Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 39, No. 13, Mid-December 1994

Singing Lessons by Sherrard Gray

“Shouldn’t we keep that kid out of here?” said Corporal Hanley. “We don’t need some twelve-year-old poking around.”

Without thinking, Bunk Cummins nodded. Temple Buchanon’s body had just been removed from the parlor of the old farmhouse where she lived and gave voice lessons, and the M.E. and state lab people had left. He was staring at the bloodstains on the corner of the piano, not really seeing them.

Bunk looked at his new patrolman. This was Jeff Hanley’s second week on the job. He’d been a diesel mechanic in Elizabethville for seven years, had gotten tired of that, and had just graduated from the police academy in Pittsford. Basically he seemed a decent guy, might even make a good officer someday. In the meantime, though, he was pretty green around the gills, and Bunk had been spending a lot of time breaking him in.

“Hey!” Hanley waved his hand at the young girl standing in the doorway. Bony elbows poked out under a pink Catamount T-shirt, knobby knees showed under blue shorts. “Didn’t you see that ribbon we put up outside? You’re not supposed to cross it.”

The girl stared at him and turned away.

“I need some fresh air,” said Bunk. “Here, take this kit, see if you can find any prints the staties might have missed.” He stepped outside onto the freshly mown lawn. The warm sun felt good, gave him a fleeting sense that even in the midst of tragedy life goes on, the world continues to turn, the sun to shine. Across the drive and beyond a low snake-rail fence stood another house. He saw a white-haired head in the window watching them. Maddy Dufour, the neighbor who’d found the body earlier that morning. Two hours ago he’d taken her jumbled call. “Temple Buchanon... lying on the floor... all twisted up...” He would walk over shortly and question her.

“I’m sorry,” said a voice to one side of him. “I didn’t mean to sneak in or anything.”

It was the girl again, standing outside the ribbon and holding onto a balloon-tire bike. She looked twelve, thirteen at the most. He walked over.

“Did you know Miss Buchanon?”

The girl nodded vigorously. “I live like half a mile from here. In that brown trailer by the pig farm?”

He knew the trailer. Had seen a rather blowsy-looking woman outside the last time he drove by.

“Temple was...” Tears trickled down the girl’s face. “She was giving me voice lessons. Wouldn’t let me pay for them. ’Course I probably couldn’t have. My daddy was killed in a logging accident ten years ago, and Mom, well, she doesn’t make a lot. We get food stamps,” she added a little defiantly.

“Nothing wrong with that. A lot of people need food stamps.”

A small grin broke out on the tearstained face. “Thanks. I think—” the girl blushed and looked down at her sneakers “—I think I like you. My name’s Tracy, by the way. Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“When did it happen?”

Should he share information with a twelve-year-old? Something about her, though, looked older than twelve, much older. Some kids grow up fast in this vale of tears. “The M.E. estimated around eight last night. She’ll have a more accurate estimate after she does an autopsy. You know what an M.E. is?”

Tracy thought a minute. “Murder expert?”

Bunk went back inside where Hanley was dusting the piano bench for prints. “I’m going to check with Mrs. Dufour,” he said. He looked at the throw rug scrunched up on the floor. “Looks like Miss Buchanon put up a fight.”

“Not much of one, judging from the size of her. She couldn’t have weighed over a hundred pounds. Dammit anyway.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Why does it have to be such a nice person? She gave voice lessons to my niece. Turned that girl around. Before she took lessons, Sonja was overweight, moped around, you were lucky to get six words out of her and none of them very pleasant. Now she’s cheerful, says ‘Hi!’ and is talking about being an actress. The woman had — what is that word? You know, where you have something special that makes people follow you?”

“Charisma?”

“That’s it. Temple Buchanon had it.”

