So you had to figure Dolores had asked her what two detectives were doing there. And she'd told her. And then the business about the autopsy. Which Dolores had just now talked about as if it had come from her mother. But if Dolores had called here just before leaving the house… well, wait a minute.
On the phone, Marie hadn't said anything about expecting her, nothing like "See you soon then," or "Hurry on over," or "Drive safely," just "I'll let you know," meaning about the autopsy, "Thanks for calling."
Brown decided to play it flat out.
He looked Dolores dead in the eye and said, "Did you call here about an hour ago?"
And the telephone rang.
Brown figured there had to be a god.
Because if the earlier ringing of the phone had visibly startled Marie, this time the ringing caused an immediate look of panic to flash in her eyes. She turned toward the kitchen as if it had suddenly burst into flames, made an abortive start out of the entrance hall, stopped, said, "I wonder…" and then looked blankly at the detectives.
"Can't be Dolores again, can it?" Brown said.
"What?" Dolores said, puzzled.
"Better go answer it," Brown said.
"Yes," Marie said.
"I'll go with you," he said.
In the kitchen, the phone kept ringing.
Marie hesitated.
"Want me to get it?" Brown asked.
"No, I'll… it may be my mother-in-law," she said, and headed immediately for the kitchen, Brown right behind her.
The phone kept ringing.
She was thinking You goddamn fool, I
She reached out for the receiver, her mind racing.
Brown was standing in the doorway to the kitchen now, his arms folded across his chest.
Marie lifted the receiver from the hook.
"Hello?" she said.
And listened.
Brown kept watching her.
"It's for you," she said, sounding relieved, and handed the receiver to him.
Parker felt like a real cop again.
A working detective.
The feeling was somewhat exhilarating.
The newspaper story accompanying the headline told him everything he needed to know about the liquor-store holdups tonight. The story extensively quoted Detective Meyer Meyer who had been interviewed in his room at Buenavista Hospital. Meyer had told the reporter that the heists and subsequent felony murders had been executed by four midgets being driven by a big blonde woman in a blue station wagon. One of the holdup victims had described the thieves as midgets. She had further told the police that one of the midgets was named Alice.
Parker did not have to be a detective to know that there couldn't be too many midgets named Alice in this city. But making the connection so quickly made him feel like a real cop again.
He put Peaches in a taxi—even though they were only four blocks from her apartment—told her he'd try to call her later, and then hailed a cruising patrol car. The two uniformed cops in the car advised Parker they were from the Three-One—which Parker knew anyway since the number of the precinct was on the side of the car—and they didn't know if they had authority to provide transportation for a detective from the Eight-Seven.
Parker said, "This is a homicide here, open the fucking door!"
The two uniformed cops looked at each other by way of consultation, and then the cop riding shotgun unlocked the back door for him. Parker sat in the back of the car like a common criminal, a metal grille separating him from the two cops up front.
"Four-oh-three Thompson Street," he told the driver.
"That's all the way down the Quarter," the driver complained.
"That's right, it should take you fifteen, twenty minutes."
"Half hour's more like it," the shotgun cop said, and then got on the walkie-talkie to tell his sergeant they were driving a bull from the Eight-Seven downtown.
The sergeant said, "Let me talk to him."
"He's in back," the shotgun cop said.
"Stop the car and let me talk to him," the sergeant said. He sounded very no-nonsense. Parker had met sergeants like him before. He loved trampling on sergeants like him.
They stopped the car and opened the back door. The shotgun cop handed the walkie-talkie in to Parker.
"What's the problem?" Parker said into it.
"Who's this?" the sergeant said.
"Detective Andrew Lloyd Parker," he said, "Eighty-Seventh Squad. Who's this?"
"Never mind who this is, what's the idea commandeering one of my cars?"
"The idea is homicide," Parker said. "The idea is two cops in the hospital. The idea is I gotta get downtown in a hurry, and I'd hate like hell for the media to find out a sergeant from the Three-One maybe stood in the way of a timely arrest. That's the idea. You think you got it?"
There was a long silence.
"Who's your commanding officer?" the sergeant asked, trying to save face.
"Lieutenant Peter Byrnes," Parker said. "We finished here?"
"You can take the car downtown, but I'll be talking to your lieutenant," the sergeant said.
"Good, you talk to him," Parker said, and handed the walkie-talkie to the shotgun cop. "Let's get rolling," he said.
They closed the back door again. The driver set the car in motion.
"Hit the hammer," Parker said.
