"Mmh, yes, it seems rather an impossibility." Mendoza’s tone was only faintly sardonic. "When he was confined to a wheelchair, he couldn’t even get downstairs by himself. And couldn’t, of course, drive-though you have a car."
"We were going to sell it. A young man down the street wishes to buy it. It is too expensive to operate an auto now. No, he could not have driven."
"You told Carey your husband had threatened suicide?"
She said carefully, "He has been very-very despondent about life, since the baby died." Her mouth twisted a little. "He was fond of little Katzchen. Before, he had been-a little optimistic, that perhaps in time the doctors could make him walk again. But lately, it was as if-he said, there was nothing, no reason to go on living, he was only a worry and a burden to me, and it was not right."
"And how did you feel about it? The same way?" asked Mendoza.
She looked surprised. "I? It was-a thing life had brought to us. How should I feel? I was sorry."
"Mmh, yes," said Mendoza. "You work long hours here? Walk to work and home again?"
"Yes. I am here mornings and evenings, six days a week." She looked at him impassively and then said, not raising her voice, "You do not believe me either. That other policeman, that Carey, he asked questions over and over again, who are our friends, do I have a special friend, perhaps a special man friend, what did I do that day, where did I go, were there any telephone calls-and the other girls here, Betty and Angela who work with me, he asked them questions about me. It is almost a little funny." But she was looking angry. "Do you all think I have murdered my husband? That is very funny indeed, how could I do that? Even if I were so wicked?"
"Did you?" asked Mendoza.
"Please do not be so foolish. I beg your pardon," she said tiredly. "I know the police always have to deal with criminals, wicked people, and perhaps you come to suspect everyone is so. You have to find out, ask questions, to know. But all I can do is tell you the truth. I do not know what has happened to Edwin."
Mendoza had stubbed out his cigarette, now lit another. "You came home that day, nearly two weeks ago-two weeks ago tomorrow-at about five o’clock? You got oif here at two, and went shopping, you said. It was raining very heavily that day."
Her eyes fell before his. "Yes," she said. "Yes. I am-you forget-European, I am used to the rain."
For no reason Galeano’s heart missed a beat. There was a curious purity of outline to her wide forehead, and that mass of tawny hair-she looked like a Saxon madonna. But this story-this impossible tale-and there, just one second, she had flinched over something.
"And found your husband gone? Missing from his wheelchair. Did you look for a suicide note?"
"Yes, yes, yes. I would have thought he would leave such a note, if he meant to kill himself. There was nothing. I looked all about the apartment building, I thought if he had jumped out a window-"
"But he couldn’t have jumped," said Conway.
"No, no, a figure of speech. I have said all this before, it must be in reports. There was no one else in the house except the old man, Offerdahl. He was drunk, he could not say anything. I said, since we are living there, just a few times when I came home Edwin had been drinking, and it is this Offerdahl who has done it, brought him drink. I did not--"
"Did it make him less despondent'?" asked Conway deadpan.
"No, it did not! It was very bad for him. All this, it is all I can tell you. When I had looked, I called the police and told them. Then this Carey came, and his men, and asked questions and looked at the apartment, and they did not believe me. Do you want to look at my apartment also?"
"Why, I think we would," said Mendoza cheerfully.
"Thanks so much, Mrs. Fleming."
She stood up abruptly. "I will get you the key."
They watched her stalk past the curtain. "Now that is some blonde," said Conway. "Different type than I expected. And a very, very nice act. She’s smart not to try to ham it up with my God what’s happened to poor darling Edwin, I don’t think she’s that good an actress."
"You could be right," said Mendoza meditatively, and Galeano exploded at them.
"My good God in heaven, a child in arms could see that girl’s as innocent and honest as-as a nun!" he said furiously. "Of course she’s not acting, she wouldn’t know how-I know what the story sounds like, but I’ll be Goddamned if I don’t believe it, that girl is as transparently honest as-as-"
"?Que hombre! " said Mendoza, staring at him. "Don’t tell me our confirmed bachelor has fallen for a suspect."
"You go to hell, of course I haven’t fallen for her, if you want to be vulgar," said Galeano. "But I’d think anybody could see-" He stopped as the curtains came apart and she marched up to Mendoza, stiffly erect.
"Here is the key. You will know the address. I ask only that you return it before I must go home, I have no other. There are no secrets there, you may look as you please."
"Thanks so much," said Mendoza. She marched out again, her shoulders squared. "Saint Nicholas to the defense of accused womanhood! We don’t need Carey to point out obvious facts. Who had a motive to be rid of him?"
"You’re only inferring that, as the cheap Goddamned cynics you both are," said Galeano hotly. "For all we know, she was still mad in love with him-"
"Ha-ha," said Conway. "And you’ve been on the force how long?"
"Peace, ninos," said Mendoza. "Since the lady handed over the key so obligingly, I’ll believe her that far, there aren’t any secrets there. But I’d like to see the wheelchair, and the general terrain. Come on."
He and Conway went on discussing it on the way over there in the Ferrari, while Galeano sat in silence in the little jump seat behind. For the first time he realized that this job held a built-in hazard, just as she’d said: too many cops, from too much experience, automatically expected the lies, the hypocrisy, the guilt. Conway was a cynic from the word go, but Galeano would have expected more insight from the boss. That girl was so shiningly honest-and when you thought what she’d been through- And then to have all the cops come poking around suspecting her, Dio, it was a wonder she’d been as polite as she had.
But just what, inquired the remnant of his common sense, had happened to Edwin Fleming? It was raining again. (Just why had she minded that question about her shopping trip?) The narrow old streets down from Wilshire were dispirited and drably gray in the drizzle. The six-family apartment, when they went into it, was silent as the grave. Everybody here out at work, except the bibulous Mr. Offerdahl. There was a tiny square lobby with a single row of locked mailboxes. They climbed uncarpeted stairs, steep and slanted old stairs-no, a man in a wheelchair couldn’t have come down here, and if he had somehow crawled down, where had he gone from there?-to the second of three floors. There were two doors opposite each other in a short hall. Galeano remembered Mrs. Del Sardo across the hall, who had seen Fleming that morning as Marta said good-bye to him.
Mendoza fitted the key in the lock and opened the door.
It was a small, old, inconvenient apartment: what she could afford. But it was all as shiningly clean as the restaurant where she worked, furniture polished, stove and kitchen counter-top immaculate; that was a German girl for you, thought Galeano. There was the wheelchair, pushed to one side of the little living room, a steel and gray-green canvas affair. A few pieces of solid dark furniture, probably chosen with care at secondhand stores, possibly several pieces bought before his accident, when he was still earning and they were planning a home of their own. Just the one bedroom, sparsely furnished: a small square bathroom, a minimum of cosmetics in the medicine cabinet. She had wonderful skin, milk-white, evidently didn’t use much on it.
"There is," said Mendoza, "only one little thing in my mind, boys." He looked out the rear window in the bedroom. "Yes, even as Carey said-who was to see anything there was to see?" This was a square building on a short lot. There was a single driveway to a row of six connected single garages across the back; and on the lot behind a building had recently been torn down. The old house across from the driveway was vacant, with a FOR RENT sign in front of it. "Just one thing," said Mendoza. "When did she have time?"