In the living area, Willis said, "We'll want that bottle tagged and sent to the lab. Anybody touch it?"
"Not me," Charlie said at once.
"Me, either," Frank said.
"I tented it," the sergeant said.
"Why?" the captain asked Willis. "You think something's in that scotch?"
"Nicotine," Willis said.
"You a doctor?" the M.E. said.
"No, but…"
"Then let me do the post-mortem, okay?"
Willis glared at him for a moment, and then walked over to where Carella was standing beside the work table. He looked down at the package of cigarettes and the lighter.
"Is it hers?" Carella asked.
Willis nodded.
"Did you know she was coming here?"
"Yes."
"Okay, who talks to her?"
"I do," Willis said.
CHAPTER 12
He sat alone in the living room. When he'd left for work this morning, she told him she'd be going first to Riley's loft—"To end it," she'd said—and then uptown to do some shopping. She said she'd be back at about one o'clock and she promised to call him at the squadroom then, to let him know how it had gone.
The clock on the mantel over the fireplace ticked noisily.
It was now a minute to one.
He kept thinking someone had ended it for Riley, all right, someone had laced his scotch with nicotine and sent him to join McKennon and Hollander. Three of her close buddies dead and gone now. Only Endicott left and she planned to meet him for a drink sometime next week, break the news to him. "End it" with him, too.
The clock chimed.
A single chime.
Ding.
Into the silence of the living room.
He kept waiting.
He heard her key in the latch at a quarter past one. She came in, put her shoulder bag on the table just inside the door and was starting for the stairs leading to the upper stories when she saw him sitting there.
"Hey, hi!" she said, surprised. "What are you doing home?"
"Riley's dead," he said.
Flat out, shoot from the hip and shoot to kill.
"What!"
"You heard me."
"Dead?"
"Dead. Tell me everything that happened there, Marilyn."
"Why? You don't think…"
"If you don't tell me, you'll have to tell Carella. He knows you were there. You left your cigarette lighter behind, and two blues have already described you."
"So now I'm a suspect again, is that it?"
"You never quit being one. Not on Carella's block."
"I didn't kill Nelson. For Christ's sake, I was only there a few minutes!"
"Who said he was killed?"
"You said he was dead, I'm assuming it wasn't a goddamn heart attack!"
"Tell me everything that happened. From the time you got there till the time you left."
Marilyn sighed.
"I'm listening," Willis said.
"I got there at a little past ten, it must have been."
"And left when?"
"Around… I don't know exactly. Ten-thirty?"
"That's a half-hour, not a few minutes."
"Yes, about a half-hour."
"All right, what happened in that half-hour?"
"He offered me a drink, we had some coffee, I told him—"
"What did he offer you to drink?"
"Scotch."
"Did you drink any of it?"
"No. It smelled awful."
"You smelled it?"
"Yes."
"You handled the bottle?"
"Yes. I took the cork off the bottle and smelled it."
"What'd it smell like?"
"Awful."
"What kind of a smell, Marilyn?"
"How do I know? How do you describe a smell? It smelled like scotch. Awful."
"Only like scotch?"
"Yes. I think so. Why? Was something in it?"
"What'd you do then?"
"I put the cork back on the bottle, and I put the bottle back on the shelf. Was Nelson poisoned? Was something in that bottle?"
"Then what?"
"Answer me, damn it!"
"He was poisoned, yes."
"Christ! My fingerprints are on that bottle! That gives your partner everything he needs, doesn't it?"
"If your fingerprints are in fact on the bottle…"
"Of course they are!"
"And if the contents test out poison…"
"You know they will!"
"Then the police will want to know a lot more about what you did with that bottle."
"All I did was… what do you mean the police? Your partner, do you mean? Or you, too?"
"I'm still listening," Willis said.
"I didn't put anything in that bottle!"
"You just picked it off the shelf…"
"Yes."
"… and took out the cork…"
"Yes, damn it!"
"… and sniffed the scotch."
"Yes!"
"Why?"
"Because Nelson said it was very good stuff. Twelve years old, he said. So I… wanted to… I was curious. I've never liked scotch, I thought maybe twelve-year-old stuff might smell better than what I'd had before. It always smells like medicine to me."
"But this didn't smell like medicine."
"I don't know what it smelled like! I told you! It smelled awful."
"Did it smell like tobacco?"
"I don't know."
"Think!"
"If I say it smelled like tobacco, then I'm clean, right? He was poisoned with nicotine, isn't that it? The same as Jerry. So if I say I smelled tobacco, then the nicotine was already in the bottle when I picked it up. But I'm telling you the truth! I don't know what it smelled like! I took a quick sniff and then put the cork…"
"Okay," Willis said, and sighed. "Then what?"
"We drank some coffee, I told him I wanted to end it."
"How did he react?"
"He didn't like the idea."
"You told him about us?"
"Yes."
Willis nodded.
"Then what?"
"He wanted me to go to bed with him."
"Did you?"
"No!"
"What did you do?"
"I kissed him on the cheek and left."
"Uh-huh."
"I said goodbye and left."
"And ten minutes later, twenty minutes later, he was dead."
"I didn't kill him!"
"How much time did you spend with that bottle?"
"A minute. Less than a minute. All I did was…"
"Get your bag."
"What?"
"Your bag. There on the table."
"Why?"
"I want to see what's in it."
"There isn't nicotine in it, if that's what you…"
"Get it."
She went to where she'd put the bag when she came in, carried it to where he was sitting and unceremoniously turned it upside down, dumping its contents on the floor near his feet.
"Have a good time," she said. "I'm going to have a drink."
She went to the bar and poured a hefty portion of gin onto three ice cubes. She took a good swallow and then walked back to where he was sifting through the stuff at his feet. Lipstick, eye liner, makeup brush, tissues, chewing gum, a red wallet, a checkbook, keys, some loose change…
"Find a vial of poison?" she asked.
He began putting the stuff back into the bag.
"Where'd you go when you left Riley's loft?"
"Uptown."
"To do what?"
"I told you I had some shopping to do."
"What'd you buy?"
"Nothing. I was looking for a pair of earrings, but I didn't see anything I liked."
"You shopped from ten-thirty till…"
"I shopped till about noon. Then I had a sandwich…"
"Where?"
"In a luncheonette off Jefferson."
"Then what?"
"I took a taxi and came home."
"Got here at a quarter past one."