A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion

“Just that it doesn’t look right.”

“How can you tell?” She seemed not to recognize she was giving much away.

“We see lots of burglaries,” Carey said. “They aren’t done this way.”

She glanced at Lorraine’s night table and found a pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum. She unwrapped a stick and gauged the inspector’s expression as she slowly and seductively pushed the gum between her pouting lips and into her pretty mouth. His glum face had not changed. She chewed.

“Are you aware of what happened to your husband?”

She seemed to shrink a little. She held a hand over her eyes as if crying. “He’s dead.”

“Well, I’ve been asking around and nobody told you that, and you never even questioned the medical examiner. Was he shot, was he injured, was he okay? Wouldn’t a wife want to know for sure if he was murdered or not?”

She gazed at him in a pitying way. “You have how many detectives in this house?”

“Sixty or so.”

She sneered. “Call it female intuition.”

“Fair enough,” Carey said. “Let me begin with the first thing this morning. You wake up from a faint and find yourself gagged with a man’s handkerchief, your wrists and ankles tied with clothesline.”

She tentatively said, “Yes.”

“And you slithered along the hallway from in front of your room to your daughter’s, here, opposite the bathroom?”

She gave him a look like What’s the big deal?

“Why not get help from your husband?”

“Lorraine’s room was just down to the right.”

“But your own bedroom door wasn’t three feet away.”

“A mother’s first worry is for her child.”

“Was it you who locked her door in the night?”

“I forget.”

“Because that was a good idea, wasn’t it? That’s why the giant Italians couldn’t get to your daughter.”

She just stared at him.

Arthur Carey could see she was clamming up and would give him little more about the morning, so he changed the tone and topic. “What was your husband’s salary at Motor Boating magazine?”

“One hundred fifteen dollars a week.”

“And what was your household budget?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“How much did he give you for groceries, gas and electric, incidentals?”

“Eighty dollars.”

“Each week?”

She nodded. She seemed proud, even chipper, to be on such familiar terrain.