Finally I said to my wife, 'Are you all right?'
She nodded.
'Where did you get the gun?'
'He gave it to me.'
'When? Why?'
She seemed a little out of it, which was normal under the circumstances, but she thought a moment and replied, 'When he came home from the hospital. The FBI men were searching the house, and he had a gun hidden so he gave it to me to keep for him.'
'I see.' You blew it, Frank. But really, if it weren't a gun, it would have been a knife or a fireplace poker, or anything she could get her hands on. Hell hath no fury like a redheaded woman scorned. Believe it? I asked her, 'Did you make any statement to anyone here?'
'Statement…? No… I just said… I forgot…'
'Don't say anything to them or to the police when they arrive.'
'The police…?'
'Yes, they're on the way.'
'Can't I go home?'
'I'm afraid not.'
'Am I going to jail?'
'Yes. I'll try to get you out tomorrow on bail.' Then again, maybe I won't. She nodded and smiled for the first time, a forced smile, but genuine nonetheless. She said, 'You're a good lawyer.'
'Right.' I saw that she was pale and shaky, so I led her back to the chair. She glanced over at the mess at the far end of the palm court, then looked at me and said, 'I killed him.'
'Yes, I know.' I sat her down in the chair, knelt, and took her hand. 'Do you want something to drink?'
'No, thank you.' She added, 'I did this for you.'
I chose to ignore that.
The county police arrived, uniformed officers, plainclothes detectives, the forensic unit, ambulance attendants, police photographers, and other assorted crime-scene types. The grandeur of Alhambra seemed more interesting to them than its dead owner, but eventually they got down to business. Susan watched the activity as though it had nothing to do with her. Neither of us spoke, but I stayed with her, kneeling beside her chair and holding her hand. I saw Mancuso speaking to a big beefy guy with a ruddy face, and they kept glancing over at Susan and me as they spoke. Finally, the big guy walked over to us and I stood. A uniformed female police officer joined him. The big guy said to me, 'You're her husband?'
'And her attorney. Who are you?''
He obviously didn't like my tone or my question, but you have to get off on the wrong foot with these guys, because that's where you're headed anyway. He said, 'I'm Lieutenant Dolan, County Homicide.' He turned to Susan and said, 'And you are Susan Sutter?'
She nodded.
'Okay, Mrs Sutter, I'm going to read you your rights in the presence of your husband, who I understand is your attorney.' Dolan had one of those little cheat cards like Mancuso had and began reading from it. Good Lord, you'd think they could remember a few simple lines after twenty years of saying them. I mean, I can still recite the entire prologue of the Canterbury Tales twenty-five years after I learned it, and that's in Middle English.
Dolan asked Susan, 'Do you understand your rights?'
Again she nodded.
He looked at me. 'She understands?'
'Not really,' I replied, 'but for the record, yes.'
He turned back to Susan. 'Do you want to make any statements at this time?'
'I -'
I interrupted. 'No. She is obviously not going to make any statements, Lieutenant.'
'Right.' Dolan signalled to the uniformed policewoman, who approached, somewhat self-consciously I thought. Dolan turned back to Susan. 'Please stand, Mrs Sutter.'
Susan stood.
Dolan said to her, 'You are under arrest for murder. Please turn around.' The policewoman actually turned Susan by the shoulder and was going to cuff her hands behind her back, but I grabbed the woman's wrist. 'No. In the front.' I looked at Dolan. 'She won't try to strangle you with the cuffs, Lieutenant.' This didn't go over very well, but after a little glaring all around, Dolan said to the policewoman, 'In front.'
Before Susan was cuffed, I helped her off with her tweed jacket, and then the woman cuffed Susan's hands in front of her. This is more comfortable, less humiliating, and looks better because you can throw a coat over the cuffs, which I then did with Susan's jacket.
By this time, Dolan and I were getting to understand each other a little better, and we didn't like what we understood. Dolan said to the policewoman but also so I could hear, 'Mrs Sutter was searched by the federal types when they grabbed her, and they tell me she has no more weapons, but you have her searched again at the station house, and you look for poison and other means of suicide, and you keep a suicide watch on her all night. I don't want to lose this one.' He glanced at me, then said to the policewoman, 'Okay, take her away.' 'Hold on,' I said. 'I want to speak to my client.'
But Lieutenant Dolan was not going to be as cooperative as Mr Mancuso had been under similar circumstances in this very spot some months before. Lieutenant Dolan said, 'If you want to talk to her, come to the station house.' 'I intend to speak to her now, Lieutenant.' I had my hand on Susan's left arm, and the policewoman had her hand on Susan's right arm. Poor Susan. For the first time since I'd known her, she actually looked as if she wasn't in control of a situation.
Well, before the situation got out of everyone's control, Mancuso ambled over and put his arm around Dolan, leading him away. They chatted a minute, then Dolan turned back toward us and motioned to the policewoman to back off. I took Susan's cuffed hands in mine, and we looked at each other. She didn't say anything but squeezed my hands. Finally, I said, 'Susan… do you understand what's happening?'
She nodded. Actually she did seem more alert now, and she looked me in the eyes.
'John, I'm so sorry for the inconvenience. I should have waited until you left.' That would have been a good idea, but Susan had no intention of letting me off that easy. I said, 'Maybe you shouldn't have killed him at all.' Her mind was either elsewhere or she didn't want to hear that, because she said, 'Could you do me a favour? Zanzibar is tethered out back. Will you ride him home? He can't stay there all night.'
I replied, 'I'll certainly take care of Zanzibar.'
'Thank you. And you could see to Zanzibar and Yankee in the morning?'
'All right.'
'Will I be home by afternoon?'
'Perhaps. If I can make bail.'
'Well, my chequebook is in my desk.'
I replied, 'I don't think they take personal cheques, Susan. But I'll work something out.'
'Thank you, John.'
There really wasn't much else to say, I suppose, now that the horses were taken care of and I knew where her chequebook was. Well, maybe this wasn't the time for sarcasm, but if I told you I wasn't enjoying this at all, I'd be a liar. Still, I couldn't really enjoy it, nor for that matter could I weep over it unless I fully understood it. So, against my better judgement, I asked her, 'Why did you kill him?'
She looked at me as though that were a silly question. 'He destroyed us. You know that.'
Okay. So leave it at that. From that we had a chance to rebuild our lives together if we chose to. She did it for us. End of story. But you can't build on lies, so I said, 'Susan, don't lie to me. Did he tell you he was leaving you? Did he tell you that he was not leaving Anna for you? That he was not taking you with him to Italy? Did he tell you that he only used you to get to me?' She stared at me, through me actually, and I saw she was off again in Susan land. I supposed we could have this conversation some other time, though I was curious to discover if Bellarosa's telling Susan that he only used her to get to me was the proximate cause of his death. And you may wonder if he knew or suspected what would happen when I set that in motion. That is a complex question. I'd have to think about that.
