She was standing in her bedroom selecting a camouflaging wig to wear in Dayton when Karl appeared. There was someone to see her, he told her.
"Who?"
"Detective."
"And he wants to see me?"
He nodded. Then he handed her a business card. She looked it over blankly. WILLIAM F.
KINDERMAN, it announced, LIEUTENANT OF DETECTIVES; and tucked in the lowerleft-hand corner like a poor relation: Homicide Division. It was printed in an ornate, raised Tudor typeface that might have been selected by a dealer in antiques.
She looked up from the card with a sniffing suspicion. "Has he got something with him that might be a script? Like a big manila envelope or something?"
There was no one in the world, Chris had come to discover, who didn't have a novel or a script or a notion for one or both tucked away in a drawer or a mental sock. She seemed to attract them as priests did drunks.
But Karl shook his head. Chris immediately grew curious and walked down the stairs. Burke?
Was it something to do with Burke?
He was sagging in the entry hall, the brim of his limp and crumpled hat clutched tight with short fat fingers freshly manicured. Plump. In his middle fifties. Jowly cheeks that gleamed of soap. Yet rumpled trousers, cuffed and baggy, mocked the sedulous care that he gave his body.
A gray tweed coat hung loose and old-fashioned, and his moist brown eyes, which dropped at the corners, seemed to be staring at times gone by. He wheezed asthmatically as he waited.
Chris approached. The detective extended his hand with a weary and somewhat fatherly manner, and spoke in a hoarse, emphysematous whisper. "I'd know that face in any lineup, Miss MacNeil."
"Am I in one?" Chris asked him earnestly as she took his hand.
"Oh, my goodness, oh, no," he said, brushing at the notion with his hand as if swatting at a fly.
He'd closed his eyes and inclined his head; the other hood rested lightly on his paunch. Chris was expecting a God forbid! "No, it's strictly routine," he assured her, "routine. Look, you're busy? Tomorrow. I'll come again tomorrow."
He was turning away as if to leave, but Chris said anxiously, "What is it? Burke? Burke Dennings?"
The detective's drooping, careless ease had somehow tightened the springs of her tension.
"A shame. What a shame," the detective breathed, with lowered eyes and a shake of the head.
"Was he killed?" Chris asked with a look of shock. "I mean, is that why you're here? He was killed? Is that it?"
"No, no, no, it's routine." he repeated, "routine. You know, a man so important, we just couldn't pass it. We couldn't," he pleaded with a helpless look. "At least one or two questions. Did he fall? Was he pushed?" As he asked, he was listing from side to side with his head and his hand.
Then he shrugged and huskily whispered, "Who knows?"
"Was he robbed?"
"No, not robbed, Miss MacNeil, never robbed, but then who needs a motive in times like these?" His hands were constantly in motion, like a flabby glove informed by the fingers of a yawning puppeteer. "Why, today, for a murderer, Miss MacNeil, a motive is only an encumbrance; in fact, a deterrent." He shook his head. "These drugs, these drugs," he bemoaned. "These drugs. This LSD."
He load at Chris as he tapped his chest with the tips of his fingers. "Believe me, I'm a father, and when I see what's going on, it breaks my heart. You've got children?"
"Yes, one."
"A son?"
"A
daughter."
"Well..."
"Listen, come on in the study," Chris interrupted anxiously, turning about to lead the way. She was losing all patience.
"Miss MacNeil, could I trouble you for something?"
She turned with the dim and weary expectation that he wanted her autograph for his children.
It was never for themselves. It was always for their children. "Yeah, sure," she said.
"My stomach." He gestured with a trace of a grimace. "Do you keep any Calso water, maybe?
If it's trouble, never mind; I don't want to be trouble."
"No, no trouble at all," she sighed. "Grab a chair in the study." She pointed, then turned and headed for the kitchen. "I think there's a bottle in the fridge."
"No, I'll come to the kitchen," he told her, following. "I hate to be a bother."
"No bother."
"No, really, you're busy, I'll come. You've got children?" he asked as they walked. "No, that's right; Yes, a daugther;. you told me; that's right. Just the one."
