“We’d like to ask you a few questions, Mrs. Tomlinson,” he said.
“I assume that’s why you’re here,” she answered.
“Yes,” Carella said. “To begin with…”
“To begin with,” Mrs. Tomlinson cut in, “I’m in the middle of preparations for my daughter’s funeral, so I hope you’ll make this short and sweet. Somebody’s got to take care of the damn thing.”
“You’re handling all arrangements, are you?” Hawes asked.
“Who’s going to handle it?” she said, her lip curling. “That idiot she lived with?”
“Your son-in-law, you mean?”
“My sow-in-law,” she repeated, and she managed to give the words an inflection that immediately presented Michael Thayer as a fumbling creature incapable of coping with anything more difficult than tying his own shoelaces. “Some son-in-law. The poet. Roses are red, violets are blue, let it be said, happy birthday to you. My sow-in-law.” She shook her massive head.
“I gather you don’t like him very much,” Carella said.
“The feelings are mutual. Haven’t you talked to him?”
“Yes, we’ve talked to him.”
“Then you know.” She paused. “Or do you? If Michael said anything kind about me, he was lying.”
“He said you don’t get along, Mrs. Tomlinson.”
“That’s the understatement of the year. We hate each other’s guts. The bully.”
“Bully?” Hawes said. He looked at Mrs. Tomlinson in astonishment because the word seemed thoroughly inappropriate coming from her lips.
“Always shoving his weight around. I hate men who take advantage of us.”
“Take advantage?” Hawes repeated, the astonishment still on his face.
“Yes. Women are to be treated with respect,” she said, “and cared for gently. And with tenderness.” She shook her head. “He doesn’t know. He’s a bully.” She paused, and then reflectively added, “Women are delicate.”
Hawes and Carella looked at her silently for several moments.
“He… uh… he bullied your daughter, Mrs. Tomlinson?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Bossing her. He’s a boss. I hate men who are bosses.” She looked at Hawes. “Are you married?”
“No, ma’am.”
She turned instantly to Carella “Are you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Are you a boss?”
“I… I don’t think so.”
“Good You seem like a nice boy.” She paused. “Not Michael. Always bossing. Did you pay the electric bill? Did you do the marketing? Did you do this and that? It’s no wonder.”
Again, the room was silent.
“It’s no wonder what?” Carella asked.
“It’s no wonder Margaret was going to leave him.”
“Margaret?”
“My daughter.”
“Oh. Oh, yes,” Carella said. “You call her Margaret, do you?”
“That’s the name she was born with.”
“Yes, but most people called her Irene, isn’t that true?”
“Margaret was the name we gave her, and Margaret was what we called her. Why? What’s the matter with that name?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Carella said hastily. “It’s a very nice name.”
“If it’s good enough for the princess of England, it’s good enough for anybody,” Mrs. Tomlinson said.
“Certainly,” Carella said.
“Certainly,” Mrs. Tomlinson agreed, and she nodded her head vigorously.
“She was going to leave him?” Hawes asked.
“Yes.”
“You mean divorce him?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“She told me. How do you think I know?
Mothers and daughters shouldn’t keep secrets from each other I told Margaret anything she wanted to know, and she did the same with me.”
“When did she plan on leaving him, Mrs. Tomlinson?”
“Next month.”
“When next month?”
“On the sixteenth.”
“Why that particular day?”
Mrs. Tomlinson shrugged. “Is something wrong with that day?”
“No, nothing at all. But was there a special reason for picking the sixteenth?”
“I never stuck my nose in my daughter’s business,” Mrs. Tomlinson said abruptly. Carella and Hawes exchanged a quick glance.
“But yet you’re certain about the date,” Hawes said.
“Yes. She told me she would leave him on the sixteenth.”
“But you don’t know why the sixteenth?”
“No,” Mrs. Tomlinson said. She smiled suddenly. “Are you going to bully me, too?” she asked.
Carella returned the smile. Graciously, he answered, “No, certainly not, Mrs. Tomlinson. We’re only trying to get the facts.”
“I can give you all the facts,” Mrs. Tomlinson said. “The first fact is that my daughter didn’t commit suicide. That you can count on.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know my daughter. She was like me. She loved life. Nobody who loves life is going to take her own life, that’s for sure.”
“Well,” Carella said, “all the indications…”
“Indications! Who cares about indications? My daughter was vital, energetic. People like that don’t commit suicide. Look, it runs in the family.”
“Energy?” Hawes asked,
“Energy, right I’ve got to keep moving all day long. Even sitting here, I’m beginning to feel fidgety, would you believe it? There are nervous types of women, you know. I’m one of them.”
“And your daughter was another?”
“Absolutely. Always on the go! Vital! Energetic! Alive! Listen, do you want to know something? Shall I tell you how I am in bed?”
Carella looked at Hawes uncomfortably.
“When I get in bed at night, I can’t sleep. All that energy. My hands twitch, my legs,
I just can’t sleep. I take pills every night. Only way I can relax. I’m like a motor.”
“And your daughter was that way, too?”
“Positively! So why take her own life? Impossible. Besides, she was going to leave that bully. She was going to start a new life.” She shook her head, “This whole thing stinks. I don’t know who turned on that gas, but it wasn’t Margaret, you can count on that.”
“Maybe it was Barlow,” Hawes suggested.
“Tommy? Ridiculous.”
“Why?”
“Because they were going to get married, that’s why. So would either of them turn on the gas? Or leave a stupid note like the one in the apartment? ‘There is no other way!’ Nonsense! They’d already decided on another way.”