"Yes."
"... made you happy."
"Yes."
"She'd been shot repeatedly in the head and chest..."
"Right."
"And reading about this made you happy."
"Yes," Betsy said. "I'm glad someone killed her."
Both detectives looked at her.
"She was a rotten bitch who wrecked our lives. I used to pray she'd fall out a window or get run over by a bus, but it never happened. Well, now someone got her. Someone gave it to her good. And yes, that makes me happy. In fact, it makes me gleeful, yes, that is the right word, I'm overflowing with glee because she's dead. I only wish she'd been shot a dozen times instead of just four."
There was a satisfied smile on her face.
You couldn't argue with a smile like that.
You could only wonder whether the newspapers had mentioned that Margaret Schumacher had been shot four times.
It was getting late.
They'd been talking in the living room of the house Angela had shared with Tommy until just recently, three-year-old Tess asleep in the back room, Angela telling her brother she was dying for a cigarette but her doctor had forbidden her to
187
smoke while she was pregnant. Carella thought suddenly of Gloria Sanders, who'd been dying for a smoke when they'd talked to her at the hospital. He could not shake the persistent feeling that Penn Halligan had been describing a woman running through the rain. Or had the image been created by the foreknowledge that three women had survived Arthur Schumacher: two daughters, and an ex-wife who hated him.
"But it won't be long now," Angela said.
"You should stay off them," Carella said.
"Tough habit to kick," she said, and shrugged.
His father hadn't known that Angela smoked. Or at least had pretended not to know. Carella could remember one Sunday afternoon when all the family was gathered together . . . this was when he himself still smoked. A long time ago. Shortly after Angela and Tommy got married. An Easter Sunday was it? A Christmas? The entire family gathered. They'd just finished the big afternoon meal - with Italian families, every meal was a feast - and he patted down his pockets, and realized he was out of cigarettes, and he went across the room to where Angela was sitting at the old upright piano, playing all the songs she'd learned as a little girl, a grown woman now with a husband, and he'd said, "Sis? Have you got a cigarette?" And Tony Carella, sitting in an easy chair listening to his daughter playing, suddenly shook his head and put his finger to his lips, shushing Carella, letting Carella know that his father wasn't supposed to know his darling daughter smoked, the sly old hypocrite.
Carella smiled with the memory.
"They say it's easier to kick heroin than nicotine," Angela said.
"But you've already kicked it," Carella said. "Eight, nine months now, that's kicking it."
"I still want a cigarette."
"So do I."
"And I'm gonna have one. As soon as the baby's born ..."
"I wish you wouldn't," he said.
"Why the hell not?" she asked.
188
And suddenly she was crying.
"Hey," he said.
She shook her head.
"Hey, come on."
Raised her hand in mild protest, still shaking her head, no, please leave me alone. He went to her, anyway. Put his arm around her. Handed her his handkerchief.
"Here," he said. "Dry your eyes."
"Thanks," she said.
She dried her eyes.
"Okay to blow in it?" she asked.
"Since when do you ask?"
She blew her nose. She sniffed some more. She dried her eyes again.
"Thanks," she said again, and handed the handkerchief back to him.
"Cigarettes mean that much to you, huh?"
"Not cigarettes," she said, and shook her head.
"Tell me," he said.
"I just figured what the hell's the use? Smoke my brains out, die of cancer, who cares?"
"Me, for one."
"Yeah, you," she said. She seemed on the edge of tears again.
"Why do you think Tommy's having an affair?" he asked.
"Because I know he is."
"How do you know?"
"Just by the way he's been acting lately. I haven't found any handkerchiefs with lipstick on them, and he doesn't stink of perfume when he comes home, but..."
"Yes, but what?"
"I just know, Steve. He behaves differently. His mind is someplace else, he's got another woman, I just know it."
"How is he behaving differently?"
"He's just different. He tosses and turns all night long . . . as if he's thinking of someone else, can't get her out of his mind, can't fall asleep ..."
189
"What else?"
"I'll be talking to him and his mind starts wandering. And I look at him and I just know he can't concentrate on what I'm saying because he's thinking of her."
Carella nodded.
"And he ... well, I don't want to talk about it."
"Talk about it," Carella said.
"No, really, I don't want to, Steve."
"Angela ..."
"All right, he doesn't want to make love anymore, all right?" she said. "Oh!" she said and suddenly grabbed for her belly. "Oh!" she said again.
"Sis?" he said.
"Oh!"
"What is it?"
"I think . . . oh!"
"Is it the baby?"
"Yes, I. . .oh! "she said, and clutched for her middle again.
"Which hospital?" he said at once.
From the squadroom, he'd have used the TDD on his desk, "talking" to Teddy directly, tapping out the letters of his message on the machine's keyboard, hitting the GA key for GO AHEAD, reading her message in return. But he was calling home from the hospital waiting room, and public telephones hadn't yet caught up with state-of-the-art technology. Fanny Knowles answered the phone.
"Carella household," she said.
He visualized her standing at the kitchen counter, fiftyish and feisty, hair tinted a fiery red, wearing a pince-nez and standing with one hand on her hip as if challenging whoever was calling to say this was police business that would intrude on the sanctity of the home.
"Fanny, it's me," he said.
"Yes, Steve," she said.
"I'm at Twin Oaks, Teddy knows the hospital, it's where the twins were born."
190
"Yes, Steve."
"Can you tell her to catch a cab and come on over? Angela's already in the delivery room."
"Do you want me to call your mother?"
"No, I'll do that now. Twin Oaks, the maternity wing."
"I've got it."
"Thank you, Fanny. Everything all right?"
"Yes, fine. I'll tell her right now."
"Thanks," he said, and hung up, and fished in his pocket for another quarter, and then dialed his mother's number.
"Hello?" she said.
Her voice the same dull monotone he'd heard ever since his father's death.
"Mama, it's me," he said. "Steve."
"Yes, honey."
"I'm here with Angela at the hospital..."
"Oh my God!" she said.
"Everything's all right, she's in the delivery room now, do you want to . . .?"
"I'll be right there," she said.
"Twin Oaks Hospital, the maternity wing," he said. "Call a taxi."
"Right away," she said, and hung up.
He put the receiver back on the hook and went to sit next to a balding man who looked extremely worried.
"Your first one?" the man asked.
"It's my sister," Carella said.
"Oh," the man said. "It's my first one."
"It'll be all right, don't worry," Carella said. "This is a good hospital."
"Yeah," the man said.
"My twins were born here," Carella said.
"Yeah," the man said.
All those years ago, Carella thought. Meyer and Hawes pacing the floor with him, Meyer consoling him, telling him he'd been through it three times already, not to worry. Teddy
191
up there in the delivery room for almost an hour. Twins. Nowadays . . .