The detectives were standing on the sidewalk where the technicians still worked within the rectangle defined by the yellow crime-scene tapes stretching from trees and police stanchions to the wall of the apartment building. Monoghan and Monroe had left half an hour ago. So had the medical examiner and the ambulance taking the body of the dead man
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to the morgue. Hawes and Willis had caught the squeal and they were the only ones left with the technicians, who were busily searching the sidewalk and the gutter for whatever they could find.
The doorman was shorter than Hawes but taller than Willis - well, almost everybody was taller than Willis, who'd barely cleared the department's five-foot-eight-inch height requirement when he joined the force all those years ago. Things had changed since then. Now you had women cops who were a lot shorter than that, though Hawes still hadn't seen any midgets in uniform. He didn't like being partnered with Willis. The man was too damn sad these days. He could understand grieving for a loved one, but that didn't mean you had to inflict the pain on everyone around you.
Hawes had scarcely known the woman Willis was living with. Marilyn Hollis. Victim of a felony murder, pair of burglars broke in, put her away, something like that, Hawes never had got it straight. There'd been a lot of tiptoeing around this one, something about Willis being at the scene and blowing the two perps away, Carella and Byrnes both advising Hawes not to ask too many questions. This was two, three months ago, time moved like molasses in this precinct, especially in the summertime.
Willis was handling the questioning now.
Asking about the dead man in a dead man's voice.
"His name?"
"Arthur Schumacher."
"Apartment number?"
"Sixty-two."
Sad brown eyes intent on his pad. Curly black hair, the slight, slender build of a matador. Detective Hal Willis. The sadness seeping out of him like sweat.
"Married, single, would you know?"
A dead, toneless voice.
"Married," the doorman said.
"Any children?"
"Not living here. He's got grown daughters from a previous
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marriage. One of them comes to see him every now and then. Came to see him."
"Would you know his wife's name?" Hawes asked.
"Marjorie, I think. She's away just now, if you planned on talking to her."
"Away where?"
"They have a summer place out on the Iodines."
"How do you know she's there?"
"Saw her when she left."
"Which was when?"
"Wednesday morning."
"You saw her leaving?"
"Yes, said good morning to her and all."
"Do you know when she's coming back?"
"No, I don't. They usually split their time between here and there in the summer months."
The doorman seemed to be enjoying all this. Except for the killer, he was the last person to have seen the victim alive, and he was clearly relishing his role as star witness, looking ahead to when they caught the killer and the case came to trial. He would take the stand and tell the district attorney just what he was telling the detectives now, though it was hard to believe the tiny little guy here was actually a detective. The big one, yes, no question. But the little one? In the doorman's experience, most detectives in this city were big, that was a fact of life in this city. You hardly ever saw a small detective.
"What time would you say Mr Schumacher came downstairs with the dog?" the little one asked.
"Little before nine." Practicing for what he'd tell the district attorney. "Same as every night. Unless him and his wife were going out someplace together, in which case he'd walk the dog earlier. But weeknights, it was usually nine o'clock when he took down the dog."
Hawes guessed the doorman considered Friday night a weeknight. Hawes himself considered it the start of the weekend. He would be spending this weekend with Annie Rawles. Lately, he had been spending most of his weekends
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with Annie Rawles. He wondered if this could be considered serious. To tell the truth, it was a little frightening.
"What happened then?" Willis asked.
"He started walking up the street," the doorman said. "With the dog."
"Where were you?"
"I went back inside."
"Did you see anyone before you went back in?"
"Nobody."
"Across the street? Or up the block?"
"Nobody."
"When did you hear the shots?"
"Almost the minute I went back in the building. Well, maybe a few seconds later, no more than that."
"You knew they were shots, huh?"
"I know shots when I hear them. I was in Nam."
"How many shots?"
"Sounded like a full clip to me. The dog got shot, too, you know. Nice gentle dog. Why would anyone want to kill a dog?"
Why would anyone want to kill a human"? Willis wondered.
"You'll want these," one of the technicians said, walking over. He was wearing jeans, white sneakers, and a white T-shirt. He handed Willis a small manila envelope printed with the word evidence. "Four bullets," he said. "Must've went on through."
Overhead, there was a sudden flash of lightning.
"Gonna rain," the doorman observed.
"Thanks," Willis said to the technician, and took the envelope, and sealed it, and put it in the right-hand pocket of his jacket. Hawes looked at his watch. It was a quarter past eleven. He wondered how they could reach Mrs Schumacher. He didn't want to hang around here all night.
"You have a number for them out on the Iodines?" he asked.
"No, I'm sorry, I don't. Maybe the super has. But he won't be in till tomorrow morning."
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"What time tomorrow?"
"He's usually here by eight."
"Would you know which island?"
"I'm sorry, I don't know that, either."
"Was the dog barking or anything?" Willis asked.
"I didn't hear the dog barking."
"Did you hear Mr Schumacher say anything?"
"Nothing. All I heard was the shots."
"What then?"
"I came running outside."
"And?"
"I looked up and down the street to see where the shots had come from ..."
"Uh-huh."
"... and saw Mr Schumacher laying on the sidewalk there." He glanced toward where the technicians had chalked the outline of Schumacher's body on the pavement. "With the dog laying beside him," he said. The technicians had not chalked the dog's outline on the sidewalk. "Both of them laying there. So I ran over, and I knew right away they were both dead. Mr Schumacher and the dog."
"What was the dog's name?" Willis asked.
Hawes looked at him.
"Amos," the doorman said.
Willis nodded. Hawes was wondering why he'd wanted to know the dog's name. He was also wondering where they'd taken the dog. They didn't take murdered dogs to the morgue for autopsy, did they?
"Did you see anyone at that time?" Willis asked.
"No one. The street was empty."
"Uh-huh."
The technicians were still working the scene. Hawes wondered how long they'd be here. Another lightning flash crazed the sky. There was a crash of thunder. When it rained, the blood would be washed away.
"Was she carrying a suitcase when she left?" he asked. "Mrs Schumacher?"
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"Yes, sir, a small suitcase."
"So you're pretty sure she went out to the Iodines, huh?"
"Well, I can't swear to it, but that's my guess, yes, sir."
Hawes sighed.
"What do you want to do?" he asked Willis.
"Finish up here, then start the canvass. If we can't get a phone listing for her, we'll just have to talk to the super in the morning."
"Tomorrow's my day off," Hawes said.
"Mine, too," Willis said.
Something in his voice made it sound as if he was wondering what he would do on his day off.
Hawes looked at him again.