'You couldn't have anticipated what happened,' I pointed out.
'I should have,' he said, refusing to be assuaged. 'I learned long ago that in legal matters it's necessary always to prepare for a worst-case scenario. This time I neglected to do that, and the worst happened. You say Sergeant Rogoff will call you when he learns the details of Roderick's death?'
'He said he would.'
'Please let me know as soon as you hear from him.'
'It may be very late, father. After midnight.'
'Then wake me up,' he said sharply. 'Is that understood?'
'Yes, sir,' I said, drained my glass of port, and left him alone with his anger. The old man likes things tidy, and this affair was anything but.
I went upstairs but I didn't undress, figuring it was possible Al might want to meet me somewhere else. I sat in my swivel chair, put my feet up on the desk, and tried to make some sense, any sense, out of Gillsworth's death.
Despite the corpse's slit wrists, no one was going to convince me the poet was a suicide. If I tell you why I refused to accept that, you'll think me an ass, but it's how my mind works: I could never believe that a man with the joie de vivre to wear a Lilly Pulitzer sport jacket in the morning could kill himself in the evening. Unless, of course, he had suffered a cataclysmic defeat during the day, and so far there was no evidence of that.
Do you recall my mentioning that I had a vaporish notion of what had gone down and was still going down? It was so vague that I couldn't put it into words. But now Gillsworth's death made a difference. I'm not saying all the mists had cleared, but I began to see a dim outline that had shape if not substance.
I obviously dozed off because when the phone rang I discovered my head was down on the desktop, cradled in my forearms. I roused and glanced at my Mickey Mouse watch: almost two-thirty a.m.
'Rogoff,' he said. 'Why should you be sleeping when I'm not?'
'You still at Gillsworth's house, Al?'
'Still here. If I take a breather and run up to your place, do you think you could buy me a cup of coffee?'
'You bet. How about a sandwich?'
'Nope, but thanks. Just the coffee, hot and black. I won't stay long.'
I went down to my parents' bedroom and knocked softly. Father opened the door so quickly that I guessed he hadn't been sleeping, even though he was wearing Irish linen pajamas: long-sleeved jacket and drawstring pants.
'The sergeant called,' I said in a low voice, hoping not to disturb mother. 'He's coming for a cup of coffee.'
'May I join you?' the pater asked.
That was so like him. I mean it was his home, he was the boss, he could have said, 'I'll join you.' But he had to couch it as a polite request to sustain his image of himself as a courtly gentleman. He's something, he is.
'Of course,' I said. 'Decaf for you?'
He nodded and I went on down to the kitchen. I put the kettle on and set out three cups and saucers, cream and sugar, spoons. In less than ten minutes I heard tires on our graveled turnaround and looked out the window to see RogofFs pickup.
He came in a moment later, looking weary and defeated. He collapsed onto one of the chairs without saying a word. He put a heaping teaspoon of regular instant into his cup and I poured boiling water over it.
Then my father came in. He had changed to slacks, open-necked shirt, an old cardigan, and older carpet slippers. The sergeant stood up when he entered. I admired him for that. The two men shook hands, wordlessly, and we all sat down. Father and I had instant decaf with cream, no sugar.
'He is dead, sergeant?' the senior asked.
'No doubt about that, sir,' Rogoff said. 'The exact cause will have to wait for the autopsy. I'm no medic, but I'd say it was loss of blood that finished him.'
'Exsanguination,' I remarked.
Al looked at me. 'Thank you, Mr. Webster,' he said. 'Well, there was enough of it in the tub.'
'How do you interpret it?' father asked.
'I don't,' Rogoff said. 'Not yet. There are too many questions and not enough answers. Let me set the scene for you. The people next door were having a barbecue on their patio. One of the guests spotted flames behind the window of Gillsworth's kitchen. The men ran over there but the back door was locked. Meanwhile the women called nine-one-one. When the firemen arrived, they had to break down the back door. It was locked, bolted, and chained. They also broke through the front door of the house. That was closed with a spring lock but not bolted or chained.
He paused to blow on his coffee and then sipped cautiously. It wasn't too hot for him, and he took a deep gulp. Father and I sampled ours.
'That's significant,' I said. 'Don't you think? The front door on a spring lock but not bolted or chained?'
'Maybe,' Rogoff said. 'Maybe not. Anyway it wasn't much of a fire. There was a big frying pan on the range. The pan had grease in it-butter or oil, it hasn't been determined yet. But it caught fire and spattered, igniting the curtains and cafe drapes. The range coil was still on High when the firemen got there.'
'Then he was preparing dinner,' my father said, a statement not a question.
'It sure looked like it, sir. There was a plate of six big crab cakes on the countertop, ready for frying. And in the fridge was a huge bowl of salad, already mixed.'
'Any booze?' I asked.
'Yeah, an open liter of gin on the countertop, about two slugs gone. Also a highball glass still half-full. Looked like a gin and tonic. It had a slice of lime in it. And there was a six-pack of quinine water in the cabinet under the sink. One of the bottles was half-empty.'
I shook my head. 'That doesn't compute. A man is making dinner. He has a drink, mixes a salad. He gets ready to saute his crab cakes. Then he decides to slit his wrists instead. Do you buy that, Al?'
'Right now I'm not buying anything. Could I have another cup of coffee? I'm not going to get any sleep tonight anyway.'
I fixed him another regular and another decaf for myself after my father put his palm over his cup.
'Please continue, sergeant,' he said. 'How was Gillsworth found?'
'The firemen figured things didn't look kosher and went searching for him. They found him in the tub of the downstairs bathroom, the one next to his den. He was fully clothed. There was a bloody single-edge razor blade on the bath mat alongside the tub. Both his wrists were slashed.'
'Both?' I said. 'If you slit one wrist, do you then have enough strength in that hand to grip a razor blade and slit the other wrist?'
'Don't ask me,' Rogoff said. 'I've never tried it. We're going to need a forensic pathologist on this one.'
'Did the body show any other wounds?' father asked.
The sergeant looked at him admiringly. 'Yes, sir, it did,' he said. 'On the back of the head, high up. The hair was matted with blood. But after he slashed his wrists he could have slipped down in the tub and cracked his head on the rim. In fact, there's a bloody mark on the rim that looks like he did exactly that. It's' one of the questions the ME will have to answer.'
'What's your guess, Al?' I said. 'Suicide or homicide? I'm not asking what you're absolutely certain about, but what's your guess?'
He hesitated for just a brief instant, then he said, 'Homicide.'
'Of course!' I said triumphantly. 'No one is going to slit his wrists in the middle of preparing dinner-unless he finds worms in the crab cakes.'
'That's not my main reason for calling it homicide,' Rogoff said. 'Suicides sometimes do goofy things before they work up their courage to take the final exit. No, it's something else that makes me think someone cut Gillsworth's wrists for him. Archy, do me a favor. Show me how you'd slit your wrists if you were determined to shuffle off to Buffalo.'
I stared at him. 'You want me to pretend to slash my wrists?'
He nodded. 'Use your spoon.'
I picked up the spoon from my saucer. I held it in my right hand, gripping it by the bowl, the handle extended. I held out my left forearm and turned it palm upward. I was wearing a short-sleeved polo shirt; my arm was
