Carella smiled. 'Something like that,' he said.
'You afraid Teddy'll take a gun to somebody?' Kling asked. 'Maybe I ought to stay away from marriage, huh?'
'No, no, that's not it. I was thinking of what Mrs Phelps said to me. She said, "I killed only one." Hell, maybe she didn't kill any.'
'That's not the way the D.A. read it,' Hawes said.
'No. But maybe somebody else did the real killing, the real killing. Maybe somebody else took Annie Boone's life and, for all practical purposes, Mrs Phelps's life, too. Maybe somebody killed them both.'
'Who, Steve?' Kling asked.
'Franklin Phelps,' Carella said. 'If George is the hero of this piece, maybe Phelps is the villain. Maybe he's the rotten bastard in this kettle of fish.'
'You mixed a metaphor,' Hawes said.
The car went silent.
The men breathed the hot summer air. Slowly, the car threaded its way uptown to the precinct and the squad room.