"The Twelfth," Willis said. "Is that what you want me to do?"
"I want you to check with me next time, before you go taking on half the goddamn homicide cases in this city!"
"I should've checked, you're right."
"You damn well should've. Who's handling the transfer papers?"
"Larkin."
"Thank God for that. We dump this on Miscolo's desk—"
"No, the Twelfth is handling it."
"Can you trust Larkin not to screw it up? If I get departmental flak on this, I'll…"
"He's an experienced cop, Pete. He'll take care of it, don't worry. He's happy to get rid of it."
"I'll bet he is," Byrnes said.
Over coffee and sandwiches in a greasy spoon around the corner from the station house, Willis broke the news to Carella.
"A knife, huh?" Carella said.
"Well, some kind of sharp instrument," Willis said.
"But not poison."
"Definitely not poison."
"I don't get it, do you? Guy goes to all the trouble of setting up a complicated murder…"
"It had to be murder, don't you think?" Willis said. "I mean, if there was any doubt earlier, we've got a second victim now, and he's another one of Marilyn Hollis's pals. They've got to be linked."
"Well, sure," Carella said. "But that's the point. Somebody used nicotine, however the hell he got it, a deadly poison that acts within minutes. Okay, I have to ask myself why. Because he wants us to think suicide, right? Wants us to chalk it off as suicide. But then he turns around and stabs somebody. Primitive stuff, Hal, a one-on-one act. No attempt to hide the fact that it's murder. So why a class act the first time around, and then something out of the gutter the next time? That's what I don't get."
"Yeah, that's the bitch of it," Willis said.
Both men were silent for several moments.
"You think the Hollis woman is behind this?" Carella asked.
"Well, maybe. But if she's knocking off her pals one by one…"
"Or getting someone else to do it…"
"Then why give us a list? That's asking for trouble, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Carella said.
Both men were silent again.
"Does she know Hollander bought it?" Carella said.
"I haven't talked to her yet."
"We'd better. Right away."
"Let me do it," Willis said.
Carella looked at him.
"Alone," Willis said.
Carella was still looking at him.
"She wants to be my friend," Willis said, and smiled.
CHAPTER 6
She was in tears when Willis telephoned.
"I just read about poor Baz," she said.
"When can I see you?" he asked.
"Come right over," she said.
She buzzed him in the minute he rang the front doorbell. Didn't even ask who it was. He had no sooner let himself into the entrance foyer when the buzzer on the inner door sounded. He let himself into the living room. Empty.
"Miss Hollis?" he said, and then remembered that she'd asked him to call her Marilyn. "Marilyn?" he said, and felt stupid.
Her voice came from upstairs someplace.
"Come up, please," she said.
A wide stairway led to the upper stories of the house. Carpeted steps, polished walnut bannister, smooth to the touch. On the first level, a mirrored dining room with a table that could seat twelve comfortably, a kitchen with stainless steel ovens, refrigerator and range, and a room—the door slightly ajar—that seemed to be a study of sorts, with a rolltop desk, bookshelves, and an easy chair with a Tiffany lamp behind it.
"Marilyn?" he said again.
"Up here," she said.
Up here was a bedroom. Wood-paneled as was the rest of the house. A canopied bed. Antique dressers on two of the walls. An ornate, brass-framed, full-length mirror opposite the bed. Another Tiffany lamp. Persian rugs on the parqueted floor. A love seat upholstered in royal-blue crushed velvet. On the window wall facing the street, velvet drapes that matched the love seat. On the love seat… Marilyn.
Wearing blue jeans and a man's shirt, the sleeves rolled up on her forearms, the tails hanging out. She was barefoot. Little Girl Lost. Her eyes, testifying to the validity of her telephone tears, were puffy and red.
"I didn't kill him," she said at once.
"Who said you did?"
He realized she had immediately placed him on the defensive. Big, bad police officer coming in making accusations.
"Why else are you here?" she said. "I asked you to call me, and you promised you would. But you didn't. Now Baz is dead…"
"That's one of the reasons I'm here, yes," he'said.
"What's the other reason?"
"I wanted to see you again," he said, and wondered if he was lying.
She looked up at him. He was standing not four feet from where she sat on the love seat. Her pale blue penetrating gaze searched his face, seemed trying to pierce his skull to search the corners of his mind for the truth. Honesty, she had said. Maybe that's what she really wanted, after all. But then why lie about Mickey in the raccoon coat?
"Let's start with poor Baz, okay?" he said.
Bit of sarcasm in his voice, he'd have to watch that. No sense putting her on the defensive.
"The newspaper said he was stabbed," Marilyn said. "Is that true?"
Which, if she was the one who'd stabbed him, was a very smart question.
"Yes," he said.
The appropriate answer, whether she'd stabbed him or not. But somehow, he didn't like playing detective with her. He wondered why.
"With a knife?"
Another smart question. The M.E. had said only "a sharp instrument." Could have been a knife, of course, but it could just as easily have been anything capable of tearing flesh and tissue. Most citizens, as opposed to law enforcement officers, automatically assumed "stabbed" meant with a knife. So why had she asked him if the weapon had been a knife? Had she been the stabber? With something other than a knife?
He decided to get tricky.
"Yes," he said, "a knife," and watched her eyes.
Nothing showed in them.
She nodded.
That was all.
Said nothing.
"Where were you on Easter Sunday?" he asked.
"Here we go again," she said.
"I'm sorry. I have to ask."
"I was with Chip."
"Endicott?"
"Yes."
The lawyer who'd given Willis a lecture on male-female friendship.
"From what time to what time?" he said.
"You do think I killed Baz."
"I'm a cop doing his job," Willis said.
"I thought we were about to become friends," she said. "You told me you came here because you wanted to see me again."
"I said that was one of the reasons."
She sighed heavily.
"All right," she said, "fine. He picked me up here at seven."
"Where were you at seven-thirty?"
The time a neighbor had seen Basil Hollander in the elevator of his building on Addison Street.
"Eating," she said.
"Where?"
"A steak house called Fat City."
"Where?"
"On King and Melbourne."
All the way uptown. The Eight-Six? He was pretty sure King and Melbourne was in the Eight-Six, a hell of a long way from the Twelfth.
"What time did you leave the restaurant?"
"About nine."
"And went where?"
"To Chip's apartment."
"What time did you leave the apartment?"
"Around eight Monday morning."
"You spent the night with Mr. Endicott?"
"Yes."
Somehow that annoyed him.
"I'm sure he'll corroborate all this," he said.
"I'm sure he will," Marilyn said.
The M.E. had said Hollander was killed sometime late Sunday night or early Monday morning. According to Marilyn now (and surely according to Endicott when he got around to questioning him) they'd been in his apartment together from nine Sunday night to eight Monday morning. That was very nice. Unless one of them had gone out to skewer poor Baz.