Evelyn gave her statement in a little room off the main corridor.
I sat beside her while a detective wrote it down.
This time she began with the elevator doors opening.
She told him about Clark. The argument. Musgrove reaching inside his jacket. She said what she’d seen and, when she didn’t know something, she said that too.
It took longer than the story she’d told me in my office.
When it was over, the detective read it back to her.
She corrected two things.
Then she signed.
* * *
Pembroke was waiting outside.
“Jerry.”
I got up.
He looked at Evelyn.
“Both of you.”
We followed him into his office.
The papers from Musgrove’s safe were spread across the desk. A second folder sat beside them. Older. Soft at the corners.
Pembroke closed the door.
“Sit down.”
Evelyn sat. I stayed beside her chair.
Pembroke laid Clark’s letter in front of her.
“Is that his handwriting?”
She picked it up.
“Yes.”
She read it through. At the bottom she stopped, then went back to the date.
I pulled the other chair closer and sat down.
“He says Musgrove made him write it,” she said.
“That’s what he’s telling us too.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Musgrove kept it to make him do things. We’ve got the payments and names to check. That doesn’t tell us who chose the words.”
Evelyn held the letter by its corners.
“He never asked me about Danny.”
Pembroke waited.
“Danny came to the apartment to go over some songs. He’d got me an audition. Clark was there.”
She looked down at the letter.
“He played the piano. I sang. That was all.”
“I understand,” Pembroke said.
“No. I don’t think you do.”
She put the letter on the desk.
“Clark came to the audition.”
She was looking at the paper, but I didn’t think she was reading it now.
“He sat in the back. Afterwards he took me to dinner.”
Pembroke put his pen down.
“He asked if I thought I’d get the job.”
Her voice was steady. That made it worse.
“I said I hoped so.”
* * *
I got her a glass of water.
She took it and held it in her lap.
“And the person I buried?”
Pembroke looked at her.
“Clark says Musgrove arranged that. We’re checking the funeral records.”
She shut her eyes for a moment.
I looked at the older folder on the desk. There was another family in there somewhere.
When she opened her eyes, she looked at the letter again.
“Was that what Arthur had in his coat?”
“A copy,” Pembroke said. “Clark says Musgrove showed it to him after he caught him searching the apartment. Put it in his jacket before you came in.”
“What happened to it?”
“He took it after the shooting. Burned it later.”
I remembered her telling me about his hand going inside Musgrove’s coat.
“He went back for the original,” I said.
Pembroke nodded.
“What about the gun?” she asked.
Pembroke waited a moment.
“Clark says he never saw one.”
She stared at him.
“He knew what Arthur was reaching for,” she said.
“He knew there was a document in that pocket.”
“And he told me…”
She stopped.
I looked down at my hat.
She’d already told me. I didn’t need to hear her say it again.
After a while, she pushed the letter back across the desk.
“I don’t want that.”
Pembroke took it.
* * *
He asked her a few more questions about Price. Places they’d worked. Who else knew him. Whether she remembered Clark saying anything about him before his death.
She answered what she could.
When Pembroke finished, she stood.
“Can I go?”
“Yes. We’ll need to speak to you again.”
“I’ll be at Lisa’s sister’s.”
She gave him the address.
I noticed how easily she said it now.
Pembroke wrote it down.
“Are they still saying I killed Arthur?”
“Your account matches what we’ve found. Clark admits firing the shot. We’re pursuing the case against him.”
She nodded.
It didn’t look like relief.
I opened the door for her.
“Jerry. A minute.”
Evelyn looked back.
“I’ll be right out,” I said.
She went to the bench outside.
* * *
Pembroke waited until the door closed.
“There’s more in those papers.”
“More LeClaire?”
“Other business.”
He turned a page towards me.
A list of names. Amounts beside them. Musgrove’s handwriting along the bottom.
Clipped to it was a short letter on Wesson’s stationery, asking Musgrove to have Hale attend to the accounts personally.
I looked at the signature.
“That son of a bitch.”
“You know what it means?”
“Not yet.”
“Neither do I. So leave it that way until we do.”
“Wesson know you’ve got this?”
“He’s already asked about Musgrove’s private papers.”
“He ask you?”
“No.”
Pembroke put the letter back in the folder.
“Somebody upstairs asked me on his behalf.”
I looked towards the ceiling.
“Popular fellow.”
“Jerry.”
“Yea.”
“Get her home.”
I picked up my hat.
* * *
Evelyn was sitting with her coat over her knees.
She stood when she saw me.
“Is there something else?”
“Nothing you need to do today.”
We went down the corridor together.
At the front doors, she stopped.
“Danny had a sister.”
I waited.
“She came to the funeral. His funeral.”
Evelyn looked at me.
“I sent flowers.”
I didn’t have anything useful to say.
Outside, a cab was letting somebody off at the curb.
I raised my hand.
Evelyn put on her coat.
“Will they tell her?”
“Yes,” I said. “They’ll tell her.”
I opened the cab door.
This time, when I asked where she wanted to go, I waited for her answer.