Hail to the Chief

Chapter Six

What happened was she tried to get away.

They had her word of honor that she wouldn't try to pull anything like that, but if you can't trust somebody once, then you certainly can't trust them twice. I always believed, by the way (and I still believe), that there's no such thing as trusting somebody only halfway, or three-quarters of the way, or even ninety-nine and one-hundredths percent of the way. You either trust them completely, or you're not trusting them at all. Which is why in all these peace negotiations, I was the one who insisted that everything be spelled out to the letter. Otherwise, we'd have had to depend on trust, you see, and I don't trust neither the Heads nor the Scarlets as far as I can throw them.

The house Big Anthony's aunt has is really more like a cottage. There's only one bedroom, so Big Anthony and Jo-Jo, who's the guy he picked to go with him, gave the bedroom to Midge, and they slept in the living room, Big Anthony on the couch and Jo-Jo on the floor in a sleeping bag. They never made no sexual advances to Midge because they knew she was Johnny's girl, and they know this clique prides itself on its honor. They stripped her to the waist every morning and every night to give her the prescribed twenty lashes, but that had nothing to do with sex. That was only a sentence being carried out. It really must have bothered Big Anthony to carry out such a sentence against a girl, because this clique truly honors the women who belong to it. In our eyes, they are equal members and they are entitled to equal rights. Just because I didn't appoint any of them as my advisers don't mean nothing. Before this thing with Midge happened, I was planning to appoint one of the girls as secretary. I was ready to bring it before the council, in fact. Then Midge had to get smart. Or stupid, if you want to be exact about it.

It was right after they gave her that night's twenty. She was bleeding a little, but not much. She put on her blouse and went in the bedroom. Big Anthony told me she never made a peep while they were administering justice. He thought she'd learned her lesson. He thought she'd got the message, just the way I thought she had. Neither of us had made a mistake; it was just that Midge was a very devious person. Along about nine-thirty Big and Jo-Jo were watching television in the living room, and they had the sound very low so as not to disturb Midge if she was trying to sleep, when they heard something outside that sounded like somebody trying to get in the house. Jo-Jo ran around one side, and Big ran around the other, and it wasn't nobody trying to get in the house, it was somebody trying to get out of the house. It was Midge, in fact, and not only was she trying to get out, she was already out by the time they ran around back and caught her. She had jumped out the window (which was the noise they heard) and had started for the woods by the time they got to her, and she was carrying a knife she had managed to steal from the kitchen earlier in the day.

Neither Jo-Jo nor Big had any intention of hurting her. All they wanted to do was get her back in the house. But she came at them with the knife in her hand, and she stabbed Jo-Jo in the arm (he's still got a bandage where she cut him) and then she went after Big, who ain't called Big for nothing, and who's been in enough fights to know how to take a weapon away from somebody. But she kept slashing at him, too, and by the time he got the knife away, he was beginning to lose his temper. He grabbed her from behind, with one arm holding her, you know, and he put the blade against her throat, and he told her one more move and he'd kill her. She turned hallway around, and she kicked him in the balls, and that was what did it. Big killed her on the spot. He had good reason.

I told him he done the right thing.

They did not find Randall Nesbitt until Saturday morning, January 12, in an ice cream parlor on the corner of Hitchcock and Dooley in Riverhead. He was eating a banana split. A skinny, light-eyed blond girl was sitting in the booth opposite him, drinking a chocolate ice cream soda. She looked shy, somewhat anemic, and somewhat anachronistic, as though she had stepped out of a Betty Co-ed movie of the forties. Nesbitt himself had dark hair and dark brooding eyes and a sloping, bulbous nose, and heavy jowls, and apparently a heavy beard as well; he looked as though he had recently shaved, but a bluish cast tinted his jaw and both sides of his face below the cheeks. He did not look up when the detectives approached the booth. He had undoubtedly known they were coming because they had seen a runner, wearing a blue denim jacket with the Confederate insignia on its back, entering the ice cream parlor as they came up the street. The runner was now sitting at the counter. He watched the detectives as they stopped before the booth.

'Randall Nesbitt?' Carella asked.

'Um?' Nesbitt said, and looked up. There was a smile on his face - the expansive, calculated smile of a television celebrity on a late-night show.

Carella distrusted the smile at once. 'Police officers,' he said, and flashed the tin.

Nesbitt studied the gold-and-blue shield with great interest, and then looked up and smiled again. 'Yes, Officer,' he said, 'how can I help you?'

'What's your name, young lady?' Kling asked.

