A: Go ahead then.


Q: A report on latent fingerprints retrieved from a window and sill in the Unger apartment, and those . . .


A: Retrieved by whom?


Q: Retrieved by the Crime Scene Unit. Now Mr Proctor, the fingerprints retrieved from the Unger window and sill match your fingerprints on file downtown. Can you tell me . . . ?


A: Do you have a copy of that LPU report?


Q: Yes, Mr Angelini, I have it right here.


A: May I see it, please?


Q: Yes, sir. And may I say, sir, that in this Q and A so far, your client has not been allowed to give a single answer to any of the questions I've put. Pete, I think maybe we ought to call the DA, get somebody here who can cope with Mr Angelini, because I sure as hell can't. And I'd like that left on the record, please.


A: I believe I have every right asking to see a report purporting to ...


Q: You know damn well I wouldn't say we had a report if we didn't have one!


A: Very well then, let's get on with this.


Q: You think maybe your client can answer a few questions now?


A: I said let's get on with it.


Q: Thank you. Mr Proctor, how did your fingerprints get on that window and sill?


A: Is it okay to answer that?


A: (from Mr Angelini) Yes, go ahead. Answer it.


A: (from Mr Proctor) I don't know how they got there.


Q: You don't, huh?


A: It's a total mystery to me.


Q: No idea how they got on that window and sill just off the spare bedroom fire escape.


A: None at all.


Q: You don't think you may have left them there?


A: Excuse me, Mr Carella, but . . .


Q: Jee-sus Christ!


A: I beg your pardon, but . . .


Q: Mr Angelini, you are perfectly within your rights to ask us to stop this questioning at any time. Without prejudice to your client. Just say, 'That's enough, no more,' you don't even have to give us an explanation. That's Miranda-Escobedo, Mr Angelini, that's how we protect the rights of citizens in this country of ours. Now, if that's what you want to do, please do it. You realize, of course, that on the strength of the LPU report, the DA will undoubtedly ask for a burglary indictment, which he'll undoubtedly get. But I thank you should know there's a more serious charge we're considering here. And . . .


A: Are you referring to the parole violation?


Q: No, sir, I'm not.


A: Then what charge are you . . . ?


Q: Homicide, sir. Two counts of homicide.


A: (from Mr Proctor) What?


A: (from Mr Angelini) Be quiet, Martin.


A: (from Mr Proctor) No, just a second. What do you mean homicide? You mean murder? Did somebody get murdered?


A: (from Mr Angelini) Martin, I think . . .


A: (from Mr Proctor) Is that what you're trying to hang on me here? Murder?


Q: Mr Angelini, if we could proceed with the questioning in an orderly manner . . .


A: I wasn't aware that this Q and A would concern itself with homicide.


Q: Now you are aware of it, sir.


A: I'm not sure my client should answer any further questions. I'd like to consult with him.


Q: Please do.


(Questioning resumed at 6:22 p.m. aforesaid date)


Q: Mr Proctor, I'd like to get back to those fingerprints we found in the Unger apartment.


A: I'll answer any questions about the alleged burglary, but I won't go near whatever you plan to ask about homicide.


Q: Is that what Mr Angelini advised you?


A: That is what he advised me.


Q: All right. Did you leave those fingerprints on the Unger window and sill?


A: I did not.


Q: Were you surprised in the Unger apartment by Mr and Mrs Unger at approximately one-thirty a.m. on the first of January?


A: I was home in bed at that time.


Q: For the record, I would like to say that we have a sworn statement from Mr and Mrs Unger to the effect that . . .


A: May I see that statement, please?


Q: Yes, Mr Angelini. I didn't plan to read it into the record, I merely . . .


A: I would like to see it.


Q: I wanted to explain the content so that your client . . .


A: Just let me see it, okay, Mr Carella?


Q: Okay, sure, Mr Angelini.


A: Thank you.


(Questioning resumed al 6:27 p.m. aforesaid date)


Q: Do I now have your permission to summarize the content of that statement for your client and for the tape?


A: (inaudible)


Q: Sir?


A: I said go ahead, go ahead.


Q: Thank you. Mr Proctor, the Ungers have made a statement to the effect that at one-thirty a.m. on the first of January, they entered their spare bedroom . . . what they use as a TV room . . . and surprised a young man going out the window onto the fire escape. They described him as having blond hair . . . excuse me, but what color is your hair?


A: Blond.


Q: And they said he was thin. Would you describe yourself as thin?


A: Wiry.


Q: Is that thin?


A: It's slender and muscular.


Q: But not thin.


A: He's answered the question, Mr Carella.


Q: They also said he had a mustache that was just growing in. Would it be fair to say that you have a new mustache?


A: It's pretty new, yes.


Q: And they said that the young man pointed a gun at them and threatened he would be back if they called the police. I show you this gun, Mr Proctor, a High Standard Sentinel Snub, .22-caliber Long Rifle revolver, and ask if it was in the pocket of your overcoat when you were arrested this afternoon.


A: It was.


Q: Is it your gun?


A: No. I don't know how it got in my pocket.


Q: Mr Proctor, when you were arrested tonight, were you wearing a camel hair coat containing a Ralph Lauren label?


A: I was.


Q: Is this the coat?


A: That's the coat.


Q: Where did you get this coat?


A: I bought it.


Q: Where?


A: At Ralph Lauren.


Q: Mr Angelini, we have a list of goods stolen from the Unger apartment on the morning of January first - I'm showing you the list right this minute before you ask for it - and one of the items on that list is a Ralph Lauren camel hair overcoat valued at eleven hundred dollars. I wish to inform your client that the Ungers in their statement said the man going out their window was wearing the camel hair coat described in the list of stolen goods. Mr Proctor, do you still claim you were not in the Unger apartment that night?


A: I was home in bed.


Q: Mr Proctor, the Ungers said that the man going out their bedroom window was also wearing a black leather jacket, black slacks and white sneakers. I show you this black leather jacket, these black slacks, and these white sneakers and ask you if these articles of clothing were found in your closet this afternoon at the time of your arrest.


A: They were.


Q: I also show you this emerald ring which was found in your apartment at the time of your arrest, and I refer you again to the list of goods stolen from the Unger apartment. An emerald ring and a Kenwood VCR are on that list. Mr Proctor, would you now like to tell me again that you were not, in fact, in the Unger apartment at the time and on the night in question, and that you did not, in fact . . .


A: I would like to talk to my lawyer, please.


Q: Please do, Mr Proctor.


(Questioning resumed at 6:45 p.m. aforesaid date)


A: In answer to your question, yes, I was in the Unger apartment that night.


Q: Thank you. Did you commit a burglary in that apartment on the night in question?


A: I was in the apartment. Whether that's burglary or whatever, it isn't for me to say.


Q: How did you enter the apartment?


A: I came down from the roof.


Q: How?


A: Down the fire escapes.


Q: And how did you get into the apartment?


A: By way of the fire escape.


Q: Outside the spare bedroom window?


A: Yes.


Q: Did you jimmy the window?


A: Yes.


Q: How did you leave the apartment?


A: The same way.


Q: The Unger apartment is on the sixth floor, isn't that so?


A: I don't know what floor it's on. I just came down from the roof and when I saw an apartment looked empty, I went in.


Q: And this happened to be the Unger apartment.


A: I didn't know whose apartment it was.


Q: Well, the apartment where you stole the Ralph Lauren coat and the Kenwood VCR and the . . .


A: Well . . .


Q: That apartment.


A: I guess.


Q: Which was the Unger apartment.


A: If you say so.


Q: Now when you went out of this sixth-floor window onto the fire escape, did you then go up to the roof or down to the street?


A: Down to the street.


Q: Down the ladders, floor by floor . ..


A: Yes.


Q: To the street.


A: Yes.


Q: Did you stop in any other apartment on your way down to the street?


A: No.


Q: Are you sure?


A: I'm positive. Oh, I get it.


Q: What do you get, Mr Proctor?


A: Somebody was killed in that building, right? So you think I done the sixth-floor burglary and then topped it off with a murder, right?


Q: You tell me.


A: Don't be ridiculous. I never killed anybody in my entire life.


Q: Tell me what you did, minute by minute, after you left the Unger apartment at one-thirty a.m.


A: Really, Mr Carella, you can't expect him to remember minute by minute what he ...


Q: I think he knows what I'm looking for, Mr Angelini.


A: As long as it's clear that you don't mean minute by minute literally.


Q: As close as he can remember.


A: May I ask on my client's behalf, is he correct in assuming that a homicide was committed in that building on the night of the burglary?


Q: Two homicides, Mr Angelini.


A: What are you pursuing here, Mr Carella?


Q: Let me level with you. Your client . . .


A: (from Mr Proctor) Go hide the silver, Ralph.


Q: Well, I'm happy for a little levity here . . .


A: (from Mr Proctor) You either laugh or you cry, am I right?


Q: I'm glad you have a sense of humor.


A: One thing you develop in the slammer is a good sense of humor.


Q: I'm happy to hear that, but I don't think there's anything funny about a dead six-month-old baby.


A: (from Mr Angelini) So that's the case.


Q: That's the case.


A: Maybe we ought to pack up and go home, Martin.


Q: Well, Mr Proctor isn't going anywhere, as you know. If you mean you'd like him to quit answering my questions, fine. But as I was about to say . . .


A: Give me one good reason why I should permit him to continue.


Q: Because if he didn't kill that baby and her sitter . . .


A: He didn't. Flatly and unequivocally.


Q: Before you even ask him, huh?


A: My client is not a murderer. Period.


Q: Well, I'm glad you're so certain of that, Mr Angelini. But as I was saying, I wish you'd permit your client to convince us he's clean. We're looking for a place to hang our hats, that's the truth. Two people are dead, and we've got your client in the building doing a felony. So let him convince us he didn't do a couple of murders, too. Is that reasonable? That way we go with the burglary and the parole violation and we call it a day, okay?


A: I wish we were talking only parole violation here.


Q: There's no way we can lose the burglary. Forget it.


A: I was merely thinking out loud. You understand what I'm saying, don't you?


Q: You're asking me what's in it for you. The DA might want to bargain on the burglary charge, that's up to him. But it won't just disappear, believe me. We're looking at a Burglary One here. Two people in the apartment while he was doing the . . .


A: Not while he was in there. He was already out the window.


Q: He spoke to them. Threatened them, in fact. Pointed a gun at them and . . .


A: The gun is your contention.


Q:Mr Angelini, we've got an occupied dwelling at nighttime, and a threat with a gun. I don't know what else you think we need for Burglary One, but . . .


A: Okay, let's say you do have a Burg One. How can the DA help us?


Q: You'd have to discuss that with him.


A: I'd be looking for a B and E.


Q: You'd be looking low.


A: Would he go for Burg Two?


Q: I can't make deals for the DA. All I can tell him is that Mr Proctor was exceedingly cooperative in answering whatever questions we put to him about the double homicide committed in that building. Which is of prime importance to a lot of people in this city, as I'm sure you must realize. On the other hand . . .


A: Tell him what he wants to know, Martin.


A: (from Mr Proctor) I forgot the question.


Q: Minute by minute. Starting with one-thirty when you went out on that fire escape.


* * * *


Minute by minute, he had come down the fire escapes until he reached the one outside the first-floor window, and then he had lowered the ladder there to the cement area in the backyard, and had gone down it and jumped the four, five feet to the ground, and then he'd come around the side of the building carrying the VCR under his arm and wearing the camel hair coat with the emerald ring in one of the pockets. He'd walked up to Culver and dumped the VCR right away, sold it to a receiver in a bar named The Bald Eagle, which was still open as this must have been a little before two in the morning by now.


'Better nail it down closer,' Carella advised.


'Okay, a movie was just starting on the bar TV. A Joan Crawford movie. Black-and-white. I don't know the name of it, I don't know the channel. Whatever time the movie went on, that's what time I got to the bar.'


'And sold the VCR . . .'


'To a fence who gave me forty-two bucks for it. I also . . .'


'His name,' Carella said.


'Why?'


'He's your alibi.'


'Jerry Macklin,' Proctor said at once.


He'd also showed Macklin the emerald ring, and Macklin had offered him three bills for it, which Proctor told him to shove up his ass because he knew the ring was worth at least a couple of grand. Macklin offered him fifty for the coat he was wearing, but Proctor liked the coat and figured he'd keep it. So he'd headed out, still wearing the coat with the ring in the pocket, looking for somebody he could score a coupla vials off...


'What time did you leave The Bald Eagle?' Meyer asked.


'Exact?'


'Close as you can get it.'


'I can tell you what scene was on in the movie, is all,' Proctor said. 'I didn't look at a clock or anything.'


'What scene was on?'


'She was coming out a fancy building.'


