Sadie When She Died полностью

“To begin with,” Fletcher said, “there were signs of forcible entry in the kitchen and hasty departure in the bedroom—witness the wide-open window in the aforementioned room, and the shattered window in the latter. The drawers in the dining-room sideboard were open . . .”

“You’re a very observant person,” Meyer said suddenly. “Did you notice all this in the four minutes it took you to enter the apartment and call the police?”

“It’s my job to be an observant person,” Fletcher said, “but to answer your question, no. I noticed all this after I had spoken to Detective Carella here, and while he was on the phone reporting to your lieutenant. I might add that I’ve lived in that apartment on Silvermine Oval for the past twelve years, and that it doesn’t take a particularly sharp-eyed man to notice that a bedroom window is smashed or a kitchen window open. Nor does it take a sleuth to realize that the family silver has been pilfered—especially when there are several serving spoons, soup ladles, and butter knives scattered on the bedroom floor beneath the shattered window. Have you checked the alleyway below the window? You’re liable to find your murderer still lying there.”

“Your apartment is on the second floor, Mr. Fletcher,” Meyer said.

“Which is why I suggested he might still be there,” Fletcher answered. “Nursing a broken leg or a fractured skull.”

“In all my years of experience,” Meyer said, and Carella suddenly realized that he, too, was trying to impress Fletcher, “I have never known a criminal to jump out a window on the second floor of a building.” (Carella was surprised he hadn’t used the word “defenestrate.”)

“This criminal may have had good reason for imprudent action,” Fletcher said. “He had just killed a woman, probably after coming upon her unexpectedly in an apartment he thought was empty. He had heard someone opening the front door, and had realized he could not leave the apartment the way he’d come in, the kitchen being too close to the entrance. He undoubtedly figured he would rather risk a broken leg than the penitentiary for life. How does that portrait compare to those of other Criminals You Have Known?”

“I’ve known lots of criminals,” Meyer said inanely, “and some of them are too smart for their own damn good.” He felt idiotic even as he delivered his little preachment, but Fletcher had a way of making a man feel like a cretin. Meyer ran his hand self-consciously over his bald pate, his eyes avoiding the glances of Carella and Byrnes. Somehow, he felt he had let them all down. Somehow, a rapier thrust had been called for, and he had delivered only a puny mumbletypeg penknife flip. “What about that knife, Mr. Fletcher?” he said. “Ever see it before?”

“Never.”

“It doesn’t happen to be your knife, does it?” Carella asked.

“It does not.”

“Did your wife say anything to you when you entered the bedroom?”

“My wife was dead when I entered the bedroom.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“I’m positive of it.”

“All right, Mr. Fletcher,” Byrnes said abruptly. “You want to wait outside, please?”

“Certainly,” Fletcher said, and rose, and left the room. The three detectives stood in silence for a respectable number of minutes. Then Byrnes said, “What do you think?”

“I think he did it,” Carella said.

“What makes you think so?”

“Let me revise that.”

“Go ahead, revise it.”

“I think he could have done it.”

“Even with all those signs of a burglary?”

“Especially with all those signs.”

“Spell it out, Steve.”

“He could have come home, found his wife stabbed—but not fatally—and finished her off by yanking the knife across her belly. The M.E.’s report says that death was probably instantaneous, either caused by severance of the abdominal aorta, or reflex shock, or both. Fletcher had four minutes when all he needed was maybe four seconds.”

“It’s possible,” Meyer said.

“Or maybe I just don’t like the son of a bitch,” Carella added.

“Let’s see what the lab comes up with,” Byrnes said.

There were good fingerprints on the kitchen window sash, and on the silver drawer of the dining-room sideboard. There were good prints on some of the pieces of silver scattered on the floor near the smashed bedroom window. More important, although most of the prints on the handle of the switchblade knife were smeared, some of them were very good indeed. All of the prints matched; they had all been left by the same person.

Gerald Fletcher graciously allowed the police to take his fingerprints, which were then compared with those Marshall Davies had sent over from the police laboratory. The fingerprints on the window, the drawer, the silverware, and the knife did not match Gerald Fletcher’s.

Which didn’t mean a damn thing if he had been wearing his gloves when he finished her off.