Our eyes locked again and her smile faded out. 'I'm sorry, Mr.
Scudder. I'm babbling again, aren't I?'
'I like the way you babble.'
For a second I thought she was going to blush, but she didn't. She took a breath and assured me I would have my money in a moment. I said there was no rush but she said it would be just as easy to get it over and done with. I sat down and worked on my coffee and she left the room and climbed a flight of stairs.
She returned a few minutes later with a sheaf of bills which she handed to me. I fanned them. They were all fifties and hundreds. I put them in my jacket pocket.
'Aren't you going to count them?' I shook my head. 'You're very trusting, Mr. Scudder. I'm sure you told me your first name but I don't seem to remember it.'
'Matthew.'
'Mine is Diana.' She picked up her coffee mug and drained it quickly, as if downing strong medicine.
'Will it be helpful if I say my husband was with me last night?'
'He was arrested inNew York , Mrs.Broadfield .'
'I just told you my name. Aren't you going to use it?' Then she remembered what we were talking about and her tone changed. 'What time was he arrested?'
'Around two-thirty.'
'Where?'
'An apartment in the Village.He'd been staying there ever since Miss Carr brought those charges against him. He was decoyed out of there last night, and while he was out somebody brought the Carr woman to his apartment and killed her there and tipped the police.Or brought her there after she was dead.'
'Or Jerry killed her.'
'It doesn't make sense that way.'
She thought about this,then took up another tack. 'Whose apartment was it?'
'I'm not sure.'
'Really?It must have been his apartment. Oh, I've always been sure he has one. There are clothes of his I haven't seen in ages, so I gather he keeps part of his wardrobe somewhere in the city.' She sighed. 'I wonder why he tries to hide things from me. I know so much and he must know that I know, don't you suppose? Does he think I don't know that he has other women? Does he think I care?'
'Don't you?'
She looked long and hard at me. I didn't think she was going to answer the question, but then she did.
'Of course I care,' she said. 'Of course I care.' She looked down at her coffee mug and seemed dismayed to see that it was empty. 'I'm going to have some more coffee,' she said. 'Would you like some, Matthew?'
'Thank you.'
She carried the mugs to the kitchen. On the way back she stopped at the liquor cabinet to doctor them both. She had a generous hand with the Wild Turkey bottle, making my drink at least twice as strong as the one I'd made for myself.
She sat on the couch again, but this time she placed herself closer to my chair. She sipped her coffee and looked at me over the top of her mug. 'What time was that girl killed?'
'According to the last news I heard, they're estimating the time of death at midnight.'
'And he was arrested around two-thirty?'
'Around that time, yes.'
'Well, that makes it simple, doesn't it? I'll say that he came home just after the children went to sleep.
He wanted to see me and change his clothing. And he was with me, watching television from eleven o'clock until theCarson show went off, and then he went back toNew York and got there just in time to get arrested. What's the matter?'
'It won't do any good, Diana.'
'Why not?'
'Nobody'llbuy it. The only kind of alibi that'd do your husband any good would be an ironclad one, and the uncorroborated word of his wife- no, it wouldn't do any good.'
'I suppose I must have known that.'
'Sure.'
'Did he kill her, Matthew?'
'He says he didn't.'
'Do you believe him?'
I nodded. 'I believe someone else killed her.And deliberately framed him for it.'
'Why?'
'To stop the investigation into the police department.Or for private reasons- if someone had cause to kill Portia