The old lady was watching him when he came up the walk. He knew a little about her, knew something about a lot of people in Elizabethville, pop. 2, 000, where he’d lived all his life and been chief of the police department the past eight years. Her place had been a dairy farm, but following her husband’s death fifteen or so years ago, she’d sold off some of the land to Temple. The going price then had been two hundred and fifty an acre, now it was two thousand. Beside the house stood a swaybacked red barn that still gave off a smell of chaff and dried manure and old wood. A dozen chickens strutted outside the barn, lorded over by a huge black and white rooster.

The face in the window disappeared as he mounted the steps, the door opened.

“It’s getting to where a body’s not even safe living in the country. Come on in.” Mrs. Dufour was a large, buxom woman in her mid-seventies. He’d seen her mowing her own lawn — and not with a riding mower, either — and once when he went by she was on her roof in a pair of coveralls knocking the soot out of the chimney with a logging chain. She led him into the living room, pointed to an overstuffed wingback chair, and sat on a horsehair couch. “I hope I never see a sight like that again. When I didn’t see any sign of life over there by nine, I called her on the phone. There wasn’t any answer, but her car was there. So I went over and...” Mrs. Dufour grimaced and was silent for a long moment. “I probably should’ve called you folks and let you discover the body. Do you know yet when it happened?”

“Around eight last night, we think. You’re the only house nearby, Mrs. Dufour. The only house with a view of her driveway.”

“Can you believe this?”

“Believe what?”

“I spend a lot of time settin’ in the window just pondering things and watching. Not much goes on around here that I don’t know about, and then, when something really big happens, naturally it has to happen on a Wednesday night, which is bingo night at the Legion.” The old lady shook her head. “Maybe it’s a good thing I wasn’t to home, I might have heard the poor thing scream.” She shuddered and looked down at her work-worn hands. When she finally looked up again, she said, “Love turned sour.”

He waited.

“Hob Chaney. Mowed her lawn, took care of her garden. For a while there, he’d go inside the house, stay an hour or so, come strutting back out with a big, satisfied grin. Made me sick, it did, a nice lady like Temple teaming up with the likes of Hob, and he being married. If you can call that a marriage. Anyway, a month ago it stopped. He kept mowing her lawn, but he quit going inside. Didn’t look happy, either. Scowling all the time. I think she broke off and it just kept gnawing on him until...” Mrs. Dufour’s voice trailed off, she wriggled a hand indicating someone going off the deep end.

The bale missed him by less than a foot. It sailed past his face so close he felt the breeze on his cheek, a piece of chaff on his eyelid. He heard a thump as it landed twenty feet below in the half-filled mow.

“Oh God,” he heard Hob Chaney say, “I almost beaned the chief of police.” Hob and Everett McAllister were throwing bales off the back of Everett’s pickup into a dusky bay below. “Just a sec, Bunk, and we’ll have this done.”

The two finished unloading, and Everett backed the truck down the barn bridge.

“Ev’s wife told us the news about an hour ago,” said Hob as he and Bunk stepped outside the barn onto the ramp. He was a broad-shouldered man with a weathered face that now wore a beseeching look. “I’ll do everything I can to help. Hanging would be too good for whoever killed her.”

“Hob.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve got to ask some questions, and you’re not going to like all of them. You worked for Temple, you knew her pretty well.”

“Come on, Bunk, you don’t think...”

Cummins shook his head. “I don’t think you did it, but I still have to know where you were around eight last night.”

Hob leaned against the barn door. “I’m in some hot water now.”

“Seeing someone you shouldn’t?”

“That’s about the size of it. Gina Dobson. Actually, I was waiting for her at her house; she was still working down at the nursing home. Okay, once in a while I pick a flower I ain’t supposed to. What the heck, Val hasn’t let me touch her in ten years, I’m only human. Does all this have to come out?”

“No. One more question.” Bunk sighed, looked out over a field of timothy and dandelion waving in the breeze like a yellow curtain. A pair of ravens swooped overhead, making raucous calls. This was the part of police work he could do without: posing nosy questions to people he knew.

