“The husband wasn’t satisfied with the police work on the case. Quirk had gone as far as he could.”
“Was Quirk satisfied with the police work on the case?” Susan said.
“Quirk doesn’t say a hell of a lot.”
“He isn’t satisfied, is he?” Susan said.
“The official explanation,” I said, “is that Olivia Nelson was the victim of a random act of violence, doubtless by a deranged person. There is no evidence to suggest anything else.”
“And Quirk?”
“He doesn’t like it,” I said.
“And you?”
“I don’t like it,” I said. Why.
One of the many things about Susan that I admired was that she never made conversation. When she asked a question she was interested in the answer. Her curiosity was always genuine, and always engendering. When you got through talking with her you usually knew more about the subject than when you started. Even if it was your own subject.
“She was beaten to death with a framing hammer. She had one bruise on her shoulder where she probably flinched up.” I demonrated with my own shoulder. “And all the rest the damage was to her head. That seems awfully careful for a deranged killer.”
“Derangement can be methodical,” Susan said.
I nodded and drank some champagne. I put some salmon caviar on a triangle of toast and spooned a little creme fraiche on top. I held it toward Susan, who leaned forward and bit off the point. I ate the rest.
“And,” I said, “despite what people think, there aren’t that many homicidal maniacs roaming the streets. It’s never the best guess.”
“True,” Susan said. “But it is possible.”
“But it’s not a useful hypothesis, because it offers no useful way to proceed. The cops have already screened anybody with a record on this kind of thing. Beyond that all you can do is wait, and hope to catch him next time. Or the time after that.”
The fire softened the room as we talked. Fire was the heart of the house, Frank Lloyd Wright had said. And if he didn’t know, who would.
“But,” Susan said after she thought about it, “if you assume that it’s not a madman…”
“Madperson,” I said.
Susan put a hand to her forehead.
“What could I have been thinking?” she said. “If you assume it is not a madperson, then you can begin to do what you know how to do. Look for motive, that sort of thing.”
“Yes,” I said.
Susan still had half a glass of champagne, but she added a splash from the bottle to reinvigorate it. While she did that I got up and added two logs to the fire.
“Still there’s something else,” Susan said.
“Just because you’re a shrink,” I said, “you think you know everything.”
“I think I know you,” she said, “and it has nothing to do with my profession.”
“Good point,” I said.
I drank some champagne and ate salmon roe, and thought how to phrase it. Susan was quiet.
“It’s that there’s an, I don’t know, an official version of everything. But the objective data doesn’t quite match it. I don’t mean it contradicts it, but…” I spread my hands.
“For instance,” Susan said.
“Well, the home. It’s lovely and without character. It’s like a display, except for his bedroom; it’s as personless as a chain hotel.”
“His bedroom?”
“Yeah. That’s another thing. They have separate bedrooms separated by a sitting room. His shows signs of use-television set, some books on the bedside table, TV Guide. But hers…” I shook my head. “The kids’ rooms are like hers. Officially designated children’s rooms, and appropriately decorated. But no sense that anyone ever smoked a joint in there or read skin magazines with a flashlight under the covers.”
“What else?”
“He goes to the office every day early, stays late. There’s nothing to do. His secretary, who is, by the way, a knockout, is catching up on her reading.”
“This is subtle,” Susan said.
“Yeah, it is, though it’s not quite as subtle when you’re experiencing it. He talks about his children without any sense that now and then they might, or might have sometime, driven him up the wall. They’re perfect. She was perfect. His love was all-encompassing. His devotion is unflagging.”
“And there’s a legal limit on the snow here,” Susan said.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
