Richard the First said. But none of them acknowledged the events that had followed that fateful ride uptown. None of them even whispered the possibility that they may have been seen by someone as they entered black Richard's building in the company of that unfortunate girl who'd later been too timid or stupid to mention or even indicate that she was having trouble breathing. Acknowledging the cause of their concern would concede implication.
No.
The boys were clean.
Their bus would leave in forty-five minutes.
They would be back at school in an hour and forty-five minutes.
Everything there would be white and still and clean.
"Nothing happened," Richard the First said aloud.
"Nothing happened," the other two Richards said.
"Swear," Richard the First said, and placed his clenched fist on the tabletop.
"I swear," Richard the Second said, and covered the fist with his hand.
"I swear," Richard the Third said, and likewise covered the fist.
The loudspeaker announced final boarding of the seven-thirty-two bus to Poughkeepsie.
The boys ordered another round of milk shakes.
Two pieces of significant information came into the squad room in the final hour of the night shift. Detective Hal Willis, sitting in his shirtsleeves in the overheated room, watching the snowflakes swirling outside, took both calls. The first came at a quarter past eleven. It was from a detective named Frank Schulz who asked to speak to either Carella or Hawes, and then settled for Willis when he said he'd give them the information.
Schulz was one of the technicians who'd examined the Cadillac registered to Rodney Pratt. He informed Willis, by the way, that the limo had already been returned to the owner, receipt in Schulz's possession did Willis want it faxed over or could Schulz drop it in the mail, the receipt? Willis told him to mail it.
"What we got was a lot of feathers" Schulz said.
"Now, I don't know if you're familiar with the difference between down and contour feathers…"
"No, I'm not," Willis said.
"Then I won't bother you with an explanation because we're both busy men,"
Schulz said, and then went on to give along, erudite dissertation on feather sacks and quills and shafts and barbs and barbules and l hooklets and knots, all of which differed in orders of birds, did Willis happen to see the film Alfred Hitchcock wrote?
Willis didn't think Hitchcock had written it.
"The determination of which feathers came from what order of bird is important in many investigations," Schulz said.
Like this one, Willis thought.
"I don't know whether the Caddy was being used for any illegal activity, but that's not my domain, anyway."
Domain, Willis thought.
"Suffice it to say," Schulz said, "that the feathers we recovered from the backseat of the car were chicken feathers. The shit is anybody's guess."
"Chicken feathers," Willis said.
"Pass it on," Schulz said.
"I will."
"I know you're busy," Schulz said, and hung up.
The second call came from Captain Sam Grossman some ten minutes later.
He told Willis that he'd examined the clothing of the murder victim Svetlana Dyalovich and had come up with nothing of any real significance except for what he'd found on the mink.
Willis hoped he was not about to hear a dissertation on the pelts of slender-bodied, semi aquatic carnivorous mammals of the genus Mustela.
Instead, Grossman wanted to talk about fish, Willis braced himself. But Grossman got directly to the point.
"There were fish stains on the coat. Which in itself is not unusual.
People get all sorts of stains on their garments. What's peculiar about these stains is their location."
"Where were they?" Willis asked.
"High up on the coat. At the back, inside and outside, near the collar. From the location of the stains, it would appear that someone had held the coat in both hands, one at either side of the collar, thumbs outside, fingers inside."
"I can't visualize it" Willis said, shaking his head. "Have you got a book handy?"
"How about the Code of Criminal Procedure?"
"Fine. Pick it up with both hands, palms over the spine, fingers on the front cover, thumbs on the back."
"Let me put down the phone."
He put down the phone. Picked up the book. Nodded. Put down the book and picked up the phone again.
"Are you saying there are fingerprints on the coat?"
"No such luck,"
Grossman said. "But the stains at the back are smaller, which might've been where the thumbs gripped it near the collar. And the larger ones inside the coat could have been left by the fingers of each hand."
"So what you're saying…"
"I'm saying someone with fish oil on his or her hands held the coat in the manner I just described. to you," he said, and hung up.
Fish oil, Willis thought. And chicken feathers. He was glad this wasn't his case.
"Anything happen while we were gone?" Carella asked.
"Same old shit," Willis said. "How are the roads?"
"Lousy."
