“But you never got a chance to discuss it.”

  “No. I told you. Art walked in.”

  “Well, thank you, Miss Vallejo,” Carella said, rising. “That was very good coffee.”

  “Listen…”

  She had come out of the bentwood rocker now, the rocker still moving back and forth, and she stood in the center of the room with the sun blazing on the curtains behind her. She worried her lip for a moment, and then said, “Listen, I didn’t have anything to do with this.”

  Meyer and Carella said nothing.

  “I didn’t like Stan, and maybe he was going to fire me, but I’m not nuts, you know. I’m a little temperamental maybe, but I’m not nuts. We didn’t get along, that's all. That's no reason to kill a man. I mean, a lot of people on the show didn’t get along with Stan. He was a difficult man, that's all, and the star. We blew our stacks every now and then, that's all. But I didn’t kill him. I…I wouldn’t know how to begin hurting someone.”

  The detectives kept staring at her. Maria gave a small shrug.

  “That's all,” she said.

  The afternoon was dying by the time they reached the street again. Carella glanced at his watch and said, “Let's call Bob, see if he had any luck with our friend Wetherley.”

  “You call,” Meyer said. “I feel miserable.”

  “You’d better get to bed,” Carella said.

  “You know what Fanny Brice said is the best cure for a cold, don’t you?” Meyer asked.

  “No, what?”

  “Put a hot Jew on your chest.”

  “Better take some aspirin, too,” Carella advised.

  They went into the nearest drugstore, and Carella called the squadroom. O’Brien told him he had tried Wetherley's number three times that afternoon, but no one had answered the phone. Carella thanked him, hung up, and went out to the car, where Meyer was blowing his nose and looking very sick indeed. By the time they got back to the squadroom, O’Brien had called the number a fourth time, again without luck. Carella told Meyer to get the hell home, but Meyer insisted on typing up at least one of the reports on the people they’d talked to in the past two days. He left the squadroom some twenty minutes before Carella. Carella finished the reports in time to greet his relief, Andy Parker, who was a half hour late as usual. He tried Wetherley's number once more, and then told Parker to keep trying it all night long, and to call him at home if he reached Wetherley. Parker assured him that he would, but Carella wasn’t at all sure he’d keep the promise.

  He got home to his house in Riverhead at 7:15. The twins met him at the door, almost knocking him over in their headlong rush to greet him. He picked up one under each arm, and was swinging them toward the kitchen when the telephone rang.

  He put down the children and went to the phone.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Bet you thought I wouldn’t, huh?” the voice said.

  “Who's this?”

  “Andy Parker. I just called Wetherley. He told me he got home about ten minutes ago. I advised him to stick around until you got there.”

  “Oh,” Carella said. “Thanks.”

  He hung up and turned toward the kitchen, where Teddy was standing in the doorway. He looked at her silently for several moments, and she stared back at him, and then he shrugged and said simply, “I guess I can eat before I leave.”

  Teddy sighed almost imperceptibly, but Mark, the elder of the twins by five minutes, was watching the byplay with curious intensity. He made a vaguely resigned gesture with one hand and said, “There he goes.” And April, thinking it was a game, threw herself into Carella's arms, squeezed the breath out of him, and squealed, “There he goes, there he goes, there he goes!”

  Art Wetherley was waiting for him when he got there. He led Carella through the apartment and into a studio overlooking the park. The studio contained a desk upon which sat a typewriter, an ashtray, a ream of blank paper, and what looked like another ream of typewritten sheets covered with penciled hen scratches. There were several industry award plaques on the wall, and a low bookcase beneath them. Wetherley gestured to one of the two chairs in the room, and Carella sat in it. He seemed extremely calm, eminently at ease, but the ashtray on his desk was full of cigarettes, and he lighted another one now.

  “I’m not used to getting phone calls from the police,” he said at once.

  “Well, we were here—”

  “Especially when they tell me to stay where I am, not to leave the apartment.”

  “Andy Parker isn’t the most tactful—”

  “I mean, I didn’t know this was a dictatorship,” Wetherley said.

  “It isn’t, Mr. Wetherley,” Carella said gently. “We’re investigating a murder, however, and we were here yesterday, but—”

  “I was staying with a friend.”

  “What friend?”

  “A girl I know. I felt pretty shook up Wednesday night after this…thing happened, so I went over to her apartment. I’ve been there the past two days.” Wetherley paused. “There's no law against that, is there?”

  “Certainly not.” Carella smiled. “I’m sorry if we inconvenienced you, but we did want to ask you some questions.”

  Wetherley seemed slightly mollified. “Well, all right,” he said. “But there was no need, really, to warn me not to leave the apartment.”

  “I apologize for that, Mr. Wetherley.”

  “Well, all right,” Wetherley said.

  “I wonder if you could tell me what happened in Stan Gifford's dressing room Wednesday night. Just before he left it.”

  “I don’t remember in detail.”

  “Well, tell me what you do remember.”

  Wetherley thought for a moment, crushed out his cigarette, lighted a new one, and then said, “Maria was there when I came in. She was arguing with Stan about something. At least…”

  “Arguing?”