'Toy,' the girl said.

'Toy?'

'Toy Wilke.'

'We'd like to ask you a few questions,' Carella said to Nesbitt. 'Mind if we sit down?'

'Please join us,' Nesbitt said. 'Would you like some ice cream? Or a cup of coffee or something?'

'Thank you, no,' Carella said, and sat in the booth alongside Toy. Kling sat next to Nesbitt. 'Are you the president of a gang called the Yankee Rebels?' Carella asked across the table.

'That's the name of our clique, that's correct,' Nesbitt said.

'We're trying to locate somebody named Midge,' Carella said. 'Would the name happen to register?'

Toy seemed about to say something, but a sidelong glance from Nesbitt silenced her.

'Midge,' Nesbitt said thoughtfully, and tented his hands, and considered the name as though he'd just been invited to christen a battleship. 'Midge, Midge,' he said. 'No, can't say that it rings a bell, Officer.'

'We have information that leads us to believe Midge belongs to your gang.'

'Really?' Nesbitt said. 'Toy, you know any member named Midge?'

'No,' Toy said, and bent over her glass, and put the straws between her lips, and busied herself with the soda.

'Sorry we can't help you,' Nesbitt said. Then, as though to emphasize his dismissal of the two men, he picked up his spoon, cut into the banana with it, scooped a combination of chocolate sauce and cherry syrup into the bowl of the spoon, and shoveled the entire dripping mixture into his mouth.

'We're not quite finished yet,' Carella said.

'Oh, sorry,' Nesbitt said, swallowing. He put the spoon down again, smiled his eager, pleasant, cooperative smile, and said, 'Yes?'

'Anyone in your gang named Big Anthony?'

'Why, yes,' Nesbitt said.

'Know where we can find him?'

'Have you tried his house?'

'If you're referring to the apartment he shares with his mother, at 334 North 38th, yes, we've tried his house.'

'I guess he wasn't there.'

'That's right.'

'I don't know where he is,' Nesbitt said, and picked up the spoon again. He was dipping it into a melting scoop of strawberry ice cream when Carella said, 'Does he have a driver's license?'

'Who? Big? Sure, he does.'

'What kind of car does he drive?'

'He doesn't have a car.'

'But the gang has a car.'

'No, we don't have a car.'

'Do you have a pickup truck?'

'Yes, we have a pickup truck,' Nesbitt said. 'You'll excuse me, Officer, but I'm not sure I understand where this line of questioning is going to.'

'Stick around,' Kling said.

Nesbitt smiled. 'I wasn't going no place, Officer.'

'That's right, you weren't,' Kling said. 'Not till we're through with you.'

'Of course,' Nesbitt said, 'I know my rights, and—'

'Save it,' Kling said curtly.

'I was going to say that maybe you ought to start advising me of them. I mean, if this is going to be a big interrogation scene here, then how about—?'

'This is a field interrogation, and your rights aren't in jeopardy,' Kling said. 'What kind of pickup truck do you own?'

'A Chevy.'

'What year?'

'Sixty-four.'

'Where is it now?'

'I don't know which one of the members has it right this minute,' Nesbitt said, and smiled. 'We're all allowed to drive it when we need it. All of us who've got licenses, of course. We're a law-abiding club.'

'Who was driving it last time you saw it?' Carella asked.

'I forget.'

'Try to remember.'

'Why is it important?'

'It may have figured in an armed robbery,' Kling lied.

'Really?' Nesbitt said. He shook his head. 'I think you've got the wrong truck in mind.'

'Greenish-blue, sixty-four Chevy with a Confederate flag painted on the driver's side.'

'Both sides,' Nesbitt said.

'The garage attendant only saw the driver's side,' Carella said, picking up and amplifying Kling's lie.

'Gee,' Nesbitt said, 'maybe somebody stole our truck, eh, Toy?'

'Maybe,' Toy said, and slurped up chocolate soda from the bottom of the glass.

'Because none of our guys, you see, would go holding up no gas station.'

'But it does sound like your truck, doesn't it?'

'Oh, yeah, it sounds like it, all right. But it can't be, you see. Unless, like I said, the truck was stolen. We usually park it in the empty lot on Dill, near the clubhouse. Maybe somebody stole it, and then later went and stuck up a gas station.'

'That's possible, Steve,' Kling said.

'Yes, it's possible,' Carella said.

'Sure, that's what must've happened,' Nesbitt said. 'I'd better get back to the clubhouse and check on it. There's supposed to be a man watching that truck at all times.'

