A call to Mr. Lilienthal revealed that his car had been stolen on the night of March 23 and to his knowledge had not yet been recovered. Was Willis calling to say it had been found? Willis asked Lilienthal if anyone ever called him Mickey. Lilienthal said, "What? Mickey? You kidding me or something?"
A subsequent call to Auto Theft informed Willis that the car had been snatched outside a homosexual bar in the Quarter, though Lilienthal claimed he had been upstairs in an apartment over the bar, visiting a friend who was as straight as a Methodist minister. At any rate, it was true that the car had not yet been recovered. It was the opinion of the detective at Auto Theft that by now the car had already been inside a chop shop and that its parts were being sold hither and yon across the great length and breadth of these United States.
When Willis informed him that he had spotted the car as recently as last Tuesday night, the Auto Theft detective said, "That was last Tuesday night, pal. This is this Wednesday." Willis nonetheless said the car might have been driven by a man named Mickey who'd been wearing a raccoon coat. The Auto Theft detective said, wryly it seemed to Willis, "Terrific, I'll check our M.O. file for raccoons," and hung up.
So it now appeared that Marilyn's line backer girlfriend was either a car thief or else knew someone who stole cars. Willis was ready to call Marilyn again, not so they could become pals but because it now seemed she had a few more questions to answer. But then he spotted the news item on Basil Hollander, and called the Twelfth Detective Squad instead.
Detective/First Grade James Larkin was a burly man in his mid-fifties, red hair going grey, blue eyes on the thin edge of burn-out. He wore a shoulder harness, baggy blue trousers with brown shoes, and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His jacket was on the back of his chair. He seemed relieved that Willis had called him.
"If he's yours, take him," he said into the telephone.
"Well, I don't know if they're related yet," Willis said.
"Even if they ain't related you can have him," Larkin said.
"Was he poisoned?" Willis asked.
"Stabbed," Larkin said.
"When?"
"M.E. estimates sometime Sunday night."
"That would make it…"
"Easter Sunday. We didn't catch it till yesterday. April Fool's Day. Guy next door notified the superintendant about a stink, the super called 911. The front door was unlocked, they walked right in. Found the body in the living room, fully clothed, throat slit."
"What kind of lock on the front door?"
"Spring latch. Mickey Mouse."
"Any security in the building?"
"Nope. What makes you think he's yours?"
"My guy knew a lady your guy also knew."
"This lady carries a knife?"
"I don't know."
"So what do you want to do, Willis? You're welcome to him, believe me. But if this is gonna go ping-ponging back and forth between precincts, we'll be asking for more headaches than we already got."
"How far along on this are you?"
"I told you, we only caught it yesterday. We done the building and neighborhood canvass, and we got a verbal report from the M.E.s office, but no paperwork from them yet. Cause was severance of the carotid artery with a very sharp instrument. Post-mortem interval I already gave you."
"Any latents in the apartment?"
"Just the victim's. No wild prints."
"Any sign of forced entry?"
"Like I told you, it's a Mickey Mouse lock. Could've been loided, but who knows? Maybe he knew the killer, just opened the door for him."
"Any signs of socializing?"
"Like what?"
"Glasses on the coffee table… peanuts in a bowl… whatever."
"You looking for a lady's lipstick stains?"
"I'm looking for a place to hang my hat."
"Ain't we all?" Larkin said. "Looks to me like the guy was reading a book and drinking a cup of coffee when the killer came in. We found the coffee cup on an endtable alongside the couch, the book on the floor."
"Looked like it was dropped, or what?"
"Looked like it was on the floor," Larkin said.
"So you think he was surprised while he was reading?"
"I don't think nothin' yet."
"Where was the body? On the couch or…?"
"On the floor in front of the couch. Decomposing. It was still cold Easter Sunday, the super still had the heat on. Then we got the tropics all of a sudden, so it started going bad fast."
"Anybody in the building see or hear anything?"
"Deaf, dumb and blind," Larkin said wearily. "Like always."
"Have you talked to anyone at his office yet?"
"We were gonna do that today. So where do we go from here, Willis? You want it or not? If so, I gotta talk to the Loot."
"I guess it may be ours," Willis said, and sighed.
"Good," Larkin said.
"Can you send the paperwork up here?"
"I'll have it copied and stick it in the pouch. We get a pickup around eleven."
At ten minutes past eleven that Wednesday morning, April 2, Steve Carella rang the doorbell to apartment 12A in a building on Front Street in midtown Isola. He was expected and the door opened almost at once. The man standing in the doorframe was perhaps five ten, and weighed something like a hundred and sixty pounds. He had pleasant blue eyes behind dark-rimmed eyeglasses, sandy brown hair, a mustache of the same color, and a welcoming smile on his face. He was wearing a plaid sports jacket and grey slacks, blue shirt open at the throat. Carella guessed he was in his early forties.
"Dr. Ellsworth?" he said.
"Detective Carella? Come in, please."
Carella followed him into a living room eclectically furnished in an improbable but successful blend of modern with antique. An ornately carved Brittany sideboard was on the wall opposite an arrangement of leather modular sofas. A riotously red abstract impressionist painting hung over the sofas. Something that looked like a Rembrandt—but surely wasn't—hung on another wall. There were two black leather Saarinen chairs. There was a straightbacked sidechair that looked Victorian, upholstered in a rich green brocade.
"Sorry you had to track me all over town," Ellsworth said. "Wednesday's my day off."
Carella was thinking that Wednesday was a bad day to get a toothache. Most dentists in this city took Wednesdays off.
"No trouble at all," he said. "Your home number was listed right under your office number."
"Still," Ellsworth said, and smiled apologetically. "Can I get you a cup of coffee?"
"Thanks, no," Carella said.
"So," Ellsworth said. "You're here about Jerry McKennon."
"Yes."
"What would you like to know?"
"According to his appointment calendar, he saw you on March eighth…"
"Yes?"
"… at eleven o'clock…"
"Uh-huh."
"… and again on the fifteenth at the same time…"
"Uh-huh."
"… and he was scheduled to see you again last Saturday, the twenty-ninth… but, of course, he never kept that appointment."
Ellsworth sighed heavily. "No," he said, and shook his head sadly.
"He did keep those other appointments, didn't he?"
"I assume so. I don't have my appointment calendar here, but…"
"Did he usually keep appointments he'd made?"
"Oh, yes."
"Had he been a patient of yours for a long time?"
"Since January," Ellsworth said.
"What sort of person was he?"
"I knew him only professionally, of course…"
"Of course."
"But he always seemed extremely outgoing and friendly. Many people who come to a dentist's office aren't anticipating a pleasant experience, you know. I'm afraid dentists haven't enjoyed a very good press over the years. When Marathon Man was playing—did you see that movie?"