Fever(26)
“It’s blood. When did you find this?”
“Last night when I got home. I came out here for a drink of water …”
“What time?”
“Must’ve been close to midnight.”
“And no sign of your wife?”
“No. I looked everywhere in the house, outside, even in the garage. Her clothes are still in her closet.”
“Anything missing out here?”
“Missing?”
“Kitchen utensils. The sharp kind.”
“… Oh. No, the knife rack’s full except for the one there by the sink.”
I went over and looked. No stains on the shiny blade of the butcher knife on the drainboard. Dirty dishes cluttered the sink, giving off a faintly sour smell.
“I don’t suppose you called the police.”
“Christ, no,” Krochek said. “You know the first thing they’ll think, don’t you?”
“So you called me instead.”
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
Yeah. “More blood in that room back there?”
“A little, not much.”
“Anywhere else in the house?”
“No. Here, just here and the laundry room.”
“Anything else out of the ordinary? Signs of disturbance?”
“No. Just the blood.”
“You keep a gun in the house?”
“Gun? No. I wouldn’t know how to use one.”
“Does your wife?”
“No way. She’s afraid of guns.”
“That’s a good thing to be. The laundry room have an outside door?”
He nodded. “It was unlocked.”
“You look around outside?”
“Last night and again this morning. Nothing.”
“When did you last see your wife?”
“Yesterday morning, before I left for work.”
“How did she seem then? Her mood, frame of mind.”
“I don’t know. She was asleep, or pretended to be.”
“How was she the night before?”
“Twitchy and bitchy. Her middle names.”
“Did you take her to see a doctor?”
“She wouldn’t go. Just kept saying she didn’t need one.”
“And I don’t suppose she gave you any idea of who beat her up?”
“She wouldn’t talk about it. Didn’t have much to say to me at all. She stayed in one of the guest rooms Monday night, drinking.”
“Receive or make any phone calls?”
“Not that I know about,” Krochek said. “I checked the answering machine. No messages.”
“Did you talk to your neighbors, find out if they know anything?”
“No. I didn’t want to talk to anybody until I talked to you. Wouldn’t do any good anyway. People mind their own business up here.”
“Rebecca Weaver seemed pretty interested on Monday.”
“That’s because she was out front when you brought Janice home. She’s not usually nosy.”
“You said you got home around midnight. Why?”
“I don’t… what do you mean?”
“Why so late? You had a battered wife and an iffy situation here. Where were you?”
Eyeshift. “A business dinner, I couldn’t get out of it—”
“Don’t lie to me, Mr. Krochek. Not anymore. Not if you want my help.”
He gave his lower lip a workout before he said, “All right. I was with a … friend.”
“What friend? What’s her name?”
“Do you have to know that?”
“What’s her name?”
“Deanne Goldman. She works for another firm down on the Square. We … she has an apartment near Lake Merritt…. Look, you have to understand. There’s been nothing physical between Janice and me for more than two years. A man has needs, you know how that is …”
Justifying himself. His kind of man always does, to others and to himself. I said, “How long has it been going on?”
“A few weeks.”
She wouldn’t be the first. Nor the last, probably. Janice Krochek, in the Hillman last week: You think he’s some kind of saint? Well, he’s not. Far from it. Some pair. A pair I wished now more than ever that I’d never drawn.
“Will she verify you were with her?”
“Yes, sure, if it comes to that. But I didn’t go over to her apartment until after seven.”
“No?”
“I worked until five-thirty, had a couple of drinks and a sandwich at the Ladderback.”
“Alone?”
“Alone,” Krochek said. “I didn’t talk to anybody except the waitress and she was busy as hell. Is there any way to tell what time this … whatever it was … happened? From the blood, I mean.”