facts exhaustively. There were no loose ends, no doubts in his own mind. Jub Freeman, lab man and forensic scientist and a damn good one, had gone over every inch of the cottage, and the Homicide Squad had spent days questioning everybody who had been in the neighborhood. The picture was clear enough.
The Dorkins and the Finleys lived together — they had lived together for 20 years in the big stone house on Dixon Heights. Hannah Dorkin and Natalie Finley were sisters — their relationship was close. In his own mind, Bill Decker called it beautiful, and they were beautiful women in the fullness of maturity. Prominent in social work, married to eminent men, Hannah Dorkin and Natalie Finley were kind, gentle, rich in forgiveness. Decker wondered whether they’d forgiven London. And whether they’d ever forgive him, Lieutenant Decker.
Jodie Dorkin was the only young person in the household, and the Dorkins told the Lieutenant that, as a child, Jodie had sometimes got mixed up as to who were her father and mother, and who were her aunt and uncle. She solved the problem by loving them all equally.
Her father and uncle were distinguished men. Judge Dorkin was gruff, blunt, rigorous in his honesty and rocklike in his adherence to high principle. Decker knew him professionally and respected him for his clear mind and incorruptible character. Dorkin’s clipped wit and his firm, impartial administration of justice had made enemies. No upper court appointment for him. Politics couldn’t take away his distinction, but it had kept him from the advancement he so richly deserved.
Dr. Richard Finley was a small gentle man, a world-famous cardiologist and surgeon. He was urbane, civilized, honored in his profession. You looked at him and wondered how such an unobtrusive little man could have risen so far. But when he spoke, you began to understand why, and when you noticed the delicacy and strength of his hands, you knew there was talent in them. He had the king’s touch, which cured.
The four adults had gone down to their river cottage early that mild, summery Saturday afternoon. The cottage was at the foot of the river bluff, just within the metropolitan limits. A dozen other cottages were scattered along the bank of the river — pleasantly cool refuges in the heat, each of them with a dock and a boathouse built over the water.