"No, it's muy awful. What's the news on Jefferson?"
"There's nothing on that situation that will win Iriarte any points with the commissioner." Mike smiled suddenly as he pulled himself out of his chair. "But things are looking up. There were a number of Liberty sightings last night. One in Manhattan, two in Brooklyn, and three in West Harlem. A lot of people are out working on it. See you." Without saying more, he turned on his cowboy boot heel and closed her door on his way out.
"Shit," she muttered softly. Working alone was no fun.
Three-quarters of an hour later, April was sitting in Daphne Petersen's living room watching the widow try to wake up. "I'm going to need some hair samples," she told Daphne.
It was nine-thirty and Daphne was still in her nightgown. Her hair was not so stiffly coifed as the last time April had seen her. It was all over the place. April felt like grabbing a handful.
Daphne lit a cigarette and coughed on the smoke. "You woke me up for a what?"
"I need a hair sample for the lab."
"Whose?" she cried.
"Yours. Not your pubic hair, your head hair. And I need some with follicles for the DNA typing."
Daphne gathered her hair at the back of her neck and held it in her fist as if for dear life. "What are you talking about?"
"The lab needs your hair. I can't be plainer than that."
"What for? My husband died of natural causes."
"Well, it appeared that way at first, but we're checking into it again to make sure. You know how it is."
"No, I don't know how it is. You can't do this." She collapsed dramatically into a chair, filmy fabric billowing all around her. Then she righted herself. "But he's already been cremated," she pointed out. "What can you hope to find?"
"Oh, there are ways to reexamine the evidence. We have very sophisticated methods these days."
"This is bullshit."
"Maybe. All the same I need your hair."
"I don't understand."
"There was a strand of hair on your husband's body when he died."
"On his body? Ugh." Daphne grimaced. "It wasn't mine."
"On his sweater."
"So, there was a hair."
"He was with Merrill Liberty at the time of his death, and she was blond." April shrugged.
"I don't know what you're getting at. The hair on his body was dark. Well, so what if it was mine? We were married. My hair could have gotten on his sweater the day before."
"True enough, but you said you didn't see him for two days before he died."
"Look, I'm tired. You're trying to confuse me."
"On the contrary. You've been trying to confuse me. Did you or didn't you see your husband on the day he died?" "I don't know, maybe." She looked at her nails. "Did the doorman tell you I saw him?"
"Your husband wasn't having an affair with Merrill Liberty, was he?" April changed the subject.
"No. The bitch had been turning him down for years. The only one he couldn't get is what he liked to say about her."
"Was he mad at her for that?"
"Let's put it this way. He could be very persuasive, and he didn't like to be thwarted."
"So he was a man to be reckoned with."
"Yes. You should see the gifts he bought her."
"How did Liberty feel about the gifts?"
Daphne shrugged. "My husband was an important man. People did what he wanted."
"Would you say. he was a dangerous man?"
Daphne hesitated. "Yes, he certainly could be."
"Did he ever hurt you?"
She looked at the wall. "Who told you he hurt me?"
"It was a guess. I saw an item in the Globe about his first wife. He broke her arm one night when she didn't want to give him oral sex. On another occasion he assaulted a stewardess he'd met on an airplane. He beat other women, why not you?"
Daphne pressed her lips together. "He liked to hurt people. He was an awful man."
"You married him."
"I worship the divinity in all creatures. I saw only his good side when I met him. I saw only his good side when I married him. I didn't believe the hateful rumors about him. Powerful people always have detractors, don't you know."
"And he had lots of money," April murmured.
Daphne lit a cigarette. "I could never kill anyone."
"Even someone who hurt you?"
"Only Satan is without divinity. And poor Tor was only a weak man, not Satan."
"I see." April wrote that in her Rosario. Not Satan. "Now tell me about Liberty, was he a jealous husband?" "She didn't cheat on him."
"You said that, but it doesn't always alleviate paranoia about it," April remarked dryly. "How about abusive. Was Liberty an abusive husband?"
Daphne's eyes flared. "He should have been. She was a real bitch. I mean she was vicious. She and Tor were made for each other. And they died together. Weird, isn't it?"
"What did you and your husband fight about that day?"
"I don't know. He was high as a kite. Who could fight with a person on Mars? The man was wacko." Daphne looked away.
Uh-huh. "Did he strike you?"
"No!" Her fist hit the table.
"Why did you have him cremated so fast?"
"What should I have done, have him stuffed?" Daphne shot back.
She didn't tell the truth about anything. April knew she'd have to keep twisting and twisting her to get the facts. She smiled and held out a plastic bag. "I need the hair, please."
"Isn't there some kind of law against this?"
April shook her head. "Just to rule people in and out, you know how it is," she said again.
Daphne pulled three hairs out of her head. "I'm doing this because I don't think anybody killed my husband but himself."
"Thanks. We'll talk some more later."
Daphne swore.
At 11:31 April came through the heavy Wrought-iron-and-glass doors of Jason's building, nodded at the doorman who knew her, and went up to the fifth floor unannounced. Instead of going into Jason's office, where Jason would be waiting for her in twenty minutes, she rang the doorbell to his apartment. Almost immediately Emma opened the door.
"Uh, April," she murmured, "Jason's not here."
"Hi, Emma, can I talk to you for a moment?" "Sure, want a cup of coffee?"
"Yes, I would. Thanks."
Emma put two cups, two bagels, and a container of tuna fish on the table, poured the coffee. April figured she was serving lunch.
"Tell me about Merrill," she asked.
Emma sighed. "In the entertainment business your best friends are the people on your latest project. So Merrill was special for me. We stayed close. She was my oldest friend, my only real friend except for Jason." She glanced at April. "We don't socialize much. He's always working."
April nodded. "You know, I was looking over my notes of our interview the other day and the only thing you said about Merrill and Liberty's relationship was that it was 'devoted.' You know people can be devoted and still have lots of problems." April spread some tuna salad on half of her bagel and took a bite.
"Yeah, like Jason and me."
"So what were the issues in Merrill's marriage?"
Instantly, Emma became defensive. "I didn't want you to think it was race. It wasn't race."
April was silent.
"Merrill had quit working, just stopped acting. She couldn't have a baby, I don't know why, and she'd lost her bearings."
"Did she have a botched abortion at some time?"
Emma looked surprised. "What makes you think that?"
"The autopsy showed Merrill had scarring in her uterus that would be consistent with it. But she also had endometriosis. Surgery for that could have produced the same results."
Emma shook her head. "The things you learn. Merrill refused to have any tests. She said she'd rather not know the cause than risk having Rick feel like less of a man if he—you know—was the one at fault."
"Little bit of deception there. And she was unhappy with her life?"