The detectives kept standing in the teeming rain on the wide front steps of the church, waiting for the preacher to invite them in. He showed no sign of offering any such hospitality.
“Detective Carella,” Carella said, “Eighty-seventh Squad. We’re looking for a man named Walter Hopwell, we understand he works here.”
“He does indeed,” Foster said.
The rain kept battering them.
“Apparently he knew a man named Daniel Nelson, who was killed yesterday morning,” Meyer said.
“Yes, I saw the news.”
“Is Mr Hopwell here now?” Carella asked.
“Why do you want to see him?”
“We think he may have information pertaining to a case we’re investigating.”
“You’re the man who shot and killed Sonny Cole, aren’t you?” Foster said.
Carella looked at him.
“What’s that got to do with the price of fish?” Ollie asked.
“Everything,” Foster said. “The officer here shot and killed a brother in cold blood.”
A brother, Ollie thought.
“The officer here shot the individual who killed his father,” Ollie said.
“Which has nothing to do with Walter Hopwell.”
Rain was running down his cheekbones and over his jaw. He stood sopping wet in the rain, looking in at the dry comfort of the preacher inside, hating the son of a bitch for being dry and being black and looking so fucking smug.
“You’re not welcome here,” Foster said.
“Well, gee, then here’s what we’ll have to do,” Ollie said.
“Let it go, Ollie,” Carella said.
“Oh no way,” Ollie said, and turned back to Foster again. “We’ll ask the D.A. to subpoena Hopwell as a witness in a murder investigation. We’ll come back with a grand-jury subpoena for Walter Hopwell, alias Harpo Hopwell, and we’ll stand in the rain here outside your pretty little church here and ask anyone who comes out, ‘Are you Walter Hopwell, sir?’ If the answer is yes, or if the answer is no answer at all, we’ll hand him the subpoena to appear before the grand jury at nine-thirty tomorrow morning.
Now if he goes before a grand jury, it might take them all day to ask him the same questions we could ask in half an hour if you let us in out of the rain.
What do you say, Rhino? It’s your call.”
Foster looked at Ollie as if deciding whether to punch him in the gut or drop him instead with an uppercut to the jaw. Ollie didn’t give blacks too much credit for profound thinking, but if he was Foster, he’d be figuring Carella here had indeed slain a no-good murderer who merely happened to be of the same color as the reverend himself-but was this a good enough reason to take a substantial position at this juncture in time? This past August was already ancient history. Was the slain brother, who’d incidentally been stalking Carella with a nine-millimeter pistol, reason enough to precipitate a major confrontation at this late date? Ollie was no mind reader, but he guessed maybe Rhino here was thinking along those lines.
“Come in,” Foster said at last.
She had heard them arguing.
“The walls are paper thin in this building,” she said. “You can hear everything. Well, just listen,” she said. “Let’s not talk for a minute or so, you’ll understand what I mean. Let’s just be still, shall we?”
The detectives did not wish to be still, not when Mrs Kipp had just told them that the normally reclusive Andrew Hale had been visited by someone three times during the month of September. But they fell silent nonetheless, listening intently. Someone flushed a toilet. A telephone rang.
They could hear, faintly, what sounded like voices on a television soap opera.
“Do you see what I mean?” she asked.
Hear what you mean, Kling thought, but did not say.
“Was this a man or a woman?” Brown asked. “This person who visited Mr Hale.”
“A man.”
“Did you see him?”
“Oh yes. But only once. The first time he was here. I knocked on Mr Hale’s door to ask if he needed anything at the grocery store. I was going down to the grocery store, you see…”
The way Katherine Kipp remembers it, she first hears the visitor shouting as she comes out into the hallway and is locking her door. The voice is a trained voice, an actor’s voice, an opera singer’s voice, a radio announcer’s voice, something of that sort, thundering through the closed door to Mr Hale’s apartment and roaring down the hallway.
She can make out words as she approaches the door to 3A. Mr Hale’s visitor is shouting something about the chance of a lifetime. He is telling Mr Hale that only a fool would pass up this opportunity, this is something that is coming his way by sheer coincidence, he should thank his lucky stars. You can make millions, the man shouts. You’re being a goddamn jackass!
She is standing just outside Mr Male’s door now.
She is almost afraid of knocking, the man sounds so violent. At the same time, she is afraid not to knock. Suppose he does something to Mr Hale? He sounds apoplectic. Suppose he hurts Mr Hale?
The voice stops abruptly the moment she knocks on the door.
“Yes?”
“Mr Hale? It’s me. Katherine Kipp.”
“Just a second, Mrs Kipp.”
