I wonder at first if he is talking about the eulogy he is going to deliver. He has just looked over his notes again and is returning two index cards to the breast pocket of his blue serge suit. But when I catch his expression I recognise that his remark was personal. From the rear seat of the county’s Buick, he stares through the auto window toward the traffic thickening as we approach the South End. His look has taken on a meditative cast. As I watch him, it strikes me that this pose would have been effective as The Picture for this year’s campaign: Raymond’s thick features fixed in an aspect of solemnity, courage, and a trace of sorrow. He shows something of the stoic air of this sometimes sad metropolis, like the soiled bricks and tarpaper roofs of this part of town.
It is a commonplace among those working around Raymond to say he does not look well. Twenty months ago he split with Ann, his wife of thirty years. He has picked up weight and a perpetual grimness of expression which suggests he has finally reached that time of life when he now believes that many painful things will not improve. A year ago the wagering was that Raymond did not have the stamina or interest to run again, and he waited until four moths before the primary to finally announce. Some say it was addiction to power and public life that made him proceed. I believe the chief impulse was Raymond’s outright hatred of his primary opponent, Nico Della Guardia, who was until last year another deputy prosecuting attorney in our office. Whatever the motivation, it has proved a difficult campaign. While the money lasted, there were agencies involved and media consultants. Three young men of dubious sexuality dictated as to matters such as The Picture, and saw to it that this image of Raymond was applied to the backside of one in every four buses in the city. In the picture he has a coaxed smile, meant to show a toughened whimsy. I think the photograph makes him look like a kind of sap. It is one more sign that Raymond has fallen out of step. That is probably what he means when he says he should feel sorrier. He means that events seem to be slipping past him again.
Raymond goes on talking about Carolyn Polhemus’s death three nights ago, on the first of April.
‘It’s as if I can’t reach it. I have Nico on one side making out like I’m the one who murdered her. And every jackass in the world with press credentials wants to know when we’re going to find the killer. And the secretaries are crying in the johns. And in the end, you know, there’s this woman to think about. Christ, I knew her as a probation officer before she graduated law school. She worked for me, I hired her. A smart, sexy gal. A helluva lawyer. And you think about it eventually, you know, the actual event – I think I’m jaded, but Jesus. Some cretin breaks in there. And that’s how she ends up, that’s her au revoir? With some demented slug cracking her skull and giving her a jump. Jesus,’ Raymond says again. ‘You can’t feel sorry enough.’
‘No one broke in,’ I finally say. My sudden declarative tone surprises even me. Raymond, who has momentarily resumed his consideration of a lapful of papers brough along from the office, rears his head and fixes me with an astute gray eye.
‘Where do you get that from?’
I am slow to answer.
‘We find the lady raped and bound,’ says Raymond. ‘Off-hand, I wouldn’t be starting off my investigation with her friends and admirers.’
‘No broken windows,’ I say, ‘no forced doors.’
At this point Cody, the thirty-year copper who is living out his last days on the force by driving Raymond’s county car, breaks into the conversation from the front seat. Cody has been unusually quiet today, sparing us the customary reverie about the bum deals and good pinches he has witnessed in gross on most city avenues. Unlike Raymond – or, for that matter, me – he has no difficulty bringing himself to sorrow. He appears to have been without sleep, which gives his face an edge of roughened grief. My comment about the condition of Carolyn’s apartment has stirred him for some reason.
‘Every door and window in the joint was unlocked,’ he says. ‘She liked it that way. The broad was living in wonderland.’
‘I think somebody was being clever,’ I tell them both. ‘I think that’s misdirection.’
‘Come on, Rusty,’ Raymond says. ‘We’re looking for a bum. We don’t need fucking Sherlock Holmes. Don’t try to get ahead of the murder dicks. Keep your head down and walk in a straight line. Okay? Catch me a perpetrator and save my worthless ass.’ He smiles at me then, a warm, savvy look. Raymond wants me to know he is bearing up. Besides, there is no need to further emphasize the implications of catching Carolyn’s killer.