'A lot of reasons. Greed, fear, anger, jealousy-the list goes on and on.
Sometimes the motive is so trivial that you can't believe anyone would kill because of it.'
'I had a case once,' Sergeant Boone said, 'where a guy stabbed his neighbor to death because the man's dog barked too much. And another where a guy shot his wife because she burned a steak while she was broiling it.'
'Did you ever have a case,' Monica asked, 'where a wife killed her husband because he ate sandwiches while leaning over the kitchen sink?'
The Boones laughed. Even Delaney managed a weak grin.
'What do you think the motive was in the Ellerbee case?' Rebecca asked.
'Nothing trivial,' Delaney said, 'that's for sure. Something deep and complex. What do you think it was, Sergeant?'
'I don't know,' Boone said.
'But I doubt if it was money.'
'Then it must have been love,' his wife said promptly.
'I'm sure it had something to do with love.'
She was a short, plump, jolly woman with a fine complexion and long black hair falling loosely about her shoulders.
Her eyes were soft, and there was a cherub's innocence in her expression. She was wearing a tailored flannel suit, but nothing could conceal her robust grace.
Delaney was aware that she treated him with a deferential awe, and it embarrassed him. Monica addressed Boone familiarly as Abner or Ab, but Rebecca wouldn't dare address Delaney as Edward. And since Mr. Delaney was absurdly formal, she simply used no name or title at all.
'Why do you think love was the motive, Rebecca?' he asked her.
'I just feel it.'
The Sergeant burst out laughing.
'There's hard evidence for you, sir,' he said.
'Let's take that to the DA tomorrow.' Later that night, when they were preparing for bed, he said to Monica, 'Do you agree with Rebecca-that love was the motive for Ellerbee's murder?'
'I certainly think it was involved,' she said.
'If it wasn't money, it had to be love.'
'I wish I could be as sure of anything,' he said grouchily, 'as you are of everything.'
'You asked me, so I told you.'
'If you women are right,' he said, 'maybe we should forget about checking out violence-prone patients and concentrate on love-prone patients.'
'Are there such animals?' she asked.
'Love-prone people?'
'Of course there are. Men who go from woman to woman, needing love to give their life meaning. And women who fall in love at the drop of a hat-or a pair of pants.'
'You're a very vulgar man,' she said.
'That's true,' he agreed.
'Has Rebecca put on weight?'
'Maybe a pound or two.'
'She's not pregnant, is she?'
'Of course not. Why do you ask that?'
'I don't know… there was a kind of glow about her tonight. I just thought…'
'If she were pregnant, she'd have told me.'
'I guess. If they are going to have children, they better get cracking-if you'll excuse another vulgarism. Neither of them is getting any younger.'
He was sitting on the edge of his bed, dangling one of his shoes. Monica came over, plumped down on his lap, put a warm arm about his neck.
'I wish you and I had children, Edward.'
'We do. I think of your girls as mine. And I know you think of my kids as yours.'
'It's not the same,' she said.
'You know that. I mean a child who's truly ours.'
'It's a little late for that,' he said.
'Isn't it?'
'I suppose so,' she said sadly.
'I'm just dreaming.'
'Besides,' he added, 'would you want the father of your child to be a man who eats sandwiches leaning over the kitchen sink?'
'I apologize,' she said, laughing, 'I shouldn't have mentioned that in front of company, but I couldn't resist it.'
Before she released him, she put her face close to his, stared into his eyes, said, 'Do you love me, Edward?'
'I love you. I don't want to think how empty and useless my life would be without you.' She kissed the tip of his nose, and he asked, 'What brought that on?'
'All the talk tonight about love and murder,' she said.
'It bothered me. I just wanted to make sure the two don't necessarily go together.'
'They don't,' he said slowly, 'Not necessarily.'
No one knew how or where the expression started, but that year everyone in the Department was using 'rappaport.'
Street cops would say, 'I get good rappaport on my beat.'
Detectives would say of a particular snitch, 'I got a good rappaport with that guy.'
Actually, when you analyzed it, it was a useful portmanteau word. Not only did you have rapport with someone, but you could rap with them. It fit the bill.
Detective Robert Keisman figured to establish a rappaport with Harold Gerber, the Vietnam vet. The black cop, skinny as a pencil and graceful as a fencer, knew what it was like to feel anger eating at your gut like an ulcer; he thought he and Gerber,would have a lot in common….
Until he met Gerber, and saw how he lived.
'This guy is a real bonzo,' he told Jason.
But still, intent on establishing a rappaport, Keisman costumed himself in a manner he thought wouldn't offend the misanthropic vet: worn jeans, old combat boots, a scruffy leather jacket with greasy buckskin fringe, and a crazy cap with limp earflaps.
He didn't mislead Gerber; he told him he was an NYPD dick assigned to the Ellerbee case. And in their first face-to-face, he asked the vet the same questions Delaney and Boone had asked, and got the same answers.
But the Spoiler acted like he didn't give a shit whether Gerber was telling the truth or not.
'I'm just putting in my time, man,' he told the vet.
'They're never going to find out who offed Ellerbee, so why should I bust my hump?'
Still, every day or so Keisman would put away his elegant Giorgio Armani blazer and Ferragamo slacks. Then, dressed like a Greenwich Village floater, he'd go visit Gerber.
'Come on, man,' he'd say, 'let's get out of this latrine and get us a couple of brews.'
The two of them would slouch off to some saloon where they'd drink and talk the day away. Keisman never brought up the subject of Ellerbee's murder, but if Gerber wanted to talk about it, the Spoiler listened sympathetically and kept it going with casual questions.
'I'm nowhere yet,' he reported to Jason Two, 'but the guy is beginning to open up. I may get something if my liver holds out. One afternoon he and Gerber were in a real dump on Hudson Street when suddenly the vet said to Keisman, 'You're a cop-you ever ice a guy?' 'Once,' the Spoiler said.
'This junkie was coming at me with a shiv, and I put two in his lungs. I got a commendation for that.'
Which was a lie, of course. Keisman had been on the Force for ten years and had never fired his service