“You’re not going to like this question either, but did you and Temple have anything going?”

“Me and Temple?” The handyman’s face reddened. “Are you kidding? She was a real lady. She had better things to do than fool around with a bum like me.”

“You were seen going into her house for an hour or so at a time, and then suddenly it stopped.”

Hob’s jaw tightened. “That Dufour woman’s got a nose longer than my arm. I was taking singing lessons.”

The chief stared at him.

“Go ahead, laugh. You won’t believe this, but when I was a kid in Proctorsville, I used to sing in school musicals. More fun than a barrel of monkeys. I even got the notion I might go on the stage and become another Caruso.” Hob chuckled at himself. “I could’ve always gotten a part singing ‘Pass the ketchup,’ something simple like that. I mean I do have a voice. But life didn’t turn out that way. Had to make a living right off, and so here I am, throwing hay bales and dreaming.” The big man turned, looked behind them into the dark barn with shafts of golden light slanting through cracks in the boards. “I knew what a popular teacher Temple was and last fall got it into my head to take some lessons from her. I had to do something, Bunk, I was in a rut. The same thing day in and day out, mowing lawns, digging up water lines, always driving other people to the airport so they could fly off to Timbuktu and have a grand time. But when Val realized how much fun I was having, she put a stop to the lessons. Said she’d leave me if I kept going.”

“It’s that kid snooping around again,” said Corporal Hanley.

“I wouldn’t call that snooping. I think she misses Temple.” Bunk and his rookie were at Temple Buchanon’s again the next morning, trying to determine whether anything had been stolen. There was no sign the house had been ransacked for money and valuables. They’d found a small jade and ebony inlaid box half full of jewelry, and in a desk drawer over three hundred dollars in cash. “Look, she’s sitting under that tree crying.”

Jeff stepped off the chair he’d been using to inspect the top shelf of a glass-fronted curio cabinet. “This hasn’t been my week. Monday my car throws a rod, Tuesday Tamsen and I break up, and now this murder. Which has to happen five days after I join the force. Whoever killed her could’ve at least waited till I’d gotten my feet wet.”

But Bunk was only half listening, he was at the screen door watching Tracy sitting on a bench under the sugar maple staring blankly at her sneakers. Her puppy squatted on the ground at her feet. She looked up as he stepped outside and with the heel of her hand wiped her cheeks.

“Losing a good friend hurts, doesn’t it?” he said. “What’s the dog’s name?”

“Pepper. He’s been sort of lonely ever since our cat got run over last week. Can I call you Bunk? I mean... I don’t know, I sort of feel like I’ve known you a long time.”

“Call me anything you want but late to dinner.”

She looked at him but didn’t laugh.

“Tracy, do you have any idea who could’ve done that to Temple?”

“Gosh no. Who would want to do something like that to her? It must’ve been a stupid robber.”

“We found some money in a drawer. He, or she, didn’t take that. Had Temple quarreled with anyone that you knew about?”

“Oh sure. Her sister in Chicago. She thought Temple was, you know, a hick. Living in the country like this. Said Temple should move to the city and make a name for herself.”

“Anyone else? How about boyfriends?”

“Oh boy.” Tracy gave a crooked smile. “That was one thing about Temple. She picked some real losers. Said so herself. That was the only dumb thing about her, she kept picking the wrong guy. Let’s see, there was this tall, skinny guy, an actor, he lived with her a couple of months. Something St. John, I can’t remember his first name. He was kinda creepy-looking, but I don’t think he’d hurt a fly.” The girl lifted her head suddenly. “Wait a minute, there was a guy, Chico. Chico McAllister. Drove a pulp truck. He got mad at her once, said he’d break both her arms if she didn’t quit playing the piano when he was watching football.”

“Hmm.”

“Bunk?”

“What’s that?”

“I need to know something. Was it fast for Temple? Did she suffer?”