'Who?'


'Joan Crawford. With an awning.'


'Okay, then what?'


Proctor had gone out of the bar and cruised Glitter Park, which was the street name for the center-island park on Culver between Glendon and Ritter, where he'd run across . . .


'Oh, wait a minute,' he said, 'I can pin the time down closer. 'Cause this guy I made the buy from, he told me he had to be uptown a quarter to three, and he looked at his watch and said it was already two-twenty. So you got to figure it look me five minutes to walk from the Eagle to Glitter, so that puts me leaving the bar a quarter after two.'


'And his name?' Carella said.


'Hey, come on, you got me doin' a snitch on half the people I know.'


'Suit yourself,' Meyer said.


'Okay, his name is Fletcher Gaines, but you don't have to mention the crack, do you? You can just ask was I with him at twenty after two.'


'So according to you,' Meyer said, 'you . . .'


'Can you do that for me, please? 'Cause I'm cooperating here with you, ain't I?'


'Does this guy deliver all the way upstate?' Meyer asked.


'What do you mean?'


'You broke parole, Proctor. You're heading back to Castleview to see all your old buddies again. You don't have to worry about where your next vial's coming from.'


'Yeah, I didn't think of that,' Proctor said.


'But let's try to nail this down, okay?' Meyer said. 'You were in the Unger apartment at one-thirty . . .' 'Just leaving at one-thirty . . .'


'And you came down the fire escapes ...'


'Right.'


'No stops on the way down . . .'


'Right.'


'No detours ...'


'Right.'


'And you walked to The Bald Eagle on Culver and . . . where'd you say it is?'


All the way up near Saint Paul's.'


'Why'd you go all the way up there?'


''Cause I knew Jerry'd be there.'


'Jerry Macklin.'


'Yeah.'


'Your fence.'


'Yeah. Who I knew would take at least the VCR off my hands. So I could buy some vials to tide me over, you know?'


'You walked all the way up there, huh?'


'Yeah, I walked.'


'That's a long walk, cold night like that.'


'I like the cold.'


'And you got there just as the Joan Crawford movie was coming on.'


'A few minutes before. We were just beginning to talk price when it went on. It musta gone on about two o'clock, don't you think? I mean, they start them on the hour, don't they?'


'Usually. And you left there at a quarter after.'


'Yeah.'


'And took another little walk. This time to Glitter.'


'Well, that wasn't too far. Five minutes is all.'


'You like walking, huh?'


'As a matter of fact, I do.'


'So if all this is true . . .'


'Oh, it's true.'


'Then you can pretty much account for your time between one-thirty and a quarter past two. Provided Macklin and Gaines back your story.'


'Unless you scare them with shit about receiving stolen goods and dealing controlled substances, they should back my story, yes. Look, I'm going back to jail, anyway, I got no reason to lie to you.'


Except maybe a couple of dead bodies, Carella thought.


* * * *


They found Macklin at a little past nine that night.


He corroborated everything Proctor had said.


He even remembered the name of the Joan Crawford movie that had gone on at two in the morning.


And he remembered looking up at the clock when Proctor left the Eagle; he'd been invited to a New Year's Eve party, and he was wondering if it'd still be going at this hour. Which was a quarter past two in the morning.


It took them a while longer to find Fletcher Gaines.


Gaines was a black man living all the way uptown in Diamondback.


When finally they caught up with him at five minutes to ten that Monday night, he told them he was clean and asked them if they weren't just a wee bit off their own turf. They told him they weren't looking for a drug bust, which news Gaines treated with a skeptically raised eyebrow. All they wanted to know was about New Year's Eve. Did he at any time on New Year's Eve run into a person named Martin Proctor?


No mention of time.


No mention of place.


Gaines said he had run into Proctor in Glitter Park sometime that night, but he couldn't remember what time it had been.


They asked him if he could pinpoint that a bit closer.


Gaines figured his man Proctor was looking for a net.


No way to lie for him, though, because he didn't know what time Gaines needed covered.


So he told them he wasn't sure he could be more exact.


They told him that was a shame, and started to walk off.


He said, 'Hey, wait a minute, it just come to me. I looked at my watch and it was twenty minutes after two exact, is that of any help to you?'


They thanked him and went back downtown - to their own turf.


* * * *


Visiting hours at the hospital were eight to ten.


The old man was in what was called the Cancer Care Unit, he'd been there since the third of July, when they'd discovered a malignancy in his liver. Bit more than six months now. A person would've thought he'd be dead by now. Cancer of the liver? Supposed to be fatal and fast.


They visited him every night.


Two dutiful daughters.


Got there at a little before eight, came out of the hospital at a little after ten. Said their goodbyes in the parking lot, went to their separate cars. Joyce was driving the old man's car now. Big brown Mercedes. Living in the big house all alone. Went back to Seattle in August, soon as she found out the old man was going to die. Visited him in the hospital every night. A person could've set his watch by her comings and goings. Melissa was driving the old blue station wagon. Waddled like a duck, Melissa did.


It was foggy tonight.


Big surprise. Fog in Seattle. Like London in all those Jack the Ripper movies. Or those creepy werewolf movies. Only this was Seattle. If you didn't get fog here in January, then you got rain, take your choice, that's all there was. In this city, rain was only thicker fog. You wanted to get rich in Seattle, all you had to do was start an umbrella factory. But he figured the fog was good for what he had to do tonight.


The gun was a Smith & Wesson Model 59, which was a nine-millimeter double-action automatic pistol. Same as the 39 except that it had a fourteen-shot magazine instead of an eight. Otherwise, you couldn't tell the two apart: bit more than seven inches long overall, with a four-inch barrel, a blued finish and a checkered walnut stock. It looked something like an army Colt .45. He'd bought it on the street for two hundred bucks. You could get anything you wanted on the street these days. He planned to drop the gun in the Sound after he used it tonight, goodbye, darling. Even if they found it, they'd never be able to trace it. A gun bought on the street? No way they could link it to him.


He'd had the gun sent to Seattle. Just sent it UPS second-day air. Carried it all wrapped and sealed to one of those post-office alternatives that sent things by Federal Express and UPS, even wrapped things for you if you asked them to, though he wasn't about to have them wrap a gun for him. Told the girl who weighed it that it was a toy truck. The weight, with the packing and all, had come to twenty-eight pounds. She'd marked on the shipping label TOY TRUCK and asked if he wanted to insure it for more than the already covered hundred bucks. He'd said, no, it had only cost him twenty-five. That easy to send a gun. This was a democracy. He hated to think what real criminals were getting away with.


There she came.


Down the hospital steps.


Wearing a yellow rain slicker and black boots, made her look like a fisherman. Melissa was wearing a black cloth coat, kerchief on her head. Fifteen years older than Joyce. Prettier, too. Usually. Right now, she was pregnant as a goose.


Two of them walking toward the parking lot now.


He ducked down behind the wheel of the car.


Fog swirling in around the car, enclosing him.


Watched the yellow rain slicker. A beacon. Joyce in the slicker, bright yellow in the gray of the fog. Melissa's black coat swallowed by the gray, a vanishing act. A car door slamming. Another one. Headlights coming on. The old blue station wagon roared into life. Melissa pulled the car out into the fan of her own headlights, made a right turn, heading for the exit.


He waited.


Joyce started the Benz.


New car, the old man had bought it a month before he'd learned about the cancer. You could hardly hear the engine when it started. The headlights came on. He started his own car.


The Mercedes began moving.


He gave it a respectable lead, and then began following it.


* * * *


The house sat on four acres of choice land overlooking the water, a big gray Victorian mansion that had been kept in immaculate repair over the years since it was built. You couldn't find too many houses like this one nowadays, not here in the state of Washington, nor hardly anywhere else. You had to figure the house alone would bring twenty, thirty million dollars. That wasn't counting the furnishings. God alone knew what all those antiques were worth. Stuff the old lady had brought from Europe when she was still alive. And her jewelry? Had to be a fortune in there. The paintings, too. The old man had been a big collector before he got sick, the art in there had to be worth millions. The old Silver Cloud in the garage, the new Benz, the thirty-eight-foot Grand Banks sitting there at the dock, those were only frosting on the cake.


He parked the car in a stand of pines just to the north of the service road. Went in through the woods, walked well past the house and then approached it from the water side. Huge lawn sloping down to the water. Fog rolling in, you couldn't even see the boat at the dock no less the opposite shore. Lights burning in the upstairs bedroom of the house. The shade was up, he saw her move past the window. Wearing only a short nightgown. House was so naturally well protected by water and woods, not another house within shouting distance, she probably figured she could run around naked if she wanted to.


He could feel the weight of the gun in the pocket of his coal.


He was left-handed.


The gun was in the left-hand pocket.


He could remember movies where they caught the killer because he was left-handed. Left-handed people did things differently. Pulled matches off on the wrong side of the matchbook. Well, wrong side for right-handed people. That was the old chestnut, the matchbook. More left-handed killers got caught because they didn't see all those movies with the missing matches on the left side of the matchbook. Another thing was ink stains on the edge of the palm, near the pinky. In this country we wrote from left to right and the pen followed a right-handed person's hand, whereas the opposite was true for a left-handed person. A left-handed person trailed his hand over what he'd already written. Live and learn. If you were left-handed and you'd just finished writing a ransom note in red ink, it was best not to let the police see the edge of your palm near the pinky because there'd surely be red ink on it.


He smiled in the darkness.


Wondered if he should wait till she was asleep. Go in, shoot her in the head. Empty the gun in her, make it look like some lunatic did it. Maybe smash a few priceless vases afterward. Cops'd think somebody went berserk in there.


In a little while, the upstairs bedroom light went out.


He waited in the dark in the fog.


* * * *


In her dream, the wind was rattling palm fronds on some Caribbean island and there was the sound of surf crashing in against the shore. In her dream, she was a famous writer sitting in a little thatched hut, an old black Smith-Corona typewriter on a table in front of her, a little window open to a crescent-shaped beach and rows and rows of palms lining an aidless shore. The sky was incredibly blue behind the palms. In the there were low, green-covered mountains. She searched the sky and the mountains for inspiration.


In her dream, she reached idly for a ripe yellow banana in a pale blue bowl on a shelf near the open window. Beautifully shaped bowl. Bunch of bananas in it. She pulled a banana from the bunch. And peeled it down to where her hand was holding it. And brought it to her lips. And put it in her mouth. And was biting down on it when suddenly it turned cold and hard.


Her eyes popped wide open.


The barrel of a gun was in her mouth.


A man was standing beside the bed. Black hat pulled low on his forehead. Black silk handkerchief covering his nose and his mouth. Only hiss eyes showed. Pinpoints of light glowing in them, reflections from the night light in the wall socket across the room.


He said, 'Shhhhh.'


The gun in his left hand.


'Shhhhh.'


The gun in her mouth.


'Shhhhh, Joyce.'


He knew her name.


She thought, How does he know my name?


He said, 'Your baby is dead, Joyce.'


His voice a whisper.


'Susan is dead,' he said. 'She died on New Year's Eve.'


All whispers sounded alike, but there was something about the cadence, the rhythm, the slow, steady spacing of his words that sounded familiar. Did she know him?


'Are you sorry you gave the baby away?' he said.


She wondered if she should say Yes. Nod. Let him know she was sorry, yes. The gun in her mouth. Wondered if that was the answer he was looking for. She would give him any answer he wanted, provided it was the right answer. She was not at all sorry that she had given the baby away, had never for a moment regretted her decision, was sorry now that the baby was dead, yes, but only because she'd have been sorry about the death of any infant. But if he wanted her to say-


'I killed the baby,' he said.


Oh Jesus, she thought.


'Your baby,' he said.


Oh Jesus, who are you? she thought.


'And now I'm going to kill you,' he said.


She shook her head.


He was holding the gun loosely, allowing it to follow the motion of her head. Her saliva flowed around the barrel of the gun. There was a metallic taste in her mouth. The barrel was slippery with spit.


'Yes,' he said.


And turned her head so that she was facing him.


Used the gun to turn her head.


A steady pressure on the gun in her mouth, turning her head so that the left side of her face was on the pillow, his arm straight out, his hand and the gun perpendicular to the bed.


She began to whimper.


Small whimpering sounds around the barrel of the gun.


She tried to say Please around the barrel of the gun. Her tongue found the hole in the barrel of the gun, and pushed out against it as if to nudge it gently and unnoticed from her mouth. The barrel clicked against her teeth. She thought at first that he had moved the gun because he'd discovered she was trying to expel it from her mouth. But she realized all at once that the reverse was true. The gun was steady in her mouth; it was her trembling jaw that was causing her teeth to click against the barrel.


'Well ...' he said.


