The call came just a few minutes after Mitch got to Jill's apartment. The kettle had just started to whistle. Jill poured water into her cup then made the long stretch to grab the phone.
Just before she heard a voice coming from the other end of the phone, Jill remembered something that Mitch had told her a long time agothat Lieutenant Sievers did his best interrogation work on the phone. Sievers felt that a phone was much more relaxing for most people, and that they therefore tended to tell you more than they might have in person. Lieutenant Sievers, Mitch said, had received more than half a dozen murder confessions over the phone during his twenty-some years on the force.
'This is Lieutenant Wayne Sievers.'
'Good evening, Lieutenant.'
A pause. When he spoke, he sounded irritated. 'Our mutual friend Mitch Ayers told you I'd be calling, I assume.'
'Yes. Yes, he did.' She put her hand out and Mitch took it.
'You know about Eric Brooks?'
'Yes, I do. I'm still having a hard time making myself believe it.'
'Why's that?'
'I saw him just a few hours ago and he was alive. I still can't believe'
'Were you two alone?'
'Yes.'
'What was his mood?'
'Oh, he wasEric. You know.'
'No, I guess I don't know, Miss Coffey.'
'There was always something Eric wanted, and he always seemed agitated when he couldn't have it.'
'Was there anything in particular he wanted this evening, Miss Coffey?'
'Not that I know of.'
'Did he want you, Miss Coffey?'
She looked at Mitch. He made a big Happy Face, indicating she should do the same.
'I've already talked to some of his co-workers, Miss Coffey. They told me that he had always been interested in you romantically.'
'I wouldn't say "romantically."'
'Oh, then what would you say?'
'Sexually. But I didn't take that as any kind of compliment.'
'Why not?'
'Because Eric was fascinated with any woman who wouldn't sleep with him. I suppose he just couldn't imagine how we could say no to all his charms.'
'Was he charming, Miss Coffey?'
'He could be. But he could also be very manipulative and cynical.'
'Why did you two split up as partners?'
'There's no easy answer to that.'
'Then give me a complicated one.'
'Well, there was the sexual problem.'
'That being what exactly?'
'That he kept trying to get me into bed.' She looked at Mitch and shrugged. She felt as if she were saying the wrong thing.
'I see.'
'And we had argued a lot about the types of work I was doing. I'm a photographer and that's what I love doing and that's what I wanted to do, but Eric was trying to turn me into some kind of executive. I didn't want that.'
'I'm told you had very stormy arguments.'
'I can't deny that.'
'Did you have an argument tonight?'
She hesitated. 'I wouldn't characterize it as an argument.'
For the first time, a frown wrinkled Mitch's forehead.
'Then how would you characterize it?'
'Eric wanted to seduce me.'
'And you didn't want him to?'
'No, I didn't.'
'What happened?'
'Nothing, really. Before I went up there tonight, I'd had some hope that maybe Eric had changed. You know, grown up a little.'
'But he hadn't?'
'No. He wasEric.'
It was all clear, of course, how Eric had forced a kiss on her and how she'd slapped him. She wanted to tell Lieutenant Sievers about this but every time her lips began to form the words
Her slapping him.
And storming out.
And shortly thereafter, Eric murdered…
Jill remembered what Mitch had said about Lieutenant Sievershow he was one of those cops who pursued the first serious suspect he came upon. She'd heard about cops like that. They spent all their efforts making a case against one person while not considering any other suspects.
So she didn't tell him about Eric's kiss, or her slapping him afterward.
'So you weren't intimate tonight?'
'Not just tonight, Lieutenant. We were never intimate.'
'How long were you there?'
'Fifteen minutes, something like that.'
'Did you see anybody else in the offices?'
'No.'
'Did you see anybody in the lobby or on the elevator?'
'No.'
'Did Eric receive a call when you were there?'
'No. But'
'But what, Miss Coffey?'
'When I first arrived'
'Yes?'
'There was a young woman just leaving Eric's office.'
'Could you describe her, Miss Coffey?'
Jill described her.
'Did she see you, Miss Coffey?'
'No, I don't think so.'
'Then she left?'
'Yes.'
'Did everything seem all right between them?'
'When I first got there, I waited outside Eric's door. I just heard the tail end of their conversation.' She told the Lieutenant everything she'd overheard.
'So Eric seemed angry?' the Lieutenant asked.
'No, that's too strong. Combative is more like it.'
'That's a strange word to describe a social relationship.'
'Not where Eric was concerned. He made a lot of sexual demands on youa lot of innuendo, a lot of what he considered to be sly hintsand you had to fight back. Combative isn't too strong a word for how it felt.'
'So you saw this young woman there and then not again?'
'Once more.'
'When?'
'As I was leaving his office. I walked to the elevator, and she was standing there waiting for one to arrive.'
'You're sure the outer office was empty?'
'As far as I could see.'
'The elevators there have very distinctive bell tones. Did you hear the elevator bell?'
'No.'
'You're positive?'
'Positive.'
'And on the way down?'
'I saw nobody.'
'And you never actually saw this woman get on the elevator? You just saw the door close?'
'That's right.'
'So when you left, Eric Brooks was alive.'
'Very much so.'
'And you went where, then, Miss Coffey?'
'Straight home.'
'And you've been there ever since?'
'Yessir.'
'I appreciate all this, Miss Coffey.'
'We're done?'
'For tonight, anyway. I'm sure I'll have follow-up questions.'
'Lieutenant Sievers?'
