Parker shrugged. ‘Never mind me. The point is, what do you get out of it?’
‘If I give you names, they won’t do you any good. You can’t get near any of the people I mention without being arrested. If I don’t give you the names, you’ll probably cause me trouble of one sort of another just to let me know you don’t make idle threats, but all that can do is put even more heat on you. I don’t see where you stand to gain.’
Parker said, ‘Where do you stand to gain?’
Dougherty seemed to consider. ‘If I bring you in,’ he said slowly, as though talking to himself, ‘and it turns out you are connected with the robbery, it might even mean promotion for me, to second grade. If I let you go, knowing nothing about you but the license plate of the Buick, which surely won’t do me any good, it won’t help to announce to my boss I had you and lost you.’
Parker said, ‘Don’t figure you’ve got the choice.’
Dougherty smiled thinly. ‘You have at least two guns on you, handguns of one kind or another, in your overcoat pockets. I have my pistol in a hip holster tucked into my back pocket. I’m the fastest draw on the force with the pistol in that position.’
‘You don’t want to take the chance, ‘Parker told him. ‘Not here.’
‘That’s true. Not if I don’t have to.’ Dougherty spread his hands. ‘You haven’t come here to cause me trouble, that’s obvious. You have a request, that’s all, and it’s up to me to say yes or no. What if I offer you a trade?’
‘What kind of trade?’
‘Why do you want him?’
Parker considered. After a minute he said, ‘He has something I own, something he took with him. I want it back. When I find him, I’ll take it back and then give him to you.’
‘What if it’s the other way around? I find him, and give you back what he took.’
‘It wouldn’t work that way.’
‘What is it he has?’
Parker shook his head. ‘It’s something of mine.’
Dougherty gestured, pushing the question aside. ‘All right, forget that. I want to know what happened at Ellen Canaday’s place last night, what your part of it was, detail by detail. I won’t ask you about anything not directly connected with the killing. You give me my answers, and then I give you your answers. Fair enough?’
‘Why not?’
‘Fine. You were the one broke the door down, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Why didn’t you have a key?’
‘I wasn’t going to be staying there that long.’
‘Did you hear a scream, any noise at all? Is that what made you break the door down?’
‘No. I didn’t hear anything.’
‘Then why break it down?’
‘I’d been gone ten minutes. Ellie was okay when I left. It figured something was wrong when I came back and rang the bell and she didn’t let me in.’
‘Had you been arguing, fighting at all?’
‘No, we’d been screwing.’
Dougherty seemed a little troubled by the word, but he rode on by it, saying, ‘Had she said anything about being frightened of anybody? Anybody at all?’
‘No, or I wouldn’t be here talking to you.’
Dougherty smiled. ‘Of course. Sorry. You say you were gone ten minutes. Was she nude when you left?’
‘Yes.’
‘In what room?’
‘The bedroom, same as when I came back.’
‘In bed?’
‘Sitting up.’
‘Was she planning on getting dressed?’
Parker shrugged. ‘Maybe a robe or something. She was going to fry some eggs.’
‘She was planning to leave the bedroom.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you lock the door when you left?’
‘It’s a spring lock, locks automatically. I shut it all the way.’
‘You’re sure of that.’
‘Yes.’
‘All right. How long were you back in the apartment before the two police officers arrived?’
‘Just a minute or two. I just walked into the bedroom, saw her there, looked around, and there they were.’
‘You told them you’d made the anonymous phone call. Why?’
‘They figured me for the killer. I wanted to give them a choice.’
‘But how did you know there was a phone call?’
‘I didn’t. But two cops walk in, somebody probably called. And if they got the tip some other way, that could still throw them off balance, give them the idea I’d already notified headquarters for them.’
‘Why did you wait and talk awhile? Why not run for it right away? Did you have to wait for them both to be distracted or something?’
Parker said, ‘I already told you that. When I saw the guns, I knew there was trouble. The guns in the closet.’
‘You didn’t know about them.’
‘No.’
‘All right, never mind that. Who introduced you to Ellen Canaday?’
‘A guy with an alibi.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘I’d like to check him off my list.’
Parker shook his head. ‘No soap,’
Dougherty considered, then shrugged and smiled. ‘Well, that’s all right. You’ve got nothing to offer me? Nothing I forgot to ask?’
‘You’re doing fine,’ Parker told him.
‘I’m not so sure. Okay, come on along upstairs.’
Parker let Dougherty lead the way. Upstairs had the feeling of a house normally full and unexpectedly empty. The rooms seemed to hum with emptiness.
They went through a tiny bright white kitchen with Dougherty’s dinner cold on a white plate on the red formica top of a kitchen table with tubular chrome legs. Then through a dining room filled to the brim by a maple table and chairs, and through a little square of leftover space where the stairs went up to the second floor, and on into the magazine littered living room.
There was a closet near the front door, and Dougherty opened it and took out a baggy suitcoat that matched the baggy trousers he was wearing. From its inside pocket he removed a black notebook and handed it to Parker. ‘First page,’ he said.
Parker opened the notebook. On the first page front and back, were nine male names. Five of the names included addresses. Next to three of the names were little checks. Dan Kifka’s name wasn’t there at all.
Dougherty said, ‘You need paper? Pencil?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come along.’
Dougherty led the way back to the dining room, while Parker, following him, riffled quickly through the rest of the black notebook and found all the pages blank.
There was a glass-doored secretary standing crammed into a corner of the dining room. Dougherty got a pencil and sheet of yellow paper from this and put them on the maple table.
Parker stood to transcribe the names and addresses. The room was too small and jumbled for him to want to pull one of the chairs away from the table and sit down. When he was finished transferring all the names and addresses and check marks to the paper he said, ‘What do the marks mean?’
‘Those are the ones I’ve talked to.’
Parker looked at him. ‘Talked to? Or cleared?’
Dougherty smiled gently. ‘You keep your secrets, Joe, I’ll keep mine.’
Parker shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
Dougherty said, ‘That’s all you want, right?’
‘Right.’
They walked to the front door, Dougherty saying, ‘I wonder what my boss’ll say about this.’
‘He’ll say you should have taken me.’
Dougherty shook his head. ‘Not me. The robbery detail will catch you.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Oh, they’ll catch you. They’re very good.’ Dougherty opened the front door. ‘See you around,’ he said.
‘Goodbye,’ Parker said.
Five
Daylight was fast fading when Parker came out on the roof. He looked around, saw no one, and moved off to his left. He stepped over a low wall defining where two buildings met, and kept moving.