'Big Anthony's mother said he was out of town,' Carella said abruptly.

'Yeah, well, she hardly ever knows where he is,' Nesbitt said, and smiled.

'She seemed pretty certain about it'

'Well,' Nesbitt said, and spread his hands in a gesture indicating Big Anthony's mother was not a competent or reliable witness.

'Said he left the apartment Wednesday night. Told her he might be gone a week or so.'

'That's news to me, all right,' Nesbitt said. 'Officers, I have to tell you that's news to me. I'm president of this clique, and most of the members keep in touch with me concerning where they're going or not going. That's not a rule, you understand, they ain't required to keep me informed. But they do, and I usually know where they are. And Big never said a word to me about going cut of town.'

'His mother said he was going to Turman.'

'Yeah? Across the river? Well, that's news to me."

'The reason we're so curious about Big Anthony is that the gas station that was held up happens to be in Turman.'

'Officers,' Nesbitt said, 'I think you're lying to me. I don't know why you're lying, but I think you are.'

'That makes us even,' Kling said.

'Me? Are you talking about me?' Nesbitt said. 'I never lie. I make a practice of always telling the truth.'

'Good, so start telling it now,' Carella said.

'I've been telling it all along.'

'Where's Midge?'

'I don't know anybody named Midge.'

'Where's Big Anthony?'

'I don't know. If his mother says he went to Turman, then maybe that's where he is, though his mother is a little nuts, and I frankly wouldn't trust her as far as I can throw her. But if she says he went to Turman, then who knows? Maybe for once in her lifetime she got something right, who knows?'

'Where in Turman?'

'He didn't even tell me he was going to Turman, so how would I know where he was going in Turman?'

'Have you heard from him since Wednesday?'

'Nope.'

'Isn't that a little odd?'

'It's not a requirement that everybody has to tell me every time he's going to the bathroom,' Nesbitt said. 'I got good people, and they're free agents. They know I'm the president, and what I say goes, but they don't have to report to me every ten minutes.'

'We're not talking about ten minutes. We're talking about three days. Are you trying to tell us that one of your members has been gone for three days, and you don't know anything about it?'

'That's not only what I'm trying to tell you, it's what I am telling you.'

'We think Big Anthony and Midge are together.'

'Impossible.'

'Why?'

'First of all, who's Midge? If I don't know her, how would Big know her? And second of all, Big has a girl friend, and she would get very irritated if he was fooling around with some other chick. Isn't that right, Toy? Wouldn't she get very irritated?'

'Yeah,' Toy said, 'she would get very irritated.'

The two detectives were watching Nesbitt intently. They had given him enough rope and he had hanged himself, and now they simply watched him silently, waiting for him to realize that the trap had sprung, and the noose had tightened around his neck, and his feet were dangling in the air over the scaffold.

'What's the matter?' Nesbitt said. 'What are you looking at?'

Neither of the detectives answered.

'Must be a staring contest,' Nesbitt said, and picked up his spoon. 'This is all melting,' he said to Toy, ignoring the detectives.

'How do you know she's a girl?' Carella said.

'Who? Who're you talking about now?' Nesbitt said.

'Same person. Midge. How do you know she's a girl?'

'You told she was a girl. You said you were looking for a girl named Midge.'

'We said we were trying to locate somebody named Midge. We didn't say she was a girl.'

'I figured she was a girl,' Nesbitt said, and shrugged.

'What do you figure Chingo is?'

'A boy.'

'But you figured Midge was a girl.'

'That's right.'

'Just like that, huh? Midge is automatically a girl.'

'Automatically.'

'Okay,' Carella said, 'we're going to level with you, Randy,' and then immediately told another lie. 'We're looking for Midge because we think she was an accomplice in a crime we're investigating.'

'What crime is that?' Nesbitt said.

'A routine mugging. We think Midge and two boys hit an old lady on Peterson Drive.'

'I wish I could help you,' Nesbitt said, 'but I don't know her.' They watched his face. Not a flicker of emotion flashed on it. If he already knew the girl was dead, if he'd received a call from Big Anthony in Turman, nothing in his dark brooding eyes revealed it.

'We don't think Big Anthony's involved,' Kling said, embroidering the lie. 'But somebody told us Midge was his girl. I guess our information was wrong there, Steve,' he said, turning to Carella.

'I guess so. Randy says Big Anthony already has a girl. Isn't that right, Randy?'

'That's right.'

'What's her name?'

'Ellie Nelson.'

