“Thirty six years old, six feet two inches tall, weight a hundred ninety. Brown eyes, black hair, knife scar on his right wrist, no other identifying marks or tattoos.”
“That burglary fall? Was it the heaviest on his sheet?”
“Depends how you look at it. When he was seventeen a pusher allegedly sold him some bum shit, and he took off after the guy in an automobile, ran him down, and killed him. He was charged with Homicide Two, reduced to Manslaughter One, reduced again to Criminal Negligence, Vehicular. He was sentenced to five, served two and a half.”
“Has he been clean since he got out on the burglary rap?”
“One warning from his parole officer.”
“For what?”
“The P.O. got an anonymous call from a guy who said Carruthers had been at some kind of meeting where everybody was wearing masks. So he warned Carruthers that such assemblages were violations of Section 710. You know the section?”
“I know it.”
“It’s a bullshit section. Anyway, Carruthers claimed he’d never been to any such meeting, so that was that.”
“What kind of meeting was it?”
“Well, it couldn’t have been a legitimate masquerade party or fancy-dress ball, because the section excludes those.”
“Could it have been a black mass?”
“What do you mean? Colored people in a church?”
“No. A witches’ Sabbath.”
“Ben ... I’m very tired, I’ve been up all night. Don’t clown around.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks a lot, Dave.”
“Yeah,” he said, and hung up.
I was suddenly exhausted. I put the receiver back on the cradle, and then went out of the study and into the bedroom. Maria was asleep, the sheet tangled around her legs, her long blond hair spread on the pillow. I took off my clothes, got into my pajamas, and crawled into bed beside her.
“Ben?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Good,” she said, and rolled in against me.
There was sunlight in the room; it was Tuesday morning at last. On Maria’s pillow I found a note that read:
I looked at the clock. It was twenty minutes after one. I hadn’t intended to sleep so late. I put on a robe (for some undoubtedly perverse reason, I don’t like to talk to anyone on the telephone when all I’m wearing is pajamas), went into the study, and dialed the Twelfth Precinct. The desk sergeant told me Horowitz had gone home. I asked him to put me through to Coop’s office instead.
“Good afternoon, Benny,” Coop said. He sounded very official and a trifle brusque.
“Coop,” I said, “I hate to bother you with this, but Dave Horowitz was waiting for a lab report...”
“I have it here on my desk,” Coop said. “Benny, I’ve got a very unhappy cop upstairs in the squadroom, and even though I love you like a brother, I’ve got to keep the detective team working together as a functioning unit of this precinct. You understand me?”
“What the hell is O’Neil worried about?”
“I’ll tell you what he’s worried about, if you’d like to know. Last night he gets to Natalie Fletcher’s apartment, and you’ve already been there. He talks to the super, you’ve already talked to the super. The super tells him the mother’s name, and this morning O’Neil goes to see her, and finds out you were there in the middle of the night, and what’s more you were leaving there to talk to somebody named Susanna Martin. Who’s Susanna Martin, Benny? O’Neil went up to that building on Ninety-sixth and couldn’t find anybody by that name.”
“Tell him to keep trying, Coop. He’s such a hotshot ...”
“He’s a good cop, and I don’t like to see him upset.”
“What’s in the lab report, Coop?”
“No comment.”
“How about the VW bus? Anything on that yet?”
“Benny, you are not going to get anything further from me,” Coop said, and hung up.
I sat at the desk for a moment, trying to work out my next move. There had undoubtedly been something positive in the lab report. Otherwise, it would have been simpler for Coop to have said, “Sorry, nothing. No latents.” I decided to call the lab direct. I knew the number by heart, I had dialed it all too often in my years on the force. The assistant who answered the phone wanted to know who I was and why I wanted to talk to Detective-Lieutenant Ambrosiano. I told him my name, and said it was a personal call. He said the lieutenant’s line was busy, and I’d have to wait. I waited. In the kitchen, I could hear the crow squawking at the top of his lungs.