“Amos Barlow?” Meyer said.
“Yes?”
Meyer flashed the tin. “Detectives Carella and Meyer. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Can I see that again, please?” Barlow said.
Meyer, who was the most patient cop in the precinct, if not the entire city, held up his shield again. His patience was an acquired trait, the legacy of his father Max, who’d been something of a practical joker in his day. When Meyer’s mother went to Max and told him she was pregnant again, old Max simply couldn’t believe it. He thought it was past the time when such miracles of God could happen to his wife, who had already experienced change of life. Unappreciative of the turntable subtleties of a fate that had played a supreme practical joke on the supreme practical joker, he plotted his own gleeful revenge. When the baby was born, he named him Meyer. Meyer was a perfectly good name, and would have fit the child beautifully if his surname happened to be Schwartz or Goldblatt or even Lipschitz. Unfortunately, his surname was Meyer, and in combination with his given name, the infant emerged like a stutter: Meyer Meyer. Even so, the name wouldn’t have been so bad if the family hadn’t been Orthodox Jews living in a predominatingly Gentile neighborhood. Whenever any of the kids needed an excuse for beating up a Jew-and they didn’t often need excuses-it was always easiest to find the one with the double-barreled monicker. Meyer Meyer learned patience: patience toward the father who had inflicted upon him the redundant name, patience toward the kids who regularly sent him home in tatters. Patiently, he waited for the day when he could name his father Max Max. It never came. Patiently, he waited for the day when he could catch one of the goyim alone and beat hell out of him in a fair fight without overwhelming odds. That day came rarely. But Meyer’s patience became a way of life, and eventually he adjusted to his father’s little gag, and the name he would carry to the end of his days. He adjusted beautifully. Unless one chose to mention the tired old saw about repression leaving its scars. Maybe something does have to give, who knows? Meyer Meyer, though he was only thirty-seven years old, was completely bald.
Patiently, he held up the shield. “Do you have an identification card?” Meyer dug into his wallet patiently and held up his lucite-encased I.D. card.
“That isn’t a very good picture,” Barlow said.
“No,” Meyer admitted.
“But I guess it’s you. What did you want to ask me?”
“May we come in?” Meyer said. They were standing outside on the front stoop of the two-story frame house in Riverhead, and whereas the rain wasn’t heavy, it was sharp and penetrating. Barlow studied them for a moment, and then said, “Of course,” and opened the door wide. They followed him into the house.
He was a short, slight man, no more than five feet eight inches tall, weighing about a hundred and thirty-five pounds. Carella estimated that he was no older than twenty-two or twenty-three, and yet he was beginning to lose the hair at the back of his head. He walked at a slightly crooked angle and with a decided limp. He carried a cane in his right hand, and he used it as though he’d been familiar with it for a long long time. The cane was black, Carella noticed, a heavy cane with curving head ornately decorated with silver or pewter, it was difficult to tell which.
“Are you the detectives working on my brother’s murder?” Barlow said over his shoulder as he led them toward the living room.
“Why do you call it that, Mr. Barlow?” Meyer said.
“Because that’s what it was,” Barlow answered.
He had entered the living room, walked to the exact center of it, and then turned to face the detectives squarely. The room was tastefully, if inexpensively furnished. He shifted his weight to his good leg, raised his cane, and with it gestured toward a couch. Carella and Meyer sat. Meyer took out a small black pad and a pencil.
“What makes you think it was murder?” he said.
“I know it was.”
“How do you know?”
“My brother wouldn’t commit suicide,” Barlow said. He nodded at the detectives calmly, his pale blue eyes studying them. “Not my brother.” He leaned on his cane heavily, and then suddenly seemed tired of standing. Limping, he walked to an easy chair opposite them, sat, looked at them calmly once again, and once again said, “Not my brother.”
“Why do you say that?” Carella asked.
“Not Tommy.” Barlow shook his head.
“He was too happy. He knew how to enjoy life. You can’t tell me Tommy turned on the gas. No. I’ll believe a lot of other things, but not that.”
“Maybe the girl talked him into it,” Carella suggested.
“I doubt it,” Barlow said. “A cheap pickup? Why would my brother let her… ?”
“Just a second, Mr. Barlow,” Meyer said. “This wasn’t a casual pick-up, not from the way we understand it.”
“No?”
“No. Your brother and this girl were planning to get married.”
“Who says so?”
“The girl’s mother says so, and the girl’s lawyer says so.”
“But Tommy didn’t say so.”
“He never mentioned that he was planning to get married?” Carella asked.
“Never. In fact, he never even mentioned this girl, this Irene Thayer. That’s how I know it’s all a bunch of lies, the note, everything. My brother probably picked the girl up that very afternoon. Marry her! Kill himself! Who are they trying to kid?”
“Who do you mean by ‘they,’ Mr. Barlow?”
“What?”
“You said. ‘Who are they trying to…”
“Oh, that’s just an expression I meant, somebody… or maybe a couple of people…” He shook his head, as if trying to untangle his tongue. “What I mean is Tommy did not plan to marry any girl, and Tommy did not kill himself. So somebody must have typed up that note and then turned on the gas and left my brother there to die. To die. That’s what I mean.”
“I see,” Meyer said. “Do you have any idea who this somebody might be?”
“No. But I don’t think you’ll have to look very far.”
“Oh?”
“I’m sure a girl like that had a lot of men after her.”
“And you think one of these men might have been responsible for what happened, is that it?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you know Irene Thayer was married, Mr. Barlow?”
“I read it in the papers.”
“But it’s your impression that she was seeing other men besides your brother, is that right?”
“She wasn’t seeing my brother, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. He probably just picked her up.”
“Mr. Barlow, we have reason to believe he was seeing her regularly.”