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It was all right It was like a , really, except that everybody who spoke said so about Toni I talked briefly about our trek out to Richs Toni had said in her talk

It bothered ht she'd killed herself, but I didn't knohat to do about that I would have liked to tell her relatives in particular what the real circuht have mattered to them But I couldn't think how to handle it

Afterward I went out for coffee with Jim Faber, and then I went back to the hospital

I was there a lot during the next week A couple of ti an anonymous call to 911 to tip them off about the dead body at 288 East Twenty-fifth Street As soon as Motley's corpse was discovered, I could phone Anita and tell her she could stop worrying I couldn't reach Jan, but sooner or later she would reach ht to come home If I said as ht someday be called upon to explain e that all such calls were taped, and that I could be identified as the caller through voiceprint comparison I didn't think anyone would ever check, but why leave the possibility open? At first I'd thought Ms Lepcourt would come home to her apartment and discover the body, but when that didn't happen over the weekend I had to consider the possibility that she'd never be co home

That just meant I had a couple hbor finally realized that the odor she was soing to go away of its own accord She called the police, they broke the door down, and that was that

On Thursday, al, a resident internist told ht she would," he said "There were soThe stress she underwent throughout was enorht fail, but it turns out she has a real good heart"

I could have told him that

A little later, around the time she came home from the hospital, I had dinner with Joe Durkin at the Slate He said it was on hiue He downed a couple of martinis to start, and he told me how neatly Motley's suicide had closed out a batch of files They were hanging Andrew Echevarria and Elizabeth Scudder on hi that he'd caused the deaths of Antoinette Cleary and Michael Fitzroy, the young ured him as the probable killer of one Suzanne Lepcourt, who'd floated to the surface of the East River earlier that week It was hard to tell what had caused her death- as a matter of fact, without dental records it would have been next to impossible to tell who she was, let alone what had killed her But there wasn't much doubt that she'd died as the result of foul play, or that the foul player was Motley

"Decent of him to kill hi it for hiood case against hiot no doubts of that Still, this makes it simpler all around Did I tell you there was a note?"

"On the wall, you said In lipstick"

"Right I'm surprised he didn't use the mirror I bet the landlord wishes he had It's a lot easier scraping it off ait with paint There's a mirror on the wall next to the door, too You must have noticed it"

"I was never in the apart look "Anyway," he said, "offing hi the bastard ever did You wouldn't figure a guy like him to do it, would you?"

"Oh, I don't know," I said "Sometimes a man will have that one moment of clarity, when all the illusions fall away and he sees clearly for the first time"

"That moment of clarity, huh?"

"It happens"

"Well," he said, picking up his drink, "I don't know about you, but whenever I feel aon, I just reach out for one of these and let the clouds roll in"