Therefore let the questioning be repetitive, remorseless and, to a Jim Hunter, well-nigh senseless. His ego and his work had conditioned him to expect that his answers would be accepted the first time he gave them; now here he was, being jerked around by utter idiots.
An hour after Carmine had vanished saw Dr. Jim remove his tie; he was sweating, even though the room was chilly.
Every minute of the interminable interview since Carmine left had been devoted to his relationship with John Hall, with Dr. Jim sticking to his guns: he and Millie had known John in California, hung out with him, enjoyed marvelous conversations on subjects that ranged from the Big Bang to the mysteries of genetics and the hunger of the human race to ruin its habitats.
“C’mon, Doctor,” Buzz said with a sneer, “there had to be a down side because there always is a down side. Friendships aren’t static or idyllic! They go up and down like marriages and snotty brothers and pushy sisters. I mean, it sounds to me as if your wife was very much the third wheel in this ideal give-and-take friendship between two men.”
When it happened, so suddenly that to Buzz it seemed to come out of the blue. Hours of calm, of understandable but well-controlled irritation, and now — wham! Hunter exploded!
“You fool!” Hunter snarled, muscles audibly creaking. “Oh Jesus, you cops are stupid! I’m like, down on kindergarten level, crawling! Millie wasn’t the third wheel — she was the fulcrum! John was nuts about her, and she liked him too much — I almost lost her to a man I liked, respected, and was in debt to — how do you think that made me feel?”
He stopped, but whether from horror at having broken, said too much, or rather to give himself precious seconds to think of his next tack, Buzz just couldn’t tell. After fifteen years as a cop and innumerable interrogations, Buzz Genovese knew himself as a raw beginner. Oh, why wasn’t Carmine here to witness this? With any other person he would have taken events at face value, yet some instinct in the cop part of his mind whispered that Dr. Jim was as much in possession of his wits now as he had been until now. How could that be?
“John was a rich guy,” Jim Hunter said, voice level. If I was working all night and didn’t need Millie, he’d take her out to dinner in places I couldn’t even afford to drink the water in the finger bowls. A couple times he gave her little presents — a necklace of really good-looking fake pearls, a rhinestone pin. I let him because it let me work without needing to worry about Millie. Usually she worked as my technician, but there were times when she would have been in the way. Literally, I mean. Space is not something universities are generous with.” He stopped again.
“When was all this?” Buzz asked.
“Right at the end, thank God. We left for Chicago the day after it all came out in the open. Millie dealt with John — I never saw him at all.”
“How did it come into the open, Doctor?”
“I came home early and caught them kissing. Millie swore it was the first time, and that John kissed her against her will, but it sure looked reciprocated to me. He’d just given her the pearl necklace, and I grabbed at it — it broke, pearls went everywhere on the floor. Millie got down on her hands and knees to pick them up, howling, nose running — she said the pearls were real, and the rhinestones were actually diamonds. I remember I took her face between my hands — I could have crushed her skull to pulp if I’d wanted.” He drew in a great, sobbing breath. “But I couldn’t. Not Millie! I just knew I was going to lose her.”
“And did you lose her, Doctor?”
“No. She put the pearls and the diamond pin in a parcel and took it to him in person.”
“Wasn’t he still present?”
“No. He shot out the door while Millie was gathering pearls.”
“So she took him the gifts. What happened between them?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask.”
“How did this affect your marriage?” Buzz asked.
The full upper lip lifted. “That’s none of your business. I will only say that Millie and I are joined at the hip — no one and nothing can break us apart.”
“So meeting John Hall again can’t have been all pleasure.”
“I hadn’t seen him since the end of July of 1960. That’s now eight years ago. Certainly I didn’t see his advent as any kind of threat to my marriage, Sergeant. I’m even in a position to pay him back for the surgery, and his death can’t change that, it’s a debt of honor. I’ll pay his estate,” Jim Hunter said.