Lullaby

Detective Frank Connell of the Four-Seven looked across the desk at her.

'I don't know what to do,' he said. 'It's like I've got an enemy for a wife instead of a friend. A wife is supposed to be a friend, ain't she? Ain't that why people get married? So there'll be somebody they can trust more than anybody else in the world? Instead, she makes me look like a fuckin' fool. I wouldn't do that to her in a million years, ridicule her in front of people she works with. She works in a law office, she's a legal secretary. I would never go in there and say she's this or that, she's no good at this or that, I would never hurt her that way. The way she hurts me when she says I'm a drunk.'

'Are you a drunk?' Karin asked.

'No. I swear to God I am not.'

'Do you want or need a drink when you get up in the morning?'

'Absolutely not. I go walk my fuckin' two miles, I eat my breakfast, and I go to work.'

'Do you really have only two drinks when you get home at night?'

'Two. I swear.'

'How big?'

'What do you mean? Like a regular drink. Some booze, some ice, some soda . . .'

'How much booze?'

'Two, three ounces.'

'Which?'

'Three.'

'That's six ounces.'

'Which ain't a lot.'

'Plus whatever wine you'll drink at . . .'

'Only when we go out. When we eat home, I usually have a Pepsi with dinner.'

'Would you say you're a heavy drinker?'

'A moderate drinker. I know guys drink non-stop, day and night, I'm not one of . . .'

'Do you consider them drunks?'

'I consider them alcoholics. I rarely see them drunk, but I know they have drinking problems, I know they can't control their drinking.'

'But you can.'

'I do not consider two fucking drinks a day a drinking problem!'

'Now you're getting mad at me, huh?' Karin said, and smiled.

'I don't like being called a fuckin' drunk! It infuriates me! I'm not here because I have a drinking problem, I'm here 'cause I have a fucking wife problem. I love her to death, but . . .'

'But you've been talking about hurting her,' Karin said.

'I know.'

'Physically hurting her.'

'Yes.'

'Punching her out. Breaking her nose . . .'

Connell nodded.

'Breaking every bone in her body.'

He nodded again.

'Even using your gun on her.'

'This is what's tearing me apart,' Connell said. 'She's my wife, but when she starts on me I'd like to kill her.'

'You said you love her to death,' Karin said. 'Do you?'

Connell thought about this for a moment.

'I guess so,' he said, and fell silent.

Eileen Burke popped into her head again.

And do you love him?

Asking her about Bert Kling.

Eileen thinking it over.

And saying, 'I guess so.'

In which case, why had she stopped seeing him?

* * * *

The offices of the David Pierce Advertising Agency were midtown on Jefferson Avenue, where most of the city's advertising agencies grew like poisonous toadstools. Carella and Meyer arrived there together at seven minutes past three that Friday afternoon. Peter Hodding was still out to lunch. This was the twentieth day of January. His daughter would be dead three weeks tomorrow. They were wondering if he'd killed her.

They were sitting on a chrome and leather sofa in the waiting room when he came in. He was wearing a raccoon fur coat. Cheeks ruddy from the cold outside, straight brown hair windblown, he looked the way Chastity Kerr had described him looking after his early morning walk on New Year's Eve. He seemed happy to see them. Asked them at once if there was any news. Led them to his private office in the agency's recesses.

Two walls painted yellow, a third painted a sort of lavender, the last banked with windows that looked out over a city hushed by snow. Photocopies of print ads tacked to the walls with pushpins. A storyboard for a television commercial. A desk with an old-fashioned electric typewriter on it. Sheet of paper in the roller. Hodding sat behind the desk. He offered the detectives chairs. They sat.

'Mr Hodding,' Carella said, 'did you at any time on New Year's Eve leave the party at the apartment of Mr and Mrs Jeremy Kerr?'

Hodding blinked.

The blink told them they had him.

'Yes,' he said.

'At what time?' Meyer asked.

Another blink.

'We left at a little after two.'

'To go home. You and your wife.'

'Yes.'

'How about before then?'

Another blink.

'Well, yes,' he said.

'You left the Kerr apartment before then?'

'Yes.'

'At what time.'

'Around one o'clock.'

'Alone?'

'Yes.'

'Where'd you go?' Carella asked.

'For a walk. I was drunk. I needed some air.'

'Where'd you walk?'

'In the park'

'Which direction?'

'I don't know what you mean. Anyway, what's . . . ?'

'Uptown, downtown, crosstown? Which way did you walk?'

'Downtown. Excuse me, but what . . . ?'

'How far downtown did you walk?'

'To the statue and back.'

'Which statue?'

'The Alan Clive statue. The statue there.'

'At the circle?'

'Yes. Why?'

'Are you sure you didn't walk uptown?' Carella said.

Hodding blinked again.

'Are you sure you didn't walk uptown on Grover Avenue?' Meyer said.

'Four blocks uptown?' Carella said.

'To your apartment?'

'Getting there at ten after one, a quarter after one?'

'And staying there for a half-hour or so?'

There was a long painful silence.

'Okay,' Hodding said.