  “Yes. I could hear them shouting at each other before I knocked on the door.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “The atmosphere was a little strained after I went in, and Maria didn’t say very much all the while I was there. But Stan and I were joking, mostly about the folk singers. He hated folk singers, but this particular group is hot right now, and he was talked into hiring them.”

  “So you were making jokes about them?”

  “Yes. While we watched the act on the monitor.”

  “I see. In a friendly manner, would you say?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well…Then George came in. George Cooper, the show's AD.”

  “He came into the room?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long did he stay?”

  “Oh, three or four minutes, I guess.”

  “I see. But he didn’t argue with Gifford, did he?”

  “No.”

  “Just Maria?”

  “Yes. Before I got there, you understand.”

  “Yes, I understand. And what about you?” Carella asked.

  “Me?”

  “Yes. What about your argument with Gifford before the show went on the air?”

  “Argument? Who said there was an argument?”

  “Wasn’t there one?”

  “Certainly not.”

  Carella took a deep breath. “Mr. Wetherley, didn’t you say you wished Stan Gifford would drop dead?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You did not say that?”

  “No, sir, I did not. Stan and I got along very well.” Wetherley paused. “A lot of people on the show didn’t get along with him, you understand. But I never had any trouble.”

  “Who didn’t get along with him, Mr. Wetherley?”

  “Well, Maria, for one. I just told you that. And David Krantz didn’t particularly like him. He was always saying, within earshot of Stan, that all actors are cattle, and that comedians are only funny actors. And George Cooper didn’t exactly enjoy his role of…well, handyman, almost. Keeping everyone quiet on the set, and running for coffee, and bringing Stan his pills, and making sure everybody—”

  “Bringing Stan his what?”

  “His pills,” Wetherley said. “Stan was a nervous guy, you know. I guess he was on tranquilizers. Anyway, George was the chief errand boy and bottle washer, hopping whenever Stan snapped his fingers.”

  “Did George bring him a pill Wednesday night?”

  “When?” Wetherley asked.

  “Wednesday night. When he came to the dressing room.”

  “Wetherley concentrated for a moment, and then said, “Now that you mention it, I think he did.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m positive.”

  “And did Stan take the pill from him?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And did he swallow it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Carella rose suddenly. “Would you mind coming along with me, Mr. Wetherley?” he asked.

  “Come along? Where?”

  “Uptown. There are a few things we’d like to get straight.”

  The few things Carella wanted to get straight were the conflicting stories of the last three people to have been with Gifford before he went on camera. He figured that the best way to do this was in the squadroom, where the police would have the psychological advantage in the question-and-answer game. There was nothing terribly sinister about the green globes hanging outside the station house, or about the high desk in the muster room or the sign advising all visitors to stop at the desk, or even the white sign announcing DETECTIVE DIVISION in bold black letters, and pointing toward the iron-runged steps leading upstairs. There was certainly nothing menacing about the steps themselves or the narrow corridor they opened onto, or the various rooms in that corridor with their neatly lettered signs, INTERROGATION, LAVATORY, CLERICAL. The slatted-wood railing that divided the corridor from the squadroom was innocuous-looking, and the squadroom itself—in spite of the wire-mesh grids over the windows—looked like any business office in the city, with desks, and filing cabinets, and ringing telephones, and a water cooler, and bulletin boards, and men working in shirtsleeves. But Art Wetherley, Maria Vallejo, and George Cooper were visibly rattled by their surroundings, and they became more rattled when they were taken into separate rooms for their interrogations. Bob O’Brien, a big cop with a sweet and innocently boyish look, questioned Cooper in the lieutenant's office. Steve Carella questioned Maria in the Clerical Office, kicking out Alf Miscolo, who was busy typing up his records and complained bitterly. Meyer Meyer, suffering from a cold, and not ready to take any nonsense, questioned Art Wetherley at the table in the barely furnished Interrogation Room. The three detectives had decided beforehand what questions they would ask, and what their approach would be. In separate rooms, with different suspects, they went through a familiar routine.

  “You said you weren’t drinking coffee, Miss Vallejo,” Carella said. “Mr. Cooper tells us there were coffee containers in that room. Were there or weren’t there?”

  “No. I don’t remember. I know I didn’t have any coffee.”

  “Did Art Wetherley?”

  “No. I didn’t see him drink anything.”

  “Did George Cooper hand Gifford a pill?”

  “No.”

  “Were you arguing with Gifford before Art Wetherley came in?”

  “No.”

  “Let's go over this one more time, Mr. Cooper,” O’Brien said. “You say you only knocked on the door and poked your head into the room, is that right?”

  “That's right.”

  “You were there only a few seconds.”

  “Yes. Look, I—”

  “Did you give Stan Gifford a pill?”

  “A pill? No! No, I didn’t!”

  “But there were coffee containers in the room, huh?”

  “Yes. Look, I didn’t give him anything! What are you trying…?”

  “Did you hear Art Wetherley say he wished Gifford would drop dead?”

  “Yes!”

  “All right, Wetherley,” Meyer said, “when did Cooper give him that pill?”

  “As soon as he came into the room.”

  “And Gifford washed it down with what?”

