“You got a permit for this?” he asked, while across the street Meyer could see nothing, could hear only the clatter of Margaret’s heels around the corner.
“You goddamn fool,” Meyer said to the patrolman. “You want to find yourself walking a beat in Bethtown? Give me that gun!”
The patrolman suddenly recognized something in Meyer’s voice, a note of authority, a no-nonsense attitude that told him he might indeed be walking a beat in Bethtown if he didn’t cooperate with this bald bastard. He handed back the .38 immediately. Lamely he said, “You can understand…” But Meyer wasn’t in an understanding mood, nor did he even hear the patrolman’s words. He ran to the corner and turned it immediately. He could see Margaret Redfield halfway up the street, the dog hesitating near the lamppost, close to the curb. He began walking after her, ducking into doorways. He was perhaps 100 feet from her when she suddenly collapsed on the sidewalk.
He had heard no shot.
She fell swiftly and soundlessly, and the absence of sound magnified the event, because he knew she had been shot, and yet there was no clue to the sniper’s hiding place. He began running toward her, and then stopped, and then looked up at the rooftops on either side of the street, and realized suddenly that the shot could have come from any one of them. The terrier was barking now, no, not barking but wailing, a lonely terrible wail like the mournful sound of a coyote.
The woman, Meyer thought. Get to the woman.
The roof, he thought, get to the roof.
Which roof?
Where?
He stopped dead in the middle of the street.
The killer is up there somewhere, he thought, and his mind stopped working for a moment. The rain drumming around him, Margaret Redfield lying on the sidewalk ahead of him, the dog wailing, the patrolman coming around the corner curiously, Meyer’s mind clicked shut, he did not know what to do or where to turn.
He ran to the doorway of the building closest to the lamppost, ran reflexively, passing Margaret Redfield, who poured blood into the gutter while the dog wailed, ran without stopping to think it through, going there automatically because that was where the shot had most likely come from. Then he stopped on the sidewalk and shut his eyes for a moment, forced reason into his mind, forced himself to realize the killer would not come down on this block, he would leap the airshaft, cross over to one of the other buildings and try to make his escape either on the avenue or the next cross street.
He ran for the corner. He almost slipped on the slick, wet asphalt, regained his balance, ran with the gun in his right fist, pumping the air with both arms, reaching the corner and turning it, and running past the fire hydrant, and stopping before the entrance to the Redfields’ apartment building, and looking up at the still-lit windows, and then turning his eyes back to the street, and seeing nothing.
Where? he thought. Where are you?
He waited in the rain.
The patrolman discovered the body of Margaret Redfield around the corner. The terrier snapped at him when he tried to pick up her wrist to feel for a pulse beat. He kicked the dog in the chops with the side of his shoe, and then lifted her wrist. Blood was pouring down her arm from the wound in her shoulder. She was one hell of a mess, and it was raining, and the patrolman had heartburn.
But he had sense enough to know she wasn’t dead, and he immediately phoned the nearest hospital for an ambulance.
The sniper did not come down into the street where Meyer was waiting for him. Nor did Meyer suppose he was still on one of the roofs up there. No, he had guessed wrong, and that was that. The sniper had made his escape elsewhere, swallowed by the rain and the darkness, free to kill again.
As he holstered his gun, Meyer wondered how many mistakes a cop is allowed. Then, dejectedly, he looked up as he heard the sound of the approaching ambulance.
18
The hospital was shrouded in a slow, steady drizzle that echoed the grayness of its walls. They arrived there at 1:00 A.M., parked the car, and then went to the admissions desk, where a nurse told them Mrs. Redfield was in Room 407.
“Has Mr. Redfield arrived yet?” Meyer asked.
“Yes, he’s upstairs,” the nurse said. “Mrs. Redfield’s doctor is with her, too. You’ll have to check with him before talking to the patient.”
“We’ll do that,” Carella said.
They walked to the elevator. Carella pressed the call button, and then said, “Redfield got here fast enough.”
“He was in the shower when I went up to the apartment to tell him his wife had been wounded,” Meyer said. “Takes a shower every night before going to bed. That explains the bathroom light going on.”
“What’d he say when you told him?”
“He came to the door in a bathrobe, dripping water all over the floor. He said, ‘I should have taken the dog down myself.’ ”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all. Then he asked where his wife was, and said he’d dress and get right over here.”
They took the elevator up to the fourth floor, and waited in the corridor outside Margaret’s room. In ten minutes’ time, a white-haired man in his sixties came out of Room 407. He looked at his watch and was hurrying toward the elevators when Carella stopped him.
“Sir?” he said.
The man turned. “Yes?”
“Sir, are you Mrs. Redfield’s doctor?”
“I am,” the man said. “Dr. Fidio.”
“I’m Detective Carella of the 87th Squad. This is my partner, Detective Meyer.”
“How do you do?” Fidio said, and he shook hands with the men.
“We’d like to ask Mrs. Redfield some questions,” Carella said. “Do you think she’s up to it?”
“Well,” Fidio said skeptically, “I just gave her a sedative. I imagine it’ll begin working any minute. If this won’t take too long...”
“We’ll try to keep it short,” Carella promised.
“Please,” Fidio answered. He paused. “I can appreciate the gravity of what has happened, believe me, but I wish you’d try not to overtax Margaret. She’ll live, but she’ll need every ounce of strength she can summon.”
“We understand, sir.”
“And Lewis as well. I know you’ve got to ask questions, but he’s been through a great deal in the past month, and now this thing with…”
“The past month?” Carella said.
“Yes.”
“Oh, worrying about Margaret, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“Well, we can understand the strain he’s been under,” Carella said. “Knowing a sniper was at large and wondering when…”
“Yes, yes, that too, of course.”
Meyer looked at Fidio curiously. He turned to Carella, and saw that Carella was also staring at the doctor. The corridor outside Room 407 was suddenly very silent.
“That too?” Carella said.
“What do you mean?” Meyer said instantly.
“What else was bothering him?” Carella asked.
“Well, the entire business with Margaret.”
“What entire business, Dr. Fidio?”
“I hardly think this is germane to your case, gentlemen. Margaret Redfield was shot and almost killed tonight. This other thing is a private matter between her and her husband.” He looked at his watch again. “If you’re going to question her, you’d better hurry. That sedative…”
“Dr. Fidio, I think we ought to decide what’s germane to the case, don’t you? What was troubling Lewis Redfield?”
Dr. Fidio sighed deeply. He looked into the detectives’ faces, sighed again, and then said. “Well…” and told them what they wanted to know.
Margaret Redfield was asleep when they entered the room. Her husband was sitting in a chair beside her, a round-faced man with sad brown eyes and a dazed expression on his face. A black raincoat was draped over a chair on the other side of the room.