“Well, it was the whiskey that done it. If I hadn’t been drunk I’d of kept my head. I saw her in the elevator about nine o’clock. She was going out somewhere. She said the bathroom faucets needed fixing, and I said I’d take care of it while she was out. Then I got busy with something else, and I didn’t get up to her apartment until about midnight. I figured she’d still be out, but she was there. Anyhow, I went to work on the faucet.
“She come in to watch, and with her standing there, looking so pretty and smelling so good, I got so I couldn’t think of nothing else. I hadn’t been able to get her out of my mind for more than a minute at a time for two or three months. I didn’t much care what happened to me for doing it — all I knew was that I had to grab her and kiss her.” He paused a moment. “Then I done a crazy thing. She was all dressed up, and I didn’t want to get her clothes dirty, so I washed off my hands. And then I turn around and reach out for her. You never seen such a change in anybody. All at once she wasn’t sweet and nice, like she always was before. She jumped back from me and started cussing me.
“I don’t know what happened. I just couldn’t think. I couldn’t even see good, I was so mad. I started to grab her again, and damned if she didn’t spit right in my face. She did it twice, and then she turned around to run off from me — and that’s when I hit her with the knife. I swear I didn’t even know I had the knife out.”
“Why did you take her up on the roof, Gus?” Walt asked.
“I figured she might be expecting somebody. Maybe a guy with a key she’d given him. She was all dressed up, and all — and I guess I just got panicky. I’d remembered this chimney, see, and I thought I could put her in it. By the time anybody found her, I’d have an alibi.”
“But you’d forgotten how tall those chimneys really were — isn’t that what happened, Gus?” I asked.
“Yeah. I just wasn’t thinking none too clear. I climbed up on the base and got the mat in, but I couldn’t lift the girl uphighenough.”
“Is that all, Gus?” I asked. “We’d like to get this down on paper.”
“I’ll tell Kansas City they can stop looking for that guy Carl,” Walt Logan said.
Brokaw began cracking his knuckles again. “That damned Benny,” he said softly. “You never could depend on him for a minute.”