“What kind of hollering and screaming did you hear?”
“What kinds of hollering and screaming are there?” Jennifer said. “Hollering and screaming is hollering and screaming.”
“By screaming…”
“Somebody screaming at the top of his lungs.”
“And by hollering?”
“I don’t know what the person was hollering.”
“Was he hollering for help?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it the same person doing both the hollering and the screaming?”
“I don’t know. I heard the noise over there, and I called the police. There’s always noise over there, but this was worse than usual.”
“What do you mean?” Carella asked at once. “What kind of noise?”
“Parties all the time. People drinking and laughing at all hours of the night. Well, you know. With the kind of friends Mr. Corbett had…” She let the sentence trail.
“What kind of friends were they?” Heidiger asked.
“You know.”
“No, I’m sorry, we don’t.”
“Pansies,” she said. “Fruits. Faggots. Gay people,” she said, stressing the word “gay” and pulling a face.
“Homosexuals,” Carella said.
“Queers,” Jennifer said.
“And they were partying all the time, is that it?”
“Well, not all the time. But enough of the time. I’m a telephone operator, I work the midnight shift, I try to catch a little nap before I leave the house each night. With all the noise over there, it’s impossible. I was about to take my nap now, in fact. If it isn’t one thing, it’s always another,” she said, and again grimaced.
“These friends of Mr. Corbett’s,” Carella said, “how do you know they were homosexuals?” He was remembering that Corbett’s alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the Craig murder was a married woman named Priscilla Lambeth who had entertained him on her office couch.
“One of them came here just the other night,” she said, “looking for the big party.” She lisped the word “party” and accompanied it with a mincing limp-wristed gesture. “He didn’t realize Mr. Corbett lived on the other side of the mews.”
“Did he give you his name?” Heidiger asked.
“Who?”
“The man who came here looking for Corbett.”
“Man? Don’t make me laugh.”
“Did he give you his name?”
“Why would he? He asked for Danny”—and again she lisped the word and hung her limp wrist on the air—“and I told him this was 1136, and what he wanted was 1134. He thanked me kindly and went flitting across the courtyard.”
“This was when, did you say?”
“Christmas Eve. Mr. Corbett had a big Christmas Eve party. I had to work on Christmas Eve, I was trying to get some sleep. Instead, I got a fruit knocking on the door asking for Danny.”
“Did you see anyone entering the courtyard tonight?” Carella asked.
“No, I didn’t.”
“I mean, before you heard the screaming.”
“Nobody. I was in the tub, in fact, when I heard all the fuss. What I like to do is take a bath before dinner. Then I eat a little something, take my nap, which I should be doing now,” she said, and glanced at the clock, “and then get dressed and go to work.”
“Did you see anybody in the courtyard after you heard the screams?”
“I stayed in the tub.”
“You mean you didn’t immediately call the police?”
“No, I called them when I got out of the tub. There’s always noise over there. If I called every time I heard noise, it’d be a full-time job.”
“What time was it when you heard the screams?”
“I don’t wear a watch in the tub.”
“How long did you stay in the tub? After you heard the screams, I mean.”
“About fifteen minutes, I guess.”
“The call came in at five-fifty-three,” Heidiger said. “That means you heard the screams at…” He hesitated, doing his mental calculation, and then said, “Approximately twenty to six, somewhere in there.”
“I would guess.”
“When you got out of the tub,” Carella said, “did you see anyone in the courtyard? Anyone near the Corbett apartment?”
“I didn’t look. I went to the phone and called the police. I figured if I didn’t do something about it, the noise would go on all night. And I wanted to have my dinner and take my nap in peace.”
“Was the screaming still going on?”
“No, it had stopped by then.”
“But you called the police anyway.”
“Who knew when it might start again? You know how those people are,” she said.
“Mm,” Carella said. “Well, thank you very much, Miss Groat. Sorry to have bothered you.”
In the street outside, Heidiger lighted a cigarette, belatedly offered one to Carella, who refused, and then said, “Ever talk to this Corbett guy?”
“Last Saturday,” Carella said.
“Strike you as being a fag?”
“Seemed straight as an arrow.”
“Who can tell these days, huh?” Heidiger said. “How about Craig?”
“He was living with a beautiful twenty-two-year-old girl.”
“Mm,” Heidiger said. “So what do you make of it? Any connection here, do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“Knife in both murders.”
“Yeah.”
“If the witch in there was right, this one might’ve been a lovers’ quarrel.”
“Maybe. But we’ve only got her word for what Corbett was. Did she strike you as a particularly reliable character witness?”
“She struck me as a particularly reliable character,” Heidiger said dryly. “You want a beer or something? Officially I’m still on duty, but fuck it.”
“Shooflies are heavy around the holidays,” Carella said, smiling.
“Fuck the shooflies, too,” Heidiger said. “I’ve been with the department twenty-two years, I never took a nickel from anybody in all that time. Just let them bring charges for a glass of beer, I’d like to see them do that.”
“Go on without me,” Carella said. “There’s somebody I want to talk to.”
“Keep in touch,” Heidiger said, and shook hands with him, and walked off up the street. In the phone booth on the corner, Carella checked the Isola directory for a Priscilla Lambeth listing, found none under her name, but two for a Dr. Howard Lambeth—one for his office and one for his residence. The residential number was Higley 7-8021, which sounded like the number Carella had dialed from Corbett’s apartment last Saturday. He dialed the number now. A woman answered the phone; her voice sounded familiar.
“Mrs. Lambeth?” Carella said.
“Yes?”
“Priscilla Lambeth?”
“Yes?”
“This is Detective Carella, we talked last Saturday, do you re—”
“I asked you not to call here again,” she said.
“Daniel Corbett has been murdered,” Carella said. “I’d like to talk to you. I can come there, or we can meet someplace.”
There was a long silence on the line.
“Mrs. Lambeth?” he said.
The silence lengthened.
“Which would you prefer?” Carella said.
“I’m thinking.” He waited. “Give me half an hour,” she said. “I’ll be walking the dog in half an hour. Can you meet me on Jefferson and Juniper at…What time is it now?”
“Close to ten.”
“Make it ten-thirty,” she said. “He’s a golden retriever.”
As befitted an editor of children’s books, Priscilla Lambeth was a petite brunette with a pixie face and wide, innocent eyes. There was a huge dog at the end of her leash, a hound intent on racing through the city streets in headlong search of yet another lamppost to sniff, dragging Priscilla willy-nilly behind him. Carella was hard put to keep up.
Priscilla was wearing a dark blue ski parka over blue jeans and boots. She was hatless, and the wind caught at her short dark hair, bristling it about her head and giving her the appearance of someone who’d just been unexpectedly startled out of her wits—rather close to the truth. She told Carella at once that she’d been truly shocked by what he’d revealed on the telephone. She still couldn’t get over it. Danny murdered? Incredible! Who would want to kill a sweet, loving person like Danny?