Almost sadly. And paused. As if trying to think of something else to say before he pulled the trigger. And in that split second, she knew that unless she herself said something brilliantly convincing, unless she spit that gun barrel out of her mouth and pleaded an eloquent-


The first shot took off the back of her head.


* * * *


11


The person Carella spoke to at the Coast Guard's Ship Movement Office was named Lieutenant Phillip Forbes. Carella told him he was trying to locate a ship.


'Yes, sir, which ship would that be, sir?' Forbes said.


'I don't know exactly,' Carella said. 'But I'll tell you what I do know, and maybe you can take it from there.'


'Who did you say this was, sir?'


'Detective Carella, 87th Squad.'


'Yes, sir. And this is in regard to?'


'A ship. Actually a person on that ship. If we can locate the ship.'


'Yes, sir. And you feel this ship may be in port here, is that it?'


'I don't know where it is. That's one of the things I'd like to find out.'


'Yes, sir, may I have the name of the ship, please?'


'The General Something. Are there ships called the General This or the General That?'


'I can think of at least fifty of them off the top of my head, sir.'


'Military vessels or what?'


'No, sir, they can be tankers, freighters, passenger ships, whatever. There're a lot of Generals out there on the ocean.'


'How about a General Something that would have been here fifteen months ago?'


'Sir?'


'Do you keep records going back that far?'


'Yes, sir, we do.'


'This would've been October a year ago.'


'Do you mean October of last year?'


'No, the year before that. Can you check it for me?'


'What is it you want to know, exactly, sir?'


'We have good reason to believe that a ship named the General Something was here in port fifteen months ago. Would you have any record of...?'


'Yes, sir, all ships planning to enter the port must notify us at least twelve hours in advance of arrival.'


'All ships?'


'Yes, sir, foreign or American. Arrangements for docking are usually made through the ship's agent, who contracts for a berth. Or the owner-operator can do it. Or sometimes the person who chartered the ship. But we also get captains who'll radio ahead to us.'


'What information do they give you?'


'Sir?'


'When they notify you. What do they tell you?'


'Oh. The name of the ship, its nationality, the tonnage. Its cargo. Where it's been. Where it's going when it leaves here. How long it plans to be here. Where it'll be while in port.'


'Do they usually dock right here in the city?'


'Some of them do, yes, sir. The passenger ships. But not too much of anything else, anymore. There're plenty of berths, you know, the port covers a lot of territory. All the way from Hangman's Rock to John's River.'


'If a ship did dock here in the city, where would that be?'


'The Canal Zone, most likely. Nothing on the North Side, anymore. It'd be the Canal Zone, over in Calm's Point. Well, the Calm's Point Canal is its right name. That's the only place I can think of where they'd dock. But more than likely - well, this wouldn't be a passenger ship, would it?'


'No.'


"Then most likely it'd head for Port Euphemia, over in the next state.'


'But you said there would be a record . . .'


'Yes, sir, in the Amber files.'


'Amber?'


'Amber, yes, sir. That's what the tracking system is called. Amber. Anytime a ship notifies us that it's coming in, all that information I told you about goes right into the computer.'


'Do you have access to that computer, Lieutenant? To the Amber files?'


'I do.'


'Could you kick up an October eighteenth departure . . .'


'This wasn't last October, am I right?'


'October a year ago. See what you've got on a tanker named the General Something-or-Other. Possibly the General Putnam. Or a General Putney. Leaving for the Persian Gulf.'


'Take me a minute, sir, if you'd like to hang on.'


'I'd like to hang on,' Carella said.


When Forbes came back on the line, he said, 'I've got two Generals departing on the eighteenth of October that year, sir. Neither of them are tankers. And neither of them are either a Putney or a Putnam.'


'What are they?'


'Freighters, both of them.'


'And they're called?'


'One of them's the General Roy Edwin Dean and the other's the General Edward Lazarus Kalin.'


'Which one of them was heading for the Persian Gulf?'


'Neither one, sir. The Dean was bound for Australia. The Kalin was headed for England.'


'Terrific,' Carella said, and sighed heavily. Either Joyce Chapman's seaman had been lying in his teeth, or else she'd been too stoned to remember anything about him. 'Well, Lieutenant,' he said, 'thank you very . . .'


'But you might want to run down there yourself,' Forbes said.


Carella guessed he meant Australia.


'The Canal Zone,' Forbes said. 'The Deans in now. I know you're looking for a Putney or a Putnam but maybe your information . . .'


'Have you got a berth number?' Carella asked.


* * * *


The Calm's Point Canal.


The police had long ago dubbed it the Canal Zone, and the label had seeped into the city's general vocabulary. For the citizens who had never seen it, the name conjured a patch of torrid tropicana right here in the frigid north, a glimpse of exotic Panama - which they had also never seen. The only thing Hispanic about the Zone was the nationality of many of the hookers parading their wares for seamen off the ships or men cruising by in automobiles on their way home from work. Much of the trade was, in fact, mobile. A car would pull up to any one of the corners on Canalside, and the driver would lean over and roll down his window, and one of the scantily dressed girls would saunter over, and they'd negotiate a price. If they both agreed they had a viable deal, the girl would get in the car, and the trick would drive around the block a couple of times while she showed him what an expert could accomplish in all of five minutes.


There were some thirty-odd berths on each side of the canal, occupied at any time of the year because docking space was scarce anywhere in this city. The General Roy Edwin Dean was in berth number twenty-seven on the eastern side of the canal. A sturdy, responsible-looking vessel that had weathered many a storm and always found its way back to safe harbor, it sat squarely on the water, bobbing on a mild chop that rolled in off the River Dix and the open water beyond.


Meyer and Carella had not called ahead; the truth was, they didn't know how to make a phone call to a ship. Lieutenant Forbes had given Carella the number of the berth, and he and Meyer simply showed up at five minutes past one that Wednesday afternoon. A fierce wind was blowing in off the water. Whitecaps crested as far as the eye could see. Carella wondered why some men felt they had to go down to the seas again, the lonely sea and the sky. Meyer was wondering why he'd forgotten to wear his hat on a day like today. There was a gangplank. Carella looked at Meyer. Meyer shrugged. They climbed to the deck of the ship.


Not a soul in sight.


'Hello?' Carella shouted.


Not a soul, not a sound.


Except for the wind banging something metallic against something else metallic.


A door beckoned. Well, a hatchway, Carella guessed you called it.


Darkness beyond it.


Carella poked his head inside.


'Hello?' he said again.


There was a staircase going up. Well, a ladder.


They climbed it. Kept climbing till they reached a small house on top of the ship. Well, a cabin. There was a man in the cabin. He was sitting on a stool behind a counter, looking at a map. A chart. Listen, the hell with it, Carella thought.


'Yes?' the man said.


'Detective Carella, my partner Detective Meyer,' Carella said, and showed his shield.


The man nodded.


'We're investigating a double homicide . . .'


The man whistled.


He was, Carella guessed, in his late fifties, wearing a heavy black jacket and a peaked black cap. His sideburns were brown, but his beard had come in white, and he sat on his stool like a salty-dog Santa Claus, dark eyebrows raised now as his low whistle trailed and expired.


'May I ask who we're talking to, sir?' Carella said.


'Stewart Webster,' he said, 'captain of the Dean.'


The men shook hands. Webster had a firm grip. His eyes were brown, sharp with intelligence. 'How can I help you?' he asked.


'Well, we're not sure you can,' Carella said. 'But we figured it was worth a shot. We're looking for a ship we have as the General Putnam or the General Putney . . .'


'That's a long way from Dean,' Webster said.


'Yeah,' Carella said, and nodded. 'Supposed to have departed for the Persian Gulf on the eighteenth of October, a year and three months ago.'


'Well, I'm pretty sure we were in these parts around then . . .'


'But didn't you leave on that day?'


'I'd have to check the log. It would have been on or near that date. But, gentlemen…'


'We know,' Meyer said. 'You went to Australia.'


'Haven't been anywhere near the Middle East since Reagan got those marines killed in Beirut. We were there when it happened. The owner cabled us to load our cargo and haul ass out. Afraid he'd lose his ship.'


'We've also got a seaman named Mike,' Carella said.


Webster looked at him.


'If that's his name,' Meyer said.


Webster looked at him.


'We know,' Carella said. 'It's not much to go on.'


'But it's all we have,' Meyer said.


'Mike,' Webster said.


'No last name,' Carella said.


'Presumably on the Dean,' Webster said.


'Or a ship with a General in its name.'


'Well, let's take a look at the roster, see if we've got any Mikes,' Webster said.


'Michael, I guess it would be,' Meyer said.


There were no Michaels in the crew.


There was, however, a Michel.


Michel Fournier.


'Is he French?' Carella asked.


'I have no idea,' Webster said. 'Do you want me to pull his file?'


'If it's no trouble.'


'We'll have to go down to the purser's office,' Webster said.


They followed him down a different ladder from the one they'd climbed earlier, walked through several dark passageways, and came to a door that Webster opened with a key. The compartment resembled Alf Miscolo's clerical office back at the Eight-Seven. There was even the aroma of coffee on the air. Webster went to a row of filing cabinets - gray rather than the green in Miscolo's space - found the one he wanted, opened the drawer, began thumbing through folders, and then yanked one of them out.


'Here he is,' he said, and handed the folder to Carella.


Michel Fournier.


Born in Canada, the province of Quebec.


When he'd shipped on, three years ago, he'd given his address as Portland, Maine.


No address here in the city.


'Was he with you in that time period we're talking about?' Carella asked.


'If he shipped on three years ago and his folder's still here in the active file, then yes, he was with us fifteen months ago, and he's still with us now.'


'You mean he's aboard ship now?'


'No, no. The crew went ashore the moment we docked.'


'Which was when?'


'Two days ago.'


'When are they due back?'


'We won't be sailing again till early next month.'


'Any idea where Fournier might be?'


'I'm sorry. I don't even know the man.'


'Where does he sleep aboard ship?'


'Well, let's see, there ought to be a quarters-assignment chart someplace around here,' Webster said, and began opening drawers in his purser's desk.


Fournier's quarters were in the forward compartment on B deck. His bunk was in a tier of three, folded up against the bulkhead now. Foot lockers ran along the deck under the bunks. All of the lockers were padlocked.


'This one is Fournier's,' Webster said.


'What do we do?' Meyer asked. 'Another goddamn court order?'


'If we want to see what's in there,' Carella said.


'Think we'll even get it?'


Webster was standing there, but the men were thinking out loud.


'It'd have to include permission to bust open that lock.'


'Boy, I don't know, Steve. Wouldn't she have mentioned a French accent? If the guy's French . . .'


'Canadian,' Carella said.


'Yeah, but Quebec'


'We're close to downtown, you know. Right over the bridge.'


'Kill the whole damn afternoon,' Meyer said.


'And he may deny it, anyway.'


'Yeah.'


'So what do you think?'


'I don't know, what do you think?'


'I think the judge'll kick us out on our asses.'


'Me, too.'


'On the other hand, he may grant the warrant.'


'I doubt it.'


'Me, too. But if he does, we may find something in the locker.'


'Or we may find only dirty socks and underwear.'


'So what do you think?'


'Will we need a cop from Safe, Loft & Truck?'


'What do you mean?'


'If we get the search warrant. I mean, how the hell else are we going to open that lock? Those guys have tools can get into anything. They're the best burglars n this city.'


'Mr Webster,' Carella said, 'was your ship here in port on New Year's Eve?'


'Yes, it was,' Webster said.


'Did the crew go ashore?'


'Well, certainly. New Year's Eve? Of course.'


'We'd better go get that warrant,' Carella said.


* * * *


If the case had not concerned the murder of a six-month-old baby, the supreme court magistrate to whom the detectives presented their affidavit might not have felt they had probable cause for a search warrant. But the judge read newspapers, too. And he watched television. And he knew this was the Baby Susan case. He also knew it was the Annie Flynn case, but somehow the sitter's murder wasn't quite as shocking. In this city, sixteen-year-old girls got stabbed or raped or both every day of the week. But smothering an infant?


They went back to the ship with their search warrant and a pair of bolt cutters.


They were not bad burglars themselves.


It took them three minutes to cut through the lock.


They did indeed find a lot of dirty socks and underwear in Michel Fournier's foot locker.


But they also found a letter a girl in this city had written to him only last month.


The letter had a return address on it.


* * * *


Herrera was trying to explain to his girlfriend why there was a uniformed cop on the front stoop downstairs. Consuelo didn't understand a word of it. It had something to do with the police department owing him protection because a detective had saved his life, which made no sense at all. She sometimes thought Herrera was a little crazy, which she also found tremendously exciting. And confusing. All she could gather was that a policeman followed Herrera everywhere he went, to make sure nobody tried to kill him again. She hadn't realized he was so important.


