“Now, wait a minute, goddamn it! What makes you think he read the note?”
“Some direct quotes sort of stuck in his mind. He recited them.”
He drank more of his tea. He found a third of a cigar on his person, thumbnailed the remains of the ash off it, held a match to it.
“He try to use the gun?”
“He didn’t get the chance. I was tipped. I found him staked out and waiting, so I sneaked up on him and took it away. I don’t know whether he was going to use it or not. Give him the benefit of the argument and say he wouldn’t. He knew I hadn’t put the shears in her neck. He knew I was cleared of that. Let’s say he resented the rest of it, though. Incidentally, I gave the gun to his wife and she seemed to think it would be a good idea to tuck it away. Maybe there shouldn’t be a gun in that happy household.”
“So you took the gun away from him and?”
“I yanked his legs out from under him to get it. Then I had to trip him onto his face, and then I had to block him and somersault him onto his back. The last one took it out of him. He’d been drinking. It made him sick. I drove him home in his car. We became dear old buddies somehow. Drunks are changeable. He was passed out by the tune I got him home. I helped get him to bed. She had a neighbor watch the kids while she drove me back. She’s known about the affair since it started. He sleeps in the guest room. I like her.”
He held up the hand with the cigar in it. He held it up, palm toward me, and said, “I swear on the grave of my dear old mother who loved me so much she didn’t even mind me becoming a cop that I just can’t figure out how the hell Rick Holton got hold of that note. Look, as an ex-prosecutor he’s got a little leverage. Not too much but some. I think he would know where to look, who to bug, if he knew there was a note. But how could he know? Look, now. The Woertz woman knew because she wrote it. I knew because I found it. Jackass Nudenbarger knew because he was with me when I found it. You knew because I read it to you. And down at the store, two men. Tad Unger did the lab work and made photocopies. Bill Samuels acts as a sort of clerk-coordinator. He sets up the file and keeps it neat and tidy and complete to turn over to the state attorney if need be. He protects the chain of evidence, makes the autopsy request, and so on.” Had I thought for a moment, I would have realized there had to be an autopsy. They would want to know if a murdered unmarried woman was pregnant, if there was any sign of a blow that had not left any surface bruises, contusions, or abrasions, if she was under the influence of alcohol or narcotics, if she had been raped or had had intercourse recently enough to be able to type the semen. And the painstaking, inch-by-inch examination of the epidermis would disclose any scratches, puncture wounds, minor bruises, bite marks. And there would be a chemical analysis of the contents of the stomach, as death stops the normal digestive processes.
“You all right?” Stanger asked softly.
“I’m just perfect. When did they do the autopsy?”
“They must have been starting on it when I was talking to you in your room Saturday night.”
“And those two men, Unger and…”
“Samuels.”
“They wouldn’t volunteer any information about the note?”
“Hell no. The days of volunteering any information to anybody about anything are long gone. Order yourself more coffee. Don’t go away. Be right back.”
It took him ten minutes. He sat down wearily, mopped his forehead on a soiled handkerchief. “Well, Bill Samuels was off yesterday and Holton came in about eleven in the morning. A clerk named Foster was on duty and Holton told him that the state attorney, Ben Gaffner, had asked him to take a look at the note that had been found in the Woertz girl’s apartment. So Foster unlocked the file and let him read the photocopy. It still doesn’t answer the question.”