“Who was there for the rehearsal, Mr. Warden?”
Warden closed his eyes to picture the participants. She had asked him this question before. “Dan Farnham, the director. Cynthia. Four of the boys. Pat McPhee was there for a while.”
Carol Scott checked her notes as he spoke. “Where did you go on this walk, Mr. Warden?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Did you go back to the theater building?”
“I don’t think so,” said Warden.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” said Carol Scott politely.
Warden said he did not know how to explain the creative process, how it was like going into a trance, like entering a different dimension. It was like going into anesthesia. Literally like losing one’s mind.
“I was thinking,” he said. “I was not aware of time or place when I left the auditorium. I became aware when I encountered Mr. Carella here, and he asked me how Cynthia was.”
He felt like a fool. He was not even able to produce a draft of the poem to show the police that he had been working; there had been no time for writing it down. He could tell them only what he had already told them, had already said to this polite but very persistent woman from the police department who had interviewed him at length in Horace Somerville’s private study.
She had taken him just thirty minutes ago back to the paneled study with the brass desk lamp and had asked him the same questions again and again.
“Mr. Warden, your wife was ill, was she not?” she had said.
“She had multiple sclerosis, yes.” It had hurt to fall into the past tense.
“Did that upset you?”
“Of course it did,” Warden had said. “We were both devastated.”
“Did you hate the idea of seeing your wife suffer?” Carol Scott had asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you want to help her end her pain?”
Warden had known what he was saying. “Yes,” he had said.
“Mr. Warden, did you kill your wife?” Carol Scott had said.
Warden had not answered.
“Mr. Warden?”
“I thought about it,” he had said.
“A mercy killing?”
“Yes,” he had said.
“Because you loved her?”
“Yes.”
“Did you do it, Mr. Warden?”
He had shaken his head. “No,” he had said. “I could never do that.”
She had watched him and listened to him and asked him about his trip to New York at Thanksgiving and his schedule for working out in the gym and his acquaintance with Robert Staines. But she had finally said okay and had returned him to the living room. “That will be all,” she had said.
But it was not all. She was back now with Kemper Carella and she was starting in again with more questions.
Carol Scott turned and asked Carella whether Cynthia was alive when he got to the theater.
“Of course she was alive,” said Carella. He sat in a wooden chair to Warden’s right. “She was there practicing her lines. She laughed when I told her about Ben, and she said something like, ‘He’ll be all right,’ or ‘He’ll be fine.’”
“Was anyone else in the building?”
“Not that I could see,” Carella said. “It was just Cynthia and me.” His eyes jumped from face to face.
“Did you see Mr. Warden return to the theater?” asked Carol Scott.
“No.”
“Did you like Cynthia Warden?”
“Not especially,” said Carella. He waved his hands as if to cancel the answer, to erase it in the air. “I mean, I liked her all right, but I didn’t have a thing for her the way some people did.”
“Who were those people, Mr. Carella?”
“A lot of the boys did,” he said. “And everybody knew Dan Farnham was going crazy over her.”
“But not you?” asked Carol Scott.
“No.”
“You don’t like women?” she asked.
“I didn’t say that,” said Carella. “I like women just fine.”
“Yes,” said Carol Scott. “Your friend in New York finally told the truth about how you spent your latest Sunday afternoon there.”
Carella’s face turned pale. “That has nothing to do with this,” he said.
“What does a woman charge you for services like that?” said Carol Scott.
“That has nothing to do with this,” Carella said. “Nothing at all. What are you trying to do?”
Carol Scott did not pause.
“Did you see Daniel Farnham at the theater this afternoon?”
“No.”
“What time did you leave?”
“I was there only a couple of minutes. It must have been 6:30, 6:35.”
“And you saw no one besides Cynthia Warden.”
“No.”
“So nobody can confirm these times.”
“Yes,” said Carella. “Patrick McPhee. I talked with him on the telephone while I was there.”
“Why did you telephone Mr. McPhee?”
“I didn’t,” said Carella. “He telephoned me. Or rather he called backstage. He said he was at the gym and was looking for Farnham, and thought maybe Farnham had come back to the theater.”
Thomas Boatwright spoke up from his seat on the couch.
“Mr. Farnham did come back to the auditorium,” he said.
“Richard Blackburn saw him come running out the front door right before Greg and I got there.”
“What time was this?” asked Carol Scott.
“A few minutes before 7:00.”
“And where is Mr. Farnham now?” asked Carol Scott.
No one had any idea.
SCENE 13
They found Farnham in Patrick McPhee’s apartment. He was drinking coffee and eating a sandwich, and it was clear that he had been weeping. Carol Scott was with three uniformed police officers and another investigator, and the first thing she asked was for permission to search his apartment in the gym.
“For what?” said Farnham. He sounded astonished. He had removed his tie and had slipped on a navy blue crewnecked sweater.
“I have probable cause,” said Carol Scott. She had said the same thing to Warden and Carella before she had searched their homes. “Will you allow us to search it now?”
Farnham said yes.
“May I have a key?”
“It’s always unlocked,” he said.
She sent three of the four men to his apartment and remained to question him herself.
“Should I leave?” asked Patrick McPhee. He, too, had changed from coaching attire to a sweater and slacks. His sweater was red with green horizontal stripes.
“No,” she said. “I want you to be here.”
The