But now he was telling her that he had rented another apartment and that they would be moving there. Temporarily. He would be losing the cop, and they would be moving into this new apartment for just a little while. Until he settled some business matters, and then they would go to Spain. Live on the Costa Brava. Consuelo had never been to the Costa Brava, but it sounded nice.


'When will we leave for Spain?' she asked, testing him. This was Lenny asking George to tell about the rabbits again. She hadn't believed Herrera's story the first time around, but he sure made it sound better every time he told it. He told her now that he'd already booked the flight and would be picking up the tickets very soon. First-class seats for both of them. Get out of this city where no one would ever find him again. Not the Chinks, not the Jakies, and not the cops, either.


'The Jakies?' she said.


'That's what they call them,' he said.


Consuelo figured he probably knew.


She had never realized he was so smart.


He was, in fact, even smarter than he himself had realized he was.


Street smart.


Which didn't only mean knowing how to kick the shit out of somebody. It also meant learning what was about to go down and figuring how to take advantage of it. For yourself. Playing for number one. Stepping out quicker than the other guy. Which came naturally if you grew up in these streets. Which the Jakies hadn't done, and which the Chinks hadn't done, either. Now maybe the streets of downtown Kingston or downtown Hong Kong were as mean as the streets here in this city, but Herrera doubted it. So whereas these small-town hoods could move in with their money and their muscle, there was something about this city that would always and forever elude them because they had not been born into this city, it was not in their blood the way it was in Herrera's.


This was not their city.


Fucking foreigners.


This was his city.


And he knew the stink of rotten fish, all right.


Had caught that stink the minute Hamilton approached him with the deal. Thought Uh-oh, why is he coming to me? Not coming to him in person, not going to where Herrera lived, but sending someone to get him. This was three days before Christmas. The deal was going down on the twenty-seventh. A simple dope buy, Hamilton explained. Very small, fifty dollars for three kilos of cocaine. Close to seventeen grand a key. Hamilton needed someone to deliver the cash and pick up the stuff for him.


So why me? Herrera wondered.


All the while Hamilton talked, Herrera was thinking This is bullshit, the man wants something from me. But what can it be?


Why is he asking me to pick up this cocaine for him?


Why doesn't he send one of his own people?


'You'll be carrying the money in a briefcase,' Hamilton said.


Fifty fucking K! Herrera thought.


'This is the address.'


He's trusting me with all that cash.


Never met me in his life, trusting me with all that money. Suppose I split with it? Straight to Spindledrift, I get on an airplane to Calcutta. Or else the coke. I give them the money in the briefcase, I pack the three keys, I disappear from the face of the-


'Don't get any ideas,' Hamilton said.


But Herrera figured that was for show; the fish stink was very strong now.


'My people will be waiting for you downstairs,' Hamilton said.


Then why don't you send your people upstairs? Herrera wondered.


Why send me instead? Who you never met in your life.


'You're probably wondering why I came to you,' Hamilton said.


Now why would I be wondering such a thing, Herrera thought.


'You worked for Arthur Chang some years ago, didn't you?' Hamilton said.


Herrera never admitted having worked for anyone at any time. To anybody. He said nothing.


'We need a man who understands the Chinese mentality,' Hamilton said.


The word sounded so pretty on his Jamaican tongue.


'Men-tahl-ee-tee.'


But why? Herrera wondered.


'Why?' he asked.


'The men making delivery are Chinese,' Hamilton said.


Herrera looked at him.


This was the lie. He knew this was the lie, but he didn't yet know what the lie was. He knew only that he saw the lie sitting in Hamilton's eyes on Hamilton's impassive face, and the lie had something to do with Chinese making the delivery.


'Which Chinese?' he asked.


'That is for me to know, man,' Hamilton said, and smiled.


'Sure,' Herrera said.


'So do you think you might be interested?'


'You haven't yet mentioned how much this is worth to you.'


'I thought ten dollars,' Hamilton said.


Which was very fucking high.


High by about eight.


Especially high when you figured he could just as easily send someone on his payroll.


So why such rich bait?


It suddenly occurred to Herrera that this fucking Jakie was buying a fall guy.


'Ten sounds about right,' he said.


* * * *


The return address on the flap of the envelope was 336 North Eames. The woman had signed her letter Julie. The mailboxes downstairs showed a J. Endicott in apartment. They climbed the steps to the second floor, stood outside the door listening for a moment, and then knocked. This was now a quarter to seven in the evening. Even if Julie had a job, she should be-


'Who is it?'


A woman's voice.


'Police,' Carella said.


'Police?'


Utter astonishment.


'Miss Endicott?' Carella said.


'Yes?'


The voice closer to the door now. Suspicion replacing the surprise. In this city all kinds of lunatics knocked on your door pretending they were somebody else.


'I'm Detective Carella, 87th Squad, I wonder if you could open the door for me.'


'Why? What's the matter?'


'Routine inquiry, Miss. Could you open the door, please?'


The door opened just a crack, restrained by a night chain.


An eye appeared in the crack. Part of a face.


'Let me see your badge, please.'


He held up his shield and ID card.


'What's this about?' she asked.


'Is this your handwriting?' he asked, and held up the letter so that the envelope flap showed.


'Where'd you get that?' she asked.


'Did you write this?'


'Yes, but . . .'


'May we come in, please?'


'Just a second,' she said.


The door closed. There was the rattle of the chain coming off. The door opened again. She was, Carella guessed, in her mid-twenties, a woman of medium height with long blonde hair and brown eyes. She had the look about her of someone who had just got home from work, still wearing a skirt and blouse, but she'd loosened her hair and undone the stock tie on the blouse, and she was barefoot.


'Julie Endicott?' Carella said.


'Yes?'


She closed the door behind them.


They were in a small entrance foyer. Tiny kitchen to the right. Living room straight ahead. In the living room, a young man sat on a sofa upholstered in a nubby blue fabric. There was a coffee table in front of the sofa, two drinks in tall glasses on it. A pair of medium-heeled women's shoes were on the floor under the coffee table. The young man was wearing jeans and a V necked sweater. His shoes were under the coffee table, too. Carella figured they'd interrupted a bit of fore-play. Lady home from work, boyfriend or husband waiting to mix the drinks. She lets down her hair, they kick off their shoes, he starts fiddling with her blouse, knock, knock, it's the cops.


The young man looked up at them as they came in.


He was white.


Tall.


With dark hair and blue eyes.


Joyce Chapman's vague description of ...


'Michel Fournier?' Carella asked.


His eyes opened wide. He looked at Julie. Julie shrugged, shook her head.


'Are you Michel Fournier?' Carella said.


'Yes?'


'Few questions we'd like to ask you.'


'Questions?' he said, and looked at Julie again. Julie shrugged again.


'Privately,' Carella said. He was thinking down the line. Thinking alibi. If Julie Endicott turned out to be Fournier's alibi, he'd want to question her separately later on.


'Is there anything you have to do?' he asked her.


'What?'


'Take a shower, watch the TV news


'Oh,' she said. 'Sure.'


She went through the living room and opened a door opposite the couch. A glimpse of bed beyond. The door closed.


'We know the Dean was in port on New Year's Eve,' Carella said. Straight for the jugular. 'We know the crew went ashore. Where'd you go, Mike?'


First-name basis. Reduce him at once to an inferior status. An old cop trick that usually worked. Except when you were talking to a professional thief who thought you were calling him Frankie because you liked him.


'New Year's Eve,' Meyer said.


'Where, Mike?'


'Why do you want to know?'


'Do you know a girl named Joyce Chapman?'


'No. Joyce Chapman. No. Who's Joyce Chapman?'


'Think back to October,' Carella said.


'I was nowhere near this city in October.'


'We're talking about October a year ago.'


'What? How do you expect me to remember . . . ?'


'A disco named Lang's. Down in the Quarter.'


'So?'


'Do you remember it?'


'I think so. What's . . . ?'


'A girl named Joyce Chapman. You did some dope together . . .'


'No, no.'


'Yes, yes, this isn't a drug bust, Mike.'


'Look, I really don't remember anyone named Joyce Chapman.'


'Blonde hair,' Meyer said.


'Like your friend Julie,' Carella said.


'I like blondes,' Fournier said, and shrugged.


'Green eyes,' Meyer said.


'Pretty eyes.'


'Her best feature.'


'You went back to her apartment on North Orange . . .'


'No, I don't re . . .'


'She had a roommate.'


'Asleep when you came in . . .'


'Still asleep when you left early the next morning.'


'Angela Quist.'


'I don't know her, either.'


'Okay, let's talk about New Year's Eve.'


'A year ago? If you expect . . .'


'No, Mike, the one just past.'


'Where'd you go and what'd you do?'


'I was with Julie. I stay here with Julie whenever the Dean's in port.'


'How long have you known her?'


'I don't know, it must be six, seven months.'


'She came after Joyce, huh?'


'I'm telling you I don't know anybody named . . .'


'Wants to be a writer,' Meyer said.


'She was studying writing here in the city.'


'Her father owns a lumber company out west.'


'Oh,' Fournier said.


Recognition.


'You got her now?' Carella said.


'Yeah. I think. A little tattoo on her ass?'


Nobody had mentioned a tattoo to them.


'Like a little bird? On the right cheek?'


'Picasso prints on the wall over the couch,' Meyer said. 'In the apartment on Orange.'


'Like some kind of modern stuff?' Fournier said.


'Yeah, like some kind of modern stuff,' Meyer said.


'I think I remember her. That was some night.'


'Apparently,' Carella said. 'Ever try to get in touch with her again?'


'No. I'll tell you the truth, I didn't even remember her name.'


'Never saw her again after that night, huh?"


'Never.'


'Tell us about New Year's Eve, Mike.'


'I already told you. I was with Julie. Did something happen to this girl? Is that why you're asking me all these questions?'


'You were here on New Year's Eve, is that it?'


'Here? No. I didn't say here.'


'Then where?'


'We went out.'


'Where?'


'To a party. One of Julie's friends. A girl named Sarah.'


'Sarah what?'


'I don't remember. Ask Julie.'


'You're not too good on names, are you, Mike?'


'All right, you want to tell me what happened to this girl?'


'Who said anything happened to her?'


'You come here, you bang down the door . . .'


'Nobody banged down the door, Mike.'


'I mean, what the hell is this?'


The outraged citizen now. Guilty or innocent, they all became outraged at some point in the questioning. Or at least expressed outrage. People of Italian descent, guilty or innocent, always pulled the 'Conesce chi son'io? line. Indignantly. Roughly translated as 'Do you realize who I am?' You could be talking to a street cleaner, he came on like the governor of the state. 'Do you realize who I am?' Fournier was doing the same high-horse bit now. 'What the hell is this?' Outrage on his face and in his blue eyes. The innocent bystander, falsely accused. But they still didn't know where he'd been on New Year's Eve while Susan and her sitter were getting killed.


'What time did you leave here?' Meyer asked.


'Around ten. Ask Julie.'


'And got home when?'


'Around four.'


'Where were you between twelve-thirty and two-thirty?'


'Still at the party.'


'What time did you leave there?'


'Around two-thirty, three.'


'Which?'


'In there. Closer to three, I guess.'


'And went where?'


'Came straight back here.'


'How?'


'On the subway.'


'From where?'


'Riverhead. The party was all the way up in Riverhead. Something happened to this girl, am I right?'


'No.'


'Then what happened?'


'Her daughter got killed,' Carella said, and watched his eyes.


'I didn't know she had a kid,' Fournier said.


'She didn't.'


Still watching the eyes.


'You just said . . .'


'Not when you knew her. The baby was six months old.'


Both detectives watching his eyes now.


'The baby was yours,' Carella said.


He looked first at Carella and then at Meyer. Meyer nodded. In the kitchen, a water tap was dripping. Fournier was silent for a long time. When he spoke again, it was stop and go. A sentence, a silence, another sentence, another silence.


'I didn't know that,' he said.


'I'm sorry,' he said.


'I wish I'd known,' he said.


'Will you tell her how sorry I am?' he said.


'Do you know where I can reach her?' he said.


The detectives said nothing.


'Or maybe you can give her the number here,' he said. 'If you talk to her. If she'd like to call me or anything.'


In the kitchen, the water tap dripped steadily.


'You don't know how sorry I am,' he said.


And then:


'What was the baby's name?'


'Susan,' Meyer said.


'That's my mother's name,' he said. 'Well, Suzanne.'


There was another long silence.


'I wish I'd known,' he said again.


'Mr Fournier,' Carella said, 'we'd like to talk to Miss Endicott now.'


'Sure,' Fournier said. 'I really wish I could . . .'


And let the sentence trail.


