“Where, Daddy?”
“It’s that women are wonderful, understanding, fruitful, magnificent creatures that God provided for men, you see. And he also made it possible for these lovely, intelligent, sympathetic individuals to be able to make babies, so a man could be surrounded by his children when he comes home from the office.”
“Yes, but where do babies come from?” Susie asked.
“Ask your mother.”
“Can I have a baby?” Susie wanted to know.
“Not yet, dear,” Sarah said. “Someday.”
“Why can’t I have one now?”
“Oh, shut up, Susie,” Jeff, her younger brother by two years, said. “Don’t you know nothing?”
“It’s you who don’t know nothing,” Susie protested. “You’re not supposed to say ‘nothing.’ You’re supposed to say ‘anything.’ ”
“Oh, shut up, you moron,” Jeff said.
“Don’t talk to your sister that way,” Meyer warned. “You can’t have a baby because you’re too young, Susie. You have to be a woman. Like your mother. Who understands what a man’s going through and—”
“I’m simply saying none of you are seeing this thing clearly. You’re all involved in a stupid kind of revenge, looking for any possible stupid way to tie this in with Claire and blinding yourselves to any other possibility.”
“What possibilities are left, would you mind telling me? We’ve run this thing into the ground. Not just Claire. Everyone concerned. Everyone. All the victims, and their families, and their relatives, and their friends. There’s nothing left, Sarah. So we come right back to Claire and the Glennons, and Dr. Madison, and—”
“I’ve heard this all before,” Sarah said.
“Listen again; it won’t kill you.”
“Can I be excused, please?” Alan said.
“Don’t you want your dessert?”
“I want to watch Malibu Run.”
“Malibu Run will wait,” Sarah said.
“Mom, it goes on at—”
“It’ll wait. You’ll have dessert.”
“Let him go if he wants to watch his program,” Meyer said.
“Look, Detective Meyer,” Sarah said angrily, “you may be a big shot investigator who’s used to bossing around suspects, but this is my table, and I happen to have spent three hours this afternoon preparing dinner, and I don’t want my family rushing off to—”
“And burned the string beans while you were doing it,” Meyer said.
“The string beans are not burned!”
“They’re overcooked!”
“But not burned. Sit right where you are, Alan. You’re going to eat dessert if you have to choke on it!”
The family finished its meal in silence. The children left the table, and the sound of underwater mischief came from the living room television set.
“I’m sorry,” Meyer said.
“I am, too. I had no right to interfere with your work.”
“Maybe we are blind,” Meyer said. “Maybe it’s sitting there right under our noses.” He sighed heavily. “But I’m so tired, Sarah. I’m so damned tired.”
CARPENTER
Steve Carella printed the word on a sheet of paper and then studied it. Beneath the word, he printed:
WOODWORKER CABINETMAKER SAWYER WOODSMAN (?)
“I can’t think of any other words that mean carpenter,” he said to Teddy. Teddy came to where he was sitting and looked at the sheet of paper. She took it from him and, in her own delicate hand, she added the words:
LUMBER? LUMBERMAN? LUMBERWORKER?
Carella nodded and then sighed. “I think we’re reaching.”
He put the sheet of paper aside, and Teddy climbed onto his lap. “It probably has nothing to do with the damn case anyway.”
Teddy, watching his lips, shook her head.
“You think it does?” Carella asked.
She nodded.
“It would seem to wouldn’t it? Why else would a guy mention it with his last breath? But... there are so many other things, Teddy. All this business involving Claire. That would seem to be—”
Teddy suddenly put her hands over his eyes.
“What?”
She put her hands over her own eyes.
“Well, maybe we are blind,” he said. He picked up the sheet of paper again. “You think there’s a pun in this damn word? But why would a guy pun when he’s dying? He’d tell us just what he was thinking, wouldn’t he? Oh, Jesus, I don’t know. Let’s try breaking it down.” He got another sheet of paper and a pencil for Teddy, and together they began working on possible combinations.
CARPENTER
Carp enter
Car penter
Carpen ter
Carpent, R.
“I’m stuck,” Carella said.
Teddy studied the word list for a moment and then counted the letters in “carpenter.”
“How many?” Carella asked.
She held up her fingers.
“Nine,” Carella said. “How does that help us?”
Nine, she wrote on her sheet of paper. Nein?
“So?”
She shrugged.
“How about trying it backward?” Carella said. He wrote down the word: RETNEPRAC. “That mean anything to you?” he asked.
Teddy studied the word and then shook her head.
“Let’s take it from the front again. Carp. That’s a fish, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“Carp enter. Fish enter. Fish enter. Fishenter. For shenter. Force center. For center.” He shrugged. “You get anything?”
Teddy shook her head.
“Maybe he was trying to tell us that a man named Fish entered the shop and fired those bullets.”
Teddy nodded dubiously.
“Fish,” Carella said. “Fish enter.” He paused. “Then why would he say ‘Carp enter?’ Why not simply say ‘Fish enter’?”
Teddy’s hands worked quickly. Carella watched her fingers. Maybe Willis heard him wrong, her hands said. Maybe he was saying something else.
“Like what?” Carella asked.
She wrote the word on her sheet of paper: CARPETER.
“Like a man who lays carpets?”
Teddy nodded.
“Carpeter.” He thought it over for a moment. “Maybe.” He shrugged. “But, then, maybe he was saying ‘carboner,’ too.” He could tell by the puzzled look on her face that the words looked alike on his lips: carpenter, carpeter, carboner. He moved his paper into place and wrote the word:
CARBONER.
What’s a carboner? Teddy’s hands asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “A man who puts carbon on things, I guess.”
Teddy shook her head, a wide grin on her face. No, her hands said, that’s the way you Italians say carbon.
“Atsa right!” Carella said. “Atsa whatta we say! Car-bon-a! Only trouble issa Mr. Wechsler, he’sa no was Italian.” He smiled and put down his pencil. “Come here,” he said. “I want to discuss this guy who lays carpets.”
Teddy came into his arms and onto his lap.
Neither of them knew how close they’d come.
November.
The trees had lost all their leaves.
He walked the streets alone, hatless, his blond hair whipping in the angry wind. There were 90,000 people in the precinct and 8,000,000 people in the city, and one of them had killed Claire.
Who? he wondered.
He found himself staring at faces. Every passerby became a potential murderer, and he studied them with scrutiny, unconsciously looking for a man who had murder in his eyes, consciously looking for a man who was white, not short, no scars, marks, or deformities, wearing a dark overcoat, gray fedora, and possibly sunglasses.