'Yes.'
'I didn't kill him.'
'I'm glad you didn't, Miss Coffey.'
'I want you to believe me.'
'You seem like a very nice person, Miss Coffey.'
'One more time so there can be no misunderstanding: I did not kill Eric Brooks.'
'I'm writing that down in my notebook. ''Miss Coffey says she did not kill Mr Brooks." There, duly noted, Miss Coffey. I hope you get a good night's sleep.'
Then he was gone.
And Jill sat in the echoes of their conversation feeling very much the way Lieutenant Sievers wanted her tolike a murderer.
'Ceremonial cocoa,' he said, 'sort of like a Japanese ritual.'
She smiled wearily.
As a little girl, whenever Jill had been feeling depressed or anxious, her mother had made her cocoa, usually pouring it into her very special Lone Ranger mug, that Jill had inherited from her older brother Jason, who was then a military adviser in a faraway land called Vietnam.
'Still got that old mug of yours, I see,' Mitch said.
'Always with me in my darkest hour,' she said. Then, 'I wish Jason were.' Her brother had been killed in Vietnam in 1964, just as the war had become a political issue domestically.
They sat on the couch, in front of a TV screen filled with David Letterman. Neither of them paid much attention to it.
Twenty minutes ago, Jill had finished her conversation with the police but even now her stomach was in knots and she felt her hands spasm every few minutes. It was starting all over again, she thought. Even though she was innocent of murdering Eric, the press would love this story: the wife of a serial killer now suspected of being a killer herself.
'I appreciate you making me the cocoa,' Mitch said gently. 'It tastes great.'
She looked at him. 'Like the old days?'
'Just like the old days.'
'They were good days, that's for sure.' Her right hand rested on the knee of his dark corduroy jeans.
'Best days of my life, Jill. They really were.'
She started to move her hand but he gripped it. 'This is kind of like high school. I want to make a pass but I'm afraid to.'
She smiled. 'I guess I'm feeling the same way. I want you to make a passbut then again, I don't want you to make a pass.'
'We don't need to make love. I'm not asking for that.'
'I know you're not, Mitch. It's just I'mafraid. We get close again and you'll leave.'
'I want to marry you, Jill.'
She laid her head against the back of the couch, stretched her long legs out on the coffee table and said, 'Could we just sit here and hold hands for awhile?'
'Sure.'
'And just listen to Letterman?'
'Sure.'
She laughed. 'You're awfully agreeable for a cop.'
'They're making us take all these public relations courses. Whole new approach. We kill people with kindness instead of bullets.'
'Does it work?'
'Not so far. The public I'm trying to kill won't even let me kiss her.'
'Maybe she will in the next fifteen minutes or so.'
'You want to synchronize watches?'
She laughed again. 'God, that feels great.'
'Laughing?'
'Uh-huh.'
'Well, maybe I should stop by more often. It'll give you a lot more to laugh at.'
'How about one kiss?'
'My pleasure.'
'But not open-mouthed.'
'What kind of guy do you take me for anyway? I've got more self-respect than that.'
They kissed.
No open mouths.
It made her dizzy.
She pulled away. 'Maybe we shouldn't have done that.'
'Yeah, maybe we should have waited for the full fifteen minutes. I think we still had fourteen to go.'
'I want to hate you.'
'Well now, that's a nice neighborly thing to say.'
'You really hurt me.'
He didn't say anything for a long time, just stared at the TV screen without seeing anything and finally said, 'I'm sorry, Jill.'
'That's the terrible thing.'
'What is?'
'I believe you. That you're sorry. And I don't want to believe you.'
He turned on the couch and took her slowly in his arms. 'You should believe me, Jill. You really should.'
After they had finished making love, they snuggled beneath the covers and listened to the wet chill wind slap against the windows.
She couldn't get enough of his touch, or the familiar way he felt pressed against her, the smell of his hair, the gruff feel of his chin. He was one of those men who needed to shave twice a day. At this moment, he was lover, friend, brother and confidant and she loved all of them equally.
They were going to get married and love each other forever more. There might be children, and there would certainly be a rambling rustic house as idyllic as those she always saw in the romantic movies of the thirties and fortiesa true retreat from the wickedness and pain of the world, a place where sunsets were unspeakably beautiful, and lasted for days at a time, a kingdom where the crystal blue lakes remained untouched by industrial pollution. She closed her eyes and imagined such a realm, with herself as the princess and Mitch, of course, as her prince. The only trouble was, reality always intruded. Here was this handsome fairytale princewho was always in need of a shave.
'I don't think he believed me,' she said.
'Who?'
'Lieutenant Sievers.'
'About what?'
'The girl who came into Eric's office. I think he thinks I made her up.'
'This is all a formality, honest.'
'He didn't sound like it was a formality.'
'He's just trying to scare you. That's second nature to cops.'
'Remind me not to buy any tickets to the policemen's ball next year.'
'You won't have to.'
'Why not?'
'Because by then you'll be married to a policeman. And you'll get your tickets free.'
'I'm getting scared again.'
'Of Sievers?'
'Ummm. Of Sievers. And you. And us.'
'It's going to work this time, Jill. Honest.'
'Will you come visit me in prison?'
'Don't talk like that. That isn't funny.' Pause. 'In fact, don't talk at all.'
Before they made love a second time, he simply held her there in the darkness. And eventually she started feeling better, not scared, and safe. Definitely safe.
Holding Mitch was even better than holding her Lone Ranger mug.