'Know where she lives?'

'Sure. On Dooley, two blocks from the clubhouse.'

'What's the address?'

'1894 Dooley.'

'And the apartment number?'

'5A. She won't know where Big Anthony is, either.'

'How can you be sure?'

Nesbitt smiled his late-night, television-personality smile again, 'I can be sure,' he said.

On the way up to the fifth floor of 1894 Dooley, Kling suddenly said, 'I think I figured it out.'

'What'd you figure out this time?'

'What he meant.'

'Who? Nesbitt?*

'No, Sack. The old man in Turman.'

'Sack?' Carella said. 'That was yesterday, for God's sake.'

'That's right, it's been bothering me. You remember when we were saying goodbye to him?'

'Yes?'

'And you thanked him and then apologized for having interrupted his breakfast?'

'Uh-huh.'

'And I said "We're grateful." Do you remember that? And he answered "Don't care for it. Too bitter." I finally figured out what he meant.'

'What did he mean?'

'Well, what was he doing when we went in there, Steve?'

'He was eating his breakfast.'

'Right. And what do people have for breakfast?'

'All kinds of things, Bert.'

'Yes, but what do they start with? What do you start with?'

'Juice.'

'Yes, but not everybody starts with juice. Some people start with grapefruit.'

'So?'

'So Sack thought I was talking about grapefruit. He misheard me. He thought "grateful" was "grapefruit." That's why he answered "Don't care for it. Too bitter."' Kling smiled. 'You get it, Steve?'

'That's ridiculous,' Carella said.

'I'll bet it's what he meant.'

'Okay, fine.'

'Anyway, it was bothering me, and it's not any more.'

'Good, here we are,' Carella said, and stopped before the door to 5A, and knocked on it.

Ellie Nelson was wearing a navy-blue T-shirt and dungaree pants when she opened the door. She was perhaps seventeen years old, quite pretty, with a pert nose and vibrant blue eyes. Her figure was good, and she knew it. She smiled up at the policemen as though she'd been expecting them. Carella and Kling assumed Nesbitt had telephoned her from the phone booth in the ice cream parlor.

'Hi,' she said.

'Police officers,' Carella said, and showed his shield. The girl barely glanced at it. 'All right if we come in?'

'Sure, why not?' she said, and stepped away from the door, allowing them to enter the apartment. A gray-haired woman with a lace shawl over her shoulders was sitting by the kitchen window, rocking in a green rocking chair and knitting in a shaft of sunlight. Ellie caught the brief shifting of Kling's eyes, and said, 'My grandmother. She won't bother us. Come in, come in.'

'Anybody else live here in this apartment?' Kling asked.

'My mother, my grandmother, and me,' Ellie said, and closed the door behind them. 'Come on in the parlor. What'd you want?'

The living room was furnished in a three-piece suite done in red velveteen. A television set rested on a wheeled cart. There were no pictures or photographs on the walls. There was a curtain only on the window facing the street. The airshaft window had been left uncovered, and faced a grimy brick wall. Ellie sat in one of the easy chairs and gestured to the sofa. The detectives sat opposite her. 'So, what'd you want?' she asked again.

'We understand you're Big Anthony's girl friend,' Carella said.

'That's right,' Ellie said, and smiled.

'That would be Anthony Sutherland, is that right?'

'That's right, Big Anthony. We call him that 'cause he's six feet four inches tall, and he's got shoulders this wide,' Ellie said.

'And he's a member of the Yankee Rebels, is that also right?'

'That's right. Me, too. The women's auxiliary. It's a great clique. I only joined it 'cause I was going with Big Anthony, you know, and he's the treasurer. But, man, am I glad I did! It was really boring before I got involved with the Rebs. Life, I mean. You could go out of your mind with school around here, and nothing to do nights but sit and watch television. The Rebs changed all that. Well, Big Anthony, of course. But the Rebs, too. They're a real decent bunch of guys and girls, I mean it. They're the closest friends I've got in the world.'

'Midge, too?' Carella asked abruptly.

Ellie's face went blank. 'Midge?' she said.

'Midge. Red-headed girl, about five feet two inches tall, weight about ninety-seven, freckles across the bridge of her nose, wears a little gold locket on her wrist, heart-shaped, with the name Midge on it.'

'Don't know her,' Ellie said, and shrugged.

'We thought she was a member of the Yankee Rebels,' Carella said.

'Never heard of her,' Ellie said.

'Okay, when's the last time you saw your boy friend?'

'Wednesday afternoon,' Ellie said.

