"That's just it," Gallison said. "That's where he claims she took advantage of him. He says that, like plenty of other writers, he's no businessman. You'd laugh to hear the way he's been going on about that, if he wasn't a self-confessed murderer. Nothing a murderer says or does is ever funny. But the way he put it would have gone over big on a TV comic program. He claims he has no more business sense than a two-year-old; would sign any contract that was pushed under his nose without looking at even the large print, let alone the fine. He claims he's--well, the term he used was 'a commercial imbecile.' He takes a sort of pride in it. And he thought she understood that some writers were like that--some of the biggest names, in fact, in the writing business. "They can't even bring themselves to glance twice at a contract. It's not important to them, they're way off in the clouds somewhere, figuring what their characters are going to say and do in the next chapter." "He could be right about that," Fenton said, sighing. "Up to a point anyway. I've known two or three big-name mystery writers in my time, and my wife sort of--well, collects them. Writers in general, I mean, along with painters and musicians. It's an odd hobby for the wife of an old police warhorse, but show me just one thing I can really understand about women and I'll get you a lieutenancy tomorrow, if I have to go down to Center Street myself and beg for it. You'd be the biggest asset the Homicide Squad could possibly have." It was Gallison's turn to sigh. "I guess I'm the way Willard is about contracts when it comes to understanding women," he said. "You seem to forget I've been married myself for fifteen years. Every day my wife is a different kind of woman. But the big difference came between the day before and the day after I married her." "It's usually that way," Fenton said. "You wake up and discover your wife is a human being." His expression sobered abruptly. "Where is Willard now? In a cell or still under the lights. If you've got a signed confession--" "We've got it, all right--signed, sealed and delivered." "So you just went ahead without even consulting me, is that it? What am I supposed to be around here--a rookie fresh from the asphalt?" "It couldn't be helped, Lieutenant.... It all happened so fast." "John! You're asking for trouble, boy!" "All right then, Joe. I swear it really couldn't be helped. It all just poured out of him, so fast we had trouble in taking it down and had to ask him to read it over three times. We wouldn't have laid a finger on him, anyway. You know that as well as I do."