“What did you advise her?”
“It’s not a psychiatrist’s role to advise, Mr. Carella. I’m here to help my patients find a way of dealing realistically with their problems.”
“When did she first discuss the possibility of divorce?”
“Last month sometime.”
“Dr. Brolin... do you believe Mrs. Newman had any knowledge of her husband’s new will?”
“The first I’ve heard of any will is when you mentioned it a few minutes ago.” His reference to time seemed to alert him to the patient waiting outside. He glanced at his watch.
“Just a few more questions,” Carella said, and looked at his own watch. “When Mrs. Newman discussed divorce with you, did she indicate it might have had anything to do with her husband’s will?”
“I just told you—”
“I’m referring to the fact that Mr. Newman left all of his estate to an art dealer named Louis Kern.”
“That name has never been mentioned here in this office.”
“What I’m trying to learn, Dr. Brolin, is whether Mrs. Newman may have felt any resentment—”
“Resentment?”
“Yes, over the fact that her husband named her as beneficiary of a relatively small insurance policy, whereas in his will—”
“If she knew about such a will, she never mentioned it here.”
“Dr. Brolin, in your...?”
“Mr. Carella, I’m really very sorry, but I have a patient waiting.”
“Just this one last question.”
“Please.”
“In your professional opinion, would someone with a severe aversion to medication of any kind have willingly ingested a fatal dose of Seconal?”
“I have no way of answering that without knowing the case history of the person in question.”
“The person in question, I’m sure you realize—”
“Yes, is Mr. Newman. But I know nothing more about him than what his wife has told me in this office. That’s not sufficient empirical evidence upon which to base a professional judgment.”
“I see,” Carella said, and rose. He extended his hand across the desk. “Thank you, Dr. Brolin,” he said, “I appreciate your time.”
“Glad to be of help,” Brolin said.
The man in the overcoat was still sitting in the small waiting room outside. As Carella passed him, he looked up and said, “Are you going to pee now?”
“Later,” Carella said.
The men on the team had all gone down the hall to pee.
The clock behind the muster-room desk read 10:10 p.m. as they came downstairs to pick up their equipment in the small supply room to the right of the iron-runged steps. The hand-held, battery-powered radios were Police Department property, and marked as such. The vests had been privately purchased and were privately owned by any detective who thought he might have cause to need one. In this city, only Emergency Squad cops were issued bulletproof vests; any other cop who wanted one had to pay for it with his own hard-earned bucks. The vests bore the names of the various cops stenciled across their backs. The cops often loaned their vests to other cops less affluent than themselves when something heavy was going down and they would be sitting the back of a liquor store instead. Not all of the detectives on the Eight-Seven owned bulletproof vests, but normally there were always more than enough to go around.
The vests were bulky and uncomfortable and often limited movement to such an extent that many detectives preferred taking their chances without them. There wasn’t a cop in the world who thought he was faster than a speeding bullet, but mobility was sometimes vital in a shootout, and if a vest caused you to move too clumsily, a bullet in the head might easily result; there was no vest that covered a cop’s head. Tonight, the men would not put on their vests until they were approaching the building on Culver Avenue; this would have been normal procedure even when it wasn’t so damn hot. The two detectives from the Narcotics Squad hadn’t brought along any vests. They wanted to know now if they could borrow a couple from the Eight-Seven.
There were four 87th Precinct detectives and six 87th Precinct patrolmen working the bust. There were only eight vests. Willis decided he didn’t want to wear one. The six patrolmen, as part of the family, drew straws to see who would get to wear the remaining five vests. One of the patrolmen and both Narcs were left out in the cold. Gerardi, the older of the Narc Squad cops, complained that the Eight-Seven ought to learn some common courtesy. Miller, the other Narc, said this wasn’t even their bust; the Eight-Seven would get credit for the bust, and they’d be risking their asses without vests. Meyer told them both to go home to their knitting. The men all went to pee again before leaving the station house.
The police van posing as a bakery truck was parked across the street from 1124 Culver when the unmarked sedans pulled up. The men had put on their vests when they were three blocks away from the building, and had sat in silent, cramped discomfort on the approach. The moment the cars angled into the curb, they piled out gratefully onto the sidewalk, and moved swiftly toward the front door of the building, guns drawn. Meyer was in the lead. Immediately behind him in the triangular wedge were Brown and Hawes, and behind them Willis and a patrolman named Roger Higgins, who was scared out of his wits. The men went up the steps as quietly as they possibly could, considering the number of them. Their main interest was speed. Get up to the third floor, kick in the door, nail them cold with the dope and the money, make the arrest. On the second-floor landing, one of the Narc cops tripped and muttered “Shit,” and one of the patrolmen shushed him, and then suddenly all of them were on the third floor, and Higgins wasn’t the only one who was scared. As Meyer approached the door to the suspect apartment, he felt a familiar pounding in his chest, the anticipated reaction to fear of the unknown. He thought he knew who would be behind the door he was about to kick in, but he didn’t know what kind of arsenal was inside there.
In the state for which these men worked, it was necessary to obtain a search warrant from either a Criminal Court judge, or a Superior Court judge — a justice of the Supreme Court, as it applied to Isola — in order to enter any suspect premises. The form and content of the search warrant were defined by law. If the investigating officers felt there might be contraband materials on the premises, they would also request that the warrant carried a No-Knock provision, which would allow them to enter without announcing themselves. Meyer’s warrant, signed downtown at the Criminal Courts building yesterday, contained just such a provision. But being legally sanctioned to go in unannounced did not dissipate that persistent fear of the unknown, the possible sudden death that lurked behind an alien door. He was sweating as he braced himself against the wall opposite the door, and then jackknifed his right leg and released a flat-footed kick at the lock.
The jamb splintered, the door sprang open.
“Police!” Meyer shouted. “Don’t move!”
There were two people in the room.
They both sat at a long table.
One of them was a woman wearing only a slip. The other was a man in his undershorts. The woman was white, the man was black. The woman was thin to the point of emaciation. The man looked relatively robust, but his eyes were as glazed as hers, and there was a syringe on the tabletop, and a book of matches, and a soot-blackened tablespoon, and two torn, empty glassine packets. The man and the woman looked up as the detectives and the uniformed policemen swarmed into the room. Neither of them said a word. The cops fanned out, throwing open doors to other rooms, closets, a small toilet. The apartment was empty except for the man and the woman who sat at the table, stoned, watching them silently.