“That’s right.”
“Hello, Frank,” Bertha said.
“Hel-lo, Bertha!” Sellers exclaimed. “I sure hated to do it, Bertha, but that’s the way the chips fell.”
“Well, I don’t blame you,” Bertha said. “If what I heard over the radio is right, I guess the little bastard is caught dead to rights. I guess that’s been the trouble with him all along. One of those over-developed brains. He always did keep to himself, sort of.”
“Never had any normal relations with women?” Sellers asked.
“How the hell would I know?” Bertha demanded truculently. “Women fall all over themselves falling in love with him... Take that little secretary he’s got. She’s nuts over him, and Donald treats her as though she might be his kid sister. Her eyes light up like automobile headlights every time he comes into the room. She follows him all around with those eyes. Donald doesn’t even seem to notice it. But he’s always been nice to her, always tried to give her the breaks. He fought to get her raises in salary and make the work easier for her.”
“Typical symptoms,” Sellers said with all the smug finality of an amateur psychoanalyst. “Hell, I should have smelled it a long time ago.”
“May I ask what you’re talking about?” Claire Bushnell said.
“Her partner, Donald Lam,” Sellers said. “He’s a murderer — sex murder. What do you know about him?”
“Why, I’ve met him,” Claire Bushnell said.