“What we’re saying,” Jabeem said, “is there doesn’t seem much evidence of habitation here,”
“I still don’t know what the fuck you’re saying,” Monoghan said.
“Take a look in his clothes closer,” Kling said.
They all walked over to the closet and looked inside. There were two pairs of pants hanging in the closet. One sports jacket. One pair of shoes on the floor. Loafers. Black.
“So?” Monroe said. “The guy didn’t own too many clothes.”
“Take a look in the dresser,” Jabeem advised.
They all went over to the dresser. Kling and Jabeem had already opened the drawers. They looked in. The two bottom drawers were empty. In the top drawer, there were three pairs of undershorts, three pairs of socks, three handkerchiefs, and a blue denim shirt.
There was a night table on either side of the bed. An empty glass was on the table closest to the window. The one on the other table was half-full. Jabeem picked up the glass in one of his gloved hands, held it first under his nose, sniffing, and then under Carella’s.
“Scotch?” Carella asked.
“Or something mighty like it.”
Lying on the floor beside the bed was a heap of clothing that included a pair of undershorts, a pair of socks, a pair of workman’s coveralls, a pair of high-topped workman’s shoes, and a blue woolen watch cap. Presumably, these were the clothes Madden had been wearing before he’d stripped naked to jump out the window. The window in this room was sealed shut around an air-conditioning unit. Which may have been why he’d gone into the other room to do his high-diving act.
“Let’s check the other room,” Monroe said.
It was his smartest suggestion today.
The other room undoubtedly had served Madden as a sort of combined living room/work area. Not much larger than the bedroom, it was furnished only with a desk, a chair in front of it, a sofa upholstered in a black-and-white-check fabric, an easy chair done in the same fabric, and an open cabinet on top of which there was a shaded lamp. Sitting on the one shelf inside the cabinet were four tumblers and a bottle of Black & White Scotch that appeared to be about a quarter full.
“There she is,” Jabeem said.
Inside the top drawer of the desk near the window, they found a stapler, a small box of staples, several pencils, a box of paper clips, and a sheaf of paper for a three-ringed loose-leaf binder of the sort Madden had used for his stage manager’s records. Two of the drawers on the right side of the kneehole were empty. In the bottom drawer there was a boxed ream of typewriter paper. Biggs removed the lid. Inside the box, there were twenty typed pages of the manuscript for a play. The title page read:
THE WENCH IS DEAD
a play in two acts by
CHARLES WILLIAM MADDEN
and
GERALD GREENBAUM
The typescript seemed to match that on the note in the typewriter.
“This other name mean anything to you?” Biggs asked.
“He’s in the play they’ve been rehearsing,” Carella said.
“One of the bit players,” Kling said.
“What play?” Monoghan asked.
“Romance.”
“The dead girl was starring in it.”
“I don’t know what the hell’s going on here,” Monoghan said.
“Let’s check the kitchen,” Monroe said.
This was his second smartest suggestion today.
The small refrigerator in the kitchen had nothing in it but a container of milk that had gone sour, a wilted head of lettuce, half a tomato growing mold, a partially full quart bottle of club soda, and an unopened package of sliced white bread. In the freezer compartment, there were three ice cube trays. Two of them were empty. The last contained ice cubes that were shrinking away from the sides of their separate compartments.
“Who’s in charge here?” a voice from the entrance door bellowed, and Fat Ollie Weeks barged into the apartment.
“I am,” Biggs said, and walked over to him, and glanced at the ID card clipped to his lapel. “What’s the Eight-Eight doing all the way down here?” he asked.
“We caught the prior,” Ollie said, smiling pleasantly.
“What prior?”
“Michelle Cassidy.”
“You, too?” Biggs said.
“Oh, did somebody else catch that squeal?” Ollie asked innocently. “The girl’s murder? Because if so, this is the first I’m hearing.”
“Carella here caught the stabbing.”
“Apples and oranges,” Ollie said. “This is a clear case of FMU.”
He was referring to Section 893.7 of the rules and regulations governing internal police matters in this city. The section was familiarly called the First Man Up rule since it dealt with conflicts involving priority and jurisdiction, detailing the circumstances and situations in which a police officer who’d been investigating a prior crime was mandated to investigate a seemingly related subsequent crime.
“Look, Ollie…” Carella started.
“I already dealt with you and the blond kid here,” Ollie said, “I got nothing further to say to either one of you. In fact, I don’t appreciate everybody I go talking to on this case, they tell me, ’Oh, gee, Detective Weeks, Carella’s already been here, Kling’s already been here.’ You got no excuse investigating my homicide, so just…”
“Try Nellie’s people going to the Chief of…”
“Try this,” Ollie said, and held up the middle finger of his right hand. Nodding in dismissal, he turned immediately to Biggs and said, “You can go home, too.”
“Oh, is that right?” Biggs said.
“Yes, Henry,” Ollie. said, reading his first name from the ID card clipped to his jacket pocket. “The guy who killed the girl is already in jail, so your services are no longer needed. Whatever this is here…”
“Did you see what’s in the typewriter?” Biggs asked.
“No, what’s in the typewriter?”
“Take a look.”
Ollie looked:
DEAR GOD, PLEASE FORGIVE ME
FOR WHAT I DID TO MICHELLE
“Don’t mean a shit,” Ollie said.
“Sort of lets Milton off the hook, though, don’t you think?” Carella said pleasantly.
“Who’s Milton?” Monoghan asked.
“A poet,” Monroe said.
“A what?”
“An English poet.”
“I never heard of him.”
“He wrote Paradise Falls.”
“He’s the fuckin agent who killed her,” Ollie said, not so pleasantly.
“How about that note, Ollie?” Carella asked.
“How about it? It ain’t even signed. How do I know who typed that note?”
“Milton sure as hell didn’t. He’s already in jail, remember?”
“Anybody coulda typed it. A friend of Milton’s coulda typed it! A friend of his coulda shoved this guy out the window and then typed a phony suicide note. To get Milton off the hook. It don’t mean a shit, that note.”
“Nothing means anything…”
“That note doesn’t!”
“…just so you get the collar…”
“I know when somebody did something!”
“…on the big case that’s all over television!”
“I just want to make sure the guy who did it…”
“You just want to make sure you get famous.”
“Come on,” Biggs said. “We’re working a homicide here.”
“That’s exactly why we’re in charge here,” Monoghan said.
“Exactly,” Monroe said.