Julie Endicott told them that on New Year's Eve they had left the apartment here at a little past ten o'clock. They had gone to a party at the home of a friend named Sarah Epstein, who lived at 7133 Washington Boulevard in Riverhead, apartment 36. Julie Endicott went on to say that they had stayed at the party until ten minutes to three, had walked the two blocks to the subway station on Washington and Knowles, and had got back to the apartment here at a few minutes after four. They had gone straight to bed. Mike Fournier had been with her all night long. He had never left her side all night long.


'Did you want Sarah's phone number?' she asked. 'In case you plan to call her?'


'Yes, please,' Carella said.


Sarah Epstein corroborated everything they'd been told.


They were back to square one.


* * * *


12


Carella placed the call to Seattle on Thursday morning, at a little after nine Pacific time. He tried the number for the Pines, and got no answer. He then called the Chapman Lumber Company, and spoke to the same woman he'd spoken to nine days ago. Pearl Ogilvy, his notes read. Miss. He explained that he had a message for Joyce Chapman, and couldn't reach her at the house. He wondered if she might pass the message on to her.


'Just tell her that Mike Fournier would like to talk to her. His number here is . . .'


'Mr Carella? Excuse me, but . . .'


There was a sudden silence on the line.


'Miss Ogilvy?' Carella said, puzzled.


'Sir . . . I'm sorry, but . . . Joyce is dead.'


'What?'


'Yes, sir.'


'What?'


'She was murdered, sir.'


'When?'


'Monday night.'


Carella realized he was frowning. He also realized he was shocked. He had not been shocked in a long, long time. Why the murder of Joyce Chapman should now have such an effect on him . . .


'Tell me what happened,' he said.


'Well, sir, maybe you ought to talk to her sister. She was out here when it happened.'


'Could I have her number, please?'


'I don't have her number back east, but I'm sure it's in the phone book.'


'Where would that be, Miss Ogilvy? Back east where?'


'Why, right where you're calling from,' she said.


'Here? She lives here in this city?'


'Yes, sir. She came out because Mr Chapman was so sick and all, and everybody was expecting him to die. Instead, it was poor Joyce who . . .'


Her voice caught.


'And she's back here now?' Carella asked.


'Yes, sir, they flew home yesterday, her and her husband. Right after the funeral.'


'Which part of the city, would you know?'


'Does Calm's Point sound right? Is there a Calm's Point?'


'Yes, there is,' Carella said. 'Can you tell me what her married name is?'


'Hammond. Melissa Hammond. Well, it'd probably be under Richard Hammond.'


'Thank you,' Carella said.


'Not at all,' she said, and hung up.


Carella immediately dialed Seattle Directory Assistance, asked for the Seattle PD and looked up at the clock. 9:15 a.m. their time. If it worked the way it did here, the day shift would have been in for an hour and a half already. He dialed the number. Identified himself. Asked to talk to someone in Homicide. A sergeant told him he was just passing through with some papers, heard the phone ringing, picked it up. Didn't seem to be anyone up here at the moment, could he have someone get back? Carella told him he was trying to reach whoever was handling the Chapman case. Joyce Chapman. The Monday night murder. He said it was urgent. The sergeant gave his solemn word.


The man who called back at one o'clock Carella's time identified himself as Jamie Bonnem. He said he and his partner were working the Chapman case. He wanted to know what Carella's interest was.


'Her daughter was murdered here on New Year's Eve,' Carella said.


'Didn't know she was married,' Bonnem said.


Sort of a Western drawl. Carella didn't know they talked that way in Seattle. Maybe he was from someplace else.


'She was single, but that's another story,' he said. 'Can you tell me what happened out there?'


Bonnem told him what had happened.


Killed in her own bed.


Pistol in her mouth.


Two shots fired.


Gun was a Smith & Wesson 59.


'That's a nine-millimeter auto,' Bonnem said. 'We recovered both bullets and one of the cartridge cases. We figure the killer picked up the other one, couldn't find the one he left behind. He couldn't do anything about the bullets 'cause they were buried in the wall behind the bed.'


'Anything else involved?' Carella asked.


'What do you mean?'


'Was she raped?'


'No.'


'What've you got so far?'


'Nothing but the ballistics make. What've you got?'


Carella told him what he had.


'So we've both got nothing, right?' Bonnem said.


* * * *


'He asks for protection, and then he disappears on me,' Kling said.


He had the floor.


The detectives were gathered in Lieutenant Byrnes's office for the weekly Thursday afternoon meeting. The meetings were the lieutenant's idea. They took place at three-thirty every Thursday, catching the off-going day shift and the on-coming night shift. This way, he hoped for input from eight detectives, all of them airing their various cases. If he ended up with six of them in his office, what with vacations and people out sick, he considered himself lucky. The lieutenant called these meetings his Thursday Afternoon Think Tank. Detective Andy Parker called them the Thursday Afternoon Stink Tank.


There were only five detectives with Byrnes that afternoon. O'Brien and Fujiwara were on stakeout and had relieved on post. Hawes was out interviewing a burglary victim. Parker wished he could have thought up some good excuse to miss the meeting. He hated these fucking meetings. He didn't like hanging around late if his shift happened to be the one getting relieved, and he didn't like coming in early if he was the one about to do the relieving. Anyway, he had enough problems with his own case load without having to listen to somebody else's troubles. Who gave a damn what was happening with Kling and this Herrera character? Not Parker.


He sat in a straight-backed chair, looking out the window. He was willing to bet anyone in the room that it would start snowing again any minute. He wondered if that blue parka was still downstairs in his locker. He was glad he hadn't shaved this morning. A two-day growth of beard kept you warm when it was snowing. He was wearing rumpled gray flannel trousers, unpolished black shoes, a Harris tweed sport jacket with a stain on the right sleeve, and a white shirt with the collar open, no tie. He looked like one of the city's homeless who had wandered into a warm place for the afternoon.


'Maybe he only needed cover till they turned off the heat,' Brown suggested.


He was wearing a dress shirt and tie, the trousers and vest to a suit; he'd been in court all day, testifying on an assault case. His jacket was draped over the back of his chair. He was a huge man, his complexion the color of his name, a frown on his face as he tried to work through Kling's problem with him. The frown came out as a scowl.


'Okay, Artie,' Kling said, 'but why would the posse suddenly quit? Two weeks ago, three weeks, whenever it was, they tried to kill the man. So all at once all bets are off?'


'Maybe the color of blue scared them,' Carella said.


'What'd you have on him?' Willis asked. 'A round-the-clock?'


'No, sun-to-sun,' Kling said.


'All we could afford,' Byrnes said. 'The man's small time.'


He sat behind his desk in his shirt sleeves, a man of medium height with a compact bullet head and no-nonsense blue eyes. It was too damn hot in this room. Something wrong with the damn thermostat. He'd have to call Maintenance.


'Don't forget the one who came after me,' Kling said.


'You think that's connected, huh?' Brown said.


'Had to be,' Carella said.


'You get a make on him?'


'Nothing.'


'What you got here,' Parker said, turning from the window, 'is a two-bit courier who gave you a story so you'd put some blues on him, and you fell for it hook, line and sinker. So now he disappears, and you're surprised.'


'He told me a big buy was coming down, Andy.'


'Sure, when?'


'Next Monday night.'


'Where?'


'He didn't know where yet.'


'Sure, you know when he's gonna know? Never is when he's gonna know. 'Cause there ain't no buy. He conned you into laying some badges on him till the heat cooled, Artie's right. Now he don't need you anymore, it's goodbye and good luck.'


'Maybe,' Kling said.


'Why would he have lied?' Byrnes asked.


'To get the blue muscle,' Parker said.


'Then why didn't he lie bigger?' Carella said.


'What do you mean?'


'Give Bert the time, the place, the works. Why the slow tease?'


The room went silent.


'Which is why I figure he's really trying to find out,' Kling said.


'Why?' Parker said.


'So we can make the bust.'


'Why?' Parker said.


'So we'll put away the people who tried to kill him.'


Parker shrugged.


'That's a reason,' Byrnes said.


'Bust up the posse,' Brown said.


'Herrera walks away safe,' Meyer said.


'But something's missing,' Carella said. 'Why'd they want him dead in the first place?'


'Ah-ha,' Parker said.


The men looked at each other. Nobody seemed to know the answer.


'So what's next?' Parker asked. 'I want to go home.'


Brown scowled at him.


'You're scaring me to death, Artie,' Parker said. 'Can we get on with this, Loot?'


Byrnes scowled at him, too.


Parker sighed like a saint with arrows in him.


'This double on New Year's Eve,' Carella said. 'The baby's mother was killed Monday night, in Seattle. It may be linked, we don't know. I'll be seeing her sister later today.'


'The sister lives here?' Byrnes asked.


'Yeah. In Calm's Point.'


'They're originally from Seattle,' Meyer explained.


'So have you got any meat at all?' Parker asked impatiently.


'Not yet. According to the timetable . . .'


'Yeah, yeah, timetables,' Parker said, dismissing them as worthless.


'Let him talk,' Willis said.


'You get six different timetables from six different people,' Parker said. 'Makes it look like the person got killed six different times of day.'


'Just let the man talk,' Willis said.


'It's ten after four already,' Parker said.


'The way we've got it,' Carella said, 'the sitter was still alive at twelve-thirty in the morning. The parents got home at two-thirty and found her and the baby dead. The father had been drinking, but he was cold sober when we got there.'


'The girl was raped and stabbed,' Meyer said.


'The baby was smothered with a pillow,' Carella said.


'What was it in Seattle?' Brown asked.


'A gun.'


'Mmm.


'How do you know she was still alive at twelve-thirty?' Kling asked.


'You want to look at this?' Carella said, and handed him the timetable he and Meyer had worked up.


'Twelve-twenty a.m.,' Kling said, reading out loud. 'Harry Flynn calls to wish Annie a happy new year.'


'The sitter's father?' Willis asked.


'Yeah,' Meyer said.


'Twelve-thirty a.m.,' Kling read. 'Peter Hodding calls to check on the baby . . .'


'Peter who? Parker said.


"The baby's father.'


'His name is Peter Hard-On?


'Hodding.'


'How would you like to go through life with a name like Peter Hard-On?' Parker asked, laughing.


'He tells the sitter they'll be home in a little while, asks if everything's okay.'


'Peter Hard-On,' Parker said, still laughing.


'Was everything okay?' Byrnes asked.


'According to Hodding, she sounded fine.'


'No strain, no forced conversation, nobody there with her?'


'He said she sounded natural.'


'And this was at twelve-thirty, huh?' Willis asked.


'Yeah. According to Hodding.'


'Who'd had a little to drink, huh?' Brown said.


'Well, a lot to drink, actually,' Meyer said.


'So there's your problem,' Parker said. 'One end of your timetable is based on what a fuckin' drunk told you.'


Carella looked at him.


'Am I right?' he asked.


'Maybe,' Carella said.


'So can we go home now?'


* * * *


It broke her heart sometimes, this city.


On a day like today, with the storm clouds beginning to gather over the river, gray and rolling in over the gray rolling water, the certain smell of snow on the air ...


On a day like today, she remembered being a little girl in this city.


Remembered the playground this city had been, winter, summer, spring and fall. The street games changing with the changing seasons. A children's camp all year round. In the wintertime, on a day like today, all the kids would do their little magic dance in the street, praying that the snow would come soon, praying there'd be no school tomorrow, there'd be snow forts instead and snowball fights, the girls shrieking in terror and glee as the boys chased them through narrow canyons turned suddenly white. Eileen giggling, her cheeks red, her eyes flashing, bundled in a heavy parka, a woolen pom-pommed hat pulled down over her ears, her red hair tucked up under it because she was ashamed of her hair back then, made her look too Irish, whatever that was, too much the Mick, her mother used to say, We're American, you know, we didn't just get off the boat.


She loved this city.


For what it had inspired in her.


The need to compete, the need to excel in order to survive, acity of gutter rats, her father had said with pride in his voice. Michael Burke. They called him Pops on the beat, because his hair was prematurely white, he'd looked like his own grandfather when he was still only twenty-six. Pops Burke. Shot to death when she was still a little girl. A liquor store-holdup. The Commissioner had come to his funeral. He told Eileen her father was a very brave man. They gave her mother a folded American flag.


Her Uncle Matt was a cop, too. She'd loved him to death, loved the stories he told her about leprechauns and faeries, stories he'd heard from his mother who'd heard them from hers and on back through the generations, back to a time when Ireland was everywhere green and covered with a gentle mist, a time when blood was not upon the land. Her uncle's favorite toast was 'Here's to golden days and purple nights,' an expression he'd heard repeated again and again on a radio show. Recently, Eileen had heard Hal Willis's new girlfriend using the same expression. Maybe her uncle had listened to the same radio comic.


