imagination would not take him quite that far. "Maybe," Carella said.
"Where in Italy?" Meyer asked.
"Don't know."
"What'd you find when you tossed her
Byrnes asked.
"Me?"
"You."
"Dead cat lying alongside her," Carella said. "Skip the cat."
"Fish bones all over the kitchen floor."
"I said skip the cat."
"Savings account passbook in a dresser drawer, hundred-and twenty-five thou withdrawn the morning before she got killed."
"What time?"
"Ten twenty-seven A.M." "Cash or bank check?" "Don't know.
"What do you know?" Parker asked.
Carella merely looked at him.
"We know the guy's name," Hawes said.
"If he killed her," Parker said.
"Whether he killed her or not, we know his name." "But not where he is."
"Check the airlines," Brown suggested. "Maybe he did go back to Italy."
"And we've got a clear chain of custody on the murder weapon," Carella said.
"Running from where to where?"
"Registered to a private bodyguard named Rodney Pratt, stolen from his limo on the night before the murder..."
"Who boosted it?" Kling asked.
"Guy named Jose Santiago."
"The famous bullfighter?" Parker asked.
This was a line he'd used before. The expression was his way of putting down anyone of Hispanic descent. Byrnes had heard rumors which he tended to disbelieve that Parker was now living with a Puerto
Rican girl. Parker? Sleeping with a famous bullfighter? "The famous cock fighter Hawes corrected. "He fights with his cock?" Parker asked.
No one laughed.
Parker shrugged.
"So what do you figure?" Byrnes asked. " interrupted burglary?"
"If the him-twenty-five was in the apartment, yes, "What,d you find when you tossed it?" "Us?" Meyer asked. "You."
"Dead fish stinking up the joint." "Piss, too," Kling said. "Cat piss."
"Are we back to the cat again?" Byrnes asked. He was not noted as an animal lover. When he was ten, a pet turtle named Petie had suddenly died. Canary named Alice when he was twelve. And he was thirteen, his mother gave away his pet named Ruffles. For peeing all over their area Which apparently Svetlana Dyalovich's cat had been fond of doing, too. He did not want to hear a word about the dead woman's dead cat.
"Be nice if cats could bark, huh?" Parker sad.
Be nice if we could get off the goddamn
cat. Byrnes said. "What else did you find?" "Us?" Kling asked. "You." "Nothing."
"No money, huh?" "Nothing." "So maybe it was a burglar."
"The cat could explain those stains on the Carella said.
"What stains?" Brown asked.
"The fish stains. They could've got on the coat that way."
"There were fish stains on the coat?" Brown asked. Byrnes was watching him. Eyes narrowing, scowl deepening. He was looking for something. Didn't know what yet, but looking.
"If she fed the cat raw fish, I mean," Carella said.
"How do you know there were fish stains on the coat?" Byrnes asked.
"Grossman," Willis said. "I took the call."
"She was wearing a mink while she fed the goddamn cat?" Parker said.
"Are you saying the cat might've rubbed up against her?" Brown asked.
"No, these were near the collar," Carella said. "Near the collar?"
"I took the call," Willis said again.
"Well, what'd Grossman say, actually?" Byrnes asked.
"He said there were fish stains on the coat." "Near the collar?" Brown asked again.
"High up on the coat," Willis said, and opened his note-book. "These are his words," he said, and began reading. " "Stains inside and outside, near the collar. From the location, it would appear someone held the coat in both hands, one at either side of the collar, thumbs outside, fingers inside'. Quote, unquote."
"I can't visualize it," Brown said, shaking his head. "Okay to use this?" Willis asked. "Sure," Byrnes said.
Willis picked up a magazine from Byrnes's desk, handed it to Brown.
"Hold it with your fingers on the front cow thumbs on the back cover."
Brown tried it.
"That's how Grossman figures the coat was held, "You mean there were fingerprints?"
"No. But he thinks somebody with fish oil on his her hands held the coat the way you're holding the magazine."
Brown looked at his hands on the magazine Everyone in the office was looking at his hands on the magazine.
"Didn't you say she was wearing a wool coat Kling asked.
"Yeah. When she went down to buy the booze." "When was that?" Byrnes asked. "Eleven o'clock that morning." "The day she was killed?"
"Yes. Half an hour after she made the withdrawal."
"Something's fishy here," Byrnes said,
he was making a pun, and not realizing how close it was, either.
When Priscilla and the boys drove up in a taxi at eight that morning, the superintendent of the building was out front with the garbage wondering if the Sanitation Department would start pickups again. Priscilla told him she was Svetlana's granddaughter, and he expressed his sympathy, clucking his tongue and shaking his head over the mysteries and misfortunes of life. chit chatted back and forth for maybe three or four minutes before he finally mentioned that Mrs. Helder's closest friend in the building was a woman named Karen Todd, who lived just down the hall from her.
"Probably there right this minute," he said. "Doesn't leave for work till about eight-thirty."
Georgie fell in love at once with the slender young woman who opened the door to apartment 3C. He guessed she was in her mid-twenties, a very exotic-looking person who reminded him of his cousin Tessie who once he tried to feel up on the roof when they were both sixteen. Tessie later married a dentist. But here was the same long black hair and dark brown eyes, the same bee-stung lips and high cheekbones, the same impressive bust, as Georgie's mother used to call it.
Karen was just finishing breakfast, but she cordially invited them into the apartment batting her lashes at Georgie, Priscilla noticed and told them she had to leave soon, but she'd be happy to answer questions until then. Although, really, she'd already told the police everything she knew.
Priscilla suggested that perhaps the police hadn't asked her the same questions they were about to ask. Karen looked puzzled.
"For example," Priscilla said, "did you ever happen to notice a tall blond man visiting my grandmother's apartment?"
"No," Karen said. "In fact, I did not."
"How well did you know the old lady?" Georgie asked kindly.
Karen looked at the clock.
Then she gave them much the same she'd given the police, telling all about her sitting with Svetlana sipping tea together in the late afternoon listening to her old 78s... "It reminded me of T. S. Eliot somehow," she said and smiled at Georgie, who didn't know who T. S. Eliot was.
She told them, too, about accompanying Svetlana to her internist's office one day... "She had terrible arthritis, you know..." and another time to an ear doctor who told her she ought to see a neurologist. Because of the ringing in her ears, you know.
"When was this?" Priscilla asked.
"Oh, before Thanksgiving. It was awful. She was crying so hard in the taxi, I thought her heart would break."
"And you're sure you never saw her with a blond man?"
"Positive."
"Never, huh?"
"Never. Well, not with her."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't think he went inside."
"Inside?"
"Her apartment. But one morning, when she was sick..."