“Could you just skip up to the present, Reverend,”
Rodriguez interrupted him. “Like how long have you been on the premises?”
“Since last night. Dwight and I always sleep together on Thursdays and—”
“Disgusting!” Cabot bit the dental floss in two.
“To each his own,” Regina remarked.
“Including to each his own his?” Rodriguez was disapproving. “Go on,” he told Petey-Sweetie.
“Anyway, when Mr. Cabot came, Dwight wanted to introduce me. He said it would shake the old man up. Dwight has a slightly sadistic sense of humor, but he doesn’t really mean anything by it. Still, that’s not my sort of thing. So I refused to meet his guardian. I went into the steam room. I fell asleep there. The next thing I know, this officer was waking me up and I was dragged in here. It was all I could do to grab this towel.”
“So you didn't see either Dr. Enright or Mr. Cabot?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you know Dr. Enright was here?”
“I knew he was expected. Dwight had this simply awful toothache. It simply raised havoc with our relationship earlier in the day.”
“I’ll bet,” Rodriguez murmured.
“He could barely open his mouth,” Petey-Sweetie remembered.
“And you a clergyman!” Cabot attacked a second piece of dental floss. “Revolting!”
“What it boils down to is that one of you has to be lying,” Lieutenant Rodriguez told them. “All three of you were in the house. No one of you saw either of the other two. But one of you is the murderer!” He stared intimidatingly at each of them in turn.
Regina tugged at Rodriguez’ sleeve. He bent so that she could whisper in his ear. “Not necessarily,” she hissed. “It could have been an outside job. Maybe the assailant slipped in, struck the blow, and slipped out without any of them seeing him.”
“Is that some more of your intuition?” Rodriguez whispered back.
“No,” Regina admitted reluctantly. “It’s not really a hunch. Just a possibility. I thought I should mention it.”
“I’m glad. Because, you see, when the first policeman got here, both the front door and the foyer door were locked from the inside. Dr. Enright had to unlatch them to let the officers in.”
“That’s just like what happened when Faith was murdered in my apartment,” Regina hissed urgently. “I told you there was a connection.”
“I could drive a Mack truck through the holes in that particular piece of logic!”
Just then there was a discreet tapping at the door. A policeman opened it halfway and beckoned to Lieutenant Rodriguez. He went out, closing the door behind him.
“Mr. Cabot.” Regina took advantage of the Lieutenant’s absence to ask her question. “Do you know Zelda Quinn?”
“No.”
“Well, she knows you. She says you sent her to Faith Venable to get a mantra.”
“Oh, yes. Now I remember her. The obnoxious young girl with the memory problem.”
“Did you often recommend people to Faith Venable?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with—”
“He recommended me.” Dr. Enright got even for having been socially snubbed before.
“Were you one of Faith Venable’s disciples yourself, Mr. Cabot?” Regina tried a shot in the dark.
“I don’t see what bearing my religious affiliation has on anything,” Cabot told Regina icily.
“Were you?” she persisted.
“Yes. But it’s really none of your business. Just who are you anyway? What gives you the right to question me?”
‘Tm Regina Blue. I work for ATOMICS. I’m assigned to the Faith Venable case.”
“Well, I shall certainly talk to Mr. MacTeague about changing that assignment. Since I’m the one who hired his organization’s services, I hardly think it fitting that a subordinate should try to question me!”
Before Regina could respond, Lieutenant Rodriguez re-entered. “Mr. Cabot, Dr. Enright, you’re free to leave,” he announced.
“What about me?” Petey-Sweetie’s voice quavered.
“I’m holding you on suspicion of attempted murder.”
“Why?”
“Yes, why?” Regina echoed Petey-Sweetie’s cry.
“The lab called,” Rodriguez told her. “His fingerprints are on the murder weapon. No others. Just his.”
“Naturally my prints are on it!” Petey-Sweetie was very agitated. “It’s my crucifix! It was a present from Dwight.”
“Is that all?” Regina asked Rodriguez.
“No, it’s not. Dwight Venable came out of his coma. The police inspector stationed at his bedside asked him if he could identify his assailant. Venable answered with one word: ‘Petey’.”
“He must have been hallucinating!” Petey-Sweetie protested. “He was thinking of me, that’s all. We’re always thinking of each other! Ask him again!”
“No can do,” Rodriguez said. “He slipped back into the coma.”
“Well, when he’s conscious again, he’ll tell you I had nothing to do with it!”
“Maybe. Maybe not. The doctor says there’s a three-to-one chance he’ll never regain consciousness.”
“You mean Dwight’s going to die?” Petey-Sweetie burst into tears.
Rodriguez led him sobbing from the room. “See you later,” he called over his shoulder to Regina. “I’ve got to take him down to the station and book him.”
Calvin Cabot followed them out. Dr. Enright checked his wristwatch. When he saw the time, he reacted like a man who’d forgotten to do something very important. He muttered something about having to wash his hands and headed towards the rear of the house where the bathroom was. Momentarily, Regina was left alone.
She mulled over what had transpired. It didn’t add up to her. Why would Petey-Sweetie have attacked Dwight Venable? And even if there was a reason, a lover’s quarrel as Rodriguez had suggested, or something else, that still didn’t explain what connection he could have had with Faith Venable’s murder. There was nothing to connect Petey-Sweetie up with Faith Venable at all. Calvin Cabot, on the other hand-—or Dr. Karl Enright . . .
Without having anything definite in mind, Regina decided it might pay to talk to the dentist. She headed towards the back of the house where the bathroom was. Halfway down the hall, she bumped into a policeman. “Have you seen Dr. Enright?” she asked.
“In there.” He jerked his thumb at a door further down the hallway. “Said he had to wash his hands. Some of these medical guys are real nuts about cleanliness, ain’t they? I never seen nobody in such a hurry to wash their hands. And you know it sounds more like he’s taking a bath.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just listen.”
Regina listened. A strange sound was coming from behind the bathroom door. For a moment it did indeed sound like someone singing in the tub.
“I don’t go for his choice of tunes though,” the cop remarked.
Regina could understand that. She had realized that Dr. Karl Enright wasn’t singing a song at all. He was chanting a mantra!
His mantra!
Regina knew now why he’d been so concerned with the time. The efficacy of Transcendental Meditation depended in part upon one’s mantra being chanted at regular intervals, once in the morning, and once in the evening. Dr. Enright had been thrown off schedule. Now he was making up for it by chanting his mantra intensely, wholeheartedly, loudly, oblivious to the fact that it was being overheard, unaware even of its being identified as his mantra by Regina.
But Regina had identified it. And with the identification came more than mere recognition. With it came a whole new slant on the murder of Faith Venable and the assault on her brother.
The mantra was like an accusing finger pointing at Dr. Karl Enright. That’s what Regina thought as she listened to it from the other side of the door. That’s what she thought as she listened to the hollow bath- room echo of-