Eyes watching them.
"The address we have for her on Rodman," Brown said.
"… and the super told us he hadn't seen her for the past several days."
"Betsy," she said, and nodded curtly.
"Yes."
"I'm not surprised. Betsy comes and goes like the wind."
"We're eager to talk to her," Carella said.
"Why?"
Leaning forward in the leather chair. The walls of the lounge painted white. She hadn't had a chance to wash before coming to talk to them; there were tiny flecks of blood in her yellow hair. Blood on the front of the white uniform. Blood on the white shoes, too, Brown noticed. He tried to visualize the bleeder. Most bleeders he'd seen were already dead.
"We understand she didn't get along with your former husband," Carella said.
"So what?" Gloria said. "Neither did I."
The challenge again. Is that why you're here? Because I didn't get along with my husband who's now dead from four bullets in the head?
"That is true, isn't it?" Carella said. "That your daughter …"
"She didn't kill him," Gloria said flatly.
"No one said she did," Carella said.
"Oh no?" she said, and pulled a face. "There are cops all over the ER every day of the week," she said, "uniformed cops, plainclothes cops, all kinds of cops. There isn't a cop in the world who doesn't first look to the family when there's any kind of trouble. I hear the questions they ask, they always want to know who got along with whom. Man's got a bullet in his belly, they're asking him did he get along with his wife. So don't lie to me about this, okay? Don't tell me we're not suspects. You know we are."
"Who do you mean, Ms Sanders?"
"I mean Betsy, and me, and maybe even Lois, for all I know."
"Why would you think that?"
"I don't think that. You're the ones who think it."
"Why would we think it?"
"Let's not play games here, Officer. You told me a minute ago that you understood Betsy didn't get along with her father. So what does that mean? What are you, a social worker looking for a reconciliation? You're a cop, am I right? A detective investigating a murder. Arthur was killed, and his daughter didn't get along with him. So let's find her and ask her where she was last Friday night, Saturday night, whenever the hell it was, I don't know and I don't care. No games. Please. I'm too tired for games."
"Okay, no games," Carella said. He was beginning to like her. "Where's your daughter? She was at her father's funeral on Sunday, and now she's gone. Where is she?"
"I don't know. I told you. She comes and goes."
"Where does she go to or come from?" Brown asked. He didn't like her at all. He'd had a teacher like her in the fourth grade. She used to hit him on the hands with a ruler.
"This is the summertime. In the summer, hippies migrate. They cover the earth like locusts. Betsy is a thirty-nine-year-old hippie, and this is July. She could be anywhere."
"Like where anywhere?" Brown insisted.
"How the hell should I know? You're the cop, you find her."
"Ms Sanders," Carella said, "no games, okay? Please. I'm too tired for games. Your daughter hated him, and she hated his dog, and both of them are . . ."
"Who says so?"
"What do you mean?"
"That she hated the dog."
"Lois. Your daughter Lois. Why? Didn't Betsy hate the dog?"
"Betsy seemed to hate the dog, yes."
"Then why'd you question it?"
"I simply wanted to know who'd told you. I thought it might have been her." Almost snarling the word.
"Who do you mean?" Brown asked.
"Haven't you talked to her yet? His precious peroxide blonde?"
Pot calling the kettle, Carella thought.
"Do you mean Mrs Schumacher?" he asked.
"Mrs Schumacher, yes," she said, the word curling her upper lip into a sneer. She flushed red for a moment, as if containing anger, and then she said, "I thought she might have been the one who told you Betsy hated that dumb dog."
"How'd you feel about that dumb dog?" Carella asked.
"Never had the pleasure," Gloria said. "And I thought we weren't going to play games."
"We won't."
"Good. Look, let me make it easier for you, okay? I hated Arthur for what he did to me, but I didn't kill him. Betsy hated him for much the same reasons, but I'm sure she didn't kill him, either. I know you'll find out about the will, so I might as well tell you right now that I wouldn't grant a divorce until I made sure both my daughters were in his will for fifty percent of his estate. That's twenty-five percent each, which in Arthur's case comes to a hell of a lot of money."
"How much money?"
"I don't know the exact amount. A lot. But I know that neither of my daughters killed him for his money. Or for any reason at all, for that matter."
Both detectives were thinking that the only two reasons for doing murder were love or money. And hate was the other side of the love coin.
"How about you?" Brown asked. "Are you in that will?"
"No."
"Would you know if the present Mrs Schumacher . . .?"
"I have no idea. Why don't you ask her? Or better yet, ask Arthur's beloved partner, Lou Loeb. I'm sure he'll know all there is to know about it."
