Cotton, who had his mouth open in position for his next remark, stood looking at her for a few seconds in silence, his mouth still open in position, and then he sat down slowly in his chair and took a firm grip on its arms. Sid, uninvited, sat down in a chair across from him.
“That’s not exactly known, of course,” Cotton said.
“How interesting! What time, exactly, would you say she was killed?”
“Damn it, it’s impossible to do more than make a scientific estimate. The coroner says it was almost certainly sometime between seven and eleven.”
“It must be wonderful to be able to make things like scientific estimates, and I don’t see how that coroner manages to do it. He isn’t even a doctor, let alone a scientist.”
“The post-mortem was done by a doctor.”
“Oh, yes. Naturally. A general practitioner who would have trouble diagnosing rigor mortis itself, without regard for the time it started.”
“Now, I’ll tell you something, Mrs. Jones. You’re always going around making critical remarks about the police and the medical profession, and I want to warn you that you’d better stop. It’s not right.”
“Isn’t it? Without making an issue of the fact that you’ve slightly exaggerated my position, I’d like to point out that being critical of a doctor and a policeman and a coroner is not quite so serious a matter as putting someone in jail for the silliest of reasons.”
“By God, Gid was in the park during the estimated time of death. He’s admitted that he was, and that’s reason enough to hold him.”
“I believe you said the estimated time of death is four hours. Seven to eleven. How many other people were in the park in that time?”
“How the hell would I know? We didn’t have the damn park under surveillance.”
“That’s a very significant admission, don’t you think? Thank you for making it.”
“I’m not making any admissions or anything else. I’m only saying what’s what. The point is, Gid’s the only one we know was in the park, and he went there specifically to meet the victim, and he had a reason to hold a grudge against her.”
“Is that so? I’m especially interested in that statement. What reason to hold a grudge?”
“You know what reason. She played him a damn dirty trick once.”
“By marrying someone else? On the contrary, she did him a favor. If she hadn’t married someone else, Gid would never have had the chance to marry me.”
“Well, it’s not my place to argue the relative merits of two women.”
“That’s correct. It isn’t. I’m glad to know that you know what your place isn’t, even if you don’t always seem to know what it is.”
“I’ll have to repeat, however, that he went to meet her in the middle of the night in Dreamer’s Park, and it’s only natural to assume that his reason, murder or something else, was not to play patty-cake or ring-around-the-rosie.”
“Possibly that’s because, not being the type that women care for, your assumptions are distorted by wishful thinking. Do you often engage in fantasy?”
Cotton took an even firmer grip on the arms of his chair, his knuckles turning white, and breathed deeply several times. It was plain that Sid had touched him where touching hurt.
“There’s nothing to be gained from our sitting here taking turns telling what we don’t like about each other,” he said finally.
“I agree,” Sid said. “From my point of view, it would take far too long, and it would be much more profitable to discuss the murder case. It’s apparent, if you’ll excuse my saying so, that it’s high time it was investigated carefully by someone sensible. We have already established, for example, that you don’t really know when the victim died or who was with her when she did. Now I would like to know what makes you so sure you know where she died.”
“Damn it, she died in Dreamer’s Park.”
“How do you know? Did someone actually see her killed there?”
“No, but that’s where she was found, and it’s logical to assume that that’s where she was killed.”
“Why?”
“Because no one in his right mind would be lugging a dead body around this town when it would be safer and easier to leave it where it became dead. Besides, Beth Thatcher called Gid and arranged to meet him in the park, and by God that’s where she went and where she was killed.”
“It must be a great comfort to have a dogmatic mind. As for me, I’m never so sure about things. It occurs to me, although I’ve read about the murder in the newspaper and heard it talked about by various people, including you, that no one has ever made much of a point about blood. Was the weapon that killed her left in the wound?”
“It was not. We haven’t found it yet, but we’re looking for it, and we probably will. It’ll be necessary, by the way, to search your house and yard.”
“We can settle that when the time comes. What I want to know now is how much blood there was.”
“Not much. Very little. The wound was just a sort of puncture, made by a thin blade.”
“It was deep, however, for it killed her. Wouldn’t a deep wound like that bleed considerably, even a sort of puncture, when the weapon was pulled out?”
“The doc said most of the bleeding was internal.”
“Nevertheless, I consider it odd and interesting that more of it wasn’t external. I’m convinced that a long blade, however thin, would cause considerable bleeding.”
“The doc says it wasn’t exactly a blade, from the looks of the wound. It was more spike-like.”
“But the paper and everyone have kept saying blade.”
“It was just something that got said and repeated. As far as the public is concerned, what’s the difference?”
“I’m not the public. I claim to be a participant, having Gid in jail, and I’m of
