Smiling, sitting at the kitchen table now and drinking acup of decaffeinated coffee, he imagined he could see, actually see, wave after wave of aroma rolling from the oven to the open windows across the room and out into the courtyard, drifting on the air, through the open windows across the way, above and below, floating into the apartments of grateful neighbors who could only wonder who on earth was baking these glorious treats, never once imagining that the baker was The Cookie Boy himself.
This afternoon, in whichever apartment he burglarized, he would leave a dozen chocolate chip cookies in a little white box on the bed, resting on whichever pillow he supposed the lady of the house placed her head upon. A gift from The Cookie Boy, madam.
A name he rather fancied, after all, now that he played it over and again in his mind.
When they got to St. Margaret's at nine-thirty that morning, the head nurse told them Rene Schneider and Jenna DiSalvo were in with a patient. They went down the hall to the visitors' waiting room, and took chairs in a windowed corner overlooking the parking lot. Brown seemed unusually silent.
"What are you thinking?" Carella asked. "Nothing.”
"You still upset?”
"Yes, you want to know. I didn't handle it right, I realize that. But I have to tell you, Steve, I don't really care if they're nuns or priests or whatever the hell they are, the mother superior, the pope himself. Somebody got killed here I”
"Take it. easy Artie.”
"I'm sorry, but what did I say that was so damn outrageous, can you please tell me? Is it impossible for a nun to have a drinking problem? Last night, Father Clemente said there were nuns who did.”
“He also said Mary wasn't one of them.”
"Yeah, well, my mother told me it never hurts to ask the same question twice?”
"She must've known my mother.”
"I have to look at this person like a human being. And human beings borrow money. So what'd Sister Felicia get so upset about? Did I spit on her crucifix or something? I asked if Mary owed anybody money, big deal! She tells me Oh, gee, I'm terribly sorry, but such a thing would never occur to me! Why not? Mary all -at once needs money, why's it impossible that she owed somebody?”
"She was a nun, Artie.”
"So what? Can't a nun bet on the horses? Can't she buy crack on the street corner? Can't she go play poker with other nuns? She lived in an apartment all by herself, Steve. Nobody was checking on her.”
“God was checking on her.”
"Oh, come on. Do you believe that?”
"No. But I'm sure she did?”
"Okay, why do you think she suddenly needed more money?”
"Why do you?”
“Blackmail," Brown said. "Excuse me?”
They both turned toward the entrance door. Two uniformed nurses were standing there, one of them blonde, the other dark-haired.
"You wanted to see us?" the blonde said.
The detectives rose. The nurses came into the room.
"I'm Jenna DiSaivo, the blonde said.
"I m Rene Schneider," the brunette said.
The detectives introduced themselves. The nurses apologized for the delay and told them they'd been doing a wet-to-dry dressing on a patient with a decubitus ulcer on his coccyx ... "A pressure sore,”
Jenna explained.
"On his tailbone," Rene explained ... which had taken two of them because he was too weak to keep himself rolled over on his side, and one of them had to hold him while the other one cleaned the two-inch hole with saline, and then packed the wound with saline soaked gauze, and then put dry gauze and an ABD pad over that, and then paper-taped it. The whole dressing change had taken about fifteen minutes, which was why they were late, and again they apologized.
Not for a hundred million dollars, Carella thought. The nurses, crisp and white in their pristine uniforms, looked unruffled but enormously wary. They knew that in police work a mandatory suspect was anyone who'd had contact with the victim in the proximate period before a murder. They'd also seen too many tabloid television shows about mistaken arrests and police brutality. The detectives were both wearing Dacron suits, rumpled in this heat, damp button-down shirts, silk ties that needed pressing. They looked tough. When Brown asked if they might talk to each of the women separately, the nurses knew positively that they'd both end up in a state penitentiary where they'd be sodomized by hardened criminals and sadistic guards.
Jenna led Carella down the hall to the nurses' lounge.
Brown stayed here with Rene in the visitors' waiting room.
Because she got the black cop, Rene figured she'd end up in the electric chair. She happened to be Jewish, and she knew blacks, the ingrates, didn't like Jews. Because Jenna got the cop with the Italian name, she figured she'd get the electric chair, too. She happened to be of Italian descent herself, and she knew Italians didn't trust other Italians.
"Have a seat," Brown said, as if the waiting room were his own living room. Rene took a seat on the sofa. Brown sat in an easy chair facing her. Rene cleared her throat and folded her hands in her lap. She was the prettier of the two women, and she knew it. But that wasn't going to save her from the electric chair. Brown took a notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket.
"August fourteenth," he said. "That would've been the Friday a week before Mary Vincent was murdered.”
"You're listed in her calender for seven o clock that night, Carella said. "You met at her apartment, is that right?”
"Yes," Jenna said. "For drinks.”
"We went out to dinner afterward," Rene said. "How much did she drink?" Brown asked.
Never hurt to ask the same question three times, either.
"She had a single glass of wine.”
"Got there at seven, did you?”
"I did. Jenna got there a bit later. We went separately.”
"Where'd you go after you had your drinks?”
“To a Chinese restaurant nearby.”
“Would you remember the name of it?”
“Ah Fong," Jenna said.
"Ah Wong," Rene said.
"Who paid for dinner?”
“We split the check.”
"We went Dutch.”
"Was that Mary's suggestion?”
"No, we always worked it that way. Whenever we went out together.”
"How often was that?”
"Every two weeks," Jenna said.
"Once a month," Rene said.
"Did Mary mention anything about money?”
“Money?”
"About the bill? It being too expensive. Anything like that?”
"No, why would she?”
"It came to something like nine dollars each. Including tip. Why would she think that was expensive?”
"Well, she was on a tight budget, wasn't she?”
“How would I know?”
"Never said anything about how hard it was to make ends meet?”
"No. Why would she? She was earning a good salary.”
"How much was she earning, do you know?”
"Twenty-two dollars an hour, same as us. I think. No, wait a minute, it might have been less. Rene and I are RNs. Mary was an LPN.”
"She was probably getting fifteen, sixteen bucks an hour," Rene said.
"But how is that pertinent?”
"We've been told she was worried about money.”