“Yes,” she nodded. “I know Mr. Browne and Willie. But Nicky resigned from the union before all the trouble started.”
“You know nothing of a million-dollar slush fund then?”
She smiled again. “The FBI and the Internal Revenue Service have that same interest. I’m sure if we had a million dollars, I’d know about it.”
“And you don’t?”
“Of course not.”
Drury sighed. “You were in show business once yourself, weren’t you, Mrs. Circella?”
She sat up; she didn’t seem so frail, all of a sudden. “I met Nicky when I was appearing in a show at the Cort Theater. Each night he’d come and listen to my singing. Then he’d send roses. Finally we met through a mutual friend. That was in 1923; we were married the following year.” The past glory faded, and she settled back into the chair, frail again. “Now I can’t even sing the baby to sleep, since I had diphtheria. My vocal cords were affected, but that doesn’t matter. When I married Nicky, I washed my hands of show business. A wife stays home and minds the children, like Nicky says.”
“Getting back to Estelle Carey…”
“I was at fault.”
Drury leaned forward. “Pardon?”
She gestured with the lacy hanky. “I have been a sick wife for a long, long time. Nick couldn’t be blamed for seeking the company of a gorgeous creature like Estelle-and she was gorgeous.”
Was as in past tense.
She went nobly on: “None of us knows what life has in store for us. We are all in God’s hands.”
Anyway, Estelle was.
She smiled bravely. “I have only pity for Estelle Carey. She missed everything that is fine in life-home, family, the respect and esteem that are every woman’s birthright.”
“No bitterness at all, then.”
She shook her head no. “I’m sorry for her from the bottom of my heart. Since this has happened, I’ve gone to church and lit candles in her memory. Her murder was a terrible, terrible thing.”
Drury smiled politely, rising, gesturing to her. “Thank you, Mrs. Circella. You’re free to go now. Thank you for stopping by.”
She rose, smiled politely back at him. Fluttered her eyelashes. Great eyes on this dame. “Certainly, Captain Drury,” she said.
“Sergeant Donahoe, in the hall there, will show you out.”
She walked by me, snugging on navy gloves, trailing a wake of expensive tasteful perfume. I closed the door behind her.
Drury sat back down. “What do you think?”
I was still standing. “Some classy broad.”
“I mean, is she on the level?”
“Yeah. In her way.”
“What do you mean, in her way?”
I shrugged. “She’s lying to herself, not to you. She’s human; she hated Estelle like any good wife would. But she prefers to affect her good-Catholic-wife, stiff-upper-lip, superiority-through-suffering stance. It gets her through the day.”
“In other words, her marriage is an arrangement she can live with.”
“I’d say so.”
“I say if she’d been in town Tuesday, we might have a real suspect.”
“No. I don’t think so. I can’t picture that sweet little thing with an icepick in her hand.”
“Sometimes women can surprise you, Nate.”
“Hell, they always surprise me. Personally, I wouldn’t mind finding a wife like that-beautiful, devoted, expects you to fool around on the side. I didn’t know they made ’em like that anymore.”
“You want a girl just like the girl that married dear old Nick.”
“Maybe. Anyway, I don’t think she’s a killer. I don’t think she even hired a killer.”
“The papers are going to love her,” Drury said, glumly cynical. “They’ll fall all over themselves for that ‘every woman’s birthright’ speech.”
“You got that right. Anything else you’d care to share with me? Or should I let you get back to your couple of hundred suspects?”
His face narrowed into anger, or at least a semblance thereof. He shook his finger at me. “Yes there is. Why didn’t you give me D’Angelo’s name?”
“Oh. So Uncle Sam finally ran him down for you, huh?”
“Yes, and we were out to see him this morning. And we discovered you’d been there Wednesday night. What gives?”
I held my hands out, palms open. “He was on Guadalcanal with me, Bill. He was in that same shell hole as Barney and me. We almost got killed together. I owed him a warning of what was ahead for him-cops, reporters. He had that much coming.”
“Being in the service together doesn’t justify withholding information…”
“Yes it does.”
He shook his head. “Go on, make me feel like a heel. You been to fight the big war and I haven’t. Make me feel like a piker.” He thrust his finger at me. “But if you’re going to be sniffing around the edges of this case, don’t you goddamn dare withhold information or evidence from me again; our friendship isn’t going to cover that, Nate.”
“Understood.”
“Now do me a favor and get the hell out of here.”
I did.
On my way out, I stopped by Sergeant Donahoe’s desk. “You got it?” I asked him.
He nodded and looked around furtively and opened a desk drawer and got out a sack.