28.

Marlowe was still under the bed when I got up about eight o’clock. As for Fluffy, she was curled up on his favorite couch cushion, looking for all the world like she owned the place.

“Okay,” I muttered. “I don’t know much about cats, but one thing I do know is they use litter boxes. Hold yourself in check another twenty minutes.”

I got dressed, put on my coat, and walked a couple of blocks to the little mom-and-pop grocery store, picked up a bag of cat litter and a plastic box, then let them sell me a scoop to clear the litter out of the box, and a couple of minutes later I was back in the apartment, pouring litter into the box and sticking it under the bathroom sink.

I picked Fluffy up, carried her to the bathroom, set her down in the box, and waited.

She stared right back, stood there for a minute, then jumped out, walked back to the couch with all the dignity she could muster, and hopped back up onto the cushion.

I figured as long as I still had my coat on, I might as well take Marlowe for his walk, since to the best of my knowledge dogs didn’t use litter boxes. I had to reach under the bed and drag him out. Then he practically pulled me out the door and down the stairs. At first I thought he had to go, but when we got outside he just stood there, and I realized what he really wanted to do was get away from Fluffy.

I walked him to Mrs. Garabaldi’s where force of habit took over, he watered her petunias, and we headed back home. This time he didn’t make a beeline for the space under the bed but just sat in the farthest corner of the living room and stared at Fluffy.

“You know,” I said aloud, staring at the cat, “if you’re going to stick around for any length of time, you need a better name. A manly, macho private eye can’t have a pet called Fluffy. A dame, maybe, but not a cat.” I considered my options. “He’s named after Philip Marlowe, but you’re the wrong color to be Sam Spade. Besides, if I call you Spade, some of the black guys at the Twenty Yard Line might take serious offense.” I stared at her further, and finally it came to me. “You’re a female, and Samantha’s a name for a female. And since we’re going to be living together, at least for a while, that’s too formal, so I think I’ll call you Sam. How does that sit with you?”

She opened one eye and stared at me. That’s fine. I can ignore you when you call me Sam just as easily as when you call me Fluffy.

Marlowe gave me an I could have told you so look, and then I checked my watch and realized that they’d be releasing Mela in about forty-five minutes, and I didn’t want him going anywhere but to the Cincinnati police with me.

I opened a can of sardines that was old enough to grow a beard and left it on the kitchen counter where Marlowe couldn’t reach it. I figured Sam could smell them, and when she got hungry enough she’d make her way back there and grab a little breakfast or lunch, and of course she could share Marlowe’s water bowl.

Then I was out the door, and a minute later I was driving across the Ohio River to St. Elizabeth’s. I parked, went in, got a fierce glare from the receptionist I’d spoken to yesterday, and was about to ask about Mela when he approached from wherever he’d been waiting.

“Hi,” I said. “How are you today?”

“Fine,” he said. “It’s really just a scratch.” Suddenly he smiled. “I hope it leaves a scar, though.”

“Oh?” I said. “Why?”

“I have an older brother who fought in Vietnam. He took a bullet in the leg, and for the next twenty years every time our family, which is quite large, had a reunion, every one of the kids nagged and nagged until he showed them his scar.” He paused. “I was 4-F.” He patted his arm gingerly. “Now I finally have a wound to show them.”

“If I’d known it meant that much to you, I’d have shot you myself,” I said, and he chuckled. “I suppose they confiscated the box?”

He nodded. “You told me they would.”

“Okay, we’re a day late, but they still want to see you,” I said. “I’ll drive us over.”

“Will this take very long?” he asked.

“They’ll probably be done with you in an hour,” I said. “But of course it’ll take them a few days to get the diamonds—after all, two guys were killed in Covington because of them. Still, the two departments work pretty well together, and since there’s no one left alive to charge with murder and there’s a murder case pending across the river, I think the diamonds should be in Cincinnati in, oh, maybe a week.”

“I can save you a return trip and have my wife pick me up,” he offered.

“The cops will take you back,” I said. “You’re only there because they want to see you, and since you’re coming willingly and saving them a ton of interstate paperwork, they’ll be happy to do it.” I paused. “At least, they’ll look happy.”

“The man who yelled at you to duck,” said Mela as we walked to the car. “Was he your partner?”

“In a way,” I said.

“How is he?”

“Dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” I said. “But if he hadn’t been backing me up, you and I would be lying side by side in the morgue.”

