“Go chase an ambulance, you cheap shysterl” Rodriguez blew his cool. “Did he have a date with you?” he repeated to Regina.
“No.” She lied dully. What was the use? Betraying Barry——the cop-out louse!—wasn’t going to help her.
“Good evening.” The lawyer turned abruptly on his heel and walked firmly away.
Depressed as she was, the physical sign of rejection was one straw too many for Regina. “I hope your Goddam prostate rots from lack of massage!” she called after him.
Ears burning at the reminder of his problem and Regina’s ministrations, “Counsel-of-your-choice” turned the next corner and was gone.
Men! Regina was bitter during the ride to the police station. She’d been coping with Barry’s prostate for two years. At the least she’d thought they were friends. And when she needed him the most, he behaved as if she meant no more to him than the wife who’d been refusing to sleep with him for the past ten years. Men!
The girls at the “Consciousness-Raising” session had been right. All men were exploiters; all women were exploited. And, Regina realized, with all the goodies which had come her way, she was as exploited as any of them.
It was true. Prostitution was a sell-out of her sex. If she ever got out of this mess, Regina decided, she really was going to quit the profession. Never again was she going to subject herself to the masculine callousness of a man like Barry.
This time she meant it! Really meant it! Her decision was made, and she would stick by it! Never again would Regina play for pay!
When they reached the stationhouse, the reporters and photographers were waiting. Word had leaked that an heiress had been murdered and a jet-set beauty taken into custody. It had all the elements of a front-page story, and the press was quick to close in on it.
“MURDER ON PARK AVENUE” was one paper’s headline the next morning. A quarter-page close-up of Regina Blue appeared under it. The lensman had snapped her turning her head, hair swirling around her face—a cat in mid-air, caught pouncing on a mouse. The up-from-under shot accentuated her breasts, sweater clinging to reveal them braless, nipples faintly outlined, a lascivious touch to liven up the libidos of morning newspaper readers.
One such reader was Hubert Knotts. He studied the picture carefully, read the dramatically beefed-up story, and glanced at the inside photo of Faith Venable’s body with the carving knife sticking out of it. Then he read the story again, slowly, and once more stared at the close-up of Regina Blue.
Hubert Knotts sighed to himself. He had no choice. He must go to the police immediately and confess!
An hour later Hubert Knotts wheeled himself into the Homicide Division office of Lieutenant Rodriguez, waving away a young policeman who moved to help him manipulate his wheelchair. Rodriguez sized him up: florid face, neatly combed sandy hair, close-trimmed moustache, square jaw, blue eyes clear and steady. Knotts’ tweed jacket didn’t hide the musculature of his upper torso; his chest was broad, his shoulders powerful, his hands large and strong looking. By contrast Knotts’ legs seemed thin and spindly. They looked useless, and indeed they were.
“Paraplegic.” Knotts answered the unspoken question. “Since Korea . . . I’m here about the Venable murder.” He spoke with a clipped, upper-class British accent. “But first I want to discuss diplomatic immunity.”
“Are you claiming such immunity?”
“Not officially. I’m an Undersecretary in Her Majesty’s delegation to the United Nations, so I qualify. I can’t be forced to give testimony. Neither here, nor in an American courtroom. But, frankly, it would be an embarrassment to me and to the delegation if I had to fall back on that right. It would be an even greater embarrassment to me personally if the information I have for you should reach the ears of my superiors. Do We understand each other, sir?”
“You won’t talk unless I promise to keep it confidential. Is that it?”
“Correct. And if you break that promise, I’ll deny everything I’ve told you.”
“I understand. You have my promise. Shoot.”
“Regina Blue did not kill Faith Venable,” Knotts stated firmly.
“I’m listening.”
“I read the newspaper account of the murder very carefully,” Hubert Knotts continued. “I paid particular attention to the time element. I ask you now if it was reported correctly?”
“Regina Blue says she received a phone call from Faith Venable some time between seven-thirty and eight.” Lieutenant Rodriguez rattled it off from memory. “She claims the victim and her brother arrived at eight promptly while she was taking a shower in the bathroom. She’s firm on the time because, she says, she heard her grandfather clock chiming the hour. She finished showering, dressed, combed her hair, went into the living-room and discovered the body. She called us at eight-twenty-seven. The desk sergeant who took her call logged the time. We arrived at eight-fifty. The Medical Examiner sets the time of death between seven-thirty and eight-thirty.”
“Then the newspaper report was accurate,” Knotts said. “And Regina Blue couldn’t have committed the murder. You see, Lieutenant, with two brief exceptions——which I’ll explain in a minute—Miss Blue was never out of my sight between seven-thirty and eight-fifty. I was watching her virtually every moment of that time.”
“You were watching her?” Lieutenant Rodriguez stared at the man in the wheelchair. “How? Why?”
“ ‘How’ first,” Knotts replied. “The answer is through high-powered binoculars. You see, I have a penthouse apartment about half a block away from Miss Blue’s building. On the side street. My rear study windows face the windows of Miss Blue’s bedroom and bathroom. My building is one story higher, so actually I look down on these windows. With binoculars the view is clear and unobstructed.”
“Binoculars? But why --?”
“I’m a bird watcher, Lieutenant.”
“A bird watcher? On Park Avenue in midtown New York? At night? Why, even the pigeons—”
“I use the word ‘bird’ in its slang British sense,” Knotts interrupted. “It means ‘girl’.”
“In other words you’re a Peeping Tom!” Rodriguez’ disgust was obvious. “You spy on women undressing! What do you do? Watch them through your binoculars and whack off?”
“If you mean do I masturbate while watching them, the answer is affirmative.”
“Jesus! Why the hell don’t you go out and get a girl like any normal man?”
“Because I’m not a normal man,” Knotts replied. “I’m a paraplegic. I can’t have intercourse with a woman. There is no way. Because of the nature of the damage to my particular ganglia, the most delicate manipulation is required. Nobody, no woman, can do it for me. Only I can do it for myself. Of course I have to be inspired. Don’t begrudge me my inspiration, Lieutenant.”
Rodriguez scowled. “All right. So you were peeping at Regina Blue. What time did you start?”
“A minute or two before seven-thirty. I had the radio on, and the seven-thirty news was announced just as I was focusing my binoculars. Miss Blue was already nude.” Knotts smiled, remembering. “Miss Blue is fantastically well-—”
“Skip the commercial. Then what?”
“After about fifteen minutes of puttering, she went from the bedroom to the bathroom and started to get into the stall shower. The way her window was raised, I could look down over the top of the shower door and into the stall itself. Anyway, the telephone must have rung because she went back into the bedroom and took it from its cradle. She spoke briefly, replaced the telephone, and went into another room where I couldn’t see her. She was gone perhaps thirty seconds—no more-—certainly not long enough to commit murder—and then she returned to the shower-stall.”