'Yeah. She insists on pictures. In the act.'
'Jealous wife ain't a bad motive,' Healy said.
I didn't tell him about Elmer O'Neill. Or the Eisens. I saw nothing useful to me for the moment to say anything about the guy Rowley hired to follow his wife. She was after all a client and I might as well protect her as far as I could. I could always tell it later. For the moment holding it back might give me a useful thing to trade someday. I had never gotten into serious trouble keeping my yap shut.
'What we can be pretty sure of,' I said, 'is whoever wanted him dead, wanted him dead pretty bad. Walk in and shoot him, no attempt to make it look like an accident, or a suicide. They wanted it done quick.'
Healy bit the corner off a triangle of toast and chewed it slowly and swallowed.
'Or they were so mad it didn't matter to them,' Healy said.
'That narrows it down,' I said.
Healy grinned at me.
'Yeah, it was either a crime of passion or it wasn't,' he said.
12
Marlene and I discussed her husband's death, sitting on the side porch, sipping iced tea and looking at the uneventful sweep of her front lawn.
'A person from the state police called me,' Marlene said. 'A captain.'
'Healy,' I said.
'Whatever,' she said. 'Did you get the pictures of Trent cheating?'
'No.'
'I told you I wanted pictures.' I nodded.
'Have you identified the woman?' Marlene said.
'Does it matter now?' I said.
'Of course it matters,' Marlene said. 'I'm paying for this information.'
'Woman's name is Ellen Eisen.'
'My God,' she said, 'that stupid little Jew.'
'Nicely said.'
'Oh, God. Don't get PC on me. She is a stupid little Jew.' There didn't seem anywhere to take that, so I nodded and left it.
'Sorry things worked out the way they did,' I said.
'Don't worry about me. I'm strong. I can take it. I don't need any sympathy.'
'I'm sorry anyway,' I said.
'They'll think I did it,' Marlene said.
'They will?'
'Of course they will, they always suspect the wife.'
'In a homicide,' I said, 'the cops routinely investigate everybody. They'll clear you.'
'My friends will think I did it. I know they will. They will love blaming me.'
'What are friends for?' I said. She paid no attention.
'They'll think because of who I am, the police would be intimidated and not really investigate.'
The image of her intimidating Healy made me smile, but Marlene took no notice.
'I'll need you to prove I wasn't involved,' she said.
'I don't think you do,' I said. 'On the reasonable assumption that you weren't, I should think the cops could do that on their own.'
'You still work for me,' she Said. 'I want to be cleared.'
'Where were you last night,' I said, 'between, say, six and ten.'
'I went to the movies.'
'Where?'
'At that new big theater complex near the new Ritz.'
'What did you see?'
'Chicago. And I don't like being questioned this way.'
'The easiest way to be cleared is to have an alibi,' I said.
