'Woman who wrote that letter was murdered,' Carella said.
'Jesus, what is this?' Connie said. 'The Scottish Play?'
'What's the Scottish Play?' Brown asked.
'We have to talk to you,' Carella said. 'If you want a lift downtown, we'll be happy to take you.'
'In what?' she said. 'A police car?'
'Nice Dodge sedan.'
'Shotgun on the back seat?'
'In the trunk,' Brown said.
'Why not?' Connie said, and they began walking toward where Carella had parked the car, around the corner. She was in good shape; they had to step fast to keep up with her. Carella unlocked the door on the driver's side, clicked open all the other doors, and then threw up the visor with the pink police notice on it. Connie sat beside him on the front seat. Brown climbed into the back.
'Where to?' Carella asked.
'Octagon,' she said. 'You've been there.'
'More auditions?'
'Endless process,' she said. 'I don't know this woman, you realize. If you're suggesting her murder . . .'
'When did you get her letter, Miss Lindstrom?'
'Last week sometime.'
'Before the Meet 'N' Greet?'
'Yes.'
'How'd you handle it?'
'Dadier's Nose,' she said, and shrugged.
'What's that?'
'Too long a story. Too long a nose, in fact. Suffice it to say that plagiarism victims surface whenever anything smells of success. I turned the letter over to my lawyer.'
'Did he contact her?'
'She. I have no idea.'
'You didn't ask?'
'Why should I care? We're talking about a play written in !'
'We're also talking about a play that seems to inspire murder.'
The car went silent.
Connie turned to him, her face sharp in profile.
'You don't know that for sure,' she said.
'Know what?'
'That the two murders are in any way connected. I suppose you'd both take a fit if I smoked.'
'Go right ahead,' Carella said, surprising Brown.
She fished into her bag, came up with a single cigarette and a lighter. She flicked the lighter into flame, held it to the end of the cigarette. She breathed out a cloud of smoke, sighed in satisfaction. On the back seat, Brown opened a window.
'I know what it looks like,' she said. 'Hale refuses to sell us the rights, so he gets killed. Woman writes a letter that could seem threatening to the show, and she gets killed. Somebody wanted both of them dead because the show must go on' she said, raising her voice dramatically. 'Well, I have news for you. The show doesn't always have to go on. If it gets too difficult or too complicated, it simply does not go on, and that's a fact.'
'But the show is going on,' Brown said. 'And that's a fact, too.'
'Yes. But if you think any of the professionals involved in this project would kill to insure a production . . .' She shook her head. 'No,' she said. 'I'm sorry.'
'How about the amateurs?' Carella asked.
Sometimes it was better to deal with professionals.
A professional knew what he was doing, and if he broke the rules it was only because he understood them so well. The amateur witnessed a murder or two on television, concluded he didn't have to know the rules, he could just jump in cold and do a little murder of his own. The amateur believed that even if he didn't know what he was doing, he could get away with it. The professional believed he had best know what he was doing or he'd get caught. In fact, the professional knew without question that if he didn't get better and better each time out, eventually they'd nail him. The irony was that there were more amateurs than professionals running around loose out there, each and every one of them thriving. Go figure.
The way Carella and Brown figured it, there were four amateurs involved in the musical production of Jenny's Room, and three of them were still here in this busy little city. The fourth was somewhere in Tel Aviv, driving his taxi through crowded streets and hoping a bus bomb wouldn't explode in his path. There was nothing that said an Israeli cab driver couldn't have hired a Jamaican from Houston to hang an old man in his closet and later break an old lady's neck, but that sounded like the kind of stuff a neophyte might devise. Distance also would have disqualified Felicia Carr from Los Angeles and Gerald Palmer from London had they not both been here in the city when Martha Coleridge had her neck snapped.
Cynthia Keating always loomed first and foremost.
Mousy little Cynthia, who'd hoisted her father off that bathroom door hook and lugged him over to the bed. Dear little Cynthia, who'd been worried about a suicide clause depriving her of a lousy twenty-five grand when
there were hundreds of thousands to be coined in a hit musical?
They already knew where they could find Cynthia Keating. They knew that Palmer was staying at The Piccadilly because he'd mentioned it at Connie Lindstrom's party. From the ever helpful Norman Zimmer, they learned that Felicia Carr was staying with a girlfriend here in the city. Because both Felicia and Palmer were leaving for their respective homes this weekend and time was running out, they split the legwork into three teams.
Whether a person was guilty or not, he or she always seemed surprised—and a little bit frightened—to find policemen standing on the doorstep. Felicia Carr opened the door to her girlfriend's garden apartment in Majesta, saw two burly men standing there flashing badges, opened her big green eyes wide and asked what seemed to be the trouble, Officers?
'We're investigating a homicide,' Meyer said, because that often caused amateurs to wet their pants.
'A double homicide, in fact,' Kling said genially. 'May we come in, please?'
'Well . . . sure,' Felicia said.
They followed her into a spacious, sunny living room overlooking the Majesta Bridge not far in the distance. The furniture was still wearing summer slipcovers, the fabric all abloom with riotous red and yellow and purple flowers against a background of large green leaves. The summery decor, the sun glaring through the big windows made the day outside appear balmy. But the temperature was in the low twenties, and the forecasters had predicted more snow either late tonight or early tomorrow morning.
Felicia told them she was just on her way out. . .
'So much to see here,' she explained.
. . . and hoped this wouldn't take too long.
'Though I'm sorry to hear someone got murdered,' she added.
'Two people,' Kling reminded her.
'Yes, I'm sorry.'
'Miss Carr,' Meyer said, 'can you tell us where you were this past Sunday night?'
'I'm sorry?'
'This past Sunday night,' he repeated.
'That would've been the fifth,' Kling said helpfully.
'Can you tell us where you were?'
'Well . . . why?'
'This is a homicide investigation,' Meyer said, and smiled encouragingly,
'What's that got to do with me?'
'Most likely nothing,' Kling said, and nodded regretfully, as if to say / know you had nothing to do with these