Chances were, though, that Marilyn's uncle hadn't been killed in a bar while he was off duty and drinking his favorite drink and making his favorite toast, here's to golden days and purple nights indeed. Not when the color of the day is red, the color of the day is shotgun red, Uncle Matt drawing his service revolver as the holdup man came in, red plaid kerchief over his face, blew him off the barstool and later took fifty-two dollars and thirty-six cents from the cash register. Uncle Matt dead on the floor in a pool of his own blood. Another folded American flag for the family. The shooting took place in the old Hundred and Tenth in Riverhead. They used to call it The Valley of Death, after the Tennyson poem about into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred. How this applied to the Hundred and Tenth, God alone knew; the lexicon of cops was often obscure in origin.


She wondered if she should tell Karin Lefkowitz that the main reason she'd joined the force was so that someday she could catch that son of a bitch with the red plaid kerchief over his face, rip off that kerchief, and look him dead in the eye before she blew him away. Her Uncle Matt was the reason. Not her father who'd been killed when she was still too young to have really known him. Her Uncle Matt.


Who still brought tears to her eyes whenever she thought of him and his leprechauns and faeries.


This city . . .


It ...


It taught you how to do something better than you'd ever done anything else in your life. Taught you how to be the best at it. Which was what she'd been. The best decoy cop in this city. Never mind modesty, she'd been the best, yes. She'd done her job with the sense of pride her father had instilled in her and the sense of humor her uncle had encouraged, never letting it get to her, balancing its risks and its rewards, eagerly approaching each new assignment as if it were an adventure, secure in the knowledge that she was a professional among professionals.


Until, of course, the city took it all away from her.


You either owned this city or you didn't.


Once upon a time, when she was good, she owned it.


And now she owned nothing.


Not even herself.


She took a deep breath and climbed the low flat steps in front of the old Headquarters Building, and went through one of the big bronze doorways, and wondered what she should tell Karin Lefkowitz today.


* * * *


Carella did not get to the Hammond apartment in Calm's Point until almost ten o'clock that night. He had phoned ahead and learned from Melissa Hammond that her husband usually got home from the office at seven, seven-thirty, but since he'd been away from work for almost a week now and since there was a lot of catching up to do, he might not be home until much later. Carella asked if she thought eight would be okay for him to stop by, and she told him they'd be having dinner as soon as her husband got home, so if he could make it a bit later . . .


It was five minutes to ten when he knocked on the door.


He'd been on the job since a quarter to eight that morning.


Before he'd left the office, he'd called a woman named Chastity Kerr, who'd given the party the Hoddings had attended on New Year's Eve. He'd made an appointment to see her at ten tomorrow morning. So if he got out of here by eleven, he'd be home by midnight. Have a snack with Teddy before they went to bed, wake up early in the morning so he could have breakfast with the twins before they caught their seven-thirty school bus, leave for the office at eight, catch up on the reports he hadn't got to yesterday or today, and then go see Mrs Kerr. Just thinking about it made him more tired than he actually was.


The Hammonds were still at the dinner table, lingering over coffee, when he arrived. Melissa Hammond, a very attractive, pregnant blonde with the same green eyes her sister had listed as 'Best Feature' on the Cooper-Anderson background form, asked Carella if he'd care for a cup. 'I grind the beans myself,' she said. He thanked her, and accepted the chair her husband offered. Richard Hammond - his wife called him 'Dick' - was a tall, good-looking man with dark hair and dark eyes. Carella guessed that he was in his late thirties, his wife a few years younger. He had obviously changed from the clothes he'd worn to work this morning, unless his law office was a lot more casual than the ones Carella was accustomed to. Hammond worked for the firm of Lasser, Bending, Merola and Ross. He was wearing jeans, a sweat shirt with a Washington State University seal on it, and loafers without socks. He offered Carella a cigar, which Carella declined.


Melissa poured coffee for him.


Carella said, 'I'm glad you agreed to see me.'


'We're eager to help in any way possible,' Melissa said.


'We were just sitting here talking about it,' Hammond said.


'The coincidence,' Melissa said.


'Of this baby getting killed.'


'Joyce's baby, yes,' Carella said and nodded.


'Well, you don't know that for sure,' Hammond said.


'Yes, we do,' Carella said, surprised.


'Well,' Hammond said, and looked at his wife.


'I'm not sure I understand,' Carella said.


'It's just that this baby' Melissa said, and looked at her husband.


'You see,' he said, 'this is the first we're hearing of it. When you called Melissa earlier today and told her Joyce's murder might be linked to the death of her baby . . .'


'I mean, as far as I knew, Joyce never had a baby.'


'But she did,' Carella said.


'Well, that's your contention,' Hammond said.


Carella looked at them both.


'Uh . . . look,' he said. 'It might be easier for all of us if we simply accept as fact…'


'I assume you have substantiating . . .'


'Yes, Mr Hammond, I do.'


'That my sister-in-law gave birth to . . .'


'A baby girl, yes, sir. Last July. At St Agnes Hospital here in the city. And signed it over for adoption to the Cooper-Anderson Agency, also here in the city.'


'You have papers showing . . . ?'


'Copies of the papers, yes.'


'And you know for a fact that this baby who was murdered on . . . ?'


'Yes, was your sister-in-law's baby. Adopted by Mr and Mrs Peter Hodding, yes.'


Hammond nodded. 'Well,' he said, and sighed.


'This is certainly news to us,' Melissa said.


'You didn't know your sister had this baby?'


'No.'


'Did you know she was pregnant?'


'No.'


'Never even suspected she might be?'


'Never.'


'How often did you see her?'


'Oh, on and off,' Melissa said.


'Every few months or so,' Hammond said.


'Even though you lived here in the same city, huh?' Carella said.


'Well, we didn't move here till last January,' Hammond said.


'And, anyway, we were never very close,' Melissa said.


'When would you say you'd seen her last?'


'Well, in Seattle. All the while we were in Seattle. I saw her the night she was killed, in fact. We were at the hospital together.'


'I meant before then.'


'Well, we flew out together. When it looked as if my father might . . .'


'What I'm trying to ask . . . your sister gave birth in July. When did you see her before that?'


'Oh.'


'Well, let's see, when was it?' Hammond said.


'We moved here last January . . .'


'So it must've been . . .'


'My birthday, wasn't it?' Melissa said.


'I think so, yes. The party here.'


'Yes.'


'And when was that?' Carella asked.


'February twelfth.'


'March, April, May, June, July,' Carella said, counting on his fingers. 'That would've made her four months pregnant.'


'You'd never have known, I can tell you that,' Hammond said.


'Well, lots of women carry small,' Melissa said.


'And she was a big woman, don't forget. Five-ten . . .'


'Big-boned . . .'


'And she always wore this Annie Hall sort of clothing.'


'Layered,' Melissa said. 'So it's entirely possible we'd have missed it.'


'Her being pregnant,' Hammond said.


'She never confided it to you, huh?' Carella asked.


'No.'


'Didn't come to see you when she found out . . . ?'


'No. I wish she would have.'


'Melissa always wished they were closer.'


'Well, there's the age difference, you know,' Melissa said. 'I'm thirty-four, my sister was only nineteen. That's a fifteen-year difference. I was already a teenager when she was born.'


'It's a shame because . . . well . . . now there's no changing it. Joyce is dead.'


'Yes,' Carella said, and nodded. 'Tell me, did she ever mention anyone named Michel Fournier? Mike Fournier?'


'No,' Melissa said. 'At least not to me. Dick? Did she ever . . .'


'No, not to me, either,' Hammond said. 'Is he the father?'


'Yes,' Carella said.


'I figured.'


'But she never mentioned him, huh?'


'No. Well, if we didn't know she was pregnant . . .'


'I thought maybe in passing. Without mentioning that she was pregnant, do you know what I mean? Just discussing him as someone she'd met, or knew, or . . .'


'No,' Melissa said, shaking her head. 'Dick?'


'No,' he said. 'I'm sorry.'


'Did she have any boyfriends back in Seattle?' Carella asked.


'Well, no one recent,' Melissa said. 'She moved here right after high school, you know . . .'


'Graduated early . . .'


'She was only seventeen . . .'


'She was very smart . . .'


'Wanted to be a writer ..."


'You should see some of her poetry.'


'She was studying here with a very important man.'


'So she came east . . . when?' Carella asked. 'June? July?'


'It would've been two years come July.'


'And we came here in January,' Melissa said. 'Dick had a good job offer . . .'


'I'd been practicing out there, but this was too good to refuse,' Hammond said.


'So when you got here in January . . .'


'Yes, toward the end of . . .'


'. . . your sister was already pregnant,' Carella said.


'Was she?' Melissa said.


'Yes. She would've been three months pregnant,' Carella said. 'Did you look her up when you got here?'


'Yes, of course.'


'But you didn't notice she was pregnant.'


'No. Well, I wasn't looking for anything like that. And, anyway, what'd you say it was? Three months?'


'Three, yes.'


'Yes,' Melissa said. 'So she wouldn't have been showing, would she? At least, not so I could notice.'


'All the Chapman women carry small,' Hammond said. 'Melissa's eight months pregnant now, but you'd never guess it.'


Carella had the good grace not to look at her belly.


'Who was Joyce's most recent boyfriend?' he asked. 'Out there in Seattle?'


'I guess it would have been Eddie,' Melissa said.


'She was seeing a lot of him in high school.'


'Eddie Gillette'


'Pretty serious' Carella asked.


'Well, high school stuff,' Hammond said. 'You know.'


'Have the Seattle police talked to him?'


'I really couldn't say.'


'Didn't mention his name as a possible suspect or anything, did they?'


'Didn't mention anyone's name.'


'They're pretty much scratching their heads out there,' Melissa said.


'A thing like this . . . it's not too common out there,' Hammond said.


'Well, people get killed,' Melissa said.


'Yes, but not like here,' Hammond said. 'Is what I meant.'


'Big bad city, huh?' Carella said, and smiled.


'Well, it is, you know,' Hammond said, and returned the smile.


'What sort of law do you practice?' Carella asked.


'Not criminal,' Hammond said. 'The firm I'm with now specializes in corporate law.'


'And out there in Seattle?'


'General law. I had my own practice.'


'He was his own boss out there,' Melissa said, and smiled somewhat ruefully.


'Yes, but the opportunities were limited,' Hammond said. 'You make certain trade-offs in life. We may go back one day, Lissie, who knows?'


'Time we go back, there'll be no family there anymore,' she said.


'Her father's very ill, you know,' Hammond said.


'Yes,' Carella said.


'Never rains but it pours,' Melissa said, and sighed heavily.


Carella looked at his watch.


'I don't want to keep you any longer,' he said. 'Thanks very much for your time, I appreciate it.'


'Not at all,' Hammond said.


He walked Carella into the entry foyer, took his overcoat from the closet there, and helped him on with it. Carella thanked him again for his time, called 'Good night' to Melissa, who was clearing the dining room table, and then went out into the hallway and took the elevator down to the street.


It was just beginning to snow.


* * * *


13


Chastity Kerr was the sort of big-boned person Melissa had said her sister was. Tall, sturdy but not fat, she gave the impression of a woman capable of handling any physical task a man could, only better. Blonde and suntanned - she explained that she and her husband had just come back from two weeks at Curtain Bluff on Antigua - she offered Carella a cup of coffee and then sat with him at a small table in the kitchen alcove overlooking Grover Park.


It was still snowing outside.


'Two days ago, I was lying under a palm tree sipping a frozen daiquiri,' she said. 'Look at this, willya?'


Carella looked at it.


It did not make him happy.


The plows wouldn't come out until the snow stopped, and it showed no sign of doing that.


'Mrs Kerr,' he said, 'the reason I'm here . . .'


'Chastity, please,' she said. 'If you have a name like Chastity, you either use it a lot, or else you ignore it or change it. My sisters and I use our names, I think to spite our father, who chose them. I should tell you that there are four girls in our family, and they're named, in order, Verity, Piety, Chastity - that's me - and guess what he named the fourth one?'


'Sneezy,' Carella said.


'No. Generosity. Can you believe he had the temerity?


Carella smiled. 'Anyway, Mrs Kerr,' he said, 'what I'm . . .'


'Chastity, please.'


'Well, what I'm trying to do, I'd like to pinpoint the time Peter Hodding called home on New Year's Eve. To talk to the murdered girl.'


'Oh, my, New Year's Eve,' Chastity said, and rolled her eyes.


'Yes, I know.'


'Not a night when one normally tracks comings and goings, is it?'


'Not normally.'


'What lime did he give you?'


'Well, I'd rather you told me'


'Big rush for the phone,' Chastity said. 'I know I tried to get through to my sister in Chicago shortly after midnight, but all circuits were busy. I don't think anyone was getting through to anywhere. At least, that's my recollection.'


