Whispers

“But I’ve got money.”

“Apparently, you’ve got quite a lot of it,” he said, looking around admiringly at the beautifully furnished room.

“What’s the other reason?”

“A man and a woman are having an affair, but he leaves her for another lady. She feels hurt, rejected, scorned. She wants to get even with him. She wants to punish him, so she accuses him of rape.”

“How can you be sure that doesn’t fit me?” she asked.

“I’ve seen both your movies, so I figure I know a little bit about the way your mind works. You’re a very intelligent woman, Miss Thomas. I don’t think you could be foolish or petty or spiteful enough to send a man to prison just because he hurt your feelings.”

She studied him intently.

He felt himself being weighed and judged.

Obviously convinced that he was not the enemy, she returned to the couch and sat down in a swish of dark-blue silk. The robe molded to her, and he tried not to show how aware he was of her strikingly female lines.

She said, “I’m sorry I was snappish.”

“You weren’t,” he assured her. “Conventional police wisdom makes me angry, too.”

“I suppose if this gets into court, Frye’s attorney will try to make the jury believe that I enticed the son of a bitch.”

“You can count on it.”

“Will they believe him?”

“They often do.”

“But he wasn’t just going to rape me. He was going to kill me.”

“You’ll need proof of that.”

“The broken knife upstairs–”

“Can’t be connected to him,” Tony said. “It won’t be covered with his prints. And it’s just a common kitchen knife. There’s no way we can trace it to the point of purchase and tie it to Bruno Frye.”

“But he looked so crazy. He’s … unbalanced. The jury would see that. Hell, you’ll see it when you arrest him. There probably won’t even be a trial. He’ll probably just be put away.”

“If he’a lunatic, he knows how to pass for normal,” Tony said. “After all, until tonight, he’s been regarded as an especially responsible and upstanding citizen. When you visited his winery near St. Helena, you didn’t realize you were in the company of a madman, did you?”

“No.”

“Neither will the jury.”

She closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose. “So he’s probably going to get away clean.”

“I’m sorry to say there’s a good chance that he will.”

“And then he’ll come back for me.”

“Maybe.”

“Jesus.”

“You wanted the unvarnished truth.”

She opened her lovely eyes. “I did, yes. And thank you for giving it to me.” She even managed a smile.

He smiled back at her. He wanted to take her in his arms, hold her close, comfort her, kiss her, make love to her. But all he could do was sit on his end of the couch like a good officer of the law and smile his witless smile and say, “Sometimes it’s a lousy system.”

“What are the other reasons?”

“Excuse me?”

“You said one reason Lieutenant Howard didn’t believe me was because I knew the assailant. What are the other reasons? What else makes him think I’m lying?”

Tony was about to answer her when Frank Howard walked into the room.

“Okay,” Frank said brusquely. “We’ve got the sheriff looking into it up there in Napa County, trying to get a line on when and how this Frye character left town. We also have an APB out, based on your description, Miss Thomas. Now, I went to the car and got my clipboard and this crime report form.” He held up the rectangular piece of masonite and the single sheet of paper affixed to it, took a pen from his inside coat pocket. “I want you to walk Lieutenant Clemenza and me through your entire experience just once more, so I can write it all down precisely in your own words. Then we can get out of your way.”

She led them to the foyer and began her story with a detailed recounting of Bruno Frye’s surprise appearance from the coat closet. Tony and Frank followed her to the overturned sofa, then upstairs to the bedroom, asking questions as they went. During the thirty minutes they needed to complete the form, as she reenacted the events of the evening, her voice now and then became tremulous, and again Tony had the urge to hold and soothe her.