"You had prints putting them in the bedroom? I didn't know that."
"Maybe I shouldn't tell you.Except I can't see how it makes a difference. Yeah, we found prints."
"Whose?Herrera's or Cruz's?"
"Why?"
"Because I was figuring Cruz for the one who knifed her."
"Why him?"
"His record.And he carried a knife."
"A flick knife.He didn't use it on the woman."
"Oh?"
"She was killed with something had a blade six inches long and two or two-and-a-half inches wide.Whatever. A kitchen knife, it sounds like."
"You didn't recover it, though."
"No. She had a whole mess of knives in the kitchen, a couple of different sets. You keep house for twenty years, you accumulate knives.Tillary couldn't tell if one was missing. The lab took the ones we found, couldn't find blood on any of them."
"So you think-"
"That one of 'empicked up a knife in the kitchen and went upstairs with it and killed her and then threw it down a sewer somewhere, or in the river, or who knows where."
"Picked up a knife in the kitchen."
"Or brought it along.Cruz carried a flick knife as a regular thing, but maybe he didn't want to use his own knife to kill the woman."
"Figuring he came here planning to do it."
"How else can you figure it?"
"I figure it was a burglary and they didn't know she was here."
"Yeah, well, you want to figure it that way because you're trying to clear the prick. He goes upstairs and takes a knife along with him. Why the knife?"
"In case someone's up there."
"Then why go upstairs?"
"He's looking for money. A lot of people keep cash in the bedroom. He opens the door, she's there, she panics,he panics-"
"And he kills her."
"Why not?"
"Shit, it sounds as good as anything else, Matt." He put his glass on the coffee table. "One more session with 'em," he said, "and theywoulda spilled."
"They talked a lot as it was."
"I know. You know what's the most important thing to teach a new recruit?How to read 'emMiranda-Escobedo in such a way that they don't attach any significance to it. 'You have the right to remain silent. Now I want you to tell me what really went down.' One more time and theywoulda seen that the way to cop out onTillary was to say he hired them to kill her."
"That means admitting they did it."
"I know, but they were admitting a little more each time. I don't know. I think I could've got more out of them. But once they got legal counsel on the spot, shit, that's the end of our cozy little conversations."
"Why do you likeTillary for it?Just because he was playing around?"
"Everybody plays around."
"That's what I mean."
"The ones who kill their wives are the ones who aren't playing around and want to be. Or the ones who're in love with something sweet and young and want to marry it and keep it around forever. He's not in love with anybody but himself.Or doctors. Doctors are always killing their wives."
"Then-"
"We got tons ofmotive, Matt. He owed money that he didn't have. And she wasgettin ' ready to dump him."
"The girlfriend?"
"The wife."
"I never heard that."
"Who would you hear it from, him? She talked to a neighbor woman, she talked to a lawyer. The auntdyin ' made the difference. She came into the property, for one thing, and she didn't have the old woman around for company. Oh, we got lots of motive, my friend. If motive was enough to hang a man we could goshoppin ' for a rope."
JACK Diebold said, "He's a friend of yours, huh? That's why you're involved?"
We had left theTillary house somewhere in the early evening. I remember the sky was still light, but it was July and it stayed light well into the evening hours. I turned off the lights and put the bottle of Wild Turkey away. There wasn't much left in it. Diebold joked that I should wipe my prints off the bottle, and off the glasses we had used.
He was driving his own car, a FordFairlane that was showing a lot of rust. He chose the place, a plush steak-and-seafood restaurant near the approach to theVerrazanoBridge. They knew him there, and I sensed that there wouldn't be a check. Most cops have a certain number of restaurants where they can eat a certain number of free meals. This bothers some people, and I have never really understood why.
We ate well- shrimp cocktails, strip sirloins, hot pumpernickel rolls, stuffed baked potatoes."When we weregrowin ' up," Diebold said, "a man who ate like this was treating himself right. You never heard a goddamned word about cholesterol. Now it's all you hear."
"I know."
"I had a partner, I don't know if you ever knew him. Gerry O'Bannon. You know him?"
"I don't think so."
"Well, he got on this health kick. What started it was he quit smoking. I never smoked so I never had to quit, but he quit and then it was one thing after another. He lost a lot of weight, he changed his diet,he started jogging. He looked terrible, he looked all drawn, you know how guys get? But he washappy, he was really pleased with himself. Wouldn't go drinking, just order one beer and make it last, or he'd have one and then switch to club soda. The French stuff. Perrier?"
"Uh-huh."
"Very popular all of a sudden, it's plain soda water and it costs more than beer. Figure it out and explain it to me sometime. He shot himself."
"O'Bannon?"
"Yeah.I don't mean it's connected, losing the weight and drinking club soda and killinghimself. The life you lead and the things you see, I'll tell you, a cop goes and eats his gun, I never figure it requires an explanation. You know what I mean?"
"I know what you mean."
He looked at me. "Yeah," he said. "Course you do." And then the conversation took a turn in another direction, and a little while later, with a slab of hot apple pie topped with cheddar in front of Diebold and coffee poured for both of us, he returned to the subject of TommyTillary, identifying him as my friend.
"Sort of a friend," I said. "I know him around the bars."
"Right, she lives up in your neighborhood, doesn't she? The girlfriend, I forget her name."
"Carolyn Cheatham."
"I wish she wasall the alibi he had. But even if he got away from her for a few hours, what was the wife doing during the burglary? Waiting for Tommy to come home and kill her? I mean, take it to extremes, say she hides under the bed while they rifle the bedroom and get their prints on everything. Theyleave, she calls the cops, right?"
"He couldn't have killed her."
"I know, and it drives me crazy. How come you like him?"
"He's not a bad guy. And I'm getting paid for this, Jack. I'm doing him a favor, but it's one I'm getting paid for. And it's a waste of my time and his money anyway, because you haven't got a case against him."
"No."
"You don't, do you?"
"Not even close." He ate some pie, drank some coffee. "I'm glad you're getting paid. Not just because I like to seea guy turn a buck. I'd hate to see you bust your balls for him for free."
"I'm not busting anything."
"You know what I mean."
"Am I missing something, Jack?"
"Huh?"
"What did he do, steal baseballs from the Police Athletic League? How come you've got the red ass for him?"
He thought it over. His jaws worked. He frowned.
"Well, I'll tell you," he said at length. "He's a phony."
"He sells stock and shit over the phone. Of course he's a phony."
"More than that.I don't know how to explain it so it makes sense, but shit, you were a cop. You know how you get feelings."
"Of course."
"Well, I get a feeling with that guy. There's something about him that's wrong, something about her death."
"I'll tell you what it is," I said. "He's glad she's dead and he's pretending he isn't. It gets him out of a jam and he's glad, but he's acting like a sanctimonious son of a bitch and that's what you're responding to."
"Maybe that's part of it."
"I think it's the whole thing. You're sensing that he's acting guilty. Well, he is. He feels guilty. He's glad she's dead, but at the same time he lived with the woman for I forget how many years, he had a life with her, part of him was busy being a husband while the other part was running around on her-"