'When do you think Mr Hodding placed his call?'


'I'm trying to remember.'


Carella waited.


Chastity was thinking furiously.


'He was in the guest bedroom,' she said, nodding, 'that's right.'


'Mr Hodding?'


'Yes, he was using the extension in there.'


'And this was when?'


'Well, that's what I'm trying to do, place the time. I know he told her he'd been trying to reach her, but the line was busy.'


'Told who?'


'The sitter. When he finally got through.'


'Told her the line had been busy? Or the circuits?'


'I'm sure he said the line.'


'That would've been her father calling.'


'Well, I don't know what you're talking about, so I can't really comment.'


'I'm thinking out loud,' Carella said. 'How'd you happen to hear this conversation?'


'I was in the room next door. Checking on my daughter. I have an eight-year-old daughter. The door between the rooms was open, and I ... well, there you are.'


'Where?' Carella said, and smiled.


'I'd just got through to my sister, and she'd given me a hassle about not calling sooner. Said it was a tradition to call at midnight, and that was half an hour ago. And I went in to check Jennifer right after that. So it must've been a little past twelve-thirty.'


'When you overheard Peter Hodding on the telephone.'


'Yes.'


'How much of the conversation did you hear?'


'Well, all of it, I suppose. From the beginning. From when he said, "Annie…"'


'Then this definitely was the call to the sitter.'


'Oh, yes. No question. "Annie, it's me," he said, and went on from there.'


'"Annie, it's me."'


'Yes.'


'Not, "Annie, it's Mr Hodding"?'


'No, "Annie, it's me." I guess she knew his voice.'


'Yes. Then what?'


'Then he said he'd been trying to get through but the line was busy . . .'


'Uh-huh.'


'And then he asked how the baby was, little Susan.'


'Yes.'


'God, every time I think of what happened,' Chastity said, and shook her head.


'Yes,' Carella said. 'Then what?'


'He told her they'd be home in a little while.'


'A little while,' Carella repeated.


'Yes.'


'But they didn't leave until sometime between two and two-thirty.'


'Yes. Well, I didn't look at the clock, but it was around that time.'


'So that would've been at least an hour and a half later.'


'Are you thinking out loud again?'


'Yes. If he called home around twelve-thirty, it would've been an hour and a half later when he and his wife left the party.'


'That's what it would've been,' Chastity said.


'But he told Annie he'd be home in a little while.'


'Well, I didn't hear him say exactly that.'


'What did you hear him say?'


'Just "In a little while."'


'Only those words?'


'Yes.'


'"In a little while."'


'Yes. She must have asked when they'd be home.'


'Yes, I would guess so.'


'Would you like more coffee?'


'Yes, please.'


She got up, moved to the coffee-making machine, picked up the pot, carried it back to the table, and freshened Carella's cup. The snow kept coming down outside.


'Thank you,' Carella said. 'Why do you suppose he told the sitter they'd be home in a little while when actually they didn't leave until . . . ?'


'Well, he'd had a little to drink, you know.'


'So I understand.'


'I thought he was going to be sick, as a matter of fact.'


'Uh-huh.'


'Gayle was mad as hell. Told him she didn't enjoy the company of a drunken pig. Those were her exact words.'


'This was when?'


'Actually, I think he was already drunk when he called home.'


'Why do you say that?'


'Well, you know the way drunks sound. The way their speech gets? That's how he sounded.'


'So when he made that call at twelve-thirty, he sounded drunk. While he was talking to Annie.'


'Yes. Very drunk.'


'How'd the conversation end?'


'Goodbye, so long, I'll see you, like that.'


'And when did the argument with his wife occur?'


'Shortly after that. He'd spilled a drink on someone, and Gayle told him she was never going anyplace with him again . . . well, I told you what she said, except it was the company of a fucking drunken pig. Was what she said, actually.'


'Pretty angry with him, huh?'


'Furious.'


'But they stayed at the party, anyway, till sometime around two in the . . .'


'Well, she did.'


'What do you mean?' Carella asked at once.


'Gayle stayed.'


'I thought they left together at . . .'


'Yes, that was later. After he came back from his walk.'


'What walk?'


'He went down for some air.'


'When?'


'After Gayle tore into him.'


'Are you saying he left the party?'


'Yes. Said he needed some air.'


'Said he was going down for a walk?'


'Well, I assume he was. He put on his overcoat. He didn't just go stand out in the hall, if that's what you mean.'


'What time was this?'


'It must've been around one o'clock.'


'Mrs Kerr . . .'


'Chastity. Please.'


'Chastity . . . what time did Peter Hodding come back from his walk?'


'At two o'clock. I know because I was in the hallway saying goodbye to some of my guests when the elevator doors opened and Peter stepped out.'


'How do you know it was two o'clock?'


'Because I was asking these people why they were leaving so early, and the man said, "It's already two," and that's when the elevator doors opened and Peter stepped out.'


'Did he look as if he'd been outdoors?'


'Oh, yes. His cheeks all ruddy, his hair all blown. Yes, very definitely.'


'Was he sober?'


'He was sober,' Chastity said.


* * * *


Francisco Palacios was surprised to see Bert Kling.


'Does this have to do with Proctor again?' he asked.


'No,' Kling said.


'Because I had two fat guys in here asking about Proctor,' Palacios said. 'First one was an obnoxious snitch named Fats Donner, you know him?'


'I know him.'


'He digs Mary Jane shoes and white cotton panties. Second one was a fat cop from the Eight-Three, his name is Weeks. You know him, too?'


'I know him, too,' Kling said.


'He digs a hooker works in his precinct. I gave Weeks the name of her boyfriend plays saxophone. But I don't know where Proctor is. I told Weeks, and I'm telling you the same. How come he's so hot all at once, this two-bit little jerk?'


'We already found him,' Kling said.


'Thank God. 'Cause I don't know where he is, anyway.'


'I'm looking for a guy named Herrera.'


'Give me a hard one, why don't you? You know how many Herreras we got in this city?'


'Are they all named José Domingo?'


'Most of them,' Palacios said.


'This one did work for the Yellow Paper Gang some years back.'


'What kind of work?'


'Dope. Which is what he's into right now.'


'Who isn't?' Palacios said, and shrugged.


'Which is the next thing I want to know.'


'Uh-huh.'


'There's a big shipment coming in next week,' Kling said. 'I'd like details.'


'You're hot stuff,' Palacios said, shaking his head. 'You give me a common name like Smith or Jones in Spanish, and you tell me there's a big shipment coming in next week, which there's a big shipment coming in every week in this city, and you expect me to help you.'


'A hundred kilos of cocaine,' Kling said.


'Uh-huh.'


'Coming in on the twenty-third.'


'Okay.'


'By ship.'


'Okay.'


'Scandinavian registry.'


'Uh-huh.'


'Coming up from Colombia.'


'Got it.'


'The coke's going for ten grand per.'


'A bargain.'


'Earmarked for a Jamaican posse.'


'Which one?'


'Not Reema.'


'That leaves plenty others.'


'I know. But a million bucks'll be changing hands, Cowboy. There's got to be somebody whispering about it.'


'A million bucks is not so much nowadays,' Palacios said. 'I hear stories about twenty-, thirty-million-dollar dope deals, they're commonplace.'


'I wish you'd tell me some of these stories,' Kling said.


'My point is, a million-dollar deal nowadays you don't have people wetting their pants. It won't be easy getting a line on something like this.'


'That's why I came to you, Cowboy,' Kling said.


'Yeah, bullshit,' Palacios said.


'Because I know you like the hard ones.'


'Bullshit, bullshit,' Palacios said, but he was grinning.


* * * *


The doorman at 967 Grover Avenue was a roly-poly little person wearing a green uniform with gold trim. He looked like a general in a banana republic army. The people in the building knew him only as Al the Doorman, but his full name was Albert Eugene Di Stefano, and he was proud of the fact that he used to be one of the doormen at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. He immediately told Carella that he'd once given the NYPD valuable information that had helped them crack a case involving some guy who was breaking into rooms at the Plaza and walking off into Central Park with bags full of jewelry. He would be happy to help Carella now in solving this terrible crime he was investigating. He knew all about the fourth-floor murders. Everybody in the building knew about them.


It so happened that he had, in fact, been working the midnight to eight a.m. shift on New Year's Eve, which he happened to pull because he'd drawn the deuce of clubs instead of the three of diamonds or the four of hearts. That was how the three doormen here at the building had decided who would work this particular shift on New Year's Eve, it being not what you would call a choice shift. He had drawn the lowest card, and he'd got stuck with it. So, yes, he was on that night. But he didn't see anyone suspicious coming in or going out of the building, if that was what Carella wanted to know.


'Do you know Mr Hodding personally?' Carella asked.


'Oh, yes. A very nice man. I suggest a lot of commercials to him, he's a copywriter at an advertising agency. I told him one time I had a good idea for a Hertz commercial. The car rental people, you know? I thought they could show an airport with a lot of people waiting on lines at all these other car rental counters, but this guy goes right up to the Hertz counter, and he's walking off with a car key in ten seconds flat, and as he's passing all those people still waiting on the other lines, he busts out laughing and he says, "I only laugh when it's Hertz." They could even have a jingle that goes "I own-lee laugh when it's Hertz, bom-bom." Mr Hodding told me his agency don't represent Hertz. So I gave him . . .'


'Do you know what he looks like? Mr Hodding?'


'Oh, sure. I gave him this other idea for a Blue Nun commercial, this is a wine, you know, it's got a picture of a little blue nun on the label, well it's called Blue Nun. I told him the headline they should use on their commercial is "Make a little Blue Nun a habit." They could have a jingle that goes "Make a litt-el Blue Nun a ha-bit." Mr Hodding told me his agency don't represent Blue Nun. So I gave him . . .'


'Would you recognize Mr Hodding, for example, if he walked up the street right this minute?'


'Oh, sure. I gave him this other idea for a Chrysler Le Baron commercial. We see this World War I German fighter pilot with the white scarf, you know, and the goggles . . .'


'Did you see him at any time on New Year's Eve?'


'Who?'


'Mr Hodding.'


'As a matter of fact, I did, yes.'


'When would that have been?'


'Around one o'clock. Well, a little after one. Ten after one, a quarter after, around then.'


'Where did you see him?'


'Well, here,' Di Stefano said, sounding surprised. 'This is where I was. Remember when I told you I caught the low card? Which was how come I . . .'


'You saw him here in this building sometime between one and one-fifteen, is that correct?'


'Not only saw him, but also spoke to him. Which is the irony of it, you know? He comes here to check on the baby . . .'


'Is that what he said? That he was going to check on the baby?'


'Yes. So he's up there a half-hour, and right after he leaves there's this terrible thing happens. I mean, he must've missed the killer by what? Ten, fifteen minutes? Something like that?'


'You saw him when he came downstairs again?'


'Yes. Came right off the elevator. I was watching TV in this little room we got over there,' he said, pointing, 'we can see the whole lobby from it if we leave the door open.'


'What time was this? When he came down?'


'I told you. It must've been around a quarter to two.'


'Did he say anything to you?'


'He told me everything was okay. I told him it never hurts to check. He and that's right, Al, and off he went.'


'Did he seem sober?'


'Oh, yes.'


'Sober when he got here?'


'Sober when he got here, sober when he left.'


'Any blood on his clothing?'


'Blood?'


'Or his hands?'


'Blood?' Di Stefano said, appalled. 'Mr Hodding? Blood? No, sir. No blood at all. No, sir!'


'Were you still here when he came home with Mrs Hodding?'


'I was here all night. Till eight in the morning.'


'And what time was that? When they got home?'


'Around two-thirty. Well, a little before.'


'Okay,' Carella said. 'Thanks a lot.'


'Don't you want to hear the Le Baron commercial?' Di Stefano asked.


* * * *


She could not get Eileen Burke out of her mind.


'My wife says I drink too much,' the detective was telling her. 'Her father was a drunk, so she thinks anybody has a few drinks, he's a drunk, too. She says I get dopey after a few drinks. It makes me want to punch her out. It's her goddamn upbringing, you can't grow up in a house with a drunk and not start thinking anybody takes a sip of elderberry wine is a fuckin' alcoholic.


'We were out last night with two other couples. I had the day shift, we're investigating this murder, somebody sawed off this woman's head and dropped it in a toilet bowl at the bus terminal. That is what I was dealing with all day yesterday. A fuckin' woman's head floating in a toilet bowl. From eight-thirty in the morning till six at night when I finally got outta that fuckin' squadroom. So I get home, we live in Bethtown, we got this garden apartment there near the bridge, I pour myself a Dewar's in a tall glass with ice and soda, I'm watching the news and drinking my drink and eating some peanuts and she comes in and says "Do me a favor, don't drink so much tonight." I coulda busted her fuckin' nose right then and there. She's already decided I'm a drunk, I drink too much, don't drink so much tonight, meaning I drink too much every night. Which I don't.


