'They were still in business when you left Brooklyn. Did you keep tabs on the place?'
'My ex-wife must have mentioned it,' he said. Then he shrugged.
'Maybe I walked past there once.
When I was in Brooklyn visiting Danny.'
'The woman who ran the day-care center is living in New York.
She'll remember you.'
'After nine years?'
'That's what she says. And she kept records, Burt. The ledgers with the names and addresses of students and their parents, along with the record of payments. She packed all that stuff in a carton when she closed the business and never bothered to go through it and throw out the things she didn't need to keep anymore. She opened the box today.
She says she remembers you. You always brought the boy, she said. She never met your wife but she does remember you.'
'She must have a good memory.'
'You were usually in uniform. That's an easy thing to remember.'
He looked at me for a moment, then turned and walked over to the window and stood looking out of it.
I don't suppose he was looking at anything in particular.
'Where'd you get the icepick, Burt?'
Without turning he said, 'I don't have to admit to anything. I don't have to answer any questions.'
'Of course you don't.'
'Even if you were a cop I wouldn't have to say anything. And you're not a cop. You've got no authority.'
'You're absolutely right.'
'So why should I answer your questions?'
'You've been sitting on it a long time, Burt.'
'So?'
'Doesn't it get to you a little? Keeping it inside all that time?'
'Oh, God,' he said. He went over to a chair, dropped into it. 'Bring me that beer,' he said. 'Could you do that for me?'
I gave it to him. He asked me if I was sure I didn't want one for myself. No thanks, I said. He drank some beer and I asked him where he got the icepick.
'Some store,' he said. 'I don't remember.'
'In the neighborhood?'
'I think in Sheepshead Bay. I'm not sure.'
'You knew Barbara Ettinger from the day-care center.'
'And from the neighborhood. I used to see her around the neighborhood before I started taking Danny to the center.'
'And you were having an affair with her?'
'Who told you that? No, I wasn't having an affair with her. I wasn't having an affair with anybody.'
'But you wanted to.'
'No.'
I waited, but he seemed willing to leave it there. I said, 'Why did you kill her, Burt?'
He looked at me for a moment, then looked down, then looked at me again. 'You can't prove anything,' he said.
I shrugged.
'You can't. And I don't have to tell you anything.' A deep breath, a long sigh. 'Something happened when I saw the Potowski woman,' he said. 'Something happened.'
'What do you mean?'
'Something happened to me. Inside of me. Something came into my head and I couldn't get rid of it. I remember standing and hitting myself in the forehead but I couldn't get it out of my mind.'
'You wanted to kill Barbara Ettinger.'
'No. Don't help me out, okay? Let me find the words by myself.'
'I'm sorry.'
'I looked at the dead woman and it wasn't her I saw on the floor, it was my wife. Every time the picture came back to me, the murder scene, the woman on the floor, I saw my wife in the picture. And I couldn't get it out of my head to kill her that way.'
