Joan was almost physically sickened by the filth and ugliness of city streets. She was horrified and depressed by violence in any form. She could not endure the thought of cruelty to animals. The sight of a dead sparrow made her weep. She never objected to Helen's squad room profanity, but the detective could see her wince.
"Kiddo," Venable told her, "you're too good for this world.
Angels finish last."
"I don't think I'm an angel," Joan said slowly.
"Far from it. I do awful, stupid things, like everyone else. Sometimes I get so furious with Mama that I could scream. You think I'm goody-goody, but I'm not."
"Compared to me," Helen said, "you're a saint."
Frequently, during that week, the detective brought the talk around to Dr. Simon Ellerbee. Joan seemed iilling, almost eager, to speak of him.
"He meant so much to me," she said.
"He was the only therapist I ever went to, and I knew right from the start that he would help me. I could see he'd never be shocked or offended by anything I'd tell him. He'd just listen in that nice, sympathetic way of his. I'd never hold back from him because I knew I could trust him. I think he was the first man-the first person-I really and truly trusted. We were so close. I had the feeling that things that hurt me hurt him, too. I suppose psychiatrists are like that to all their patients, but Doctor Simon made me feel like someone special."
"Sounds like quite a guy," Venable said.
"Oh, he was. I'm going to tell you something, but you must promise never to tell anyone. Promise?"
"Of course."
"Well, sometimes I used to daydream about Doctor Simon's wife dying.
Like in a plane crash-you know? Quick and painless. Then he and I would get married. I imagined what it would be like seeing him every day, living with him, spending,the rest of my life with him."
"Sounds to me like you were in love with him, honey."
"I suppose I was," Yesell said sorrowfully.
"I guess all his patients were. You call me a saint; he was the real saint."
Another time she herself brought up the subject of the murder: "Are. the police getting anywhere?" she asked Venable.
"On who killed Doctor Simon?"
"It's slow going," the detective admitted.
"No good leads that I know of, but a lot of people are working on it.
We'll get the perp." :"Perp?"
"Perpetrator. The one who did it."
"Oh. Well, I hope you do. It was an awful, awful thing."
They talked about the apartment they might one day share.
They talked about their mothers, about clothes, and foods they liked or hated. They recalled incidents from their girlhood, giggled about boys they had known, traded opinions on TV stars and novelists.
It was not a rare occurrence, this closeness between detective and suspect.
For did they not need each other? Even a murderer might find the obsession of his pursuer as important to himself as it was to the hunter. It gave meaning to their existence.
"Gotta work late on Friday night, dear," Venable told her target.
"Reports and shit like that. I'll call you on Saturday and maybe we can have dinner or something."
"I'd like that," Joan said with her timid smile.
"I really look forward to seeing you and talking to you on the phone."
"Me, too," Helen said, troubled because she was telling the truth.
On Friday night at seven o'clock, Helen was slouched down in her Honda, parked two doors away from the Yesells' brownstone. She could watch the entrance in her rearview mirror, and kept herself alert with a little transistor radio turned to a hard-rock station.
She sat there for more than an hour, never taking her eyes from the doorway. It was almost 8:15 when Blanche Yesell came out, bundled up in a bulky fur coat that looked like a bearskin. There was no mistaking her; she was hatless and that beehive hairdo seemed to soar higher than ever.
Venable slid from the car and followed at a distance. It didn't last long; Mrs. Yesell scurried westward and darted into a brownstone one door from the corner. The detective quickened her pace, but by the time she got there, the subject had disappeared from vestibule and lobby, with no indication of which apartment she had entered.
Helen stood on the sidewalk, staring up, flummoxed. If Calazo had been faced with the problem, he probably would have rung every bell in the joint, demanding, "Is Mrs. Blanche Yesell there?" And within an hour, he'd have statements from the other bridge club members and know if Mrs.
Yesell was or was not at home on the murder night and could or could not testify as to her daughter's presence.
But such direct action did not occur to Helen. She pondered how she might identify and question the bridge club members without alerting the Yesells that Joan's alibi was being investigated.
She went back to the Honda and sat there a long time, feeling angry and ineffective because she couldn't think of a clever scam. Finally, taking a deep breath, she decided she better write a complete report on Mrs.
Yesell's Friday night bridge club and dump the whole thing in Sergeant Boone's lap.
It was a personal failure, she acknowledged, and it infurated her. But the fear of committing a world-class boo-boo and being bounced down to uniformed duty again was enough to convince her to go by the book. It turned out to be a smart decision.
If Helen was suffering from doubts, Detective Ross Konigsbacher was inflated with confidence, convinced he was on a roll' On the same night Helen was brooding unhappily in her Honda, the Kraut was rubbing knees with L. Vincent Symington at a small table at the Dorian Gray.
Symington had insisted on ordering a bottle of Frascati, served in a silver ice bucket. The detective had made no objections, knowing that Symington would pick up the tab. That was one thing you could say for the creep: There were no moths in his wallet.
"A dreadful day," he told Konigsbacher.
"Simply dreadful.
This is a nice little wine, isn't it? One crisis after another. I'm on Wall Street, you know-I don't think I told you that-and today the market simply collapsed. What do you do, Ross?"
"Import-export," he said glibly, having prepared for the question.
"Plastic and leather findings. Very dull."
"I can imagine. Are you in the market at all?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Well, if you ever decide to take a flier, talk to me first; I may be able to put you into something sweet."
"I'll do that. But my wife has been nagging me about a new fur coat, so I won't be able to take a flier in stocks or anything else for a while."
"What a shame," Symington said.
"Women can be such bitches, can't they?
Are you still working out, Ross?"
"Every morning with the weights."
"Oh, my!" the other man said, laughing brightly.
"You're getting me all excited. And what does your wife do while you're exercising in the morning?"
"She snores."
"Now that is dull. Here, let me fill your glass. This goes down easily, doesn't it?"
"Like some people I know," the Kraut said, and they both shook with silent laughter.
"Vince, have you had any more visits from the cops about the murder of your shrink?"
"Not a word. But I'm sure they're investigating me from A to Z. Let them; I have nothing to hide."
"I hope you have a good alibi for the time it happened."
"I certainly do," Symington said virtuously.
"I was at a very posh affair at the Hilton. My company was giving a birthday dinner for the founder. A dozen people saw me there."
"Come on, Vince," Konigsbacher said, smiling.
"Don't tell me you were there all night. I know how boring those things can be. Didn't you sneak out for a teensy-weensy drink somewhere else?"
"Oh, Ross," the other man said admiringly, "you are clever. Of course I split for a while. Simply couldn't endure all that business chitchat. I found the grungiest, most vulgar bar in the city over near Eighth Avenue. It's called Stallions.