“How did he seem then? At breakfast, I mean.”
“Hung over.”
“Mrs. Newman, did your husband know you were taking Seconal?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Did he know where you kept the drug?”
“We kept all our drugs in the bathroom medicine cabinet.”
“And that was where you kept the Seconal?”
“Yes.”
“Is that where you put the new prescription you’d had filled?”
“Yes.”
“The bottle containing thirty capsules?”
“Yes.”
“When did you do that?”
“The day I had the prescription filled.”
“That would’ve been the twenty-ninth of July.”
“Yes.”
“And your husband knew this? He knew you’d put that bottle of Seconal in the medicine cabinet?”
“I assume he did.”
“Thank you. Steve? Anything?”
“No, that’s it,” Carella said. “Ladies... thank you for letting us talk to you. We’re sorry for the intrusion, you’ve been very gracious with your time.”
“Not at all,” Mrs. Newman said.
“Please keep us informed,” Anne said.
In the corridor outside, as they waited for the elevator, Kling asked, “What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Carella said. “I want to check with the Beverly Wilshire out there, see how long she talked to him last Tuesday night. Might help us in establishing the time of death.”
“What’ll that get us?” Kling asked.
“Who the hell knows?” Carella said. “But the heat in that goddamn apartment still bothers me. Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Yes.”
It was almost five-thirty. They said good-bye on the sidewalk outside, Carella walking to where he’d parked his car, Kling walking toward the kiosk on the corner and the subway ride home to his wife, Augusta.
The note, tacked with a magnet to the refrigerator door, read:
She did not get home until almost eleven.
He was watching the news on television when she came into the apartment. She was wearing a pale green, silk chiffon jumpsuit, the flimsy top slashed low over her naked breasts, the color complementing the flaming autumn of her hair, swept to one side of her face to expose one ear dotted with an emerald earring that accentuated the jungle green of her eyes, a darker echo of her costume. As always, he caught his breath at the sheer beauty of her. He had been tongue-tied the first time he’d seen her in her burglarized apartment on Richardson Drive. She had just come back from a skiing trip to find the place ransacked; he had never been skiing in his life, he’d always thought of it as a sport for the very rich. He supposed they were very rich now. The only problem was that he never felt any of it was really his.
“Hi, sweetie,” she said from the front door, and took her key from the lock, and then came to where he was sitting in front of the television set, a can of warm beer in his hand. She kissed him fleetingly on top of his head, and then said, “I have to pee, don’t go away.”
On the television screen, the newscaster was detailing the latest trouble in the Middle East. There was always trouble in the Middle East. Sometimes Kling thought the Middle East had been invented by the government, the way the war in Orwell’s novel had been invented by Big Brother. Without the Middle East to occupy their thoughts the people would have to worry about unemployment and inflation and crime in the streets and racial conflict and corruption in high places and tsetse flies. He sipped at his beer. He had eaten a TV dinner consisting of veal parmigiana with apple slices, peas in seasoned sauce, and a lemon muffin. He had also consumed three cans of beer; this was his fourth. The thawed meal had been lousy. He was a big man, and he was hungry again. He heard her flushing the toilet, and then heard the closet door in their bedroom sliding open. He waited.
When she came back into the living room, she was wearing a wraparound black nylon robe belted at the waist. Her hair fell loose around her face. She was barefoot. The television newscaster droned on.
“Are you watching that?” she asked.
“Sort of,” he said.
“Why don’t you turn it off?” she said and, without waiting for his reply, went to the set and snapped the switch. The room went silent. “Another scorcher today, huh?” she said. “How’d it go for you?”
“So-so.”
“What time did you get home?”
“Little after six.”
“Did you forget the party at Bianca’s?”
“We’re working a complicated one.”
“When aren’t you working a complicated one?” Augusta asked, and smiled.
He watched as she sat on the carpet in front of the blank television screen, her legs extended, the flaps of the nylon robe thrown back, and began doing her sit-ups, part of her nightly exercise routine. Her hands clasped behind her head, she raised her trunk and lowered it, raised it and lowered it.
“We had to go see this lady,” Kling said.
“I told you this morning about the party.”
“I know, but Steve wanted to hit her this afternoon.”
“First twenty-four hours are the most important,” Augusta said by rote.
“Well, that’s true, in fact. How was the party?”
“Fine,” Augusta said.
“She still living with that photographer, what’s his name?”
“Andy Hastings. He’s only the most important fashion photographer in America.”
“I have trouble keeping them straight,” Kling said.
“Andy’s the one with the black hair and blue eyes.”
“Who’s the bald one?”
“Lamont.”
“Yeah. With the earring in his left ear. Was he there?”
“Everybody was there. Except my husband.”
“Well, I do have to earn a living.”
“You didn’t have to earn a living after four p.m. today.”
“Man dies of an overdose of Seconal, you can’t just let the case lay there for a week.”
“First twenty-four hours are the most important, right,” Augusta said again, and rolled her eyes.
“They are.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“You mind if I turn this on again?” he asked. “I want to see what the weather’ll be tomorrow.”
She did not answer. She rolled onto her side, and began lifting and lowering one leg, steadily, methodically. He put the beer can down, rose from where he was sitting in the leather easy chair, and snapped on the television set. As he turned to go back to his chair, the auburn hair covering her crotch winked for just an instant, and then her legs closed, and opened again, the flaming wink again, and closed again. He sat heavily in the leather chair and picked up the beer can. The female television forecaster was a brunette with the cutes. Smiling idiotically, bantering with the anchorman, she finally relayed the information that there was no relief in sight; the temperature tomorrow would hit a high of somewhere between ninety-eight and ninety-nine (“That’s normal body temperature, isn’t it?” the anchorman asked. “Ninety-eight point six?”) with the humidity hovering at sixty-four percent, and the pollution index unsatisfactory.
“So what else is new?” Augusta said to the television screen, her leg moving up and down, up and down.
“Marty Trovaro is next with the sports,” the anchorman said. “Stay tuned.”
“Now we get what all the baseball teams did today,” Augusta said. “Can’t you turn that off, Bert?”
“I like baseball,” he said. “Where’d you go after the party?”
“To a Chinese joint on Boone.”
“Any good?”
“So-so.”