“This was before his father was killed?”
“Of course. His father’s death naturally altered my opinion. When theory collides with fact, you change the theory.”
“I understand you were in the house that day?”
“I was. I drove up to see Carl, and the family asked me to stay for Thanksgiving dinner. Jerry and I are old friends.”
“So Zinnia said–”
“Oh. You’ve been talking to Zinnia. What else did she say?”
“She mentioned that you owed money to Jerry Heller.”
“Zinnia would. But she’s a little behind the times. I paid Jerry off in full last year.” His eyes glinted ironically behind the spectacles. “So if you’re looking for a motive for murder, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
“Just a minute, doctor. Why did you give Mildred Heller a job?”
“Why not? I needed a receptionist, and she’s a pleasant little creature. I suppose I felt sorry for her. Besides, Jerry asked me to. I had a number of reasons.”
“What were his reasons?”
“For finding her a job? No doubt he felt he should do something for her. Zinnia made him cut off her allowance, and she had to live somehow.”
“On fifty dollars a week.”
He said with some complacency: “I’ve been paying her sixty since the first of the year.”
“Don’t you feel she got a pretty lousy deal from Jerry?”
“I’ve always thought so, yes, though I didn’t blame Jerry entirely. Zinnia ran him since his father died.”
“How did she get along with the old man before he died?”
“Not too well, I’m afraid. None of them did. He was a German patriarch, a hard-fisted domineering old curmudgeon. A typical arthritic.”
“You know the family better than I do, Doctor. Could Zinnia have killed him?”
“Do you mean is it morally possible? Or physically possible?”
“Both.”
“I thought Jerry was your suspect.”
“He still is. They both are.”
“Well, as far as physical possibility is concerned, either one of them could have strangled him. He was helpless with his arthritis, and alone. His room was accessible to all of them, and the family was scattered that evening. Jerry was in his greenhouse, I believe, but there’s a passage from it directly into the house. I don’t really know where Zinnia was. She said later that she was taking a walk.”
“And Ostervelt?”
“The sheriff left early, I think, before it happened. He got drunk at dinner and made some kind of a pass at Mildred. She slapped his face and stomped off to her room. That’s how Carl happened to be left alone.”
“Where were you?”
“I played a couple of hands of canasta with Carl. He lost, and quit. He was in an unpleasant mood, probably the aftermath of the trouble between Ostervelt and his wife. Anyway, he wandered off and I picked up a book. The next I saw or heard of him, he and Jerry were fighting in the old man’s room. The old man was dead, and Jerry said he’d caught him in flagrante.”
“But it could have been the other way around?”
“Not in view of what’s happened since,” he said.
“I don’t know. Jerry profited from his father’s death. Nobody else did. Zinnia profits from Jerry’s, and nobody else does.”
“You’re suggesting that he killed his father, and then she turned around and killed him?”
“I’m saying it could have happened that way. Carl’s escape may have been the opportunity she was waiting for.”
“That’s an ingenious story you’ve made up. But it doesn’t fit the facts. Not if I know Zinnia, and I think I do. She’s a hard-nosed bitch, but she wouldn’t kill. And not if Jerry was shot with my revolver. There doesn’t seem to be any question that Carl killed them both.”
“Would you swear that he had your revolver?”
“How many times do I have to tell you?” He rapped the top of the white oak desk with his knuckles. “He took it out of the drawer in this desk. I saw him with my own eyes.”
“So did I. At least I saw a nickel-plated revolver. Maybe it was your revolver and maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was the murder weapon and maybe it wasn’t. It’s interesting that Mildred didn’t see him take it.”
“She did, though. You heard her say so.”
“A few minutes ago, she did. Not this morning. When she came to me this morning, she didn’t even know he had a gun.”
“On the contrary. She knew it very well. She was right here in this room with me. She saw him run out that door with the gun in his hand.” He pointed at the closed white door of the waiting room. “She even pleaded with me not to call the police about it, but naturally I did, as soon as she left.”
“That’s not her story.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“Somebody is a liar.”
He took an awkward boxing stance and raised his balled fists. “I’ve taken enough from you. Now you get out of here or I’ll throw you out.”
“I wouldn’t try it, Doctor. You look out of training. Just tell me where she lives, and I’ll go peacefully. I want to check your stories against each other.”
“Do that,” he snapped. “She has an apartment in the Vista Hotel. Number 317. It’s not far–”
“I know where it is, thanks.”
I went out into the quiet residential street and got into my car. A sprinkler on the lawn across the street had caught a rainbow in its net of spray. Above the treetops in the distance, the tower of the city hall stood whitely against the sky, a symbol of law and order and prosperity. I kicked the starter savagely. Behind its peaceful façade, the afternoon was swollen with disaster. Like a monster struggling to be born out of the vast blue belly of the sky.
The Vista Hotel was an old three-story building which stood on a green triangle near the Boulevard. It was swept by waves of sound from the unceasing traffic. An iron fire escape wept long yellow tears down its stucco sides. I drove by slowly, looking for a parking place.
Above the sound of my engine, the remoter roar from the boulevard, something cracked in the air. I stopped my car and looked up at the sky. If it had split like an eggshell, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But the sky was serene enough.
I left the car where it was, in the middle of the street. Before I reached the sidewalk, the cracking noise was repeated. Somebody said, “No,” in a high voice which sounded barely human.
A man appeared on the hotel fire escape, outside a third-floor window. He hung over the railing for a moment, like a seasick passenger on a ship. His short hair shone like wheat stubble in the sun. His mouth was bright with blood.
He started down the fire escape, holding on to the railing, hand-over-hand. Ostervelt came out on the iron platform above him, his forty-five in his fist. He pointed it at Carl Heller’s head and sighted along the barrel.
I shouted at the top of my lungs: “Don’t shoot!”
Ostervelt was as oblivious as a statue. The flash of his gun was pale in the light, but in the open air the crack was louder. It sounded like something breaking, something valuable which could never be replaced.