“Would you know whether Miss Lettiger…”
“…cast, and this is, after all, a coeducational institution, so we eliminated that one. As a matter of fact, The Long Voyage Home, despite its shortcomings, was extremely well suited to our needs. With the exception of two rather small parts at the very end of the play, the parts are rather well…”
“Mr. Richardson,” Carella said, “would you know whether or not Miss Lettiger had any idea of becoming a professional actress? Or was this simply another extracurricular activity for her?”
“I honestly don’t know how serious she was about the theater. We discussed it peripherally once or twice, but my notion is she was undecided. Or perhaps intimidated, I’m not sure. I think the city overwhelmed her a bit. She was, after all, only eighteen years old, and from a small town in Indiana, very. The notion of attempting to conquer the professional theater must have seemed extremely far-fetched to her.”
“She was a speech and dramatics major, though?”
“Yes. But, of course, she was only here at the school for one term, not even a full semester.”
“Had she spoken to you about leaving school?”
“No.”
“Were you surprised when she left?”
“Mr. Canella, the one thing an instructor…”
“Carella.”
“Carella, yes, forgive me. The one thing an instructor learns over the years is never to be surprised by anything a student says or does.”
“Does that mean you were surprised?”
“Well, she was an excellent student and, as I told you, a talented girl, very. Yes, I suppose I was surprised.”
“Was she in any production besides the O’Neill play?”
“No.”
“Was she in any of your classes?”
“No.”
“Would you know if she had any relatives in this city?”
“I’m sorry, I have no idea.”
“Well, thank you,” Carella said.
“Not at all. My pleasure,” Richardson answered.
They left him in his small office and walked downstairs with Miss Moriarty. “He’s a crashing bore, very,” she said, “but his memory is good, and I’m sure he gave an accurate picture of Blanche Lettiger as she was then. Was it at all helpful?”
“Miss Moriarty,” Carella said, “the terrible thing about detective work is that you never know what’s helpful and what isn’t until all the pieces fit together at the end.”
“I’ll remember that,” Miss Moriarty said. “It’ll no doubt help me in my sworn and unceasing battle against Holmes.”
“May the best man win,” Carella said.
They shook hands with her and walked out into the sunshine again.
“What do you think?” Meyer asked.
“I don’t know what to think. Why’d she drop out of school so suddenly? Good student, good marks, interested in extracurricular stuff.” Carella shrugged.
“It’s pretty unusual, isn’t it? Especially when she came all the way from Kokomo.”
“No, not Kokomo, some town near it.”
“Yeah, what was the name of that town again?”
“Jonesville, something like that.”
“Jonesboro,” Meyer said.
“That’s right.”
“You think we ought to get a flier out?”
“What for?”
“Routine check on her family, relatives, I don’t know.”
“What good would it do? I’ll tell you what bugs me about this girl, Meyer. She breaks the pattern, you know? Before, there was at least some kind of slender thread. Now…” He shrugged. “This bothers me. It really does.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t see me grinning from ear to ear, do you?”
“Maybe we are up against a nut. If we are, we can just whistle. He’ll shoot whoever the hell he wants to, at random, without rhyme or reason.”
“Who’s that blonde waving at you?” Meyer said suddenly.
Carella, who thought Meyer was joking, said, “Blondes always wave at me.”
“Yeah? Even sixteen-year-old ones?”
Carella followed Meyer’s gaze to the other end of the park, where a young blonde girl wearing a navy skirt and a pale-blue sweater had begun walking quickly toward them. He recognized her immediately, and raised his own arm in greeting.
“You know her?” Meyer asked.
“Sure. Part of my fan club.”
“I keep forgetting you’re a big-shot city detective.”
“Try to remember, will you?”
Cindy Forrest was wearing her hair loose around her face. There was a trace of lipstick on her mouth, and a string of tiny pearls around her throat. She was carrying her books hugged against her breasts, carrying also a small secret smile on her face as she approached.
“Hi,” she said. “Were you looking for me?”
“No,” Carella answered, “but it’s nice to see you, anyway.”
“Why, thank you, sir,” Cindy said. “What are you doing all the way down here?”
“Looking up some records. What are you doing here?”
“I go to school here,” Cindy said. “Remember? My abnormal-psych instructor? Witness of the primal scene?”
“I remember,” Carella said. “You’re a psychology major, right?”
“Wrong. I’m an education major.”
“And you want to teach college,” he said, nodding.
“High school,” Cindy corrected.
“Some detective,” Meyer said, sighing.
“Meyer, I’d like you to meet Cynthia Forrest. Miss Forrest, this is my partner, Detective Meyer.”
“How do you do, Mr. Meyer?” Cindy said, and extended her hand.
Meyer took it, smiled, and said, “How do you do?”
She turned back to Carella almost immediately. “Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked.
“Well, we found something, but I’m not sure it helps us very much.”
“Weren’t the records complete?”
“Yes, fairly complete,” Carella said. “It’s just that…”
“Did you talk to Mr. Ferguson?”
“Who?”
“Ferguson. The football coach.”
“No, we didn’t,” Carella said, puzzled.
“He might have been able to help you. He’s been at the school for ages. The team never wins, but they keep rehiring Ferguson because he’s such a nice old man.”
“I see,” Carella said.
“You might look him up.”
“Why, Cindy?”
“Well, didn’t you come down to…?” She stared up into his face. “I’m sorry, maybe I’m confused.”
“Maybe we’re all a little confused,” Meyer said, his eyes suddenly narrowing. “Why do you think we should have looked up the football coach, Miss Forrest?”
“Well, only because he was on the team, you see.”
“Who was on the team?” Carella said.
“Why, Daddy.” She paused, her blue eyes wide. “Didn’t you know he went to school here?”
Salvatore Palumbo was fifty-seven years old, a wiry little man who had been born in Naples and who’d come to America in 1938 because he didn’t like Mussolini or what he was doing with the country. He did not speak a word of English when he arrived, and he had only $40 in American money, plus a wife and two children, and the address of a cousin. He went to see the cousin in Philadelphia, and the cousin made a great show of welcoming him and then promptly let it be known he wasn’t really welcome at all. So Palumbo, still not speaking a word of English—this was only a week after he’d arrived—spent twenty of his American dollars for train tickets and took his family to another city, and tried to make a start.
It was not easy to make a start. In Naples, he had been a fruit vendor with a small pushcart. He used to buy his produce from the farmers who drifted into the city from the outlying districts, and he used to shove his pushcart all over the city, sometimes not getting home until 9:00 or 10:00 at night, but nonetheless providing a living for himself and his family. The living was poor, even by Italian standards; in Naples, Salvatore Palumbo and his wife had lived in a slum. In America, he moved from Philadelphia, where his cousin lived in a slum, directly to another city and another slum.