all right, for Christ’s sake! It never fails. A guy goes for a drink of water and— all right, I’m coming!” He threw water and paper cup into the trash basket and ran like hell for the phone, snatching it from the receiver.
“Hello!” he shouted. “87th Squad!” he shouted. “Detective Willis speaking!” he shouted.
“I can hear you, Mac,” the voice said. “I can almost hear you without the aid of the instrument, and I’m all the way down on High Street. Shall we try it again? Pizzicato this time?”
“You mean diminuendo, don’t you?” Willis said softly.
“Whatever I mean, I think we all get the idea. This is Avery Atkins at the lab. Somebody up there sent a note down to us. We’ve been working on it.”
“What note?”
“It says ‘For the groom.’ Familiar with it?”
“Vaguely. What about it?”
“What did you say your name was, friend?”
“Willis. Hal Willis. Detective/third grade. Male, white, American.”
“And pretty snotty,” Atkins said.
“Listen, have you got information for me, or have you? I’m all alone here, and I’ve got a million things to do. So how about it?”
“Here it is. Catch it, wise guy. Paper used was five-and-dime stuff, trade name Skyline, sold over the counter all over the city at twenty-five cents for a package of ten cards and ten little envelopes. Go chase that one down. Ink used was Sheaffer’s Skrip, number thirty-two, permanent jet black. Ditto over counters across the face of our fair city. You can chase that one down, too, wise guy. Which brings us to fingerprints. Two sets on the card, both lousy. One set belongs to a guy named Thomas Giordano. No record. Checked it through his service fingerprints, he was in the Army Signal Corps. The second set belongs to a guy named Stephen Louis Carella who, I understand, is a detective working for the magnificent 87th Squad. He ought to be careful where he lays his fat fingers. You had enough, smart guy?”
“I’m still listening.”
“Comes to the handwriting itself, and there’s a lot of crap here you don’t have to know about unless you come up with a sample for comparison. There’s only one thing you do have to know.”
“What’s that?”
“Whoever sent this over asked us to run a handwriting comparison against the signature of one Martin Sokolin on whom we have a record at the IB. We did that. And one thing’s for sure.”
“And what’s that?”
“Martin Sokolin didn’t write that love note.”
The three detectives stood over the body of Joseph Birnbaum. There was no pain, no joy, no sorrow on their faces. Impassively, they stared at death and whatever they felt was rigidly concealed behind the masks they wore for society.
Carella was the first to kneel.
“Shot him in the back,” he said. “Bullet probably passed through to the heart. Killed him instantly.”
“That’s my guess,” Hawes said, nodding.
“How come we didn’t hear the shot?” Kling asked.
“All those champagne bottles going off. This is quite a distance from the house. The shot probably sounded like just another cork going off. Take a look around, will you, Bert? See if you can find the spent cartridge.”
Kling began thrashing through the bushes. Carella turned to Jonesy where he stood with Christine. His face was a pasty white. His hands, though he tried to control them, were trembling at his sides.
“Pull yourself together,” Carella said harshly. “You can help us, but not the way you are now.”
“I…I…I can’t help it,” Jonesy said. “I…I feel like I’m going to collapse. That’s why…why I sent Christine for you.”
“Is that why?” Hawes asked.
“I…I knew I couldn’t make it myself.”
“Maybe it’s a good thing,” Carella said. “If you’d have erupted onto that lawn, you’d have busted up that wedding as sure as—”
“What were you doing back here, anyway?” Hawes said, and he looked at Christine angrily.
“We were taking a walk,” Jonesy said.
“Why here?”
“Why not?”
“Answer my question, damnit!” Hawes shouted. “That man there is dead, and you’re the one who found the body, and I’d like to know just what the hell brought you back here? Coincidence?”
“Yes.”
“Why? What were you doing here?”
“Walking with Christine.”
“Cotton, we just—”
“I’ll get to you, Christine,” Hawes said. “Why’d you choose this path for a walk, Jones? So that you’d have a witness when you discovered the body?”
“What?”
“You heard me!”
“That’s…that’s prep—that’s preposterous!”
“Is it? Then why’d you come back here?”
“So I could kiss Christine,” Jonesy blurted.
“And did you?” Hawes said venomously.
“Cotton—”
“Keep out of this, Christine. Did you kiss her?”
“What’s this got to do with Birnbaum? What business is it of yours whether or not I—”
“When