  “With the coffee we were drinking.”

  “You were all drinking coffee, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who was?”

  “Maria, and Stan, and I was, too.”

  “Then why’d you go to that room, Maria, if not to argue?”

  “I went to…to talk to him. I thought we could—”

  “But you were arguing, weren’t you?”

  “No. I swear to God, I wasn’t—”

  “Then why are you lying about the coffee? Were you drinking coffee, or weren’t you?”

  “No. No coffee. Please, I…”

  “Now hold it, hold it, Mr. Cooper. You were either in that room or not in it. You either gave him a pill or you—”

  “I didn’t, I’m telling you.”

  “Did you ever give him pills?”

  “No.”

  “He was taking tranquilizers, wasn’t he?”

  “I don’t know what he was taking. I never brought him anything.”

  “Never?”

  “Once maybe, or twice. An aspirin. If he had a headache.”

  “But never a tranquilizer?”

  “No.”

  ‘“How about a vitamin capsule?”

  “He handed him the pill,” Wetherley said.

  “What kind of a pill?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think!”

  “I’m thinking. A small pill.”

  “What color?”

  “White.”

  “A tablet, you mean? Like an aspirin? Like that?”

  “Yes. Yes, I think so. I don’t remember.”

  “Well, you saw it, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but…”

  They put it all together afterward in the squadroom. They left the three suspects in the lieutenant's office with a patrolman watching over them and sat around Carella's desk and compared their answers. They were not particularly pleased with the results, but neither were they surprised by them. They had all been cops for a good many years, and nothing human beings perpetrated against each other ever surprised them. They were perhaps a little saddened by what they discovered each and every time, but never surprised. They were used to dealing with facts, and they accepted the facts in the Stan Gifford case with grim resolution.

  The facts were simple and disappointing.

  They decided after comparing results that all three of their suspects were lying.

  Maria Vallejo had been arguing with Gifford, and she had been drinking coffee, but she denied both allegations because she realized how incriminating these seemingly isolated circumstances might seem. She recognized quite correctly that someone could have poisoned Gifford by dropping something into his coffee. If she admitted there had been coffee in the dressing room, that indeed she and Gifford had been drinking coffee together, and if she then further admitted they’d been arguing, could she not have been the one who slipped the lethal dose into the sponsor's brew? So Maria had lied in her teeth, but had graciously refused to incriminate anyone else while she was lying. It was enough for her to fabricate her own way out of what seemed like a horrible trap.

  Art Wetherley had indeed wished his employer would drop dead, and he had wished it out loud, and he had wished it in the presence of someone else. And that night, lo and behold, Stan Gifford did collapse, on camera, for millions to see. Art Wetherley, like a child who’d made a fervent wish, was startled to realize it had come true. Not only was he startled; he was frightened. He immediately remembered what he’d said to George Cooper before the show, and he was certain Cooper would remember it, too. His fear reached new dimensions when he recalled that he had been one of the last few people to spend time with Gifford while he was alive, and that his proximity to Gifford in an obvious poisoning case, coupled with his chance remark during rehearsal, could easily serve to pin a thoroughly specious murder rap on him. When a detective called and warned him not to leave the apartment, Wetherley was certain he’d been picked as the patsy of the year, an award that did not come gold-plated like an Emmy. In desperation, he had tried to discredit Cooper’s statement by turning the tables and presenting Cooper as a suspect himself. He had seen Cooper bringing aspirins to Gifford at least a few times in the past three years. He decided to elaborate on what he’d seen, inventing a pill that had never changed hands on the night Gifford died, senselessly incriminating Cooper. But a frightened man doesn’t care who takes the blame, so long as it’s not himself.

  In much the same way, Cooper came to the sudden realization that not only was he one of the last people to be with Gifford, he was the last person. Even though he had spent several minutes with Gifford in the dressing room, he thought it was safer to say he had only poked his head into it. And whereas Gifford hadn’t stopped to talk to a soul before he went on camera, Cooper thought it was wiser to add a mystery cameraman. Then, to clinch his own escape from what seemed like a definitely compromising position, he remembered Wetherley’s earlier outburst and promptly paraded it before the investigating cops, even though he knew the expression was one that was uttered a hundred times a day during any television rehearsal.

  Liars all.

  But murderers none.

  The detectives were convinced, after a grueling three-hour session, that these assorted liars were now babbling all in the cleansing catharsis of truth. Yes, we lied, they all separately admitted, but now we speak the truth, the shining truth. We did not kill Stan Gifford. We wouldn’t know strohoosis from a hole in the wall. Besides, we are kind gentle people; look at us. Liars, yes, but murderers, no. We did not kill. That is the truth.

  We did not kill.

  The detectives believed them.

  They had heard enough lies in their professional lives to know that truth has a shattering ring that can topple skyscrapers. They sent the three home without apologizing for any inconvenience. Bob O’Brien yawned, stretched, asked Carella if he needed him anymore, put on his hat, and left. Meyer and Carella sat in the lonely squadroom and faced each other across the desk. It was five minutes to midnight. When the telephone rang, it momentarily startled them. Meyer lifted it from the cradle.

 

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