'That's right,' I said. 'But we're back to the points you raised earlier. Why, in the absence of any kind of a financial motive, go to all that trouble to make suicide look like murder? And, motive aside, why wrap it up in a locked-room puzzle? Why make it look like an impossible murder?'
'Why?'
'So that Will would get the credit, and look good in the process.
This would be Will's last hurrah. Why not make it a good one and go out with a bang?'
He thought about it, nodded slowly. 'Makes a kind of sense if he's Will. But only if he's Will.'
'Granted.'
'So how did you get that part? Because if it's just a hypothesis that you dreamed up because it's the only way to make sense out of the locked-room-murder-that-has-to-be-suicide…'
'It's not. There's something else that got me suspicious.'
'Oh?'
'That first night at his apartment,' I said, 'he didn't have booze on his breath.'
'Well, for Christ's sake,' he said. 'Why didn't you say so earlier?
Jesus, I'm surprised you didn't arrest the son of a bitch right then and there.'
But he listened without interrupting while I explained my recollection of that first visit to Whitfield's Park Avenue apartment. 'He made a point of saying he'd been drinking when he hadn't,' I explained.
'Now why the hell would he lie about something like that? He wasn't a heavy drinker, and he didn't claim to be a heavy drinker, but he did drink, and he even took a drink in front of me. So why the subterfuge, why pretend to have had a couple of drinks earlier in the evening?
'I didn't have to be able to answer that in order to conclude that he'd lied to me, and I didn't think he'd do that without a reason. Well, what did the lie accomplish? It underscored his claim of having been really rattled by Will's threat. What was he saying, really? Something along the lines of, 'I'm truly and righteously scared, in fact I'm so scared that I've already had a couple of drinks today, and now I'm going to have another one and you can stand there and watch me do it.'
'Why would he want me to think he was scared? I busted my head on that one. What I came up with was that the only reason he'd have for going out of his way to impress me with his fear was because it didn't exist. That's why he had to lie about it. He wanted me to think he was afraid because he wasn't.'
'Why bother? Wouldn't you assume he was afraid, getting marked for death by some clown who was riding a hot streak? Wouldn't anybody?'
'You'd think so,' I said, 'but he knew something I didn't. He knew he wasn't afraid, and he knew he had nothing to be afraid of.'
'Because Will couldn't hurt him.'
'Not if he was Will.'
He frowned. 'That's a pretty big leap of logic, wouldn't you say?
He's pretending to be afraid, therefore he's not afraid, therefore he's got nothing to fear. Therefore he's Will, master criminal and multiple murderer. I don't remember a whole lot from my freshman logic class, but it strikes me there's a flaw in the ointment.'
'A flaw in the ointment?'
'The ointment, the woodpile. Maybe he's not afraid because he's got terminal cancer and he figures Will's just doing him a favor.'
'I thought of that.'
'And, since he's keeping his illness secret from the world, he puts on an innocent act in order to keep you from wondering why it doesn't upset him more to be Will's next headline.'
'I thought of that, too.'
'And?'
'I had to admit it was possible,' I said, 'but it just didn't ring true.
The motive for subterfuge seemed pretty thin. So what if I didn't think he was afraid? I'd just figure him for a stoic. But if what he wanted to cover up was the fact that he was Will, well, you could understand why he'd be moved to keep that a secret.'
'Where did you go from there?'
'I took a look at the first murder.'
'Richie Vollmer.'
'Richie Vollmer. Adrian's client, now free to do it again.'
'Anybody would have gotten Richie off, Matt. It wasn't Adrian's doing. The state's case fell apart when the Neagley woman hanged herself. It's not as though Adrian handed her the rope.'
'No.'
'You think he felt responsible?'
'I wouldn't go that far. I think he saw Richie's release as a gross miscarriage of justice, and I think he read Marty McGraw's column and came to the conclusion that Marty was right. The world would be a better place without Richie in it.'
