“Where?”
“Minneapolis, Minnesota.”
“Did you try to reach him there?”
“I’m afraid the school authorities would have frowned upon a long-distance call, Mr. Carella. But I do have the address, and I will give it to you if you promise me one thing.”
“What’s that, Miss Moriarty?”
“I want you to promise that if I ever get a speeding ticket, you’ll fix it for me.”
“Why, Miss Moriarty!” Carella said. “Don’t tell me you’re a speeder!”
“Would I admit something like that to a cop?” Miss Moriarty asked. “I’m waiting for you to promise.”
“What makes you think I can fix a ticket?”
“I have heard it bruited about that one can fix anything but narcotics or homicide in this city.”
“And do you believe that?”
“Assault costs a hundred dollars on the line, I’ve been told. Burglary can be fixed for five hundred.”
“Where do you get your information, Miss Moriarty?”
“For a maiden lady,” Miss Moriarty said, “I get around.”
“I can arrest you for attempting to bribe an officer, and also for withholding information,” Carella said, smiling.
“What information? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Peter Kelby’s last-known address.”
“Who’s Peter Kelby?” Miss Moriarty said, and Carella burst out laughing.
“Okay, okay,” he said, “you’ve got my promise. No guarantees, you understand, but I’ll certainly try….”
“Have you got a pencil?” Miss Moriarty asked.
The telephone operator supplied Carella with a number listed to the address of Peter Kelby in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He asked her if she would try the number for him, and then he listened to a series of clickings and bongs and chimes on the line, and finally he heard the phone ringing on the other end, lo, those many miles away, and then a woman answered the phone and said, “Kelby residence.”
“May I speak to Mr. Kelby, please?” Carella said.
“Who’s calling, please?” the voice asked.
“Detective Stephen Carella.”
“Just a minute, please.”
Carella waited. He could hear a voice calling to someone on the other end, and then he heard someone asking “Who?” and the original voice saying, “A Detective Carella,” and then the sound of footsteps approaching the phone, and the sound of the phone being lifted from the tabletop, and then a different woman’s voice saying, “Hello?”
“Hello,” Carella said. “This is Detective Carella of the 87th Squad in Isola. I’m calling…”
“Yes? This is Mrs. Kelby speaking.”
“Mrs. Peter Kelby?”
“Yes, that’s right. What is it?”
“May I speak to your husband, please, Mrs. Kelby?” Carella said.
There was a long pause on the line.
“Mrs. Kelby?”
“Yes?”
“May I…?”
“Yes, I heard you.”
There was another pause.
Then Mrs. Kelby said, “My husband is dead.”
Which, of course, explained only one thing.
Peter Kelby had been shot to death on May 4. He had been killed while driving to the country club for a drink, as was his habit, after a long week of labor in the insurance office he headed. The Remington .308 slug had smashed through the windshield and entered his throat, and the automobile had swerved out of control and hit a milk truck going in the opposite direction. Peter Kelby was dead before the vehicles struck each other. But the murderer now had a few residual benefits to his credit, since there were two men in the cab of the milk truck and when Kelby’s car hit it, one of the men went through the windshield and had his jugular severed by a shard of glass, and the other wrenched at the wheel in an attempt to keep the truck on the road, and suddenly discovered that the steering shaft was pushing up into his chest. That was the last discovery he ever made, because he was dead within the next ten seconds.
The three deaths explained only one thing.
They explained why there had been no murders in the city between May 2, when Andrew Mulligan was killed, and May 7, when Rudy Fenstermacher was killed.
It is very difficult for someone to be in two places at the same time.
The woman walked into the squadroom at exactly 5:37, just as Carella and Meyer were leaving for home. Carella was in the middle of sentence containing a choice bit of profanity, the words “Now why the f—” stopping immediately in his throat when the woman appeared at the slatted rail divider.
She was a tall redhead, with a creamy pale complexion and slanted green eyes. She wore a dark-green suit that captured the color of her eyes and captured, too, the mold of her body, classically rounded, narrow-waisted, wide-hipped. She was pushing forty, but there was contained voluptuousness in the woman who stood at the railing, and Meyer and Carella—both married men—caught their breaths for an instant, as though a fantasy had suddenly materialized. Down the corridor, and behind the woman, Miscolo—who had caught a glimpse of her as she passed his open door—peeked around the jamb of the clerical office for a better look, and then rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.
“Yes, miss?” Carella said.
“I’m Helen Vale,” she said.
“Yes, Miss Vale?” Carella said. “What can we do for you?”
“Mrs. Vale,” she corrected.
“Yes, Mrs. Vale?”
“Helen Struthers Vale.”
She spoke in a normally deep voice that carried the unmistakable stamp of elocution lessons. She kept both hands on the slatted rail divider, clinging to it as if it were a lover. She waited patiently, as though embarrassed by her surroundings, and embarrassed, too, by the mature ripeness of her own body. And yet, her own awareness seemed to heighten the awareness of the observer. She was a potential rape victim expecting the worst, and inviting it through dire expectation. It took several seconds for the detectives to extract the maiden name “Struthers” from the names fore and aft, and then to separate it from the heavy miasma of sensuality that had suddenly smothered the room.
“Come in, Mrs. Vale,” Carella said, and he held open the gate in the railing for her.
“Thank you,” she said. She lowered her eyes as she passed him, like a novice nun who has reluctantly taken a belated vow of chastity. Meyer pulled a chair out from one of the desks and held it for her while she sat. She crossed her legs, her skirt was short, it rode up over splendid knees, she tugged at it but it refused to yield, she sat in bursting provocative awareness.
Meyer wiped his brow.
“We’ve been trying to locate you, Mrs. Vale,” Carella said. “You are the Helen Struthers who…”
“Yes,” she said.
“We assumed you were married, but we didn’t know to whom, and we had no idea where to begin looking because this is a very large city, and although we tried…” He abruptly stopped speaking, wondering why he was talking so rapidly and so much.
“Anyway, we’re glad you’re here,” Meyer said.
Carella wiped his brow.
“Yes, I thought I should come,” Helen said, “and now I’m glad I did.” She delivered these last words as if she were paying tribute to the two most handsome, charming, gallant, intelligent men in the world. Both detectives smiled unconsciously, and then, catching the smile on the other’s face, frowned and tried to become businesslike.
“Why did you come, Mrs. Vale?” Carella said.
“Well…because of the shootings,” Helen answered, opening her eyes wide.
“Yes, what about them?”