His watch reads a quarter past six.
A hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of jewels, cash, and treasury bills in that dispatch case.
He sits waiting.
Tapping his foot.
Waiting.
Remembering what happened in this bed. Waiting.
It is twenty minutes to seven when he hears a key in the front door latch. He thumbs off the safety. He gets off the bed. Takes up a position just inside the bedroom door, to the left of it. He hears the front door being closed again. The click of the thumb bolt as it's locked. Sound of the closet door opening.
Closing again. Footsteps coming through the apartment. You and me, he thinks. Footsteps closer now.
Closer. Now.
"You!”
Eyes opening wide in surprise.
"Me," he says, and fires.
Q: How many shots did you fire?
A: Three.
Q: All to the head?
A: All to the head.
Q: You shot Martin Bowles three times?
A: I shot Martin Bowles three times.
Q: You killed Martin Bowles?
A: I killed Martin Bowles.
The basic plan, of course, was already in place. Nothing much had to be changed. Simply shoot the husband instead of the wife. Because it was a much better deal, you see.
Certain very definite advantages to be gained from doing it this way. Dollar advantages. If he'd gone through with it the way Bowles wanted it, he'd have gotten the second half of his fee, plus the jewels, which he'd never planned to return, anyway. So that would have come to a hundred in cash, total, and maybe thirty for the fenced jewels.
But the way they talked it over that weekend when Bowles was away, the way they'd finally planned it, there was going to be a lot more money involved.
Lots of money. Forget the thirty the jewelry would bring-if, in fact, it really did bring that much. If he fenced it, which was still the plan, by the time they discounted it, he might end up with twenty-five, maybe less, maybe only twenty. That didn't matter because they'd get what the jewelry was worth, anyway, the minute Emma filed an insurance claim. This was, after all, a felony murder. Her dear husband had been killed during the commission of a burglary. And the jewels were insured against theft, so the fifty thou would come back to Emma in the long run, and coming back to Emma was the same as coming back to him.
"She told me she wanted to marry me," he said, and smiled. "Can you imagine?" And shook his head in wonder. "Why not, I told her.
Good-looking woman, why not?”
Marry her and forget the lousy fifty and some change for the jewels, forget the hundred in cash and T-bills, that was all chicken feed. The real money would come when Bowles's will was probated.
Lots of money, she'd told him.
Most of which Bowles had inherited from his father, all of which would go to Emma as sole beneficiary.
Marry all that money.
And the beauty part was that the inheritance would never be questioned because nobody would even guess that Emma had been involved in any way. Last night, while a burglar was killing her husband, she'd been nowhere near the apartment. She had in fact ...
"She told us she'd been out to dinner with a girlfriend," Carella said.
"Exactly," Denker said.
"Yes, we checked. An early dinner. Her alibi's a good one. She was nowhere near the apartment when you killed him.”
"Which is exactly the way we planned it. I told Bowles I wanted him out of town on Friday night, I was going to do it Friday night, tonight. But instead I did it last night.
He never expected to see me there in a million years. I think he realized what was happening a second before it happened. But by then it was too late, wasn't it?”
"It was too late, all right," Carella said.
"Do you know what else she told us when we got to the apartment last night? After she came home, and found her husband dead, and called the po ...”
"I know exactly what she ...”
"She told us, again, that she thought you'd already gone back to Chicago. Told us, again, that she'd said goodbye to you on Tuesday afternoon.”
"That's right. That was my alibi. I was gone, I was in Chicago, it was a burglar who killed her husband. That's what we worked out together. She was supposed to tell you ...”
"Well, she did. And she also said your relationship had been strictly business ...”
"Right ...”
“... and whereas she wasn't sorry her husband was dead, she couldn't see how you'd had anything to do with it.”
"She was supposed to say that, too.”
"Good, she did. And, of course, she'd had nothing to do with it, either. She was out having an early dinner with a girlfriend. How much money would you say was involved here, Denker?”
"In the will? A million-six.”
"That's a lot of money.”
"Sure. Well, that's the only reason I went into it. She kept talking about love, but I was counting all that money. It was a good plan.”
"Still is," Carella said.
Denker looked at him.
"But guess who'll end up with all of it,”
Carella said.
Denker kept looking at him.
"The recovered jewelry, the cash, the T-bills, the million-six in the will ...”
Denker was already shaking his head.
"Yes," Carella said, nodding.
"No.”
"She set you up, Denker.”
"No, she didn't.”
"Yes, she did. She used you.”
"You're wrong.”
"Just a few questions, Denker, set it straight.”
"Sure.”
"Did she ever once mention that we knew of your existence?”
"No, how could you ...?was "Because she told us all about you, you see. We began tracking you almost from minute one.”
Denker looked at him.
"Did she mention that we knew you'd bought a gun?”
"No, she never ...”
"Didn't mention that, either, huh?”
"No, but ...”
“Because she also knew that, you see. That you'd bought a gun. We'd given her that information.”
Silence.
"A Colt forty-five.”
Silence.
"She let you use a gun we knew about, Denker.”
Another silence. The silence lengthened. He was realizing that the gun was the only real thing that linked him to the murder. She'd known they were - onto the gun ... but she hadn't warned him.
"But ...”
He shook his head.
"She wanted to marry me," he said.
Carella said nothing.
"She told me she loved me," he said.
Carella still said nothing.
"For Christ's sake, we planned it together!”
Denker shouted.
"Can you prove that?" Carella asked.
"Well, no, but ...”
"Neither can we.”
It was six o'clock on Friday morning.
Dawn was yet almost half an hour away, but there was already a faint reddish stain on the horizon to the east. Denker had been taken away in handcuffs. Nellie Brand had all she needed, and now she and the two detectives sat in the squadroom drinking fresh coffee they'd ordered from the all-night deli on Culver. They were trying to figure how they could bring Emma Bowles into this. They couldn't see any way to do it.
"We can't use his confession to implicate her," Nellie said.
"No, we can't," Carella said.
"That's the law.”
"That's the law," Meyer said.
"Otherwise everybody and his brother'll say somebody else put him up to it.”
The squadroom was silent. The clock ticked loudly into the stillness.
"Can you see any way to charge her with anything?" Nellie asked.
"No," Carella said.
"No," Meyer said.
"So that's it," Nellie said, and drained her cup. She looked up at the clock, stretched, and said, "If I leave for home right this minute, I'll get half an hour's sleep before the alarm rings.”