'I don't believe he did.'
'So now he wants to spend a few dollars finding the real killer.
Well, why not? He doesn't have much going for him since Helen died.
His wife, Barbara's mother.'
'I know.'
'Maybe it'll do him good to have something he can take an interest in. Not that work doesn't keep him busy, but, well-' He flicked ashes from his cigarette. 'I don't know what help I can give you, Mr.
Scudder, but ask all the questions you want.'
I asked about Barbara's social contacts, her relationships with people in the building. I asked about her job at the day-care center. He remembered Janice Corwin but couldn't supply her husband's name.
'The job wasn't that important,' he said. 'Basically it was something to get her out of the house, give her a focus for her energy.
Oh, the money helped. I was dragging a briefcase around for the Welfare Department, which wasn't exactly the road to riches. But Barbie's job was temporary. She was going to give it up and stay home with the baby.'
The door opened. A teenage clerk started to enter the office, then stopped and stood there looking awkward. 'I'll be a few minutes, Sandy,' Ettinger told him. 'I'm busy right now.'
The boy withdrew, shutting the door. 'Saturday's always busy for us,' Ettinger said. 'I don't want to rush you, but I'm needed out there.'
I asked him some more questions. His memory wasn't very good, and I could understand why. He'd had one life torn up and had had to create a new one, and it was easier to do so if he dwelled on the first life as little as possible. There were no children from that first union to tie him into relations with in-laws. He could leave his marriage to Barbara in Brooklyn, along with his caseworker's files and all the trappings of that life. He lived in the suburbs now and drove a car and mowed a lawn and lived with his kids and his blonde wife. Why sit around remembering a tenement apartment in Boerum Hill?
'Funny,' he said. 'I can't begin to think of anyone we knew who might be capable of … doing what was done to Barbie. But one other thing I could never believe was that she'd let a stranger into the apartment.'
'She was careful about that sort of thing?'
'She was always on guard. Wyckoff Street wasn't the kind of neighborhood she grew up in, although she found it comfortable enough.
Of course we weren't going to stay there forever.' His glance flicked to the photo cube, as if he was seeing Barbara standing next to a car and in front of a lawn. 'But she got spooked by the other icepick killings.'
'Oh?'
'Not at first. When he killed the woman in Sheepshead Bay, though, that's when it got to her. Because it was the first time he'd struck in Brooklyn, you see. It freaked her a little.'
'Because of the location? Sheepshead Bay's a long ways from Boerum Hill.'
'But it was Brooklyn. And there was something else, I think, because I remember she identified pretty strongly with the woman who got killed. I must have known why but I can't remember. Anyway, she got nervous. She told me she had the feeling she was being watched.'
'Did you mention that to the police?'
'I don't think so.' He lowered his eyes, lit another cigarette. 'I'm sure I didn't. I thought at the time that it was part of being pregnant. Like craving odd foods, that sort of thing. Pregnant women get fixated on strange things.' His eyes rose to meet mine. 'Besides, I didn't want to think about it. Just a day or two before the murder she was talking about how she wanted me to get a police lock for the door. You know those locks with a steel bar braced against the door so it can't be forced?'
I nodded.
'Well, we didn't get a lock like that. Not that it would have made any difference because the door wasn't forced. I wondered why she would let anyone in, as nervous as she was, but it was daytime, after all, and people aren't as suspicious in the daytime. A man could pretend to be a plumber or from the gas company or something. Isn't that how the Boston Strangler operated?'
'I think it was something like that.'
'But if it was actually someone she knew-'
'There are some questions I have to ask.'
'Sure.'
'Is it possible your wife was involved with anyone?'
'Involved with-you mean having an affair?'
'That sort of thing.'
'She was pregnant,' he said, as if that answered the question.
When I didn't say anything he said, 'We were very happy together. I'm sure she wasn't seeing anyone.'
'Did she often have visitors when you were out?'
'She might have had a friend over. I didn't check up on her. We trusted each other.'
'She left her job early that day.'
'She did that sometimes. She had an easygoing relationship with the woman she worked for.'
