“What time was it when you heard the screams?”
“I don’t wear a watch in the tub.”
“How long did you stay in the tub? After you heard the screams, I mean.”
“About fifteen minutes, I guess.”
“The call came in at five-fifty-three,” Heidiger said. “That means you heard the screams at…” He hesitated, doing his mental calculation, and then said, “Approximately twenty to six, somewhere in there.”
“I would guess.”
“When you got out of the tub,” Carella said, “did you see anyone in the courtyard? Anyone near the Corbett apartment?”
“I didn’t look. I went to the phone and called the police. I figured if I didn’t do something about it, the noise would go on all night. And I wanted to have my dinner and take my nap in peace.”
“Was the screaming still going on?”
“No, it had stopped by then.”
“But you called the police anyway.”
“Who knew when it might start again? You know how those people are,” she said.
“Mm,” Carella said. “Well, thank you very much, Miss Groat. Sorry to have bothered you.”
In the street outside, Heidiger lighted a cigarette, belatedly offered one to Carella, who refused, and then said, “Ever talk to this Corbett guy?”
“Last Saturday,” Carella said.
“Strike you as being a fag?”
“Seemed straight as an arrow.”
“Who can tell these days, huh?” Heidiger said. “How about Craig?”
“He was living with a beautiful twenty-two-year-old girl.”
“Mm,” Heidiger said. “So what do you make of it? Any connection here, do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“Knife in both murders.”
“Yeah.”
“If the witch in there was right, this one might’ve been a lovers’ quarrel.”
“Maybe. But we’ve only got her word for what Corbett was. Did she strike you as a particularly reliable character witness?”
“She struck me as a particularly reliable character,” Heidiger said dryly. “You want a beer or something? Officially I’m still on duty, but fuck it.”
“Shooflies are heavy around the holidays,” Carella said, smiling.
“Fuck the shooflies, too,” Heidiger said. “I’ve been with the department twenty-two years, I never took a nickel from anybody in all that time. Just let them bring charges for a glass of beer, I’d like to see them do that.”
“Go on without me,” Carella said. “There’s somebody I want to talk to.”
“Keep in touch,” Heidiger said, and shook hands with him, and walked off up the street. In the phone booth on the corner, Carella checked the Isola directory for a Priscilla Lambeth listing, found none under her name, but two for a Dr. Howard Lambeth—one for his office and one for his residence. The residential number was Higley 7-8021, which sounded like the number Carella had dialed from Corbett’s apartment last Saturday. He dialed the number now. A woman answered the phone; her voice sounded familiar.
“Mrs. Lambeth?” Carella said.
“Yes?”
“Priscilla Lambeth?”
“Yes?”
“This is Detective Carella, we talked last Saturday, do you re—”
“I asked you not to call here again,” she said.
“Daniel Corbett has been murdered,” Carella said. “I’d like to talk to you. I can come there, or we can meet someplace.”
There was a long silence on the line.
“Mrs. Lambeth?” he said.
The silence lengthened.
“Which would you prefer?” Carella said.
“I’m thinking.” He waited. “Give me half an hour,” she said. “I’ll be walking the dog in half an hour. Can you meet me on Jefferson and Juniper at…What time is it now?”
“Close to ten.”
“Make it ten-thirty,” she said. “He’s a golden retriever.”
As befitted an editor of children’s books, Priscilla Lambeth was a petite brunette with a pixie face and wide, innocent eyes. There was a huge dog at the end of her leash, a hound intent on racing through the city streets in headlong search of yet another lamppost to sniff, dragging Priscilla willy-nilly behind him. Carella was hard put to keep up.
Priscilla was wearing a dark blue ski parka over blue jeans and boots. She was hatless, and the wind caught at her short dark hair, bristling it about her head and giving her the appearance of someone who’d just been unexpectedly startled out of her wits—rather close to the truth. She told Carella at once that she’d been truly shocked by what he’d revealed on the telephone. She still couldn’t get over it. Danny murdered? Incredible! Who would want to kill a sweet, loving person like Danny?
Jefferson Avenue at this hour of the night was largely deserted, the shopwindows shuttered, a fierce wind tossing up eddies of snow from the banks along the curbs. To the north, on Hall Avenue, there were still strollers, still browsers in the bookshops that remained open till midnight in hope of catching the after-theater crowd drifting southward from the Stem and the theatrical district. Even those hardy souls were small in number on a night like this, with the wind howling in over the River Harb and the temperature hovering at twenty-four degrees Fahrenheit. Carella walked with his hands in his pockets, the collar of his coat pulled high on his neck, his shoulders hunched. The dog trotted ahead of them like the lead dog on a sled team, tugging at the leash, yanking Priscilla behind him and by association Carella as well.
“Mrs. Lambeth,” he said, “Daniel Corbett told us you and he had been intimate. The thing I want to—”
“I wish you wouldn’t say that,” Priscilla said. Her voice was tiny, the voice of an eight-year-old trapped in a thirteen-year-old’s pubescent body. He wondered briefly what kinds of books she edited. Picture books? Had his daughter, April, read any of the books that crossed Priscilla Lambeth’s desk? The dog stopped at another lamppost, sniffed it, found it to his liking, and lifted his hind leg.
“But it’s true, isn’t it?” Carella said.
“Yes, it’s true. It’s just that when you put it that way…”
The dog was off again, almost yanking her arm out of its socket. She held gallantly to the leash, out of breath, racing along behind the dog. Carella trotted beside her. His face was raw from the wind, his nose was running. He took a handkerchief from the pocket of his coat, hoped he wasn’t coming down with something, and blew his nose.
“Mrs. Lambeth,” he said, out of breath himself, “I’m not particularly interested in how you and Daniel Corbett passed the time of day. But he was murdered tonight, and a neighbor intimated—look, would you do me a favor, please? Would you tie that dog to a lamppost so we can stand still for a minute and talk?”
“He hasn’t pooped yet,” she said.
Carella looked at her.
“Well, all right,” she said.
She yanked her gloves off, tucked them under her arm, and tied the leash around the stanchion of a no parking sign. The dog began howling at once, like Fang, Son of Claw. Carella led her to the sheltered doorway of a men’s clothing store, waited while she put on her gloves again, and then said, “Was Daniel Corbett a homosexual?”
She seemed genuinely startled. Her eyes opened wider. They were green, he now noticed. They searched his face as though eager for him to assure her he’d just told a bad joke.
“Was he?” Carella asked.
“He didn’t seem to be,” she said in the same tiny voice, almost a whisper now.
“Any indication at all that he might have been?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Mrs. Lambeth, you’ve been intimate with him for the past month or so, according to what he—”