“You didn’t happen to be in his apartment at that time, did you?” he asked.
“No, I…”
“Really, Detective,” Bertinotti said. “She just told you…”
“Yes, but I was wondering if she might be able to clear up something that’s puzzling me.”
“What’s that?” Andrea asked.
“Miss Packer,” Bertinotti said, “you’re not required to help Detective Carella with his befuddlement.”
Andrea’s other lawyer, apparently excited by all this cops-and-robbers shit, actually chuckled at his colleague’s remark. Bertinotti seemed pleased. Andrea seemed pleased, too. All three of them were very pleased all at once, as if they’d already been to trial and won an acquittal.
“Well, I hate to see him puzzled, really,” Andrea said, smiling. “What is it you’d like to know, Mr. Carella?”
“Do you use the prescription drug Dalmane?” Carella asked.
“You know I do,” she said, still smiling. “You found a bottle of it in my medicine chest.”
“Did Mr. Madden ever use Dalmane?”
“I have no idea.”
“Because, you see, we found Dalmane in his bloodstream.”
This was clearly news to Andrea. Maybe she didn’t know you could take blood samples from a blob on the sidewalk, or maybe she didn’t think the police would have bothered testing a man’s blood when he’d obviously fallen to his death.
“Who’s we?” she asked.
“Toxicology Department at the lab.”
Andrea gave a slight shrug as if to indicate she didn’t know how this information was in any way pertinent to why she was here in a police station.
“I’m assuming,” Bertinotti said, “that you have this…”
“Yes, Counselor, we have the report.”
“May I see it?”
“Sure,” Carella said, and gave his own little shrug as if to indicate that surely the learned attorney didn’t think he was inventing a goddamn toxicology report. Handing him the sheet of paper, he turned to Andrea and casually asked, “Did Mr. Madden ever use any of your Dalmane?”
“Yes, I think he may have,” Andrea said, recovering quickly. She now knew they had Dalmane in Madden’s blood and Dalmane in her medicine chest. Carella figured the trick she had to perform in midair was getting the Dalmane out of her bathroom and into Madden’s blood without making it seem she’d put it there.
“When you say you think he may have…”
“I seem to remember him asking me… I don’t even remember when this was… but I think he once asked me if I had anything that could help him sleep.”
“But you don’t remember when?”
“No, I don’t. I’m telling you the God’s honest truth,” she said.
Sure, Carella thought.
“Do you think he may have helped himself to some Dalmane last night?” he asked. “To take to his apartment?”
“He may have, I can’t say for sure. He knew I had Dalmane, you see…”
“Then again, you say he didn’t go back to your apartment from the theater.”
“That’s right, he didn’t.”
“So if he did take any from the bottle in your bathroom, he must have done that before he left the apartment for the day.”
“I would guess so. I really don’t know what he did.”
“Because we didn’t find any Dalmane in his apartment, you see. Or any empty bottles that might have contained Dalmane. Which is odd, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know if it’s odd or not. I don’t know what he took or didn’t take last night. Or anytime yesterday, for that matter.”
“Well, he took Dalmane, that’s for sure. It showed in his blood work this morning.”
“I don’t know anything about blood work.”
“Neither do I, actually,” Carella lied. “What I’m wondering — out loud really — is how that Dalmane could possibly have…”
“If you’ve got anything to ask my client,” Bertinotti said, “please ask it. No wondering, please. Wonder is for sliced bread. Stick to the questions.”
“Certainly, Counselor. Question, Miss Packer. Did you go to Mr. Madden’s apartment at any time last night?”
“No, I did not.”
“You didn’t go there with him directly from the theater, did you?”
“No.”
“Or at any time later?”
“I didn’t go there at all. I was home last night. All night.”
“Did you know where Mr. Madden was?”
“Of course I did. He told me he was going to the apartment to work on his play.”
“Told you that when?”
“When we were leaving the theater.”
“After rehearsal.”
“Yes.”
“At which time you went home, and he went to the apartment on River Street.”
“Yes. He used it as a sort of office.”
“I see.”
“After he moved in with me. He would go there periodically to work on the play. He was writing a play with Jerry Greenbaum.”
“So I understand.”
“The Wench Is Dead.”
“Christopher Marlowe,” Carella said.
Andrea looked surprised.
“Do you think Mr. Greenbaum was there with him last night?” Carella asked.
“You would have to ask Mr. Greenbaum.”
“We already have.”
“Was he?”
“No.”
“Then he couldn’t have pushed Chuck out that window, could he?” Andrea said, and smiled.
“I guess not,” Carella said. “But someone did. Because a sleeping man can’t drag himself out of the bedroom and into the next room, you see.”
“He could if he was only half asleep,” Andrea said. “Maybe he took a Dalmane, as you say…”
“Which he may have got from your medicine chest that morning…”
“Well, I don’t know whether he did or not…”
“But if he did.”
“I only said he might have. I didn’t follow him around to see if he was snitching sleeping pills from the medicine chest.”
“Of course not.”
“Miss Packer, I feel I should warn you,” Bertinotti said.
“I’m only saying if he did,” Andrea said, “as you seem to think he did.”
“Well, it was in his blood,” Carella said. “I was simply repeating what’s in the toxicology report. But what you’re suggesting is he may have been wandering around in this drugged state, and just accidentally…“
“Exactly.”
“That’s something I hadn’t thought of,” Carella said. “He could have taken the Dalmane…”
“Sure.”
“… and then was… well… walking around the apartment before he went to bed, and all of a sudden he got drowsy and just fell out the window.”
“As an actress, I can see that happening,” Andrea said.
“Pardon?” Carella said.
“A scene like that.”
“Oh.”
“It would play.”
“Him falling out the window in a half-stupor, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Miss Packer,” Bertinotti said, trying to warn her again that this smart-ass detective was closing in and she’d better watch her onions, “I think…”
“We know there was a woman in that apartment with him last night,” Carella said.
“It wasn’t me,” Andrea said. “Anyway, how do you…?”
“Miss Packer,” Bertinotti said again, more sharply this time. “I think we…”
“We have vaginal stains,” Carella said. “From the sheets on the bed.”