Lullaby

'Yes.'

'You said your son had left for Maine early that morning . . .'

'Yes.'

'But of course he hadn't.'

'I didn't know that at the time.'

'He told you he was going back to school.'

'Yes.'

'Mrs Handler, do you have a school calendar?'

'What do you mean?'

'Didn't you know that classes would not resume until the ninth?'

'Yes, I knew that.'

'But you didn't think it odd that your son was going back on the third. Almost a full week before he was due back.'

'Scott is a very good student. He was working on a difficult science project and he wanted to get back early.'

'Then you saw nothing odd about . . .'

'Nothing. He's a graduating senior. The top colleges look favorably on student initiative.'

'So when he said he was going back . . .'

'I had no reason to believe he did not go back.'

She inhaled and exhaled smoke every two or three sentences. Meyer was getting a nicotine fix just standing beside her.

'And do you find it odd that he isn't there at the school now? The day after classes started again?'

'Yes, I find it odd.'

'But you don't seem very concerned,' Meyer said.

'I'm not. He's a big boy now. He knows how to take care of himself.'

'Where do you think he might be, Mrs Handler?'

'I have no idea.'

'He hasn't called you . . .'

'No.'

'Or written to you.'

'No.'

'But you're not concerned.'

'As I told you . . .'

'Yes, he's a big boy now. Mrs Handler, let's talk about New Year's Eve.'

'Why?'

'Because your son had a relationship with one of the victims, Mrs Handler, and now we can't find him. So I'd like to know what he was doing on New Year's Eve.'

'I already told you . . .'

'Yes, you had a party that started at nine o'clock . . .'

'Yes.'

'. . . and ended at four in the morning.'

'That's an approximate time.'

'And your son was there all night long.'

'Yes.'

'Are you sure about that?'

'I'm positive.'

'I suppose the other guests at the party would be willing to corroborate . . .'

'I have no idea whether anyone else noticed Scott's comings or goings. He's my son, I'm the one who . . .'

'Were there comings and goings?'

'What do you mean?'

She dropped her cigarette to the floor and ground it out under her sole. Then she opened her handbag, reached for the package of Pall Malls again, shook one free, and lighted it. A delaying tactic, Meyer figured. She'd already made her first mistake, and she knew it. But so did he.

'You said he was there all night long, Mrs Handler.'

'Yes, he was.'

'Well, when he's home, he lives with you, doesn't he?'

'Yes?'

Cautious now. The lioness sniffing the air.

'So he didn't have to come to the party, did he? He was already there, wasn't he?'

'Yes?'

'And he didn't have to go anywhere after the party, did he? Since, again, he was already where he lived. So what did you mean by his comings and goings?'

'That was merely a figure of speech,' she said.

'Oh? Which one? Simile? Meta . . . ?'

'Listen, you,' she said, and hurled the cigarette down like a gauntlet.

'Yes, Mrs Handler?'

Her eyes were blazing again.

'Don't get smart with me, okay?'

She stepped on the cigarette, ground it out.

And looked challengingly into his eyes.

Taxpayer to civil servant.

Meyer figured it was time to take off the gloves.

'I'll need a guest list,' he said.

'Why?'

'Because I want to know if everyone at that party will swear that your son was there all night long. While a six-month-old baby and her sixteen-year-old sitter were getting killed, Mrs Handler. If you want me to go get a court order, I will. We can make it easier by you just giving me, right here and now, the names, addresses and telephone numbers of everyone who was there. What do you say? You want to save us both a lot of time? Or do you want to protect your son right into becoming the prime suspect in this thing?'

'I don't know where he is,' Mrs Handler said.

'That wasn't my question,' Meyer said.

'And I don't know where he went that night.'

Meyer pounced.

'Then he did leave the party.'

'Yes.'

What time?'

'About . . .'

She hesitated. Trying to remember when the murders had taken place. Covering her son's tracks again. Counting on the faulty and perhaps drunken memories of whoever had seen him putting on his coat and hat and-

'Okay, forget it,' Meyer said. 'I'll go get my subpoena while you work up that guest list. I just want you to know you're not helping your son one damn bit, Mrs Handler. I'll see you later.'

He was starting for the elevator when she said, 'Just a minute, please.'

* * * *

7

They found Colby Strothers at two o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, the eleventh day of January. He was sitting on a stone bench in the Matisse Wing of the Jarrett Museum of Modern Art on Jefferson Avenue, making a pencil sketch of the huge Matisse painting that hung on the white wall in front of him. For several moments, so intent was he on what he was drawing, he didn't even know the detectives were standing there. When finally he looked up, it was with a surprised look on his face.

'Mr Strothers?' Meyer asked.

He looked pretty much the way Felice Handler had described him. Nineteen years old, with startlingly blue eyes, a cleft chin, a shock of dark brown hair falling over his forehead. He had the strapping build of a football player but apparently the soul of an artist, too: Strothers was a freshman at the Granger Institute, one of the city's more prestigious art schools.

'Detective Meyer, 87th Squad,' Meyer said, and showed his shield and ID card. 'My partner, Detective Carella.'

Strothers blinked.

Mrs Handler had directed Meyer to the Granger Institute. He had gone there this morning and spoken to someone in the Registrar's Office, who had passed him on to the head of the Art Department, who had told him that Strothers would be at the Jarrett that afternoon. Now Meyer and Carella stood with a Matisse at their backs and a puzzled art student directly in front of them, looking up at them from a stone bench and probably wondering if it was against the law to sketch in a privately owned museum.