"Betsy, is that it?" Carella asked, glancing at his notes.
"Betsy, yes. He called her an aging hippie. Which is what she is."
"How old would that be?"
"My age exactly. Thirty-nine."
And the other daughter. Lois?"
"Thirty-seven."
"How'd he get along with his former wife?" Brown asked.
Circling around again to what he'd heard in her voice when she'd said her husband probably had the phone numbers someplace, whatever it was she'd said exactly. The peculiarly bitter note in her voice.
"I have no idea," she said.
"Ever see her, talk to her, anything like . . .?"
"Him or me?"
"Well, either one."
"There's no reason to talk to her. The daughters are grown. They were grown when we met, in fact."
The daughters.
Generic.
"Any alimony going out to his former wife?" Brown asked.
"Yes."
The same bitter note.
"How much?"
"Three thousand a month."
"Mrs Schumacher," Carella said, "can you think of anyone who might have done this thing?"
You asked this question of a surviving spouse not because you expected any brilliant insights. Actually, it was a trick question. Most murders, even in this day and age of anonymous violence, were incestuous affairs. Husband killing wife or vice versa. Wife killing lover. Boyfriend killing girlfriend. Boyfriend killing boyfriend. And so on down the line. A surviving husband or wife was always a prime suspect until you learned otherwise, and a good way of fishing for a motive was to ask if anyone else might have wanted him or her dead. But you had to be careful.
Margaret Schumacher didn't give the question a moment's thought.
"Everyone loved him," she said.
And began crying.
The detectives stood there feeling awkward.
She dried her tears with a Kleenex. Blew her nose, kept crying. They waited. It seemed she would never stop crying. She stood there in the center of the living room of the sixth-floor apartment, sealed and silent except for the humming of the air conditioner and the wrenching sound of her sobs, a tall, good-looking woman with golden hair and a golden summer tan, seemingly or genuinely racked by grief. Everyone loved him, she had said. But in their experience, when everyone loved someone, then no one truly loved him. Nor had she said that she loved him. Which may have been an oversight.
"This is a terrible thing that's happened," Brown said at last, "we know how you must…"
"Yes," she said. "I loved him very much."
Perhaps correcting the oversight. And using the past tense now.
"And you can't think of any reason anyone might have …"
"No."
Still crying into the disintegrating Kleenex.
"No threatening letters or phone …"
"No."
"… calls, no one who owed him money …"
"No."
". . . or who he may have borrowed from?"
"No."
"Any problems with his employer . . .?"
"It's his own business."
Present tense again. Swinging back and forth between past and present, adjusting to the reality of sudden death.
"What sort of business would that be?" Carella asked.
"He's a lawyer."
"Could we have the name of his firm, please?"
"Schumacher, Benson, and Loeb. He's a senior partner."
"Where is that located, ma'am?"
"Downtown on Jasper Street. Near the Old Seawall."
"Was he having trouble with any of his partners?"
"Not that I know of."
"Or with anyone working for the firm?"
"I don't know."
"Had he fired anyone recently?"
"I don't know."
"Mrs Schumacher," Brown said, "we have to ask this. Was your husband involved with another woman?"
"No."
Flat out.
"We have to ask this," Carella said. "You're not involved with anyone, are you?"
"No."
Chin up, eyes defiant behind the tears.
"Then this was a happy marriage."
"Yes."
"We have to ask," Brown said.
"I understand."
But she didn't. Or maybe she did. Either way, the questions had rankled. Carella suddenly imagined the cops of the Four-Five asking his mother if her marriage had been a happy one. But this was different. Or was it? Were they so locked into police routine that they'd forgotten a person had been killed here? Forgotten, too, that this was the person's wife, a person in her own right? Had catching the bad guy become so important that you trampled over all the good guys in the process? Or, worse, did you no longer believe there were any good guys?
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Mrs Schumacher," Brown said, "would it be all right if we looked through your husband's personal effects? His addrese book, his appointment calendar, his diary if he kept…"
"He didn't keep a diary."
"Anything he may have written on while he was making or receiving telephone calls, a notepad, a . . ."
"I'll show you where his desk is."
"We'd also like to look through his clothes, if you don't…"
"Why?"
"Sometimes we'll find a scrap of paper in a jacket pocket, or a matchbook from a restaurant, or . . ."
"Arthur didn't smoke."
Past tense exclusively now.
"We'll be careful, we promise you," Carella said.
Although he had not until now been too overly careful.
"Yes, fine," she said.
