“I think it’s about time you started singing another tune,” McGreavy said. “No one wanted to hurt Hanson, but they stuck a knife in his back. No one wanted to hurt Carol, but they poured acid all over her and tortured her to death.” His voice became hard. “And you stand there and tell me no one would want to hurt them. What the hell are you—deaf, dumb, and blind? The girl worked for you for four years. You’re a psychoanalyst. Are you trying to tell me you didn’t know or care about her personal life?”
“Of course I cared,” Judd said tightly. “She had a boyfriend she was going to marry—”
“Chick. We’ve talked to him.”
“But he could never have done this. He’s a decent boy and he loved Carol.”
“When was the last time you saw Carol alive?” asked Angeli.
“I told you. When I left here to go to see Mrs. Hanson. I asked Carol to close up the office.” His voice broke and he swallowed and took a deep breath.
“Were you scheduled to see any more patients today?”
“No.”
“Do you think this could have been done by a maniac?” Angeli asked.
“It must have been a maniac, but—even a maniac has to have some motivation.”
“That’s what I think,” McGreavy said.
Judd looked over to where Carol’s body lay. It had the sad appearance of a disfigured rag doll, useless and discarded. “How long are you going to leave her like this?” Judd asked angrily.
“They’ll take her away now,” said Angeli. “The coroner and the Homicide boys have already finished.”
Judd turned to McGreavy. “You left her like this for me?”
“Yeah,” McGreavy said. “I’m going to ask you again. Is there anything in this office that someone could want badly enough to”—he indicated Carol—”do that?”
“No.”
“What about the records of your patients?”
Judd shook his head. “Nothing.”
“You’re not being very cooperative, Doctor, are you?” asked McGreavy.
“Don’t you think I want to see you find whoever did this?” Judd snapped. “If there was anything in my files that would help, I would tell you. I know my patients. There isn’t any one among them who could have killed her. This was done by an outsider.”
“How do you know it wasn’t someone after your files?”
“My files weren’t touched.”
McGreavy looked at him with quickened interest. “How do you know that?” he asked. “You haven’t even looked.”
Judd walked over to the far wall. As the two men watched, he pressed the lower section of the paneling and the wall slid open, revealing racks of built-in shelves. They were filled with tapes. “I record every session with my patients,” Judd said. “I keep the tapes here.”
“Couldn’t they have tortured Carol to try to force her to tell where those tapes were?”
“There is nothing in any of these tapes worth anything to anyone. There was some other motive for her murder.”
Judd looked at Carol’s scarred body again, and he was filled with helpless, blind rage. “You’ve got to find whoever did this!”
“I intend to,” McGreavy said. He was looking at Judd.
On the windy, deserted street in front of Judd’s office building, McGreavy told Angeli to drive Judd home. “I’ve got an errand to do,” McGreavy said. He turned to Judd. “Good night, Doctor.”
Judd watched the huge, lumbering figure move down the street.
“Let’s go,” Angeli said. “I’m freezing.”
Judd slid into the front seat beside Angeli, and the car pulled away from the curb.
“I’ve got to go tell Carol’s family,” Judd said.
“We’ve already been over there.”
Judd nodded wearily. He still wanted to see them himself, but it could wait.
There was a silence. Judd wondered what errand Lieutenant McGreavy could have at this hour of the morning.
As though reading his thoughts, Angeli said, “McGreavy’s a good cop. He thought Ziffren should have gotten the electric chair for killing his partner.”
“Ziffren was insane.”
Angeli shrugged. “I’ll take your word for it, Doctor.”
But McGreavy hadn’t, Judd thought. He turned his mind to Carol and remembered her brightness and her affection and her deep pride in what she was doing, and Angeli was speaking to him and he saw that they had arrived at his apartment building.