"Where's the friend?" Lucas asked.
"Back in the bedroom, with Swanson," the cop said, nodding toward the rear of the house. Lucas wandered back, looking the place over, trying to get a picture of the woman's life-style. The place was decorated with taste, he decided, but without money. The paintings on the walls were originals, but rough, the kind an actress might get from artist friends. The carpets on the floor were worn Orientals. He thought about the rugs at Bekker's house, and stooped to feel the one he was standing on. It felt thin and slippery. Some kind of machine-woven synthetic. Not much of a tie…
The bedroom door was open, and when Lucas poked his head in, he found Swanson sitting in a side chair, rubbing the lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses with a Kleenex. A woman was lying faceup on the bed, one foot on the floor. The other foot had made a muddy mark on the yellow bedspread, but she hadn't noticed. Lucas knocked on the jamb and stepped inside as Swanson looked up.
"Davenport," the Homicide cop said. He put his glasses back on and fiddled with them for a second until they were comfortable. Then he sighed and said, "It's a fuckin' bummer."
"Same guy?"
"Yeah. Don't you think?"
"I guess." Lucas looked at the woman. "You found the body?"
She was redheaded, middle thirties, Lucas thought, and pretty, most of the time. Tonight she was haggard, her eyes swollen from crying, her nose red and running. She didn't bother to sit up, but she reached up to her forehead and pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. They looked dark, almost black. "Yes. I came over after the show."
"Why?"
"We were worried. Everybody was," she said, sniffing.
"Elizabeth would go on with a broken leg. When she didn't show up and didn't call, we thought maybe she'd been in an accident or something. If I didn't find her here, I was going to call the hospitals. I rang the doorbell, and then looked through the window in the door and saw her lying there… The door was locked, so I ran over to a neighbor's to call the cops." A wrinkle creased her forehead and she cocked her head forward and said, "You're the cop who killed the Indian."
"Mmmnn."
"Is your daughter okay? I heard on the TV…"
"She's fine," Lucas said.
"Jesus, that must have been something." The woman sat up, a quick muscular motion, done without effort. Now her eyes were jade green, and he noticed that one of her front teeth was just slightly crooked. "Are you going after this guy? The killer?"
"I'm helping," Lucas said.
"I hope you get him and I hope you kill the sonofabitch," the woman said, her teeth bared and her eyes opening wide. She had high cheekbones and a slightly bony nose, the craggy variety of Celt.
"I'd like to get him," Lucas said. "When was the last time anybody saw Armistead… Elizabeth?"
"This afternoon. There was a rehearsal until about three o'clock," the woman said. She stroked the side of her cheek with her fingertips as she remembered, staring sightlessly at the bedspread. "After that, she went home. One of the ticket ladies tried to call her an hour or so before the play was supposed to start, but there wasn't any answer. That's the last I know."
"Why'd they call? Was she already late?"
"No, somebody wanted in on a freebee, and she'd have to approve it. But she didn't answer."
"Bucky and Karl are down at the theater, talking to people," Swanson said.
"Did you check Bekker?" Lucas asked.
"No. I will tomorrow, after we've got this nailed down. I'll have him do a minute-by-minute recount of where he was tonight."
"Isn't Bekker the name of that woman who was killed?" asked the woman on the bed, looking between them.
"Her husband," Lucas said shortly. "What's your name, anyway?"
"Lasch… Cassie."
"You're an actress?"
She nodded. "Yeah."
"Full-time?"
"I get the smaller parts," she said ruefully, shaking out her red hair. It was kinky and bounced around her shoulders. "But I work full-time."
"Was Armistead dating anyone?" Swanson asked.
"Not really… What does Bekker have to do with this? Is he a suspect?" She was focusing on Lucas.
"Sure. You always check the husband when a wife gets murdered," Lucas said.
"So you don't really think he did this?"
"He was in San Francisco when his wife was killed," Lucas said. "This one is so much like it, it almost has to be the same guy."
"Oh." She was disappointed and bit her lower lip. She wanted the killer, Lucas realized, and if she had her way about it, she would have him dead.
"If you think of anything, give me a call," Lucas said. Their eyes locked up for a second, a quick two-way assessment. He handed her a business card and she said, "I will." Lucas turned away, glanced back once to see her looking after him and drifted out toward the living room.
The cop with the hammer was talking to a uniform, who had a middle-aged woman in tow. The woman, wearing a pink quilted housecoat and white sneakers, was edging toward the archway that opened into the living room. The cop blocked her with a hip and asked, "So what'd he look like?"
"Like I said, he looked like a plumber. He was carrying a toolbox or something, and I says to Ray, that's my husband, Ray Ellis, Mr. and Mrs., 'Uh-oh,' I says, 'it looks like that Armistead woman's got troubles with her plumbing, I hope it's not the main again.' They dug up the main here in this street, the city has, twice since we been here, and we only got here in 'seventy-one, you'd think they'd be able to get that right…" She took another crab step toward the arch, trying to get a look.
"You didn't like Ms. Armistead?" Lucas asked, coming up to them.
The woman took a half-step back, losing ground. A flash of irritation crossed her face as she realized it. "Why'd you think that?" she asked. A defensive whine crept into her voice. She'd heard this kind of question asked on L.A. Law, usually just before somebody got it in the neck.
"You called her 'that Armistead woman.'…"
"Well, she said she was an actress and I said to Ray…"
"Your husband…"
"Yeah, I said, 'Ray, she don't look like no actress to me.' I mean, I know what an actress looks like, right? And she didn't look like no actress, in fact, I'd say she was plain. I said to Ray, 'She says she's an actress, I wonder what she's really involved in.' " She squinted slyly.
"You think she might be involved with something else?" asked the cop with the hammer.
"If you ask me… Say, is that the murder weapon?" The woman's eyes widened as she realized that the cop was holding a hammer wrapped in a plastic bag.
"Before you get to that," Lucas interrupted impatiently, "the man you saw at the door… why'd he look like a plumber?"
" 'Cause of the way he was dressed," she said, unable to tear her eyes away from the hammer until the cop dropped it to his side. She looked up at Lucas again. "I couldn't see him real good, but he was wearing one of those coveralls, dark-like, and a hat with a bill on it. Like plumbers wear."
"You didn't see his face?"
"Nope. When I saw him, he was on her porch, with his back to me. I saw his back, saw he had a hat."
"Did you see a truck?"
She frowned. "No, now that you mention it. I don't know where he come from, but there weren't no cars on the street, just Miz Armistead's Omni, which I always notice because Ray had one almost like it, when he was married to his first wife, silver, except it was a Plymouth Horizon."