“Hello, Mr. Redfield,” Carella said.
“Hello, Detective Carella,” Redfield answered. Behind his chair, rain stained the window, crawling over the glass, dissolving the pane in globs of running light.
“Dr. Fidio tells us your wife is going to pull through.”
“Yes, I hope so,” Redfield said.
“It’s no fun getting shot,” Meyer said. “In the movies, it all looks so clean and simple. But it isn’t any fun.”
“I don’t imagine it is,” Redfield said.
“I take it you’ve never been shot,” Carella said.
“No.”
“Were you in the service?”
“Yes.”
“What branch, Mr. Redfield?”
“The Army.”
“Did you see combat?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know how to use a rifle?”
“Oh, yes,” Redfield said.
“Our guess is you know how to use it pretty well, Mr. Redfield.”
Redfield looked suddenly alert. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Our guess is you were an expert shot during the war, is that right, Mr. Redfield?”
“I was only fair.”
“Then you must have learned an awful lot since.”
“What do you mean?” Redfield asked again.
“Mr. Redfield,” Meyer said, “where did you go tonight when your wife left the apartment with the dog?”
“I went into the shower.”
“Which shower?”
“What…what do you mean…the shower,” Redfield said. “The shower.”
“In your bathroom…or on the roof?”
“What?”
“It’s raining, Mr. Redfield. Is that why you missed killing her? Is that why you only hit her in the shoulder?”
“I don’t know what you…who are you…my wife, do you mean? Are you talking about Margaret?”
“Yes, Mr. Redfield. We are talking about your knowing your wife would take the dog down sometime before midnight. We are talking about your going up to the roof the moment she left the apartment, and crossing over to a building around the corner, and waiting for her to come around the block. That is what we are talking about, Mr. Redfield.”
“I…that’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Why, I…I was in the shower when it…when it all happened. I even came to the door in my bathrobe. I…”
“How long does it take to shoot someone, get back down to the apartment, and hop into the tub, Mr. Redfield?”
“No,” Redfield said. He shook his head. “No.”
“Yes, Mr. Redfield.”
“No.”
“Mr. Redfield,” Carella said, “we just had a chat with Dr. Fidio in the hall outside. He told us that you and Mrs. Redfield have been trying to have a baby since you were married two years ago. Is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“He also told us that you came to see him at the beginning of April because you thought perhaps something was wrong with you, that you were the one who was responsible.”
“Yes,” Redfield said.
“Instead, Dr. Fidio told you that your wife, Margaret, had had a hysterectomy performed in November 1940, and that she could never have a child. Is that also true, Mr. Redfield?”
“Yes, he told me that.”
“And you didn’t know about it before?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Surely your wife must have a scar. Didn’t you ever ask her about it?”
“Yes. She said it was an appendectomy scar.”
“But when Dr. Fidio told you the real nature of the operation, he also told you about a party that had taken place in April 1940, and about your wife’s subsequent venereal—”
“Yes, yes, he told me,” Redfield said impatiently. “I don’t see what…”
“How old are you, Mr. Redfield?”
“I’m forty-seven.”
“Have you ever had any children?”
“No.”
“You must have wanted them pretty badly.”
“I…I wanted children.”
“But they made it impossible, didn’t they?”
“I…I…don’t know who you mean, what you mean.”
“The people who were at that party, Mr. Redfield. The ones who caused the hysterectomy, the ones—”
“I don’t know who those people were. I don’t know what you mean.”
“That’s right, Mr. Redfield. You didn’t know who they were. You only knew there had been a party following a production of The Long Voyage Home, and you properly assumed all the members of the cast had been to that party. What did you do? Find Margaret’s old theater program and just start going down the list?”
Redfield shook his head.
“Where’s the rifle, Mr. Redfield?” Carella said.
“Who was next on your list?” Meyer said.
“I didn’t do any of this,” Redfield said. “I didn’t kill any of them.”
“If that’s your raincoat,” Carella said, “you’d better put it on.”
“Why? Where are you taking me?”
“Downtown.”
“What for? I’m telling you I didn’t—”
“We’re booking you for homicide, Mr. Redfield,” Carella said.
“Homicide? I didn’t kill anyone, how can you…?”
“We think you did.”
“You thought Cohen did, too.”
“There’s one difference, Mr. Redfield.”
“What’s that?”
“This time we’re sure.”
It was 2:00 A.M. by the time they got back to the precinct. He tried to brazen it through at first, but he did not know a patrolman was going through his apartment while the detectives were questioning him in the squadroom. He refused to admit a thing. He kept repeating that he was in the shower when his wife was shot, he hadn’t known a thing about it until Meyer knocked on his door to report the shooting, and then he’d put on a robe and come to answer it. How could he have been on the roof? And when Cohen was killed on the precinct steps, he had been at work in his office, how could they hold him responsible for that death? True, no one had seen him after the time the office meeting broke up at 3:30, true, he could have left the office by the back stairs and come over to the precinct to wait for Cohen, but wasn’t that the wildest sort of speculation, by those rules anyone could be convicted of murder, he had nothing to do with any of this.
“Where were you on Friday, May fourth?” Carella asked.
“I was home,” Redfield answered.
“You didn’t go to work?”
“No, I had a cold.” He paused. “Ask my wife. She’ll tell you. I was home all day.”
“We will ask her, believe me, Mr. Redfield,” Carella said. “As soon as she’s able to talk to us.”
“She’ll tell you.”
“She’ll tell us you weren’t in Minneapolis, huh?”
“I’ve never been there in my life. I had nothing to do with any of this. You’re making a terrible mistake.”
And that was when the patrolman walked into the squadroom. Maybe Redfield would have told it all, anyway. It is a convention that they tell it all in the end, and besides, human beings will reach a point where hope is balanced against despair, where they see the scale slowly tilting against them. They recognize this point when it arrives, they stare at it with wise, discovering eyes, and they know there is nothing left for them. There is relief in confession. If there is any hope at all in despair, it is the hope of confession, so perhaps he would have told it all, anyway.
The patrolman walked directly to Carella’s desk. He put down the long leather case and said, “We found this at the back of his bedroom closet.”