“What’s this?” Carella asked. “A magazine?”
Hawes looked at the page.
“Yeah,” he said. “She’s got a stack of them there on the dresser.”
“Probably went on the stands that day,” Carella said.
“Reminder to pick it up, huh?”
“Maybe. See if she’s got the issue that came out last week, will you?”
Hawes walked to where a pile of some dozen magazines were scattered over the dresser top.
“Sports Illustrated,” he said. “Runners World. Yeah, here it is. Sports USA. The October seventeenth issue. Would that be it?”
“I guess so. They usually date them a week ahead, don’t they?”
“I think so.”
“Anything special in it?”
“Like what?”
“Who knows? Tips on how to run a mile in thirty-eight seconds.”
Hawes began leafing through the magazine.
“They really work hard, don’t they?” he said idly.
“Can you imagine doing that kind of exercise?” Carella said, shaking his head.
“Give me a heart attack,” Hawes said.
“Anything?” Carella asked.
“Mostly football.”
He was still leafing through the magazine.
“Nice looking lady here,” he said, and showed Carella a picture of a young woman in a wet tank suit. “Little broad in the beam, but nice.”
He started flipping backward through the magazine.
“Hey,” he said.
“What?”
He showed Carella the page he had turned to, and indicated the masthead.
“Why’d she circle that particular name?” Carella said.
“Maybe her mother knows,” Hawes said.
Mrs. Annunziato did not know.
“Corey McIntyre?” she said. “No, I don’t know the name.”
“Your daughter never mentioned him to you?”
“Mai. Never.”
“Or this magazine? Sports USA?”
“She gets this magazine all the time. The others too. Anything about sports or runners, she gets.”
“But none of the other copies of this magazine have this name circled,” Carella said. “It’s only in this issue. The October seventeenth issue.”
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Annunziato said.
She seemed pained not to be able to supply the detectives with the information they needed. She had still not told her husband that their daughter was dead. The funeral had taken place three days ago, but he did not yet know that she was dead. And now she could not help the detectives with what they wanted to know about this name that was circled in one of her daughter’s magazines.
“This man wouldn’t have called the house or anything, would he?” Carella asked.
“No, I don’t remember. No, not that name.”
“Mrs. Annunziato, you told us your daughter got home at six o’clock on the day she was killed.”
“Yes. Six o’clock.” She did not want to talk about the day her daughter had been killed. She had still not told her husband that she was dead.
“Can you tell us again what she was wearing?”
“School clothes. A skirt, a blouse. A jacket, I think.”
“But that’s not what she was wearing when she was found.”
“No?”
“She was wearing a green dress and green shoes.”
“Yes.”
“Because she changed after she got home, isn’t that what you told us?”
“Yes.”
“Into more dressy clothes.”
“Yes.”
“Because she was going out, you said.”
“Yes, she told me she was going out.”
“But she didn’t say where she was going.”
“She never told me,” Mrs. Annunziato said. “Young girls today...” She shook her head.
“Didn’t mention where she was going or whether she was meeting someone.”
“No.”
“You told us she left the house around seven. A little after seven.”
“Yes.”
“Does she have a car?”
“No. A taxi came for her.”
“She called a taxi?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what taxi company she called?”
“No. It was a yellow taxicab that came.”
“But she didn’t tell you where she was going.”
“No.”
“Mrs. Annunziato, your daughter usually went to bed at eleven o’clock, didn’t she?”
“Yes. She had to be at school early.”
“Were you here at home on the night she was killed?”
“No, I was at the hospital. That was the day my husband had his heart attack. I was at the hospital with him. He was in Intensive Care. It was nine o’clock he had the accident. On his way home.”
“From work?”
“No, no, his club. He belongs to this club. It’s old friends of his, bricklayers like him. They have a club, they meet once a month.”
“Your husband is a bricklayer?” Hawes said.
“Yes. A bricklayer. A union bricklayer,” she said, as though wishing to give the job more stature.
“And he suffered his heart attack at nine o’clock that night.”
“That’s when the hospital called me. I went right over.”
“This was after your daughter had left the house.”
“Yes.”
“Then she didn’t know your husband was in the hospital.”
“No, how could she know?”
“You went directly to the hospital after they called you...”
“Yes.”
“What time did you get home again? From the hospital?”
“I was there all night.”
“You stayed there all night?”
“He was in Intensive Care,” she said again, in explanation.
“What time did you get home the next morning?”
“A little after nine.”
“Then you didn’t know your daughter hadn’t been home at all that night, is that right?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Was your mother home on the night your daughter was killed?”
“Yes.”
“Did she mention anything to you — when you got home the next morning — about your daughter being out all night?”
“She sometimes did that.”
“Your daughter? Stayed out all night sometimes?”
“Young girls today,” Mrs. Annunziato said, and shook her head. “When I was a girl... my father would have killed me,” she said. “But today...” She shook her head again.
“So it wasn’t unusual for your daughter to sometimes stay away from home for the entire night.”
“Not a lot. But sometimes. She says... she told us it was with a girlfriend, she would be staying at a girlfriend’s house. So who knows, a girlfriend or a boyfriend, who knows? It’s better not to ask. Today, it’s better not to ask, not to know. She was a good girl, it’s better not to know.”
“And you don’t know who this man Corey McIntyre might be? Your daughter never mentioned him to you.”
“Never.”
A call to Sports USA at their offices on the Avenue of the Americas in New York City advised Carella that there was indeed a man named Corey McIntyre who worked for them as a writer-reporter. But Mr. McIntyre lived in Los Angeles, and he was usually assigned to cover events in southern California, working as their special correspondent there. Carella told the man on the other end of the line that he was investigating a murder, and would appreciate having Mr. McIntyre’s address and phone number. The man told him to wait. He came back a few minutes later and said he guessed it would be all right, and then gave Carella what he wanted.