“So your wife’s state of mind wasn’t a concern?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Let’s get back to the poison, Doctor. Did you take it?”
“Absolutely not.”
“But you must have been tempted.”
“Why? John Hall was no threat to me.”
“His emotional involvement with your wife is motive.”
“California was over eight years ago. Passé, Sergeant.”
“Have other men than John Hall pursued your wife, Doctor?”
“Not that I’ve noticed, and she’s never said so.”
Buzz looked at the clock. Over three hours. He was itching to continue, but the man had waived the presence of an attorney, and Buzz was aware that he was skating dangerously close to what an attorney could later term harassment. The wrong time for lunch, but it would have to happen.
“Lunch break,” he said briskly. “I’ll send to Malvolio’s for a tray — brisket, rice pudding and decent coffee sound okay?”
“Indeed it does. May I stretch my legs?”
“Of course, but inside the County Services courtyard.”
Carmine was back, looking satisfied; after Buzz reported, his mood soured a little.
“I just can’t be sure of the guy,” Buzz said as they ate at Malvolio’s. “Even when he broke about Millie, I wondered. The cop in me shouts that he’s playing with us, that everything he says, how he says it, what he looks like when he says it, everything is calculated. Yet it all makes sense.”
“Then, if it is calculated, why did he need to insert Millie and infidelity into the equation?” Carmine asked. “It attributes motive to him that we didn’t know about before, so why?”
“Maybe when he realized we were serious enough to detain him for way over the usual time span of a questioning, he thought we’d do the same to Millie. He’s no dummy, he knows the pair of them are our main suspects. Jim Hunter doesn’t break, but Millie just might. So he paved the way,” Buzz said.
“Very, very good!” Carmine said, smiling broadly. “That is exactly what he did. Paved the way for Millie to crumble.”
“Do I get Millie in?”
“Definitely, as soon as possible. Give her lunch too. I’m going upstairs to the Commissioner.”
“I have a feeling there’s more to come,” Carmine said to Silvestri after filling him in.
“So do I. For instance, is Dr. Jim himself free from sin? He’s an idol on the science campus,” the Commissioner said.
“If it’s half as good as M.M. says, his book will make him an idol on every science campus in the country. Not to mention a lot of homes and institutions. With the death of Dr. Tinkerman and the eclipse of the Parsons, nothing is going to stop A Helical God hitting the bestseller lists and staying there for many months.”
“Did he write it consciously to sell, Carmine?”
“Sure, he must have, though someone else gave him the idea. Family legend has him pictured as completely absorbed in his work, a man who never reads an ordinary book or watches the news on television. His isolation from popular scientific publishing is a good point, John, that we have to explore. I gather Dr. Jim wrote A Helical God very quickly, effortlessly — and recently. So where did he get the idea?”
“Millie?” asked Silvestri.
“Yes, she’s the most likely one.” Carmine shrugged. “The trouble with that pair is that it’s hard to get beyond them. Yet Millie is no more au fait with the world of commercial book publishing than Jim is. However, we’ll pursue it.”
“It’s early days yet, I know, but you think it’s the Hunters behind both murders,” Silvestri said, tone dispassionate.
“Unless we dig up something really unexpected, it does look that way. But which one? Or was it both? Today we have to get a better idea about what makes the Hunters tick, as Desdemona would put it.” He looked thoughtful. “There’s huge family opposition to so much as the idea that Millie might have been involved, and I tend to side with that myself, having known her since she was born. Despite her history, she’s no black sheep.”
“Unfortunate metaphor,” Silvestri said dryly, “but I get your drift. Keep on digging, Carmine, and don’t worry about Patsy. I’m keeping him close to me, so he and Nessie don’t feel utterly alone in their troubles. Gloria’s a tower of strength.”
Millie arrived bewildered, but very glad to see Jim, whom she was allowed to see in passing only — no chance for a talk.
She was in jeans and a sweat shirt; her down-stuffed outer clothes were hanging outside the room to which she was taken. No make-up, no hair styling; her looks did not preoccupy her, never had as far as the family knew. Her thin body was not the product of strict diets, it was due to a combination of trying to eat the right (and more expensive) foods, giving the lion’s share to Jim, and often plain forgetting to eat because the work called. But she moved with grace and dignity, held her head proudly atop a swanlike neck, and had plenty of shape in her physique — small but lovely breasts, a tiny waist, swelling hips. Set her side by side with Davina Tunbull and you would see the real thing next to a caricature. In K-mart clothes, Millie turned heads; in Fifth Avenue clothes, she’d be offered movie contracts.