The Last Dance Read Free Page A

at
all?”
Meyer asked.
    â€œNot that I know of.”
    â€œThen what makes you think he died of a heart attack?” Carella asked.
    Cynthia looked first at him, and then at Meyer, and then at Carella again.
    â€œI don’t think I like either
one
of you,” she said and walked out into the kitchen to stand alone by the window.
    One of the technicians had been hovering. He caught Carella’s eye now. Carella nodded and went over to him.
    â€œBlue cashmere belt,” the technician said. “Blue cashmere fibers over the door hook there. What do you think?”
    â€œWhere’s the belt?”
    â€œNear the chair there,” he said, and indicated the easy chair near the room’s single dresser. A blue bathrobe was draped over the back of the chair. The belt to the robe was on the floor, alongside the dead man’s shoes and socks.
    â€œAnd the hook?”
    â€œBack of the bathroom door.”
    Carella glanced across the room. The bathroom door was open. A chrome hook was screwed into the door, close to the top.
    â€œThe robe has loops for the belt,” the technician said. “Seems funny it’s loose on the floor.”
    â€œThey fall off all the time,” Carella said.
    â€œSure, I know. But it ain’t every day we get a guy dead in bed who looks like maybe he was hanged.”
    â€œHow strong is that hook?”
    â€œIt doesn’t have to be,” the technician said. “All a hanging does is interrupt the flow of blood to the brain. That can be done by the weight of the head alone. We’re talking an average of ten pounds. A
picture
hook can support that.”
    â€œYou should take the detective’s exam,” Carella suggested, smiling.
    â€œThanks, but I’m already Second Grade,” the technician said. “Point is, the belt coulda been knotted around the old man’s neck and then thrown over the hook to hang him. That’s if the fibers match.”
    â€œAnd provided he didn’t customarily hang his robe over that hook.”
    â€œYou looking for a hundred excuses to prove he died of natural causes? Or you looking for one that says it could’ve been homicide?”
    â€œWho said anything about homicide?”
    â€œGee, excuse me, I thought that’s what you were looking for, Detective.”
    â€œHow about a suicide made to look like natural causes?”
    â€œThat’d be a good one,” the technician agreed.
    â€œWhen will you have the test results?”
    â€œLate this afternoon sometime?”
    â€œI’ll call you.”
    â€œMy card,” the technician said.
    â€œDetective?” a man’s voice said.
    Carella turned toward the kitchen doorway where a burly man in a dark gray coat with a black velvet collar was standing. The shoulders of the coat were damp with rain, and his face was raw and red from the cold outside. He wore a little mustache under his nose, and he had puffy cheeks, and very dark brown eyes.
    â€œI’m Robert Keating,” he said, walking toward Carella, but not extending his hand in greeting. His wife stood just behind him. They had obviously talked since he’d come into the apartment. There was an anticipatory look on her face, as if she expected her husband to punch one of the detectives. Carella certainly hoped he wouldn’t.
    â€œI understand you’ve been hassling my wife,” Keating said.
    â€œI wasn’t aware of that, sir,” Carella said.
    â€œI’m here to tell you that better not be the case.”
    Carella was thinking it better not be the case that your wife came in here and found her father hanging from the bathroom door and took him down and carried him to the bed. That had better not be the case here.
    â€œI’m sorry if there was any misunderstanding, sir,” he said.
    â€œThere had better
not
be any misunderstanding,” Keating said.
    â€œJust so there won’t be,” Carella said,