'I had a fuckin' heart attack last April, I can't eat what I want to eat, I have to walk two fuckin' miles every morning before I go to work, I used to smoke two packs of cigarettes a day and now I can't smoke any at all, and she's giving me no, no, no concerning a couple of drinks I allow myself when I get home after a head floating in a toilet bowl. Two fucking drinks! Was all I had before we left the house! So we meet these two other couples at this Chinese restaurant on Potter, one of the guys is an assistant DA, the other one's a computer analyst, their wives I don't know what they do. We're sharing, you know, the way you're supposed to when you're eating Chinks, and we order a bottle of wine goes around the table once and it's empty. Well, there's six people there, you know. So we order another bottle of wine, and that makes two glasses of wine I have, which is what everybody at that table had, including my fuckin' Carry Nation wife with her hatchet.


'Now it's ten-thirty, and we're leaving the restaurant, all of us together, and she takes her keys out of her bag and says so everybody can hear it, 'I'll drive, Frank.' So I say 'Why?' and she says 'Because I don't trust you.' The assistant DA laughs, this is a guy I work with, we call him in whenever we got real meat, make sure the case'll stick, you know, he's laughing at what my wife says. A guy I work with. The other guy, the computer analyst, he picks up on it, he says, 'I hope you've got the day off tomorrow, Frank.' Like they're all taking the cue from Cheryl, that's her name, my wife, and making Frank the big drunk who can't drive a car and who maybe can't even walk a straight line to the fuckin' car.


'On the way home, I tell her I don't want to start an argument, I'm tired, I worked a long hard day, that fuckin' head in the toilet bowl. She tells me I didn't work harder than any of the other men at the table, and I say 'What do you mean?' and she says 'You know what I mean,' and I say 'Are you saying I drank more than Charlie or Phil, are you saying I'm drunk?' and she says 'Did I say you're drunk?' and all at once I want to break every fuckin' bone in her body. All at once, I'm yelling. I'm supposed to avoid stress, am I right? It was stress caused the fuckin' heart attack, so here I am yelling like a fuckin' Puerto Rican hooker, and when we get home I go in the television room to sleep, only I can't sleep because I'm thinking I better throw my gun in the river 'cause if she keeps at me this way, I'm gonna use it on her one day. Or hurt her very bad some other way. And I don't want to do that.'


Detective Frank Connell of the Four-Seven looked across the desk at her.


'I don't know what to do,' he said. 'It's like I've got an enemy for a wife instead of a friend. A wife is supposed to be a friend, ain't she? Ain't that why people get married? So there'll be somebody they can trust more than anybody else in the world? Instead, she makes me look like a fuckin' fool. I wouldn't do that to her in a million years, ridicule her in front of people she works with. She works in a law office, she's a legal secretary. I would never go in there and say she's this or that, she's no good at this or that, I would never hurt her that way. The way she hurts me when she says I'm a drunk.'


'Are you a drunk?' Karin asked.


'No. I swear to God I am not.'


'Do you want or need a drink when you get up in the morning?'


'Absolutely not. I go walk my fuckin' two miles, I eat my breakfast, and I go to work.'


'Do you really have only two drinks when you get home at night?'


'Two. I swear.'


'How big?'


'What do you mean? Like a regular drink. Some booze, some ice, some soda . . .'


'How much booze?'


'Two, three ounces.'


'Which?'


'Three.'


'That's six ounces.'


'Which ain't a lot.'


'Plus whatever wine you'll drink at . . .'


'Only when we go out. When we eat home, I usually have a Pepsi with dinner.'


'Would you say you're a heavy drinker?'


'A moderate drinker. I know guys drink non-stop, day and night, I'm not one of . . .'


'Do you consider them drunks?'


'I consider them alcoholics. I rarely see them drunk, but I know they have drinking problems, I know they can't control their drinking.'


'But you can.'


'I do not consider two fucking drinks a day a drinking problem!'


'Now you're getting mad at me, huh?' Karin said, and smiled.


'I don't like being called a fuckin' drunk! It infuriates me! I'm not here because I have a drinking problem, I'm here 'cause I have a fucking wife problem. I love her to death, but . . .'


'But you've been talking about hurting her,' Karin said.


'I know.'


'Physically hurting her.'


'Yes.'


'Punching her out. Breaking her nose . . .'


Connell nodded.


'Breaking every bone in her body.'


He nodded again.


'Even using your gun on her.'


'This is what's tearing me apart,' Connell said. 'She's my wife, but when she starts on me I'd like to kill her.'


'You said you love her to death,' Karin said. 'Do you?'


Connell thought about this for a moment.


'I guess so,' he said, and fell silent.


Eileen Burke popped into her head again.


And do you love him?


Asking her about Bert Kling.


Eileen thinking it over.


And saying, 'I guess so.'


In which case, why had she stopped seeing him?


* * * *


The offices of the David Pierce Advertising Agency were midtown on Jefferson Avenue, where most of the city's advertising agencies grew like poisonous toadstools. Carella and Meyer arrived there together at seven minutes past three that Friday afternoon. Peter Hodding was still out to lunch. This was the twentieth day of January. His daughter would be dead three weeks tomorrow. They were wondering if he'd killed her.


They were sitting on a chrome and leather sofa in the waiting room when he came in. He was wearing a raccoon fur coat. Cheeks ruddy from the cold outside, straight brown hair windblown, he looked the way Chastity Kerr had described him looking after his early morning walk on New Year's Eve. He seemed happy to see them. Asked them at once if there was any news. Led them to his private office in the agency's recesses.


Two walls painted yellow, a third painted a sort of lavender, the last banked with windows that looked out over a city hushed by snow. Photocopies of print ads tacked to the walls with pushpins. A storyboard for a television commercial. A desk with an old-fashioned electric typewriter on it. Sheet of paper in the roller. Hodding sat behind the desk. He offered the detectives chairs. They sat.


'Mr Hodding,' Carella said, 'did you at any time on New Year's Eve leave the party at the apartment of Mr and Mrs Jeremy Kerr?'


Hodding blinked.


The blink told them they had him.


'Yes,' he said.


'At what time?' Meyer asked.


Another blink.


'We left at a little after two.'


'To go home. You and your wife.'


'Yes.'


'How about before then?'


Another blink.


'Well, yes,' he said.


'You left the Kerr apartment before then?'


'Yes.'


'At what time.'


'Around one o'clock.'


'Alone?'


'Yes.'


'Where'd you go?' Carella asked.


'For a walk. I was drunk. I needed some air.'


'Where'd you walk?'


'In the park'


'Which direction?'


'I don't know what you mean. Anyway, what's . . . ?'


'Uptown, downtown, crosstown? Which way did you walk?'


'Downtown. Excuse me, but what . . . ?'


'How far downtown did you walk?'


'To the statue and back.'


'Which statue?'


'The Alan Clive statue. The statue there.'


'At the circle?'


'Yes. Why?'


'Are you sure you didn't walk uptown?' Carella said.


Hodding blinked again.


'Are you sure you didn't walk uptown on Grover Avenue?' Meyer said.


'Four blocks uptown?' Carella said.


'To your apartment?'


'Getting there at ten after one, a quarter after one?'


'And staying there for a half-hour or so?'


There was a long painful silence.


'Okay,' Hodding said.


'Mr Hodding, did you commit those murders?' Carella asked.


'No, sir, I did not,' Hodding said.


* * * *


The affair with Annie Flynn . . .


He couldn't even properly call it an affair because their love wasn't fashioned in the classic adulterers' mold, it was more like . . .


He didn't know what to call it.


'How about cradle-snatching?' Carella suggested.


'How about seducing a girl half your age?' Meyer suggested.


They didn't particularly like this man.


To them, he was a cut above Fats Donner - who dug Mary Jane shoes and white cotton panties.


He wanted them to know that he'd never done anything like this before in his life. He'd been married to Gayle for the past five years now, he'd never once even looked at another woman until Annie began sitting for them. Annie was the only woman he'd ever . . .


'A girl,' Carella reminded him.


'A sixteen-year-old girl,' Meyer said.


Well, there were girls who became women at a very early age, listen she wasn't a virgin, this wasn't what you'd call seduction of the innocent or anything, this was-


'Yes, what was it?' Carella asked.


'Exactly what would you call it?' Meyer asked.


'I loved her,' Hodding said.


Love.


One of the only two reasons for murder.


The other being money.


It had started one night early in October. She'd begun sitting for them in September, shortly after they'd adopted the baby, he remembered being utterly surprised by Annie's maturity. You expected a teenage girl to be somehow bursting with raucous energy, but Annie . . .


Those thoughtful green eyes.


The subtlety of her glances.


Secrets unspoken in those eyes.


The fiery red hair.


He'd wondered if she was red below.


'Look,' Meyer said, 'if you don't fucking mind . . .'


Meyer rarely used profanity.


'I didn't kill her,' Hodding said. 'I'm trying to explain . . .'


'Just tell us what . . .'


'Let him do it his own way,' Carella said gently.


'The son of a bitch was fucking a sixteen-year . . .'


'Come on,' Carella said, and put his hand on Meyer's arm. 'Come on, okay?'


'I loved her,' Hodding said again.


In October, the beginning of October, she'd sat for them while he and his wife attended an awards dinner downtown at the Sherman. He remembered that it was a particularly mild night for October, the temperature somewhere in the seventies that day, more like late spring than early fall. Annie came to the apartment dressed in the colors of autumn, a rust-colored skirt, and a pale orange cotton shirt, a yellow ribbon in her hair, like the song. She had walked the seven blocks from her own apartment, schoolbooks cradled in her arms against abundant breasts, smiling, and bursting with energy and youth and . . .


Sexuality.


Yes.


'I'm sorry, Detective Meyer, but you have to understand . . .'


'Just get the fuck on with it,' Meyer said.


. . . there was an enormous sexuality about Annie. A sensuousness. The smoldering green eyes, the somewhat petulant full-lipped mouth, the volcanic red hair, lava erupting, hot, overflowing. The short green skirt revealing long, lovely legs and slender ankles, French-heeled shoes, the short heels exaggerating the curve of the leg and the thrust of her buttocks and breasts, naked beneath the thin cotton shirt, nipples puckering though it was not cold outside.


They did not get home until almost three in the morning.


Late night. The dinner had been endless, they'd gone for drinks with friends after all the prizes were awarded - Hodding had taken one home for the inventive copywriting he'd done on his agency's campaign for a cookie company, he'd shown the plaque to Annie, she'd ooohed and ahhhed in girlish delight.


Three in the morning.


You sent a young girl out into the streets alone at three in the morning, you were asking for trouble. This city, maybe any city. Gayle suggested that her husband call down, ask Al the Doorman to get a taxi for Annie. Hodding said, No, I'll walk her home, I can use some air.


Such a glorious night.


A mild breeze blowing in off Grover Park, he suggested that perhaps they ought to take the park path home.


She said Oh, gee, Mr Hodding, do you think that'll be safe?


Innuendo in her voice, in her eyes.


She knew it would not be safe.


She knew what he would do to her in that park.


She told him later that she'd been wanting him to do it to her from the minute she'd laid eyes on him.


But he didn't know that at the time.


Didn't know she wanted him as much as he wanted her.


It was only seven blocks from his apartment to where she lived with her parents. Well, seven and a half, because she lived in the middle of the block, off the avenue. He had seven and a half blocks to do whatever it was he planned to do ...


He didn't have any plan.


. . . whatever it was he longed to do ...


He yearned for her with every fiber in his being.


She began talking about her boyfriend. A kid named Scott Handler. Went to school up in Maine someplace. The asshole of creation, she said. She looked at him. Smiled. Green eyes flashing. Had she deliberately used this mild profanity? To tell him what? I'm a big girl now?


She said she'd been going with Handler since she was fifteen . . .


Rolling her eyes heavenward.


He guessed that at her age, dating someone for a year and more was an eternity.


. . . but that she was really beginning to feel tied down, you know? Scott all the way up there, and her down here, you know? They were supposed to be going steady, but what did that mean? How could you go steady with someone who was all the way up near the Canadian border? In fact, how could you go with him at all?.


In the park now.


Leaves underfoot.


The rustle of leaves.


French-heeled shoes whispering through the leaves.


He was dying to slide his hands up her legs, under that rust colored skirt. Open that cotton blouse, find those breasts with their erect nipples, teenage nipples.


You know, she said, a girl misses certain things.


His heart stopped.


He dared not ask her what things she missed.


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