'Where?'

'He came up here.'

'And you haven't seen him since?'

'No.'

'Do you know where he is?'

'No.'

'When he was up here, did he mention that he might be leaving the city?'

'No.'

'How long have you been going with him?'

'Close to a year.'

'Has he called you since Wednesday?'

'No.'

'Been going with him for a year, and he didn't mention he was leaving the city, and he hasn't called you since he left? Is that what you're asking us to believe, Ellie?'

'It's the truth,' Ellie said, and shrugged again. 'Why do you want him?'

'We think he's with this girl Midge,' Kling said, and watched her carefully.

'Big?' she said. 'Is with… this girl, whoever she is?'

'That's what we think.'

'No,' Ellie said, and shook her head. 'You're mistaken. Big and I are going together, you see. We're almost like engaged. I mean, we plan to get married, you see. What would he be doing with… her?'

'With Midge.'

'Yeah. Whatever her name is.'

'Midge. That's her name. Very pretty little girl, from what we understand.'

'Well, Big Anthony wouldn't… I mean, he just wouldn't go off with another girl. I mean, where would he go? And anyway, he wouldn't.'

'To Turman, that's where he'd go.'

'Turman?'

'Yes. Across the river.'

'Well… what makes you think he went to Turman?'

'His mother said so. He left Wednesday night.'

'Mrs Sutherland said that?'

'That's what she said.'

'That Big Anthony went to Turman?'

'Yes.'

The girl fell silent. It was apparent (assuming Randy had indeed phoned to alert her) that he had not mentioned the possibility of the detectives' lying to her as they had lied to him. Ellie was biting her lower lip now, and thinking very hard about what they had just suggested - the possibility that her boy friend had left on Wednesday night for someplace across the river, taking with him a girl she knew to be another member of the auxiliary. They had their theme now, and they were prepared to play it again and again, until they got what they were looking for. There was no question that Big Anthony had gone to Turman on Wednesday night, driving the gang's truck, and most likely in the company of Midge and another of the gang members. All they were trying to find out was where he had gone in Turman.

'This girl Midge,' Carella said, introducing the second chorus of the same opera, and suddenly the woman in the kitchen said, 'Eleanor?'

'Yes, Grandma?'

'Come make me some tea, Eleanor.'

'Yes, Grandma,' she said, and rose swiftly and left the room.

Carella looked at Kling and sighed. Kling shook his head wearily because he knew exactly what Carella was thinking. They'd been that close, and now maybe they would lose her.

The girl was in the kitchen for perhaps five minutes. When she came back, she sat again in the easy chair, folded her hands in her lap, and said, 'Well, I'm sorry I can't help you, but I don't know where Big is, and I don't know anybody named Midge.' She was back to the litany, repeating whatever Randy had told her on the telephone.

'Ever been to Turman?' Kling asked. They weren't about to let her slip away. If they were forced to, they would baldly state that her boy friend had been caught with Midge in flagrante delicto, in the middle of Turman's Main Street, during the height of last night's rush hour.

'Turman?'

'Turman, Turman,' Carella said, his tone sharper, 'right across the Hamilton Bridge. Now don't tell us you don't know where Turman is.'

Ellie shrank back from the harshness of his voice. 'Yes, I know where Turman is.'

'Have you ever been there?'

'I… don't remember.'

That meant she'd been there. The rest would all be downhill. But instead of relaxing, their manner got tougher, their voices more demanding, their very postures more rigid and unrelenting.

'You'd better remember,' Kling said.

'And fast,' Carella said.

'If I can't remember, I can't remember,' Ellie said. Her blue eyes were beginning to swim with tears.

'Have you ever been to Turman, yes or no?' Carella snapped.

'Yes, all right, yes. I think I was there. But only once.'

'When?'

'I don't remember.'

'Now you listen to me, Ellie,' Carella said, and pointed his finger at her. 'You're going to find yourself in a whole lot of trouble if you don't start telling us the truth.'

'We're wasting time,' Kling said in apparent disgust. 'Let's take her to the station house.'

'No, wait a minute, what for?' Ellie said. Her tear-filled eyes were wide with panic now.

'When did you go to Turman?'

'Just before Christmas.'

'Where?'

'I don't re—'

'Where, damn it!' Carella shouted.

'It's a big town. I don't remember.'

'It's a small town, and you do remember!'

'What's the matter, Eleanor?' the woman in the kitchen asked.

'Where?' Carella said again.

'Is something wrong, Eleanor?' the woman asked. 'What's that shouting?'