“I don’t think so. My guess is she went quickly. Probably didn’t feel it.”

“Was she... was her head like bashed in?”

The chief shook his head. “Her face wasn’t touched. As a matter of fact, she looked really nice. Like she was about to go somewhere. Had on some lipstick and eyeshadow.”

Tracy looked at him, frowning. “Are you sure about the makeup?”

“Of course I am.”

“She never wore makeup unless she was going out. And she almost never went out during the week.” Tracy reached down and idly scratched her pup’s ear. “There could be another reason for the makeup. She might have put it on if she was expecting a man visitor.”

For the second time in less than a minute, Bunk said, “Hmm.”

“Come on,” said Chico. “You have to be kidding. You don’t think I’d do something like that?”

They’d found him outside the trailer he shared with his wife and child, changing the oil filter on a stake-body truck. His hands were covered with black oil, and flecks of oil twinkled in his beard. A small gold earring dangled from one ear, and a red scar looped under his left eye.

“We don’t think anything right now. We’re just asking questions. I understand you went together for a while.”

A pale, pregnant woman had come to the door of the trailer, and peering out between her legs was a little boy with a plastic duck.

“We went together for maybe a year. Part of that time I lived with her, yeah. Everyone knows it. My wife knows it. She was a nice lady, I can’t think who’d do this. You think I did it?”

“We haven’t come to any conclusions yet,” said Hanley, while Bunk grimaced. “The investigation is in the preliminary stage.”

“Yeah?” Chico looked at him. “Look, I may be a little rough around the edges, but I don’t go in for killing people. Ain’t that right, Charman?” He turned toward the woman standing now on the trailer’s porch. Behind her the boy’s eyes were big as silver dollars. “I may be rough but I ain’t evil, ain’t that right?”

A sudden smile blossomed on the woman’s face. “You’re sweet,” she called to him.

“See that? Who would do this? Maybe something to do with land. I knew she was worried about a developer setting up something next door. Every chance she got, she’d pick up more land.”

Hanley was taking notes.

“Thanks,” said Bunk. “If you think of anything else, let us know.”

“Excuse me,” said Hanley, “but we have a report that you once threatened her.”

“Huh?” The logger stared at the young cop, and he didn’t look happy. “Didn’t you used to work at Barcomb Motors?”

Hanley grinned. “Got tired of eating grease and losing fingernails. We were told you once threatened to break both Temple’s arms if she kept playing the piano during football games.”

“Who told you that?” Chico dropped onto his haunches, kneaded his forehead leaving an oily smear. “Maybe I did say that.” He glanced up at the sky. “If I did, I’ll answer for it someday.” He stood, a distant look in his eye. “That was the old days when football meant something to me. Sure, I still like the game, but not like that any more.” He gave Bunk a searching look. “Did I really say that? Maybe I’ve learned something since then after all.”

“There’s that kid again,” said Jeff as they pulled up to the curb outside the police station after investigating a report of a vicious dog. Tracy was riding her bike up and down the sidewalk. “She doesn’t let up. Maybe we ought to swear her in as a deputy and let her conduct the investigation. You and I don’t seem to be getting anywhere.”

Bunk climbed out of the car. “How’s it going, Tracy?”

The girl produced a weak smile. “I don’t know. I’ve got another voice teacher. Sabrina Moffat. She called right after I saw you last time and suggested I start up with her. I’ve had one lesson already.”

“Do you like her?”

“Not much. She’s not very friendly, and she’s super strict. If you’re five minutes late, that’s too bad, you don’t get any extra time. Temple used to give me extra time unless another student was waiting.”

“Interesting.” Hanley stood behind Bunk. “Sabrina called that niece of mine who was a student of Temple’s. Pretty pushy lady.”

Later that afternoon, Bunk and Jeff went to Ms. Moffat’s dark, musty house on Depot Street in town. A student was trilling inside, her voice scooting up and down the scales like a rabbit.

