"We've discussed this thoroughly with the MR, Pete, and we're pretty sure we're right. The bruises on the victim's throat indicate that he was strangled manually before that rope was placed around his throat.
There are rope bruises and burns, too, but the majority of the bruises were left by human hands. We tried to get prints from the skin, but it didn't work. We're not always successful in getting prints from the skin of ..
"Then you think Scott was murdered?"
"Yeah," Grossman said flatly.
"We also did some tests on that rope he was hanged with. Same as that Hernandez kid. The direction of the fibers on the rope show that he didn't jump down from that stool, the way it looked. He was hauled up. It's a homicide, Pete. No question about it."
"Mmm. Well, thanks a lot, Sam."
"The thing is," Grossman said, "if you think Carella's over at that Scott house, I'd contact him right away."
"I don't know if he's there," Byrnes said.
"Well, if he is. Because if he is, one of the people in that house is a murderer with pretty big hands. And I like Steve Carella."
David Scott sat with his hands clenched in his lap. His hands were square and flat and covered with light bronze fuzz that curled along their backs. The same blondish bronze hair decorated the top of David's crewcut head.
Behind him, far out on the river, the tugboats pushed their mournful night sound onto the air.
It was 6:10 P.M.
Before him sat Detective Steve Carella.
"Ever argue with the old man?" Carella asked.
"Why?" David said.
"I'd like to know."
"Christine has already told me a little about you and your ideas, Mr. Carella."
"Has she?"
"Yes. My wife and I keep no secrets from each other. She told me your mind is working along certain channels which I, for one, find pretty damn objectionable."
"Well, I'm awfully sorry you find them objectionable, Mr. Scott. Do you find homicide objectionable, too?"
"That's exactly what I meant, Mr.
Carella. And I'd like to tell you this. We're the Scott family. We're not some slum foreigners living in a crawly tenement on Culver Avenue. We're the Scotts. And I don't have to sit here and listen to idle accusations from you because the Scotts have lawyers to take care of tin-horn detectives. So if you don't mind, I'd like to call one of those lawyers right now and "Sit down, Mr. Scott!" Carella barked.
"Sit down, and get off that goddamn high horse! Because if you feel like calling one of those Scott lawyers you mentioned, you can damn well do it from the crawly squad room of the 87th Precinct, which is where I'll take you and your wife and your brothers and anybody else who was in this house when the old man allegedly hanged himself."
"You can't ..
"I can, and I will! Now sit down."
"I
"Sit down!"
David Scott sat.
"That's better. I'm not saying your father didn't hang himself, Mr. Scott. Maybe he did. Suicides don't always leave notes, so maybe your father is a legitimate suicide.
But from what I've been able to gather from Roger-"
"Roger is a servant who-" "Roger told me that your father was a very jolly man who was interested in life and living. He had not seemed depressed over the past few weeks, and in fact he's very rarely known him to be depressed.
Your father was a wealthy man with a giant corporation going for him, and holdings in sixteen of the forty-eight states. He's been a widower for twelve years, so we can't assume his suicide was caused through remorse for his dead wife. In short, he seemed to be a happy man with everything in the world to live for. Now suppose you tell me why a man like that would want to take his own life."
"I'm sure I don't know. Father wasn't much in the habit of confiding in me."
"No? You never talked to him?"
"Yes, of course I talked to him. But never intimately. Father was a cold person. Very difficult to know."
"Did you like him?"
"I loved him! He's my father, for God's sake."
"Which might, in modern psychiatric terms, be a good reason for hating him."
"I've been seeing a lay analyst for three years, Mr. Car eLla Pm well-acquainted with psychology. But I did not hate my father. And I certainly had nothing to do with his death."
"Getting back … Did you ever quarrel with him?"
"Yes. Of course. Fathers and sons always have little squabbles, don't they?"
"Ever been up in that den of his?"
"Yes."
"Were you up there yesterday afternoon?"
"Not at all?"
"No. Not until we discovered the door was locked," "Who discovered that?"
"Alan. He went up to get the old man, and the old man didn't answer. He tried the door, and it was locked. Then he called the rest of us."
"How did he know it was locked?"
