Millie was brought across the courtyard and upstairs to the most salubrious of the interview rooms at nine, showered, clad in jeans, slip-on shoes and a sweat shirt, her face bare of make-up and her hair pulled back into a bun. A look that suited her, in no need of artifice.
Carmine chose Delia to go into the room with him, leaving it up to the other detectives whether they wanted to observe or not. Everyone did, from Abe to Buzz and Tony.
“I’m in the soup,” Millie said when she entered, smiling.
Looking very subdued in navy blue, Delia set the recorder going and identified the session, its participants.
“Bearing in mind that a hundred-fifty people witnessed you empty a Smith & Wesson .38 six-shot revolver into Dr. James Hunter yesterday, April second, at eighteen-oh-one hours, and that your actions were recorded on three competing television cameras, Dr. Hunter, you are indeed in the soup,” Carmine said easily. “Do you want an attorney here for this interview, or will you waive your right to an attorney?”
“I waive my right,” she said, equally easy.
“Where did you obtain the revolver?”
“I’ve had it ever since Jim and I went to Chicago.”
“Have you a license?”
“No. It never leaves me, I keep it in my handbag.”
“Do you also have a .22 caliber hand gun?”
“No. The .22 is Jim’s.”
“It was never located on any search.”
“He didn’t keep it at home or in the lab, but I don’t know where he did keep it.”
“Why did you shoot your husband?”
“It’s a long story, except that every camel’s back has a last straw, Captain.”
“Now’s the time to tell the story, Millie.”
But she went off at a tangent. “Must I have a cop in my cell all the time? I can’t even use the toilet in privacy.”
“It’s called a suicide watch.”
She laughed. “Do you honestly believe that I’d kill myself over a worm like Jim Hunter?”
“For eighteen years you’ve given the world the impression that you love Dr. James Hunter deeply. Now you call him a worm, now you murder him? Why? What did he do? What changed?”
“He fathered a child on that Yugoslavian Medusa.”
“Mrs. Davina Tunbull speaks of Negroid blood in her family, and insists her husband is the child’s father. Apart from green eyes — which are not uncommon in persons of mixed race — the baby does not resemble Dr. James Hunter,” Delia said, taking over.
Millie laughed again; it held an element of hysteria, but she was working very hard to appear logical and composed. “Jim fathered that baby, not Max Tunbull,” she maintained. “He betrayed me with a woman who has snakes for hair. I’ve always seen the snakes,” she said in iron tones. “Davina is Lilith the serpent.”
“Let’s set the baby aside for the moment,” said Carmine. “You said your reason for murder was a long story. Tell it.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“How about with John Hall? What happened in California when you and Jim palled up with him?” Carmine asked, his voice and manner interested but not even slightly aggressive.
“John!” Millie exclaimed, smiling. “He was such a doll, so nice to me. To Jim too, more than me. Jim let his guard down, especially after John bullied him into having his operation. I had never realized how much Jim hated the gorilla look until he lost it after the surgery. He’d spend an hour just looking in the mirror, touching his face, stroking his nose, using a second mirror to look at his profile.” She shrugged, took on a happy mien. “John’s generosity liberated the real Jim — is that what I want to say? The thing is, neither John nor I loved Jim for his face, old or new — we loved the person inside.”
“Surely Jim knew that?” Delia asked.
“Yes, of course he did. He and I had already been together for nine years, I shared his secrets before the operation as much as I did after it, and John started sharing his secrets too.”
“What secrets, Millie?” Carmine asked.
“Oh, lots of things,” she said vaguely.
“You have to be more specific, dear,” said Delia.
Her face twisted, she hunched her shoulders and seemed to shrink inches. “I don’t really know,” she said.
“I think you do, Millie. Start with one secret, even if it’s only a suspicion,” Carmine said, trying not to push.
“There was a student supervisor at Columbia who made Jim’s life a misery, I remember,” Millie said uneasily. “He died from a terrible mugging the day after he marked a paper of Jim’s right down — Jim was furious, and rightly so.”