The doorbell rang once and David, looking through the archway, saw Kathy rubbing her hand over the front doorjamb. "Did you see this?" she asked, as he approached her.
"What?" he said before spotting the splintered gauge. "Uh-huh, of course. It's been jimmied." He absorbed Kathy's inquisitive expression and said, "I stopped exploring once I found my guns were safe."
Her expression deepened. "What's that mean?"
David backed up and waved his hand toward the rooms. "Voila," he said. Kathy's eyes widened. "David, my God!"
He pulled her to him and rested his chin on her head. "It looks worse than it is, Kath. Nothing's busted." He kissed her hair and said, "It'll look neat after a wine or two."
She removed her coat and threw it over a chair, then kicked off her galoshes and shoes in one piece.
"And I was complaining about the weather," she said, surveying the room. "Anything missing?"
"Not that I can tell, but I doubt it."
Kathy picked up several magazines and replaced them on the coffee table. "What do you think he was after?" she asked.
"I've got my ideas but come look around first."
Arm in arm, they sidled past strewn magazines and books and went into the kitchen where he poured drinks before leading her on a tour of the house.
Back in the living room, their sighs coalesced as they settled on the sofa, his legs in their usual position on the table, hers draped over his.
"No overturned furniture," she said, "notice?"
He didn't bother to look around. "And that's a clue of sorts," he said.
"A clue?"
"Sure," he said, already half through his second Canadian Club. "If psycho Spritz had been here, my guess is the place would have been destroyed. I'd be interested in the shrink's take on this. Besides, I just left Spritz's garage and his car is there. Not him but his car, which is another puzzle."
David put down his drink, repositioned her legs on his thighs and leaned back, hands clasped behind his head. "You know, Kath, if I smoked cigars, I'd blow a smoke ring right about now."
"I wouldn't let you smoke cigars."
David liked her catch of stubbornness. He sat forward and said, "That's not the point. What I mean is … "
"I know what you mean, Dr. Dramatic. Let's have out with the great unveiling."
David's expression hardened. "Well", he said, "I think the culprit here is Bernie Bugles and he had something specific in mind. Something about his father's records."
Kathy drew back and asked, "What records?"
"Okay, are you ready for all this, or shall I refill your glass first?" She had taken only one sip.
"My glass is fine, and what are you talking about?"
Without warning, engine noises sprung from the direction of the driveway, now gunning, now purring amidst a series of beeps. Kathy recoiled.
In two steps, David was at the window. "No problem," he said. "Fitzy and his plow are back. He must have felt guilty."
David returned and sat next to Kathy, extending his legs over the table again, and lifting hers atop his with one hand. He drained the last of his drink and then told her of Charlie Bugles' references to possible drug shipments; of Alton Foster's surgical training and Victor Spritz's hospitalization in Cartagena, Colombia; of the circumstances surrounding Robert Bugles' beating; of what he labeled "the motorcycle caper in Cannon Cemetery"; of the CARCAN and CANCAN enigmas; and of the arsenal in Victor Spritz's garage and the Japanese rifle that matched the slug found in Bugles' head. He felt short of breath, but he thought Kathy looked worse.
The racket outside continued like a background chorus as he identified the calling card in the envelope he had handed her two days before-the adhesive strip from the elevator control room-and mentioned the paper on his windshield and, nodding toward the front of the house, the stone that had been hurled his way.
"David, my God!" she cried, as the motor noises disappeared.
"You said that before. It's okay."
"Okay? Why hadn't you told me about the calling cards?"
He crunched down on an ice cube. "I didn't want you to worry."
"I worried anyway. But now I'm ticked." Kathy reached up and, grabbing his chin, twisted his head toward her. "Listen, darling," she said, "murders, drugs, threats. You sure you don't want out?"
"Are you kidding?" David replied, "I'm just warming up. And what's this `ticked' business?"
"I thought we'd be sharing evidence." Any tenderness in her voice was gone. He could tell she wanted him to elaborate on everything he had discovered at Bugles', at Foster's and at Spritz's.
"Kathy, my dear," he said, with a sarcastic firmness, "I just covered less than seventy-two hours. A big, important investigator like me can't be running to the cops every few hours."
"You're big," she fired back and looked as if she had already reloaded.
"Thanks a lot."
She pinched an ice cube from his glass to hers and said, "Let's get back to Spritz's garage. It was a gun collection?"
"That's no gun collection. It's a museum." David described the designations by wars, the flags, the music, the newspaper article, the Army rejection letter and the scrawl in the margin.
"The man's insane!" Kathy said.
David clapped his hands. "Bravo. That's why he was committed."
"He could have shot Coughlin-most likely he did-but that doesn't mean he butchered Bugles or pushed Tanarkle down the shaft." She had been running her fingers to-and-fro over the back of David's hand but then stopped. "In fact," she continued, "maybe we have two killers. Maybe Foster's the butcher. He had the training." "Possible. But, Spritz certainly had motives, opportunities and means, even without insanity."
"I can think of one motive. What else?"
David counted on his fingers. "First, the obvious: not getting the EMS contract renewed. Then, I don't know, something about the report in Foster's files. Not his medical history per se, but why get hospitalized in Cartagena? I mean, I've heard of psychiatric secrecy, but why Colombia, South America, for Christ's sake? No, it's got to be related to drugs. Cocaine. And, how about a tie-in with Charlie Bugles and his Istanbul roots?" He had begun reasoning out loud.
"Sure," he continued, "heroin and Istanbul. Cocaine and Cartagena." David massaged his decision scar while Kathy finished her wine but never took her eyes off him.
"Wait a minute!" David leaped up, sending her sprawling on the sofa like a marionette. "Let me think," he said. He snapped his fingers. "That's it!"
"What?" Kathy gathered herself and stood. She tugged on his arm. "What?"
"Cartagena. The `CAR' in `CARCAN.'"
"Say that again."
"The `CAR' in `CARCAN' could be short for Cartagena. Jesus!"
He ran to the den and, on his knees, foraged in a heap of books on the floor, tossing them aside until he reached an atlas near the bottom. Kathy knelt beside him.
"That means," he said, "if there's a connection between Spritz and Charlie Bugles, and if my hunch is right that the `CAR' refers to Cartagena, then maybe the first `CAN' in the second word refers to a city in Turkey."
"Sorry, you lost me."
David opened the atlas to a map of Turkey and took out a pen. "See?" he said, printing "CARCAN" and "CANCAN" in the margin. "This is what we're looking for." He circled the first three letters of the second word. Without waiting for a response, he ran his finger up and down the country, confining himself to the Istanbul region.
"Kathy, there! Bull's-eye! Wait. And there. Damn, there're two of them." She strained to read the names of the two cities he had checked with his pen. They were about two-hundred miles equidistant from Istanbuclass="underline" Canakkale, on the western coast, across the Sea of Marmare, and Cankin, inland and to the east.