“He’s killing everyone in the play, don’t you see?” she said.
“Who is, Mrs. Vale?”
“Well, I don’t know,” she said, and she lowered her eyes again, and again tugged at her skirt, but her skirt didn’t budge. “I thought so at first when I connected the names Forrest and Norden, but then I thought, ‘No, Helen, you’re imagining things.’ I have a very good imagination,” she explained, raising her eyes.
“Yes, Mrs. Vale, go on.”
“Then the girl got killed, I forget her name, and then Sal Palumbo, the nice Italian man who was studying English in night school, and then Andy Mulligan, and Rudy, and I knew for certain. I said to my husband: ‘Alec, somebody’s killing everyone who was in The Long Voyage Home in 1940 at Ramsey University.’ That’s what I said.”
“And what did your husband say?”
“He said, ‘You’re crazy, Helen.’ ”
“I see.”
“Crazy like a fox,” Helen said, her eyes narrowing. “So I decided to come up here.”
“Why? Do you have some information for us, Mrs. Vale?”
“No.” Helen wet her lips. “I’m an actress, you see.”
“I see.”
“Yes. Helen Vale. Do you think ‘Struthers’ would be better?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Helen Struthers. My maiden name. Does that sound better?”
“Well, no, this is fine.”
“Helen Vale sounds very good,” Meyer agreed, nodding.
“Pure,” she said. “Classical.”
“What?”
“Helen. It sounds pure and classical.”
“Yes, it does.”
“And Vale adds mystery, don’t you think? Vale. V-a-l-e. Which is my husband’s real name. But it can also be spelled V-e-i-l, which is what gives it the mystery. Helen Vale. A veil is very mysterious, you know.”
“It certainly is.”
“Being an actress, I decided I should come up here.”
“Why?”
“Well, what good is a dead actress?” Helen said. She shrugged and then spread her hands in utter simplicity.
“That’s true,” Meyer said.
“So here I am.”
“Yes,” Carella said.
Miscolo sauntered casually into the squadroom and said, “Anybody want some coffee? Oh, excuse me, I didn’t know you had a visitor.” He smiled graciously at Helen, and she returned the smile demurely and tugged at her skirt. “Would you like some coffee, miss?” he asked.
“No, thank you,” she said. “But thank you for asking.”
“Not at all,” Miscolo said, and he went out of the squadroom humming.
“I almost married a man named Leach,” Helen said. “Helen Leach, wouldn’t that have been terrible?”
“Awful,” Meyer agreed.
“Still, he was a nice fellow.”
“Miss Lea…Miss…uh…Mrs. Vale,” Carella said, “what do you remember about The Long Voyage Home?”
“I played Kate,” she said. She smiled.
“What else do you remember about it?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing at all?”
“It was lousy, I think. I don’t remember.”
“What do you remember about the other people in the cast?”
“The boys were all very sweet.”
“And the girls?”
“I don’t remember them.”
“Would you happen to know whether Margaret Buff ever married?”
“Margaret who?”
“Buff. She was in the play, too.”
“No. I don’t remember her.”
Two patrolmen wandered into the squadroom, went to the files, opened them, looked at Helen Vale where she sat with her legs crossed, and then went to the water cooler, where they drank three cups of water each while watching Helen Vale where she sat with her legs crossed. As they were leaving the squadroom, four more patrolmen wandered into the room. Carella frowned at them, but they all went about finding busywork that only happened to take Helen into their direct line of view.
“Have you been an actress ever since you got out of college, Mrs. Vale?” Carella asked.
“Yes.”
“Have you appeared on the stage here in this city?”
“Yes. I’m Equity, and AFTRA, and also SAG.”
“Mrs. Vale, has anyone ever made any threats on your life?”
“No.” Helen frowned. “That’s a very funny question. What’s this got to do with me alone, if the killer is after all of us?”
“Mrs. Vale, the wholesale slaughter may be just a smoke screen. He may be after one of you, and he may be killing the others to throw us off the track, to make it seem he has a different motive, other than what may be the real motive.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” Carella said.
“I didn’t understand a word of that,” Helen said.
“Oh. Well, you see…”
“Besides, that’s not what interests me. I mean, his motives or anything.”
There were fourteen patrolmen in the room now, and the word was spreading throughout the building, and perhaps the entire precinct, very rapidly. Only once during his entire career as a detective could Carella remember seeing so many patrolmen in the squadroom at one time, and that was when the commissioner had issued his edict against moonlighting, and every uniformed cop in the precinct had come upstairs to bellyache about it in a sort of open forum.
“What does interest you, Mrs. Vale?” he asked, and five more patrolmen came down the corridor and into the room.
“I think I need protection,” she said, and she lowered her eyes at that moment, as if she were talking not about the sniper who was going around shooting people, but about the patrolmen who were crowding into the room like migrating sardines.
Carella stood up suddenly and said, “Fellows, it’s getting a little stuffy in here. Why don’t you go have your meeting in the locker room?”
“What meeting?” one of the patrolmen asked.
“The meeting you’re going to have in the locker room in three seconds flat,” Carella said, “before I pick up the phone and have a talk with Captain Frick downstairs.”
The patrolmen began to disperse. One of them, in a very loud sotto voce, muttered the word “Chicken,” but Carella ignored it. He watched them as they left, and then he turned to Helen and said, “We’ll assign a man to you, Mrs. Vale.”
“I would appreciate that,” she said. “Who?”
“Well…I’m not sure yet. It depends on who’s available and what…”
“I’m sure he’ll be dependable,” she said.
“Mrs. Vale,” Carella said. “I wonder if you can try remembering about the play. I know it was a long time ago, but…”
“Actually, I have a very good memory,” Helen said.
“I’m sure you do.”
“Actresses need to have good memories, you know.”
“I know that.”
“Otherwise we’d never learn our lines,” Helen said, and she smiled.
“Good. What do you remember about the play?”
“Nothing,” Helen said.
“Everyone got along fine with each other, is that right?” Carella prodded.
“Oh, yes, it was a very nice group.”
“At the party, too, right? No trouble?”
“Oh, no, it was a lovely party.”
“You stayed late, is that right?”
“That’s right.” Helen smiled. “I always stay late at parties.”
“Where was this party, Mrs. Vale?”
“What party?” Helen asked.
“The one after the play.”
“Oh, that one. At Randy’s house, I think. Randy Norden. He was a regular rip. Very smart in school, you know, but oh what a rip! His parents were away in Europe, so we all went up there after the show.”
“And you and the other two girls stayed late, is that right?”