I went back to my chair and sat. The open closet door was unsightly, and I got up and closed it and then sat again. “Just forget it,” I said cheerfully. “The closet was a bum idea anyhow; she would have stifled in there. Sit down and relax while I try and slip one over for my boss.”
She stood. “I’m not interested in anything you have to say.”
“Then you shouldn’t have let me in. Certainly you shouldn’t have stuck Miss Berk in that closet. Let’s get it over with. I merely want to find out whether you have any use for ten thousand dollars.”
She gawked. “Whether I what?”
“Sit down and I’ll tell you.”
She went to a chair and sat, and I shifted position to be more comfortable facing her. “First I want to tell you a couple of things about murder investigations. In—”
“I’ve heard all I want to about murder.”
“I know you have, but that’s one of the things. When you get involved in one it’s not a question of what or how much you want to hear. That’s the one question nobody asks you. Until and unless the Rackell case is solved, with the answers all in, you’ll be hearing about it the rest of your life. Face it, Miss Devlin.”
She didn’t say anything. She clasped her hands.
“The other thing about murder investigations. Someone gets murdered, and the cops go to work on it. Everybody that might possibly have a piece of useful information gets questioned. Say they question fifty different people. How many of the fifty answer every question truthfully? Maybe ten, maybe only four or five. Ask any experienced homicide man. They know it and they expect it, and that’s why, when they think it’s worth it, they go over the same questions with the same person again and again, after the truth. They often get it that way and they nearly always do with people who have cooked up a story, something they did or saw, with details. Of course you’re not one of those. You haven’t cooked up a detailed story. You have only answered a simple question ‘No’ instead of ‘Yes.’ They can’t catch you—”