He shook his head. “All because Abner stole some diamonds.”

“All because he stole some diamonds from a man he’d just killed,” I said.

He rubbed his face with his delicate hands. “It’s all too much for me. Jewelers are conditioned to worry about robbery, not murder.”

We crossed the combined I-71/I-75 bridge to Ohio, and a couple of minutes later I parked at headquarters and escorted Mela into the building and up to Jim Simmons’s office.

“Good morning, Eli,” said Simmons, getting to his feet and turning to Mela. “And you must be Mr. Mela. I hope you’re okay?”

Mela nodded. “Just a scratch, thanks to Mr. Paxton and his partner.”

“Partner?” said Simmons curiously, looking at me.

“Friend,” I said.

“I was sorry to hear about him,” said Simmons.

“While I’m thinking of it,” I said, “when the diamonds are finally returned to Velma, I want the finder’s fee to go to his family.”

Simmons smiled. “First we got to find them.”

“Orestes?” I said. “Tell the lieutenant what’s in the custody of the Covington police.”

“Three diamonds worth perhaps a hundred thousand each, possibly a little less. I don’t think any jeweler will argue with an estimate of eighty-five to ninety.”

“And these are the diamonds you were bringing to me yesterday when the shooting started?”

He nodded his head. “Yes.”

“Exactly how did you come by these diamonds, Mr. Mela?” asked Simmons.

“They were part of a group of ten that were brought to me last week by Abner Delahunt.”

“Where are the other seven?”

Mela shrugged. “I can only give you hearsay. I set one of them into a ring that I am told Mr. Delahunt gave to a lady friend, but I have no proof of that. And Mr. Delahunt took the other six back, and I have not seem him or them since then.”

“Okay,” said Simmons, “that jibes with what Eli told us. We’ve already confiscated the ring. Are you willing to identify it when we ask you to?”

“Certainly.”

“One last question: Are you willing to be deposed?”

“Deposed?” repeated Mela.

Simmons nodded. “You’ll be escorted to another room, accompanied by two members of my staff, and they’ll ask you to repeat your story in front of a recorder, a video camera, and a steno—and after a stenographer types it up you’ll be asked to sign it. Do you have a problem with any facet of that?”

“No, sir, I do not,” said Mela.

“Good.” Simmons pressed a button on his desk, and a moment later a plainclothes cop opened the door. “Tom, will you and Barry please escort Mr. Mela down the hall and take his deposition?”

Tom nodded. “And afterward?”

“He’s free to go. In fact, find him a ride home. If one of our men isn’t heading that way, get him a cab.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, leading Mela out of the office.

“Well,” said Simmons, leaning back in his chair, “you delivered him. And when you didn’t show yesterday, before I got word about what had happened, I brought in the girl just to be on the safe side.”

“Mitzi Cramer?”

He nodded. “That’s when we impounded the ring.” Suddenly he smiled. “What she’s doing outside of Playboy or Penthouse I don’t know.” The grin got bigger. “You wouldn’t believe how many cops offered to take her home.”

I chuckled at that. “So what’s next?”

“We bring Delahunt in, of course.”

“Today?”

“If he’s home or at work, yes. If not, we issue a B.O.L.O. for him. I think we’ve got the goods on him. Maybe not for murder, but surely for stealing the diamonds.”

“I’ve never even seen the man,” I said. “You mind if I stick around?”

“No problem,” he said. “He’ll be lawyered up, of course. And you can’t sit in the interrogation room, but you can watch and listen through the one-way glass.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “I’m going to go out and grab a quick lunch. No way you bring him in before I get back.”

“Hell, it’ll take a couple of hours. You know he’s not talking to anyone until he’s got his lawyer at his side.”

“That gives me time to head up to Rascal’s,” I said.

“The deli?”

I nodded. “The best in town. Doesn’t everyone want blintzes and chopped liver right before nailing a killer?”

“Some of us prefer lox and knishes,” he said.

“Hint taken,” I replied. “I’ll bring some back for you.”

“You’re a good man, Eli,” he said. “Even if I do have to buy the tickets for the Bengals game.”

“I hope it’s that easy,” I said. “But let’s get him to confess first.”

“Let’s also keep it legal and un-include you from the ‘let’s,’” he said. “Now go. I’m gonna be starved in two hours.”

I went.