They went in as the student, a young woman with dark eyes and a brisk stride, was leaving. Hanley looked after her and said softly to himself, “Hey.”

Sabrina, six feet tall, square-jawed, glared at him. Reluctantly she let the two into the vestibule.

“You’ve taken on a lot of new students, haven’t you?” said Bunk.

“Isn’t that my business?”

“A lot of Temple’s students.”

Sabrina’s bluegreen eyes narrowed. “Just what are you implying?”

“Where were you around eight night before last?” said Jeff.

“I don’t like any of these questions,” said Sabrina. “It so happens, I was home, reading a book.” She looked pointedly at Jeff. “Something you probably don’t do very often yourself.”

“That’s right, I can’t read. Can someone vouch for the fact that you were home at that time?”

“My elkhound. But I don’t think she’d want to talk to you gentlemen. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot to do.”

“Nice lady,” said Jeff as they went down the steps toward their Crown Victoria. “I wonder how long my niece will last taking lessons with her.”

“I hear there’s going to be an auction at Temple’s place,” said Tracy, pedaling up to Bunk outside the police station. He was getting into his patrol car on his way to investigate a nighttime burglary at the Rite Way Sports Shop. “I wonder who’ll buy that painting Temple had? It’s worth a small fortune.”

“Painting?”

“It hung in the little bedroom at the back of the house. She kept it there so most people never saw it. I liked it because there’s a kitty in it. A French painter. Vooleur? Voolez? Something like that.”

Bunk still had a key to the house. On the way to the Rite Way, he let himself in and went to the small bedroom and stood looking at an empty hook and a blank square on the wall.

“Can you turn M that noise down, Jeff? I can’t think straight.”

“Come on, chief, chill out. This is the Grateful Dead. Loosens you up, helps you think.” Jeff turned the radio off. “What would I do without music? Like a shot in the arm when I’m low. I’ve been thinking of all the women I’ve dated the past two years. Do you know how many that’s been?”

“Can I count that high?”

“Six. And each time I think, hey, this could be it. And then something happens. I’m starting to worry, Bunk. Twenty-five and not getting any younger.”

Bunk patted his assistant on the shoulder. “Hang in there, it’ll happen. It’ll happen when you least expect it. It’ll happen because you least expect it.”

“Come again?” Jeff frowned, but behind the frown was a glint of understanding.

“What’d you think of Sabrina Moffat?”

“A lot of anger in that woman. I got the feeling she thought she should have been a great opera star, and instead here she is in Podunk, Vermont, giving singing lessons. And not many of them until Temple died. She scares away students. My niece messed up a high C her first lesson, and Sabrina groaned. The poor kid was almost in tears. Personally, though, I don’t think it was her. I got my money on Hob Chaney, the jilted lover.”

“He says he was taking singing lessons.”

Corporal Hanley laughed for half a minute. “Come on, Bunk. The guy’s got a voice like Kermit the Frog. He’s been in trouble before, too, assault and battery. Remember when Hank Harrington complained about Hob mowing over some flowers, and Hob lifted him off the ground with one hand like he was a starving cat? Someone’s knocking at the door. That kid again. Have you deputized her yet? Okay, I’ll be nice.”

Tracy walked in with a wad of gum in her cheek. “Hi, Bunk. Hi, Jeff.”

On a hunch, Bunk said, “Do you think Hob and Temple were more than just friends?” Tracy stopped chewing and stared at him. “You mean were they... more than just friends?” She shook her yellow curls. “No way. He wasn’t her type. Matter of fact, I don’t think she’d been real tight with anyone since Chico. And that actor I told you about.”

“St. John, right? You said he wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Bunk was getting the uneasy feeling that maybe he should’ve tried harder to locate St. John. In fact, he hadn’t tried at all. There had been enough more promising suspects to keep him and Jeff busy.

“Mr. La-di-da,” said Tracy. “You know—” She lifted her chin, stretched out a bare, skinny arm, and pretended to flick ashes from a cigarette holder.