Kling rose abruptly from the sofa. 'Your grandmother's going to have to post bail for you,' he lied. 'Come on, get your coat.'

'No, wait, I…'

'Yes?' Carella said.

'What have I done?' Ellie asked plaintively. I mean, what is it I've done?'

'You're withholding evidence,' Kling said. 'Let's go.' He reached for the handcuffs on his belt. That's what did it. He would remember always that reaching for the handcuffs was what caused the girl to crack. He would remember the trick, and use it again and again in the future.

'All right, I went to a house there,' Ellie said softly, and lowered her head, and stared at her feet.

'What house?' Carella said quickly.

'Big's aunt has a house in Turman.'

'Where? What street?'

'I don't know.'

'Damn it…' Kling started.

'I really don't know, I swear to God! It's a yellow house with, white shutters, and there's a fig tree in the front yard. It was covered with tarpaper when we were there in December. I don't know the street. I was only there that once. I swear to God, I don't know the street!'

'What's his aunt's name?"

'Martha Walsh.'

'Where does she live?'

'Around the corner. On Phillips Avenue.'

'Thank you,' Carella said.

'Eleanor?' the woman in the kitchen asked. 'Are you all right?'

'I'm all right,' Ellie said without conviction.

Detective Meyer Meyer was having his problems with public relations.

Montgomery Pierce-Hoyt was on the telephone again, and he wanted to know whether or not the lieutenant had given Meyer permission to discuss the relationship of television to acts of violence.

'Yes, he's given me permission,' Meyer said. 'Provided it's clearly understood that whatever I say is only my own personal opinion, and isn't in any way presented as the official view of the department.'

'Oh, yes, certainly,' Pierce-Hoyt said. 'When can I come up there?'

'I was just leaving the office,' Meyer said.

'When will you be back?'

'I have a speaking engagement, and then I'm going straight home.'

'A speaking engagement?' Pierce-Hoyt asked. 'What kind of speaking engagement?'

'I'm talking at a women's college.'

'What about?'

'Rape. How to prevent it.'

'That sounds intriguing,' Pierce-Hoyt said.

'Yes, it's very intriguing,' Meyer said dryly.

'Mind if I come along?'

'I'm leaving right this minute.'

'I'll meet you there. I'd like to hear your talk. Might provide some interesting sidelights for the piece. Which college is it?'

'Amberson.'

'What time are you speaking?'

'Three o'clock,' Meyer said, and couldn't resist adding, 'if I can get off the phone.'

'I'll be there. How will I know you?'

'I'll be the only one standing on the platform behind a lectern and talking about rape.'

'See you,' Pierce-Hoyt said cheerfully, and hung up.

Meyer did not like Pierce-Hoyt. He had not even met him, and already he didn't like him. He also didn't like having to go all the way downtown and crosstown on a Saturday to give a talk on rape-prevention to a crowd of young girls who were probably living in dormitories with men students from nearby colleges and screwing their brains out. When his daughter Susie got old enough, he would say No. No, you may not take a boy as a college roommate. No, you may not bring a boy home to this house and sleep in the same bedroom with him. Yes, I am an old-fashioned man, that's right. If this were Poland, where my grandfather came from, and if we went to the village rabbi and asked, 'Rov, is it fitting that my only daughter should sleep with a person before she's married?' the rabbi would shake his head and stroke his beard, and answer, 'Nowhere is it written that such an act should be condoned.' The answer is No, Susie. No, no, no.

He went to the coat rack, and was putting on his coat when the telephone rang. Cotton Hawes and Hal Willis were supposed to be working the shift with him, but he hadn't seen hide nor hair of either of them since lunchtime. Muttering, he picked up the receiver.

'87th Squad, Detective Meyer,' he said.

'Meyer, this is Grundy here in Turman. Is Carella around?'

'Grundy?' Meyer said. 'Who's Grundy?'

'Detective Grundy, Turman Police.'

'Hello, Grundy, how are you?'

'Fine. Is Carella there?'

'Not at the moment. Anything I can do for you?'

'Yeah. Tell him we located the truck. Green sixty-four Chevy, bearing an Isola plate, 74J-8309, registered to one Randall M. Nesbitt, address 1104 Dooley in Riverhead. Back of the truck scrubbed clean, not a stain of any kind on it. We're checking the steering wheel, gearshift, everything else inside and out for latents, but our guess is we won't find a thing.'

'Where'd you…?'

