Blood on the Street (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #4)

again with Bobby. Why didn’t she just call off her dog? Was this the good cop-bad cop routine? “Did you see the papers?”
    That stopped her. What was she to do? She still had Mrs. Leonora Foley’s statements. But what did they have to do with the murders? Probably nothing, she decided, so she fudged. “Yes and no. I saw them, but they all came back to the apartment after court, and I had to replace the hatbox and hide in the closet. When they left and I looked for the hatbox, it was gone.”
    “Maybe it was never really there,” Ferrante taunted. “Her and her connections. I heard all about you.”
    “Ferrante, I’ve had it. I’d like you to leave. Now.”
    “Hold it,” Peiser said, briskly. “Back off, Bobby.”
    Wetzon belatedly realized there was something else going on here, apart from Ferrante’s reaction to her. “No maybe. It had been there. Someone else came into the apartment then, Barbara Gordon, I think, and I jumped back into the closet. The problem was I’d dropped my briefcase earlier and everything’d spilled out. I thought I’d got it all, but I didn’t know it at the time, I was missing my cardcase.”
    “You saw her?” Ferrante asked in a normal voice.
    Wetzon shook her head.
    “How do you know it was Barbara Gordon?”
    “Her perfume. And she was getting dressed in evening clothes. The closet was full of evening dresses.” Wetzon refilled the coffee mugs with what was left of the coffee, turned the machine off, and sat down. “Look, Ms. Peiser, I blew it. It was hot in there—the closet I mean—and I fell asleep. I heard the outside door close, and I woke up. I thought I was alone, but someone could have been in the kitchen. It has these swinging doors. I never checked. I was really dopey from the nap, so when the phone rang, I answered it. It was Rona. She thought I was Penny Ann, because Penny Ann was supposed to stay in the city and Jerry had offered her his office.”
    “Was there a phone in the kitchen?” Ferrante asked.
    “How would I know?” Wetzon said irritably. “Isn’t that your job?”
    “It’s all my job, and you stuck your face in it.”
    “We’re almost finished,” Peiser said, giving Ferrante a sharp look. “What did Rona say?”
    “She said Tabitha wanted to meet at the fountain at Lincoln Center. She had something to tell.” Wetzon looked down at her hands on the mug of coffee. “Listen, I used the bathroom before I left. Someone could have heard everything on a kitchen extension and rushed up to Lincoln Center and gotten there ahead of me and Rona, barely, but—”
    “Did you see Rona Middleton there?” Peiser asked.
    “I think, and I’m guessing, that Rona saw the whole thing come down, but I didn’t see her, and I didn’t see Tabitha either. I was there for about a half hour. I walked around and was really ready to leave— when I found her. It was horrible.” She got up and made herself busy, washing the coffeepot. With her back to them she said, “Rona didn’t do it.”
    “Come off it, the kid was sleeping with her husband,” Ferrante said. “Broke up the marriage.”
    Wetzon burned. “Ms. Peiser—”
    “Just a couple of more questions, Ms. Wetzon.”
    Wetzon turned to Ferrante. “What marriage? Rona’s been carrying on an affair with Maglia since before Brian.” She looked at Peiser. “Rona has an alibi for when Brian was killed. You have no case.”
    Peiser put down her pen and rubbed her eyes, smearing her eye shadow. “Bobby?”
    Ferrante shrugged. “She doesn’t have one for the girl.”
    “Coincidence, Ferrante. Neither do I. And you haven’t found the gun, either….”
    There was a long silence during which they all glared at one another.
    Finally, Peiser said, “The gun’s been found.”
    “The murder weapon?”
    “Yes.”
    “Where?”
    “At Rona Middleton’s house.”
    “Oh, I don’t believe it. Is this a trick? Rona says she’s never fired a gun in her life. I bet Rona’s prints aren’t on it.”
    “It’s no trick,” Peiser said. She got to her feet and grabbed her coat.
    “There were no prints.” Ferrante held Peiser’s coat so she could slip into it, then lifted her hair over the collar. Too intimate a gesture for a cop and an assistant D.A. “It was wiped clean.”
    “Then it could have been planted there, couldn’t it?”
    Peiser headed for the door, and Ferrante followed.
    Wetzon persisted. “Couldn’t it?”
    Peiser said, “It’s registered in the name of Wilson