“Then why are
“That's just what I was going to do.”
“You can't admit that to St. John,” she said. “We'll tell him you did get the message, you drove over to meet me—”
“St. John. Jesus, he'll be here any second.”
“Dix, did you hear what I— Dix!”
He was already running. Out through the front of the house because it was faster that way, even though it took him a few seconds to fumble the door open. He could hear the sirens then—close, very close. Off the porch, across the yard, into the Buick. He had just enough time to lock the Beretta inside the glove compartment before the first police car turned into Buckram Street and came racing uphill.
St. John was angry. “I told you people to stay away from Louise Kanvitz. Didn't I tell you that?”
“And I keep telling you,” Cecca said, “she called and said she wanted to see me. What was I supposed to do?”
“You should have notified me.”
“If she'd wanted to talk to you, wouldn't she have called you instead? I was afraid she wouldn't talk at all if the police were here.”
“You notified Mr. Mallory. Or claim you did.”
“I
Dix said, “The message is still on my machine. We can go up to my house and listen to it if you like.”
“You could have faked it.”
“Faked it? Why in bloody hell would we do that?”
“I didn't say you did. I said you could have.”
“You don't think we had anything to do with Kanvitz's death?”
“Did you, Mr. Mallory?”
“No! Cecca told you the woman was dead when she got here.”
“Can anybody else corroborate the fact?”
“There was nobody else here! Dammit, St. John—”
They were sitting at a Formica-topped table in the kitchen; St. John slapped it with the palm of his hand, a pistol-shot sound that made Cecca jump. “Don't come on hard to me, mister,” he said to Dix. “You're on shaky ground as it is. The woman who owns this house is dead in the front hall—maybe an accident, maybe not. You two have no good reason to be here, especially after I warned you against it. At best you're guilty of trespassing —”
“And at worst we're murderers, is that it?”
“I'm going to tell you one more time in a polite way: Answer my questions truthfully and don't give me any more crap. Otherwise you'd better call your lawyer. Understood?”
Dix struggled to put a leash on his emotions. There was the harsh taste of frustration in his mouth. “Understood,” he said thinly.
“Good.” St. John took a cigarette from his shirt pocket, began his rolling routine on the tabletop. “Let's go through it again, Ms. Bellini,” he said to Cecca. “What time did Louise Kanvitz call you?”
“About three-thirty.”
“Was she calling from here or her gallery?”
“I don't know. She didn't say.”
“What did she say, exactly?”
“That it was time we had another talk.”
“Talk about what?”
“Katy Mallory.”
“What specifically, concerning Mrs. Mallory?”
“I asked her that, but all she said was that I should come here after five-thirty. Then she hung up.”
“What did you think she had in mind?”
“I wasn't sure at the time. But she sounded angry.”
“At you?”
“I don't think so. At the man she was shielding, blackmailing, whatever. They must have had some sort of falling out.”
“Over what?”
“Money. She wanted more to keep quiet … something like that. That's why he killed her.”
“If he killed her. If anybody killed her.”
“Have it your way.”
“What time did you arrive here?”
“A little before five-thirty. Five minutes or so.”
“And Mr. Mallory wasn't here yet.”
“No, he wasn't.”
“Why didn't you wait for him?”
“I don't know. I … I was nervous, I wanted to get it over with, to find out what she knew.”
“Why did you go inside the house?”
“The front door was ajar and her car is in the driveway. I thought she must be here, that she hadn't heard the bell for some reason. I stepped into the foyer; I was going to call out her name.”
“And that's when you saw the body.”
“Yes.”
“Did you touch her, touch anything in the foyer or on the stairs?”
“No. Just the door. I think I shut it.”
“Why?”
“I'm not sure. I wasn't thinking too clearly.”
“How long was it before you called us?”
“Almost immediately. A minute or two.”
“And when did Mr. Mallory arrive?”
“Just as I finished talking to you.”
St. John turned his vulpine gaze on Dix. After a few seconds he put the cigarette in his mouth, as if he were thinking about lighting it, changed his mind, and began thumb-rolling it on the table again. Floorboards creaked overhead: other officers moving around upstairs. Finding anything? This whole process was maddening in its mechanical slowness.
“It's your turn, Mr. Mallory,” St. John said. “What did you do when you arrived?”
Dix told him. All of it, leaving out nothing except details of his conversation with Cecca and the Beretta.
“Did you touch the body?”
“No, I did not.”
“We found Ms. Kanvitz's purse in the living room. Did either of you touch that?”
“No.” But we damned well would have if we'd seen it. “I don't suppose there was anything in it that might help identify the man?”
“If there had been, I'd have told you. Did you touch anything on this floor? Open drawers, cabinets?”
“No,” Dix said. “All we touched were doorknobs and the sink tap over there.”
“Go upstairs?”
“No.”
“Why were you outside when we arrived?”
“… What?”
“Simple question. You were out on the street next to your car when we arrived. Why?”
“Waiting for you. Why do you think?”
“You left Ms. Bellini in here alone while you went out front to wait? As upset as she was, in the house alone with a dead woman?”
