No, he hadn't touched the cups, and he couldn't tell you what Nauman or Quinn or any of that bunch drank while they were wasting time up there. He was always too busy working down in his studio-"I'm a painter, not a coffee guzzler"-to hang out with those loudmouthed bull tossers. He wouldn't even have been up there yesterday, except that he'd had an appointment with Nauman. An appointment they had broken, he might add. Afraid to face him with the real reasons why he wasn't getting an M.F.A. degree. If his work wasn't any good, they should have warned him back in December. Oh, yes, Professor Leyden was his advisor, and yes, he'd told Harley the rest of the department didn't like primitives-not that he really was, you understand, but-
"Keep to the point," growled his father.
Okay. Yeah, he remembered seeing the tray on the bookcase. Two white foam cups from the cafeteria with writing on the lids. No, nobody'd touched them while he was in the office until Quinn came in. "At least, I don't think anybody did," he qualified nervously. His father snorted derisively. "Okay! Nobody!" he cried.
Tillie brought out the tray and handed Harley the two snap-on lids. "Could you arrange these lids the way the cups were sitting yesterday morning?"
The boy gnawed his thin lips apprehensively. "They were just there, side by side. I don't remember anything special about whether one was in front or anything like that."
"Christ!" said Mr. Harris. "Call yourself an artist, and you don't notice details? I can tell you every shoe in Foot Fair's windows for the last three years."
«r «i
"I'm not a window designer," whined Harley.
"Oh, yes, you are!" his father said meaningfully.
Pressed hard, Harley admitted remembering that Quinn had reached behind him to take a cup before closeting himself in the inner office.
'The one nearest you?" asked Tillie.
'I guess." Quinn had been on his high horse, he told them; and Nauman was just as rude, acting like he had nothing to do with getting him canned out of the graduate program.
"Jeez! Two years just down the drain, and what I'm going to do now-"
"You'll come into the business with your brother and me as you should've done six years ago," said Mr. Harris.
"But my art-"
"You can paint at night if you want. Or on Sundays. Look at Churchill. Look at Ike. Both of 'em decent painters, but did it stop 'em from winning the war or from running their countries and earning a good living?"
"They were hacks."
"And you're Michelangelo?"
It was evidently an old battle, and Sigrid stepped into it long enough to extract Harley's promise that he'd let them know if he remembered anything else.
When the Harrises, père et fils, departed, they were separated by more than a foot of open air; yet Sigrid was left with the distinct impression that Mr. Harris was pulling his son along by the ear.
Tillie rubbed his round chin and admitted that Harley Harris was probably out of it. "That makes it one down and seven tog o."
"Seven? Oh, yes, Mike Szabo," Sigrid said dubiously. She had shared with Tillie the background information on Szabo that Nauman had furnished the night before. "He probably had access to the poison closet, but I really don't see how he could have known which of those four cups was for Quinn."
"Still…" said Tillie, who hated to leave even the smallest pebble unturned.
Sigrid agreed that it probably wouldn't hurt for him to chase Mike Szabo down and get his statement on the record. "For all we know someone else could have been standing by the bookcase when he brought the tray in and left it."
"If that's the case, I bet I can tell you who it was."
"Who? David Wade?"
Tillie looked deflated that she'd thought of that angle, too, but he pressed on. "That Keppler girl looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, but I bet she'd lie for Wade without blinking those baby blue eyes."
"When you've finished with Szabo, you might stop by Vanderlyn and ask Keppler where David Wade was yesterday morning; see what her reaction is. And while you're at it," Sigrid added, "better see the dean of-" She had to search through her notes to find the right title. Tillie nodded thoughtfully as she explained what she wanted to know.
For the next couple of hours Sigrid worked steadily at the accumulation of reports on her desk. Gradually the pile dwindled, disappeared; all except for a media query, which she carried to Captain McKinnon. "Do I have to keep doing these interviews?" she asked sourly, remembering Andrea Ross's gibe about being the Police
Departments's showcase model.
McKinnon looked at the innocuously worded request. It was from a women's magazine, one slanted toward a readership of women who, if they held jobs, worked more to supplement the family's income than to carve out careers of their own. He tossed it back to her.
"What's wrong, Harald? You ashamed to talk about police work?"
"Of course not! If that's what they'd ask me about," Sigrid said tightly, "but they won't. They'll ask about my personal life-you know, does-my-husband-mind-my-being-a-policewoman sort of thing-and they'll probably think it a waste of time when they find out I haven't got a husband. Anyway, aren't there enough women police officers around that we're not a novelty any longer?"
"Apparently not," McKinnon said heartlessly. "I don't see the problem, Harald. You've conducted enough interviews to know how to steer one."
He held up his hand to forestall further protest. "Look upon it as building up Brownie points for the department. Public relations. The commissioner appreciates good public relations."
Sigrid marched back to her small office grimly and telephoned the magazine. Upon being connected with the junior editor who'd requested the interview, she summoned a cordial tone to her voice and expressed her willingness to talk. "Unfortunately my only free time is tomorrow morning at eight A.M."
Silence from the editor, then timidly, "What about lunch, Lieutenant? On us, of course."
"Sorry," Sigrid said. "I have a previous engagement."
"Well, we're not in that big a hurry. What about day after tomorrow. We could meet-"
"I'm afraid I'm booked rather solid," Sigrid said firmly. "Perhaps you'd have better luck with someone in a different department. Now Sergeant Louella Dickerson over in Missing Persons…"
"Oh, no, Lieutenant. We're all so intrigued with the idea of a woman chasing down murderers, almost a female Kojak. Eight o'clock? I'll certainly be there."
She sounds like a gusher, Sigrid thought pessimistically. She glanced at her watch.
Ten-forty and she was due in court at eleven.
It was an appearance connected with a case completed two months before. Routine, but time-consuming. Despite the district attorney's previous promise, she wasn't called to testify until after lunch. She wasn't on the stand very long. The defense lawyer had come up against her before, so he didn't try the court's patience by attempting to confuse her in cross-examination. The last time he'd tried that, her cool dignity and unruffled professionalism had convinced a teetering jury of his client's guilt.
She was free a little after two and decided against going back to the office just then. Somehow facing another round of reports seemed unbearably dreary, though she would have denied any touch of spring fever.
Last night's rain had scoured sky, air and pavements, and in the afternoon sunlight the sky looked bluer than usual, buildings seemed more sharply edged, and Central Park 's spring foliage shone greener. These things Sigrid barely noticed as she drove uptown. A short while later she parked by a fire hydrant almost in front of Riley Quinn's brownstone and flipped down her sun visor to reveal a discreet notice that she was on official police business. As she stepped from her car, what her practical mind did appreciate about last night's rain was that it had washed the sidewalks so clean that one didn't have to watch where one was putting every step-a true boon considering the city's canine population.