"Okay," he said.
"Tell you about it later. I've got a call to make and then some things to look up. I never get to see you anymore," he complained.
"And whose fault is that?" she demanded.
It took him almost thirty minutes to locate Dr. Murray Walden, including a call to Deputy Thorsen to get the police psychiatrist's unlisted number. He finally tracked down Walden at a big dinner-dance at the Americana. The doctor had to be paged.
"This better be important, Delaney," the psychiatrist said.
"You dragged me away from the best tango New York has seen since Valentino."
"It is important. One question, but it's crucial. And I'd like a yes or no answer."
"That I can't guarantee. I told you, in my business nothing is definite."
You guys are as bad as lawyers. All right. I'll try anyway.
We've got a subject with a history of suicide attempts. Four, to be exact. Is such a person capable of homicide?"
Silence.
"Hello?" Delaney said.
"Walden? Are you there?"
"Yes, but let me get this straight. Is a suicidal type capable of homicide? Is that your question? The answer is yes. Under certain circumstances, anyone is capable of murder. But if you're asking me if it's probable, the answer is no. In fact, I've never heard of a suicidal type turning to homicide. That's not to say it's not possible."
"Thank you very much, doctor," Delaney said.
"Go back to your tango."
He spent another half-hour pulling certain reports and notes from the file cabinet. He laid all the documents on his desk, edges aligned and touching. He stared down at them with grim satisfaction, noting how they resembled pieces of that jigsaw puzzle, finally coming together and fitting.
He opened the door to the living room.
"Monica," he called, "could you come in for a while?"
She looked up.
"Oh-ho. Feeling guilty for neglecting me, are you?"
"Sure I am," he said, smiling.
"Also, I want your take on something."
She came into the study and took the club chair facing his desk.
"My," she said, "you look solemn."
"Do I? Serious maybe, not solemn. Listen, this may take some time." He hunched forward, forearms on his desk and told Monica of the night's events.
"What do you think?" he asked after he had related Joan Yesell's story.
"The poor girl," Monica said slowly.
"Were you hard on her, Edward?"
"As hard as I had to be. Does it sound to you like she's telling the truth?"
"I can believe it. A vulnerable woman like that. Not getting any younger.
A good-looking man telling her that he loves her. Edward, it was a romance, like she's watched on TV. Maybe her last chance to have a close relationship with a man. And sex. If he didn't offer to divorce his wife and marry her, I don't think she would have insisted or even objected.
Just being with him was so important to her."
"That's the way I see it," he said, nodding.
"And you've got to remember he was her doctor, giving her sympathy and understanding and confidence. A real father figure."
"Transference," Monica said.
"That's what they call it."
"Whatever," Delaney said.
"Anyway, I think she's innocent of the murder, and so do Boone and Jason. So that puts us back to square one-right? And we've still got the problem of the other set of footprints. But then, just before I got out of the car, Boone said something that triggered a memory. He reminded me that when we were up in Brewster, Samuelson had said that he didn't think a suicidal personality was capable of homicide."
"I don't remember him saying that."
"You were in the kitchen cleaning up when we were talking about it.
Boone's mentioning it reminded me of something.
That call I made was to Doctor Murray Walden, the Department's psychiatrist, a very brainy guy. He substantiated Samuelson's comment: that it was extremely unlikely a potential suicide would turn to homicide."
"Edward, why is that so important? It's added evidence that Joan Yesell is innocent, isn't it?"
"It's more than that. Because when the Sergeant mentioned it, I remembered the meeting I had with Diane Ellerbee when she gave me the names of six of her husband's patients-all presumably capable of murder.
She said she was including Joan Yesell because suicide, when tried so often, often develops into homicidal mania. Just to check my memory, I dug out my notes on that conversation. And here it is." He held up a sheet of paper.
"That's what she said. Now Diane is an experienced psychologist. Why should she say something like that when Samuelson and Walden say it's a crock of shit?"
He looked at Monica steadily, seeing how her face tightened as she began to understand the full import of what he had just told her.
"Edward, are you suggesting..
"I'm not suggesting anything; I'm stating it flatly with no doubts whatsoever: Diane Ellerbee knocked off her husband."
"But you don't-"
"Wait a minute," he interrupted, holding up a palm.
"Before you tell me I'm nuts, let me give you some background on this.
Let's start with my own stupidity in not seeing it sooner. About seventy-five percent of all murders are committed by the spouse, relatives, or friends of the victim. I've known that since the day I got my gold shield. But I forgot the percentages in this case. Why? Probably because Diane Ellerbee was so beautiful, so intelligent. She overwhelmed me.
And, like an idiot, it never occurred to me to think of her as a vicious, cold-blooded killer."
"But she couldn't."
"Hold on," he interrupted again.
"Let me finish. Neglecting the percentages wasn't the worst of my stupidities; I neglected the obvious. Which, in this case, was her statement that she left Manhattan that night about six-thirty and got up to Brewster around eight. Who says so?
She says so. Where's the proof? There is no proof. And like the moron I am, I never even doubted,her story, didn't try to prove it out one way or the other."
"That doesn't mean she's guilty."
"No? Here's the scenario as I see it: "Simon Ellerbee really has a thing for this Joan Yesell.
And he's straight; he's not scamming her. So he tells his wife he wants a divorce. I figure that happened maybe three weeks, a month before he was killed. Or maybe she found out about Yesell herself-who knows? But the idea of divorce really shakes her. He's dumping the golden goddess for a wimp? She starts plotting.
"So on the murder night, as usual, she tells him she'll drive up to Brewster early, and he can follow after he gets rid of his late patient who, Diane knows, is probably Yesell. Diane gets her car out of the garage, but she never leaves Manhattan.
Maybe she drives around, but I have a feeling she parks somewhere on East Eighty-fourth, where she can see the door of the townhouse, and just sits and waits.
"Yesell is late that night and doesn't show. But I figure Diane is in such a state that it doesn't matter. I think she intended to kill the two of them-I really do. She wants to waltz in on them while they're in each other's arms. Then she'll bash in their skulls with her trusty little hammer. Where she got the ball peen, I don't know yet, but I'll find out.
"Anyway, she's got herself psyched up for murder, and when Yesell hasn't shown up by, say, eight-thirty, Diane says to herself, the hell with it, I'm going to kill the man who betrayed me. Gets out of the car, plods through the rain, goes up to her husband's office, and kills him. The fatal blows landed high on his head, but from the back, So he had turned away from her, not expecting death. Afterward she rolls him over, hammers out his eyes.
"Monica, let me get you a drink; you look a little pale."
He went into the kitchen, brought back a bottle of Frascati and two glasses. Then he sat down again, and poured the wine.
"Was I too graphic? I'm sorry. But do you see any holes in the story? It hangs together, doesn't it? Makes a crazy kind of logic?"
"I suppose," Monica said hesitantly.
"But why, Edward?