'I was coming to that,' Grundy said. 'There's a pond about six miles from where we found the girl's body. Truck was half submerged there. Guess they thought it was deeper than it actually is.'

'What time…?'

'Found it a little after noon. Mailman driving by spotted the back of it sticking out of the water.'

'Anything else?'

'That's it. Will you tell Carella?'

'Sure thing.'

'If he's got any questions, I'll be here till about six tonight.'

'I'll leave the message.'

'Thanks,' Grundy said, and hung up.

Meyer wrote out the note for Carella, glanced at the wall clock, and wondered if the lieutenant had chosen him for this lecture only because he was bald, and therefore presumably looked fatherly, and therefore capable of inspiring confidence in clean-scrubbed college girls. Meyer did not think he looked fatherly. Meyer thought he looked quite handsome and dashing - which he would have to be if he was to get to Amberson by three o'clock.

He was buttoning his coat and going through the gate in the railing, when he heard Kling and Carella coming up the iron-runged steps to the second floor. They came into the corridor just as he reached the stairway. 'Call from Turman,' he said. They found the truck. Note's on your desk.' Racing down the steps, he shouted over his shoulder, 'I'll be going home straight from the college. See you Monday.'

'What college?' Carella shouted after him. 'What are you talking about?'

But Meyer was gone.

Carella read the note on his desk, and called Grundy back at once. It was now almost two-thirty, and there wasn't a moment to lose. A state trooper answered the telephone, and then switched Carella over to Grundy's office.

'Yeah?' Grundy said.

'I got your message. We've been doing some work on this end, talking to the suspect's girl friend, and later his aunt. We've got a house we want you to check out.'

'Here in Turman?'

'Right. Here's the address, have you got a pencil?'

'Shoot,' Grundy said.

'304 West Scovil Lane. Ring a bell?'

'I know the area. Whose house is it?'

'Belongs to the suspect's aunt, woman named Martha Walsh. She told us she keeps it closed during the winter, but the suspect has a key.'

'You still haven't told me his name,' Grundy said.

'Big Anthony Sutherland.'

'That would be "Pig," huh? And the second kid?'

'No help.'

'I'm on my way,' Grundy said.

While Meyer Meyer told an assorted collection of not-so-virginal college girls that a rapist was a seriously disturbed individual who was incapable of enjoying a normal sex relationship with a woman, Detective Al Grundy drove along tree-shaded Scovil Lane, and located a yellow house with white shutters bearing the number 304 on the mailbox outside. And while Meyer told his audience that a rapist expects his victim to be terrified, and that this terror-reaction adds to his own excitement, Grundy went up the front walk past the tarpaper-covered fig tree, and knocked on the front door and got no answer, and forced the lock.

'Now some of you may feel that rape is not such a terrible thing. It is penetration by force, true, it is a violation of your body, true - but if you submit to this violation, perhaps you will not be hurt. Perhaps. But remember that part of the psychological interplay that makes rape appealing and exciting to this man is the very taking-by-force aspect of what he's doing. And where there is force involved, there is the attendant danger of being severely beaten or even killed.'

There was a sleeping bag on the floor of the living room, and bedclothes on the living-room couch. An empty pizza carton and two empty cans of beer were on the floor. An ashtray brimming with butts rested on the end table alongside the couch. Grundy sniffed the butts on the off chance they might be marijuana roaches. They were not. He went into the kitchen.

'I don't want you to become neurotic about rape, I don't want you to start screaming if a panhandler taps you on the shoulder. He may only want a quarter for a drink, and you'll start screaming, and he'll try to shut you up, and the next thing you know he's broken your neck. That's as bad as being assaulted by a real rapist. I do want to frighten you a bit, however, and the first thing I want to frighten you about is hitchhiking. If you'd like to get raped, the best way to accomplish your goal is to go outside and start hitchhiking. I can't guarantee that if you hitch a ride tonight, you'll positively be raped. But I can guarantee that if you hitch from the same spot at the same time each night, someone will try to rape you. It might take a week, it might take longer. But someone will try. And it will have nothing whatever to do with how you look. You can be standing on that corner wearing a potato sack, with your hair in curlers, and a fever sore on your lip, and that won't discourage the rapist. He is a sick man; you are presumably a healthy individual. Don't, for God's sake, foolishly place yourself in hazardous or vulnerable situations.'

There were two six-packs of beer in the refrigerator, a carton of milk, some cold cuts, and a package of sliced bread with half the loaf gone. Used paper plates were on the kitchen table, and the trash can was full of empty cans - baked beans, soup, vegetables, hash. Cups, silverware, soup plates, and knives were piled in the sink, unwashed. Grundy went into the bedroom.

