'The next time you feel like doing something like that, will you call me first?'
'All right,' Joan said faintly.
'Promise?'
'I promise.'
Then the talk got around to tyrannical mothers, and they traded anecdotes, each trying to outdo the other with tales of outrageous maternal despotism.
'I've got to get my own place,' Helen said, 'or I'm going to go right up the wall. The only trouble is, I can't afford it.
You know what rents are like today.'
'I'd love to get out, too,' Joan said forlornly. Then she suddenly brightened.
'Listen, I make a good salary. Do you think we might take a place together?'
'That's an idea…' the detective said cautiously. She liked Joan and thought they would get along, but even if she were ruled out as a suspect it was possible her problems would be too severe for Helen to live with.
Still, they talked for a while about where they'd like to live (Manhattan), the kind of place they'd need (preferably a twobedroom apartment), and how much rent they could afford.
'I'll need a desk,' Venable said.
'For my typewriter and reports.'
'I'll want at least one cat,' Joan said.
'I have some furniture. My bed is mine.'
'I don't own any of these things,' Joan said, looking around at the overstuffed apartment.
'And even if I did, I wouldn't want any of it for my own place. Our own place. I hate all this; it's so suffocating. You should see the Ellerbees' home; it's beautiful!'
'His office, too?'
'Well, that was very-you know, sort of empty. I mean, it was all right, but very white and efficient. Almost cold.'
'Was he like that?'
'Oh, no. Doctor Simon was a very warm man. Very human.'
'Which reminds me,' Helen said, 'if you and I ever do get an apartment together, what about men? Would you object if I brought a man home-for the night?'
Yesell hesitated.
'Not if we had separate bedrooms. Do you do that often?'
'Bring a guy home to my place? Are you kidding? If I did that, my mother would have one of her famous nosebleeds.
No, the only times I've been with men have been at their place, in cars, and once at a motel.' Joan said nothing, but lowered her eyes. She touched the bandage on her left wrist lightly. The two, like enough to pass as sisters, sat in silence awhile, the detective staring at the bowed head of the other woman.
'Joan,' she said gently, 'you're not a virgin, are you?'
'Oh, no,' Yesell said quickly.
'I've been with a man.'
'A man? One man?'
'No. More than one.'
'But it never lasted?'
Joan shook her head.
'No,' Helen said, 'it never does-the bastards!' Then, because she could see that Joan was depressed by this kind of talk, she changed the subject.
'I wish I had your figure. But I've got a weight problem and these doughnuts aren't helping They talked about diets and aerobic dancing and jogging for a while and then got into clothes and how difficult it was to find anything nice at a decent price. After about an hour, the doughnut plate being empty, the detective rose to leave.
'Take care of yourself, kiddo,' she said, leaning forward to kiss Joan's cheek.
'I expect I'll be around again-it's my job-but don't be bashful about calling me if you're feeling blue. Maybe we could have a pizza together or take in a movie or something.'
'I'd like that,' Joan said gratefully.
'Thank you for dropping by, Helen.'
At the door, the detective, tugging her knitted cap down around her ears, said, 'Where's Mama tonight-sowing some wild oats?'
'Oh, no,' Joan said, laughing, 'nothing like that. She's at her bridge club. They're neighborhood women, and they get together every Friday night without fail. It usually breaks up around eleven, eleven-thirty.'
'I wish my old lady would get out of the house occasionally,' Helen grumbled.
'One night without her is like a weekend in the country.'
She was halfway down the stairs when it hit her, and she started trembling.
She didn't stop shaking until she got into the Honda, locked the doors, and took a deep breath. She sat there in the darkness, gripping the wheel, thinking of the implications of what she had just heard.
She knew Joan Yesell's alibi: She had come home from work at about 6:00 on the Friday night Simon Ellerbee was killed, and had never left the house. Her mother had said yes, that was true.
But now here was mommy dearest out to play bridge every Friday night and not returning until 11:00 or 11:30. That would give Joan plenty of time to get up to East 84th Street and get home again before her mother returned.
And why was Mrs. Blanche Yesell lying? Because she was trying to protect 'my Joan.'
Wait a minute, Detective Venable warned herself. If Mama's bridge club was like most of them, they'd rotate meeting places, with each player acting as hostess in turn.
Maybe on the murder night they all met and played bridge in the Yesells' apartment.
But if that was so, why hadn't Joan or her mother mentioned it? It would have given them three more witnesses to Joan's presence that night.
No, Mrs. Blanche Yesell had gone elsewhere for her weekly bridge game.
But what if there was no game that night? It was raining so hard, maybe they decided to call it off, and Mrs. Yesell really was at home, playing two-handed bridge with her daughter.
Helen leaned forward, resting her forehead on the rim of the steering wheel, trying to figure out what to do next. First of all, she wasn't about to throw poor Joan to the wolves. Not yet. Second of all, she wasn't about to turn over a juicy lead like this to one of the men and let him grab the glory.
It had happened to her too many times in the past. She'd uncover something hot in an investigation and they'd take the follow-up away from her, saying in the kindliest way imaginable, 'Helen, that's nice going, but we'll want a guy with more experience to handle it.'
Bullshit! It was all hers, and this time she was going to track it down herself. Wasn't that what a detective was supposed to do?
She decided not to submit a report to Boone on the night's conversation with Joan Yesell or even mention the mother's Friday-night bridge club and how it was possible she was lying in confirming her daughter's alibi. When Detective Venable checked it all out, then she'd report it.
Until that time, all those more experienced guys could go screw.
That same evening, one of those more experienced guys, Edward X.
Delaney, was in a mellow mood. His irritation of the afternoon had disappeared with a dinner of pot roast, potato pancakes, and buttered carrots-all sluiced down his gullet with two bottles of dark Uwenbriiu.
Monica leaned forward to pat his vested stomach.
'You ate everything on your plate except the flowers,' she said.
'Feeling better?'
'A lot better,' he affirmed.
'Let's just leave everything for now and have our coffee in the living room.'
'There's nothing to leave. We went through everything like a plague of locusts.'
'I remember my mother used to say a good digestion is a blessing from heaven. Was she ever right.'
In the living room, Monica said, 'You don't talk much about your mother.'
