“Not much chance of that. Rigor was already setting in when we got here.”
Joanne looked at Paxton and said, “Look, I know you boys go back a ways and I love you too, Cliff, but Jesus Christ, Willie, this is inappropriate as hell.”
“It’s all gonna be in the report,” Paxton said.
“Then let him read it like everybody else.”
I nodded at them. “Yeah, don’t get your tit in a wringer on my account, Willie. But thanks.”
It had still been light on the street at seven o’clock. People had been coming home from work. That meant there was a chance the perp had been seen, and maybe Whiteside already had a witness under wraps.
Now there was nothing to do but wait. Cops can take hours at a murder scene and these guys were in no hurry. I thought of Ralston, alone on the hot side of Mercury, sealed off in his own private hell. This was the first of many hellish hours, and all I could do for him was try to make it less awful than it had to be.
After a while two men brought a stretcher into the bedroom and they lifted the body off the bed. I didn’t want to watch this part— you never do with a friend—but I stood up and without moving from the spot looked into the room. I didn’t think of her as Denise now: Denise was gone and this shell was what she had left behind. Paxton directed the loading of the body, taking care to leave the dangling arm in the same position as it was when they’d found her. Joanne said something and he looked at the bed, took a long for-cepslike instrument and peeled back the covers. Then he said, “Hey, Whiteside, look what she was lying on,” and still using his forceps, he plucked what looked like a dollar bill from the folds of the rumpled sheet. But my eyes were good and I could see the picture of Franklin clearly from where I stood. It was a C-note.
Whiteside appeared at once with a plastic bag. Paxton reached over to drop it in. Joanne said, “Here’s another one,” and Paxton pulled it gingerly from the covers.
“Here’s some more,” Joanne said.
“I thought these people were supposed to be poor,” Whiteside said. “Looks like she had something going on the side.”
I held myself onto the chair. I hated Whiteside in that moment but I watched quietly while they bagged the other bills. With the body gone there was a general combing of the room. The bed was vacuumed for fibers and hairs, the floor around the bed was examined, and the small throw rug vacuumed as well. At some point Whiteside looked at his watch and said, “I’m going on in, see what the man’s got to say.”
I followed him out into the yard.
“I’ll see you down there,” Whiteside said without enthusiasm. “You know the way?”
“If I get lost I’ll ask somebody.”
“Remember, you’re only there by my permission. You keep your mouth shut, just like you said.”
I had never seen Whiteside work but I didn’t think much of him so far. There was no way I’d have let him sit in if I had been in his shoes and he’d been in mine. I wouldn’t have let him into the crime scene in the first place. I wouldn’t have crumbled under any threat of bringing a lawyer in. They’d have talked to me on my terms or I’d have found out why. It was obvious that Whiteside had something up his sleeve: he was confident he could handle me or maybe even show me up, and the chance to get a quick confession and clear this case in hours was too much to resist. Some cops are like that. I met a reporter once who said it was like that in his business too. The two biggest hot dogs were battling it out in the front-page derby, just like some cops who always wanted to be number one in clearing their cases. I wondered who the other hot dog was now that I was gone.
At the station Whiteside showed us into an office that suggested the atmosphere of an interview rather than an interrogation. I sat off to one side while he and Ralston faced each other across a desk. Whiteside offered coffee but Ralston made no response at all. I thought of the Harold Waters case and the similarities were chilling. Waters, a big black man; his wife by all accounts articulate, the joy of his life. I looked at Whiteside and in that half second he seemed almost predatory.
A stenographer came in and sat just behind Ralston in a corner of the room. “We’re making a tape of this conversation as well as a transcript,” Whiteside said, glancing at me. “The young man who just came in is Jay Holt, and he will take down everything we say. This is routine.”
Ralston’s wet eyes moved around the room and found mine. I nodded what I hoped was encouragement. Ralston said my name, first just “Janeway,” then “Jesus, Janeway,” and his tears began again. Whiteside said, “Speak to me, please, not to Mr. Janeway,” and the interrogation that was supposedly only an interview got under way.
The first questions were routine. State your name and address for the record, please. Where were you today and tonight? When was the last time you heard from Mrs. Ralston? What time did you get home? Had there been any hint of trouble prior to tonight? Had you noticed any strangers who seemed to have a special interest in your home? This went on for a while, and Ralston answered in words of one syllable. Twice he broke down and Whiteside called for a policewoman to bring him some water.
Whiteside asked about their finances. Ralston, in that same breaking voice, told him in a few words. They were dirt poor. They had almost nothing.
Then Whiteside said, “Eleven hundred dollars was found at the scene, Mr. Ralston. Can you explain that?”
“That’s impossible.”
“Uh-huh. Did you know your wife kept a diary?”