'Like in the song from The Fantasticks, there are many different kinds of rape. If you're out on a date with a man you know, and you're necking in his automobile, and he decides to take you by force, against your wishes, that's rape - even if you've known him since he was six years old. In a situation like that, I would advise that you stop necking for a moment, stick your finger down your throat, and vomit into his lap. The more serious rape, if rapes can be classified as to seriousness, is the one that can lead to bodily injury or death. A man jumps out at you, he threatens you at knife point. Don't begin telling him what a disgusting animal he is, don't start cutting him down to size, because he may decide to cut you down to size - literally. He is emotionally unstable, he does not need his ego further bruised. I've known victims who have talked themselves out of being raped by treating their attacker with human kindness, understanding, sympathy, and humility. This doesn't always work, but it may at least buy you some time until either help comes or you can effect an escape. One girl bought time by telling the rapist she knew he'd been following her, and thought she was the luckiest girl alive, because here she was just a plain, dumpy little thing, and he was such a big handsome man. She put her arms around his neck and got very affectionate - something totally unexpected by the rapist -and he lost his erection and was momentarily incapable of performing. By the time he got back to the business at hand, which was taking this girl by force, don't forget that, some people wandered up the street, and the girl was saved from attack.

'But let's suppose a man begins hitting you the moment he drags you into the bushes. Your natural reaction, even if you plan not to resist, even if you plan to go limp - which may cause the same thing to happen to him - is to turn your head away from the blows, or bring up your hands to protect your face, or in some way involuntarily show resistance or fear, which will only provoke him more. Let's say nothing you've said or done has worked, you are on the ground, he is still striking you, he is going to rape you. The question now is whether you want to be raped, and maybe killed, or whether you want to hurt this man. Only you can decide that. If you choose not to be a victim, I can tell you how to hurt him, and how to get away from him.'

The bedclothes were rumpled, the sheets were stained with blood. A leather-thonged cat-o'-nine-tails was on the floor near the footboard. The window was wide open. Grundy went to the window and looked out. The ground was some four feet below the sill. He carefully tented his handkerchief over the leather-wrapped handle of the whip, and then tagged it for identification and subsequent transmittal to the police lab in nearby Allenby. A girl's handbag was resting on the seat of a straight-backed chair near the bed. Grundy opened the bag.

'Remember that the unexpected is the best approach. You are flat on your back, and this man is about to rape you. Instead of trying to twist away, instead of trying to shove him off you, begin to fondle him. That's right. Fondle the man. Fondle his genitals. And then drop your hand to his testicles and squeeze. Squeeze as hard as you can. You are going to hurt this man, but you are also going to end the rape that very minute. You may wonder whether he will be able to chase you afterwards, perhaps hit you harder than he did before, perhaps even kill you. I can guarantee that you can run clear to California and back, and that man will still be lying on the ground incapable of movement. This is one way of stopping a rape, if you do not choose to become a victim. There is another way, and I suspect your reaction to it will be "I'd rather get raped." That, of course, is up to you. I can only offer you options.'

The girl's handbag contained three lipsticks, a package of Kleenex, two sticks of chewing gum, four subway tokens, three dollar bills, forty cents in change, and a card showing that she was a member of the Student Organization of Whitman High School in Riverhead. The name on the card identified her as Margaret McNally. There was nothing in the house or on the grounds outside that in any way identified the two boys who presumably had killed her.

'Again, do the unexpected,' Meyer said. 'Put your hands gently on the rapist's face, palms against his temples, cradle his face, murmur words of endearment, allow him to think you're going along with his plans. Your thumbs will be close to his eyes. If you have in yourself the courage to push your thumbs into a hard-boiled egg, then you can also push them into this man's eyes. You will put out his eyes, you will blind him. But you will not be raped. There is never a moment, during a rape in progress, I can guarantee this, when you will not have the opportunity to fondle the man's genitals or to put your hands on his face. These are his vulnerable areas, and if you behave unexpectedly and do not seem to be preparing an attack, he will not suspect what is coming until it is too late. Squeezing his testicles will incapacitate him, but may not permanently injure him. Putting out his eyes is a drastic measure, and you may feel with some justification that doing this is worse than what the rapist is trying to do to you - that the means of preventing the rape are worse than the crime itself. The choice is yours.'

Meyer wiped his brow with his handkerchief, and then asked, 'Are there any questions?'