Corporal Hanley laughed. “Hey, that’s not bad. The next Julia Roberts.”

“He talked with a phony British accent,” went on Tracy, trying to hide a pleased smile. “And knew everything. Was always quoting Shakespeare, talking about kings, queens, art. He was into painting in a big way.”

Corporal Hanley stared at the twelve-year-old and said nothing. Not even a wisecrack.

“Well, if it ain’t my old friend, Bunk Cummins. And Jeff Hanley. How you fellows doing?” Chief Achille Boudreau of the Ravensburg P.D. kept his feet on his desk, drumming a gold pen on one knee. The desk was strewn with papers, some of which were weighted down with a pair of handcuffs. “Should I take my feet off the desk and try to look busy?”

“Naw, that’s all right,” said Bunk.

“Actually, I am busy. In fact, that’s why I’ve got my feet up on the desk. There’s so much to do I don’t know where to start. So I sit here and tap the gold pen the town gave me for twenty years of service and stare out the window and wonder if life was always this complicated. Was it?”

“Do I look like a philosopher?”

Chief Boudreau’s expression was world-weary but kind. Humanity still burned in his jowly seen-it-all face. “Actually, you do look like a philosopher. I’ve always thought...” His voice trailed off. “This a social call, Bunk?”

“Sprague St. John.”

Boudreau dropped a foot off his desk, along with a stack of papers that planed out over the floor.

“The Temple Buchanon case.”

Boudreau’s other foot came down. He stood up. “You have to be joking. The guy’s an actor. You know—” Achille laid a hand against his chest and declaimed “ ‘—To be or not to be, that there’s the question.’ ”

“I think you make a better cop than actor, Achille.”

“You do?” Boudreau pretended to be crestfallen. Or maybe he wasn’t pretending. “So ole Twinkle Toes is a suspect?”

“He lived for a short while with Ms. Buchanon. But what’s really got us going is a valuable painting she had in her house. We just discovered it’s missing.

Someone whistled behind the two Elizabethville officers, and they turned. A young woman in uniform stood with a Coke in hand. Her hat was off, showing a head of taffy-colored curls. She smiled and stuck out her hand.

“Janet Russo. Achille and I were in St. John’s apartment just a month ago. If you can call it an apartment. What a hole. I don’t think a woodchuck could live there. We arrested him on a charge of check kiting.”

When the man in pajamas and slippers opened the door to the three of them, a blend of unkind smells — dirty socks, moldering bread, Kitty Litter in serious need of attention — wafted past them.

“Three cops this time? I must be moving up in the world; last time it was only two. Look, all I did was cash a phony check for two hundred bucks. Do I get the chair? I’ve already been booked, my hearing date’s set, what else is there?”

“Murder,” said Bunk.

It was like he’d hit Sprague St. John in the stomach. The man’s eyes bulged, his stringy white hair seemed to stiffen, and the blood left his face as if a plug had been pulled. St. John looked at Corporal Russo. “Who are these people?”

“Officers Cummins and Hanley from the Elizabethville Police Department.” Russo showed St. John her search warrant, and the three stepped into the room. “Oh, a kitty.” Russo was looking at a striped orange and white kitten curled on the rumpled bed. The cat gave the three a worried look and like a cricket sprang onto a night table beside the bed and from there to the top of a carved oak wardrobe. A small cloud of dust rose from the wardrobe.

In a low voice, Hanley said, “Let’s make this quick or I’m gonna pass out.”

“Do you mind if I ask what you’re looking for?” said St. John. “Sir!” he yelled at Hanley, who was peering behind a wall hanging. “That’s an extremely fragile Gobelin tapestry. Please do not handle it.”

