“I think they are connected!” Regina insisted.
“And just what the hell do you base that on?”
“Intuition.”
“With that and a token, you can get on the subway.” Rodriguez dismissed her hunch and turned to one of the detectives in the living--room. “Have you found the murder weap— what he was hit with?” he asked.
“Yeah. It was lying right beside him, covered with blood. The boys took it down to the lab.”
“What was it?”
“A crucifix.”
“Huh?”
“That’s right. A large crucifix, about a foot and a half by two feet, made out of bronze with some kind of jewels on it.”
“Jewels?”
“Looked like rubies and emeralds.”
“Real ones?” Rodriguez inquired.
“Search me. I’m no appraiser. I guess the lab boys will find out.”
“One of the bozos inside claims they’re real,” a second detective told Rodriguez. “He says the cross belongs to him, that it was a gift from that Venable queer. A damn expensive gift if he’s telling the truth. Why would Venable give him a present like that?”
“Maybe he’s queer too,” Rodriguez suggested.
“He don’t look it. He’s a pretty brawny guy.”
“Are all cops that naive?” Regina whispered to Rodriguez.
He ignored her. “Any leads?” he wanted to know.
“Just three bona fide suspects. They were all here when the mur—- crime took place. We’re holding them inside.” The detective jerked his thumb towards the doorway.
Regina followed Rodriguez into the next room. It was a sort of combination study and library. A uniformed policeman admitted them. The room was silent. The three men seated in the gloom there, each lost in his own thoughts, weren’t talking.
Rodriguez switched on the light. They looked up at him questioningly. Still nobody said anything.
Regina recognized the man she’d met with Dwight Venable in the steam room during her last visit. Petey-Sweetie, the Reverend Peter Norbert, was naked except for a bath towel knotted around his middle. He adjusted it nervously when his gaze met Regina’s.
The other two men wore business suits, one conservative, one a rather flashy Glen plaid. The man in the gray suit, the older of the two, identified himself as Calvin Cabot. The other man told Rodriguez his name was “Dr. Karl Enright.”
“You’re a physician?” Rodriguez followed up.
“No. A dentist.”
Regina’s ears had perked up. “Dr. Karl Enright” was one of the names on Faith Venable’s list of suspects. With Tex Kincaid, José de Galindez and Zelda Quinn to some extent ruled out, he was the only suspect left. He—-and whoever’s name had been torn off the list.
“When did you get here?” Rodriguez asked.
Dr. Enright told him.
“That would be just before Venable was attacked,” Rodriguez deduced. “Why did you come?”
“Dwight Venable is a patient of mine. He had a toothache.”
“And now he’s got a headache from having his cranium cracked open,” Rodriguez observed. “A dentist who makes house calls,” he continued, musing. “In this day and age? You deserve the Gold Tooth Award of the Year.”
Dr. Enright returned his gaze levelly and remained silent.
“Isn’t that pretty unusual?” the Lieutenant persisted.
“Yes. I don’t usually make house calls. But this was an emergency. He called me at my home and said he was in pain. I live not far from here, so I came over to have a look and maybe give him a shot so he could sleep through the night. Then I could see him in my office in the morning.”
“I see. And where were you when he got his conk bonked?”
“His ‘conk bonked’? Oh. I see. I was in the kitchen sterilizing a hypo needle. You see, I’d examined him in the living-room. When I came back, I found him lying on the floor bleeding from the head. At first I thought he was dead. I called the police. Then I felt for a pulse. It was faint, but still beating.”
“Did you give him medical assistance?”
“No. I may have flunked out of medical school before I settled on dentistry, but I know enough not to fool around with a head injury. I just waited for the cops to get here. The police doctor treated him and sent for an ambulance.”
“Where were these two fellows while all this was going on?” Rodriguez indicated Calvin Cabot and Petey-Sweetie.
“You’ll have to ask them that.”
“You didn’t see them?”
“No.”
“Not before, or after the crime was committed?”
“No. The first I saw of him”—-Dr. Enright pointed to Petey-sweetie-—“was when he came into the living-room in that towel just as the police were coming through the front door. And I didn’t see Mr. Cabot until a few minutes later when a policeman brought him in here.”
“You know Mr. Cabot?”
“Yes. He’s also a patient of mine.”
“Well, Mr. Cabot, that would seem to bring us to you.” Rodriguez turned towards him.
Cabot was calm and frosty. “As far as I know, what Dr. Enright has told you is true,” he said. “At least insofar as it pertains to me. I am a patient of his. We did not meet on these premises until the police escorted me into this room.”
“And how long have you been in the house?”
“Since about an hour before Dwight was attacked.”
“What were you doing here?”
“There were some business matters to be gone over. Dwight is negligent about coming to my office and I frequently have to come here—-once a month on the average, I’d say — to go over with him papers pertaining to the Venable estate.” Calvin Cabot produced a piece of dental floss from his pocket. “Excuse me,” he said. He ran it quickly through his teeth. “I had mutton for dinner and it was stringy,” he explained.
“You should brush after every meal,” Dr. Enright told him.
“I had no opportunity.” Cabot’s tone was icy.
“Where were you when the attack took place?” Lieutenant Rodriguez asked Cabot.
“In the upstairs parlor. That’s where Dwight and I had been going over the papers. I remained there when he went down to admit Dr. Enright. He’d told me of his toothache. I’m super-sensitive to such things and I have an empathetic reaction. My own teeth start to hurt. So I saw no reason to go down with him and subject myself to the experience.”
“It’s psychosomatic.” Dr. Enright’s diagnosis was meant to be informative. “Mr. Cabot has no teeth of his own to hurt. He wears dentures.”
Calvin Cabot glared at him. He took out the dental floss and worked it around his false teeth again. “Since you know Dr. Enright,” Rodriguez ventured idly, “Wouldn’t it have been natural for you to go down and say hello?”
“I do not socialize with my dentist.” Cabot said icily from around the dental floss.
Dr. Enright pouted.
“When Venable didn’t return, didn’t you wonder what happened to him?” Rodriguez asked.
“No. I simply assumed he was with the dentist. I didn’t know anything had happened until the police-man walked into the upstairs parlor.”
“Then of course it wasn’t you who bashed in his brains.”
“That question doesn’t deserve an answer.” Cabot sawed savagely with the dental floss, his anger obvious.
“How about you?” Rodriguez turned to Petey-Sweetie.
“Me? I wouldn’t harm a hair on Dwight’s head. I love him. What reason would I have to hurt him?”
“Disgusting!” Cabot bit down hard on the dental floss.
“A lover’s quarrel, maybe,” Rodriguez suggested to Petey-Sweetie.
He flushed. “No.”
“Well, let’s hear your story then.”
“I first got the call when I was sixteen. I was ordained a Minister of the Gospel at twenty-one. My first parish—”