Hanley held up his hands. “No need for a seizure. Just checking.” He went to a Chippendale bureau across the room. Most of the furniture was old, elegant, and in serious disrepair. The style of the apartment was sublime poverty. “Well, well, what’ve we got here?” Jeff had pulled out the bureau from the wall, a crumpled beret and stack of playbills spilling onto the floor. He drew out something sheathed in newspaper, unwrapped a painting of a girl standing by a window looking out at a river. On the windowsill was sprawled a tabby cat.

St. John’s laugh was rumbly and nervous. “I’m flattered you covet my work.”

“Huh?” said Hanley.

There was a muffled giggle from Russo.

“He says he’s flattered you want something he painted,” said Bunk.

Hanley bent over the painting and squinted at a signature in the lower right-hand comer. “His name Edouard Vuillard?” As Hanley was straightening up, St. John made a dash for the door, the skirts of his pajama top billowing out behind him and one slipper flying. Lean and long-legged, he was halfway to the door before Bunk realized what was happening.

“Whoa there, fellow,” said Russo sticking out a foot. St. John’s arms flew out, and he hit the floor and slid on his stomach like a body surfer. There was a whack as his head hit the base of the door.

“Ouch,” he said. Slowly he got to his feet. Bunk snapped cuffs around his wrists, and Russo read him the Miranda Act.

St. John gave a scornful laugh when she told him he didn’t have to say anything until he’d seen his attorney. “I’ve always thought that was absurd. I don’t have an attorney, for one thing. Unless you count the one the state’s assigned to me. You want to know something else, young lady?”

Russo eyed him skeptically, probably expecting a sexist remark.

“I killed Temple Buchanon.”

“You don’t have—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I don’t have to talk about it until I can lie to my lawyer. The fact of the matter is—” St. John stopped, a tear appeared on his lower lid. “Don’t laugh, good people, but the aging cynic is actually remorseful for what he’s done. Excuse me, if you will. I’m afraid a rather lachrymose situation is developing.” He turned stumbling toward the bed and sat down, and for two minutes sobbed like a baby.

“Well,” he said finally. “I haven’t cried like that in twenty years. Yes, I killed the woman I once loved. Maybe still do.” He told how, two weeks ago, he went to see Temple. He was desperate for money, hadn’t had a part in over eight months. He pleaded with her to take him back in. “I told her the usual baloney about turning over a new leaf, that from now on things would be different. She declined. I insisted. We were standing in the living room. I shouted that she was a coldhearted, barren woman, and she lashed back. Said I was a failed actor and a failed human being and if I didn’t leave she would call the police. She started shoving me toward the door, pushing me, the great Sprague St. John, America’s equivalent of Sir Laurence Olivier—” here followed a despairing laugh “—and that’s when I lost it. I took her by the shoulders—” He closed his eyes and let out an anguished groan. “Afterwards, realizing I couldn’t sink any lower than I already had, I took this painting, which is worth probably forty thousand — if you can find a way to unload it. And there you have it.”

There was silence in the room. Something big and hissing — a pulp truck or oil tanker — rumbled by on the street below. The cat peered down from its perch, its bony shoulders hunched over its head.

Sprague St. John stood with his cuffed hands in front of him. “Lead on, Macduff.”

“Hi, guys,” said Tracy, skipping down the steps of the trailer she lived in with her mother. Bunk and Jeff had just turned into the dirt drive and stepped out of their Crown Victoria. “Did you find that actor?”

“We did,” said Jeff. “Thanks to you.”

The girl looked at him.

“You want to join the department?”

Tracy grinned. “No, thanks. I’m going to be a music teacher.”

“We’ve got something for you,” said Bunk. He reached into the back seat, took out a gray pet carrier, and opened the gate. A marmalade cat stepped out, looked around, and went straight to Tracy.

“Look at that,” said Jeff with a sigh. “Love at first sight. Do you think that’ll ever happen to me?”

Bunk was watching Tracy as she picked up the cat. He started to shrug and then stopped himself. “Sure it will, Jeff. When you least expect it.”