"The eyes, too," Gail said. "Carrots have a lot of vitamin A. So do fish."
Mallory harrumphed. "Tell me about it. I got these fish oil capsules and I thought, Why don't I put them in the coffee-"
"Why would you do that?"
"Well, you know," he explained haltingly, as if embarrassed, "some people don't like to take pills. Hell, Gail, they glom up right here." He pointed at a spot just above his Adam's apple. "So I thought, why not put them in the coffee?"
Gail chuckled. "And now the coffee tastes like fish, right?"
"Damn right!" he said, and dumped the cup of fishy-tasting coffee into the wastebasket.
Gail laughed. "You're a scream sometimes, Mallory. Did you know that?"
"Yeah," he said glumly. "I know it." He sighed, nodded at a file folder on her desk. "Did you get anything from the neighbors, Gail?" That afternoon-it was close to 5:00 now-she had gone to interview John and Vera Brownleigh's next-door neighbors while Mallory kept a 3:00 P.M. court date. She'd gotten back from the interviews less than five minutes earlier. She shook her head. "Nothing substantial. One of the neighbors"- she checked her notepad-"a Mrs. Garfungle-"
"Garfungle? With a `g'? Are you sure?"
Gail nodded. "Yes. I thought it was Garfunkel, too, but she corrected me. Anyway, she says that she heard loud talking at"- she checked her notebook-"at 10:45 on the night of the murders."
"Uh-huh," Mallory said. "How close is she to the Brownleigh house?"
"Mrs. Garfungle? Fifty feet or so."
"And did she have her windows open?"
Gail hesitated, then answered, "I don't know. I didn't ask. Is it important?"
Mallory shrugged. "Not really. It's just that if she didn't have her windows open, and the Brownleighs didn't have theirs open either-and it was the end of October-then the ‘loud talking' she heard had to have been very loud." He hesitated. "Louder, I mean, than a simple argument. Do you follow me?"
Gail nodded. "Yes, Mallory. I follow you."
She looked a little miffed, Mallory thought; he said, "I didn't mean to interrupt. Go ahead."
She flipped a page of her notebook. "I asked her if she could make out any single words or sentences. She said no. Only loud talking. She said it was nothing new, that they argued quite a lot apparently-"
"And what do you think of that, Gail?"
"Think of what?"
"Of the fact that this Garfungle woman said that the Brownleighs argued a lot."
"I don't know," Gail answered. "I guess I'd have to wonder why she'd notice the time of this particular argument."
"And?"
"And I'd have to wonder if there was something different about it that would make her notice the time." Mallory saw a small grin appear and disappear quickly on Gail's lips. She went on. "And wondering that, I guess I'd have to ask her to think about it. I'd have to say to her, 'Just try and remember what you heard, Mrs. Garfungle. Was it pretty much the same as their other arguments, or was there something different about it?' " She hesitated; Mallory sighed. She went on. "And, of course, that's what I asked her."
Mallory sighed again. "Okay, okay, so I'm a bastard-what else is new? Just tell me what this Mrs. Garfinkle, Garfunkle, whateverGarfungle said, okay?"
Gail smiled coyly at him. "You're not a bastard, Mallory. You're just taking your promotion a little too seriously." She hesitated, went on. "Mrs. Garfungle said, and I quote, 'Yes. There was something different about it, young lady. There were three voices. Not two. Three. Two women, and him, Mr. Brownleigh.'"
Mallory's phone rang. He snatched it up. "Mallory here," he said. After a few moments he said, "Yes, thanks, we'll be there in twenty minutes," and hung up. He said to Gail, "We've got another one."
"Another one?"
"Another one like the Brownleighs."
"Shit," Gail said. "Who?"
"Some woman named Drake; she lives up near Orchard Park." He hesitated, then pushed himself heavily, wearily, to his feet. "Dammit, Gail-her daughter found her, for Christ's sake-her twelve-year-old daughter found her!"
~ * ~
In the Records Division of the Buffalo Police Department, Irene Sabitch again sat scowling at her computer monitor, and, again, her coworker Glen Coffman looked over and told her she looked like she'd just chomped down on a clove of garlic.
"It's this same damned file directory," she said, eyes glued to the screen. "I put the whole thing aside, you know, the other day. I didn't want to mess with it. But I went and got that list of user numbers you mentioned, and I inputted all of them-"
."All of them?" Glen asked, astonished. "How many were there?"
"Seventeen hundred and eighty-six," she answered. "Of course, the computer helped me."
"Oh. Yes, of course."
"But none of them work."
"None of them?"
"None of them. So I called upstairs to Homicide-"
"How do you know it's a Homicide file?"
"I don't." She glanced at him. "But I had to start somewhere, didn't I?"
He nodded. "Sure."
She looked back at her monitor. "And they don't have any hard copies on anyone named 'Curtis, L.' or 'Hawkins' "-she was referring to two of the file names-"so I called Vice, and I called a couple of other precincts, and no one seems to have a hard copy on any of this stuff."
Glen shook his head knowingly. "That can't be, Irene. And I'll tell you why-"
"I know why."
"I'll tell you anyway. It can't be because everyone has a personal user number-whether they use it or not-and every case on the subsystem has a duplicate hard file somewhere. The subsystem files, Irene-"
"I know," she interrupted, "the subsystem files come from the hard copies."
"That's right."
"Then I'd assume, Glen, that someone has been messing with the hard copies."
"Sure," he said, "I'd assume that, too."
"So now," she said, "all I've got to find out is who, and then we can nail his ass to the wall!"
Chapter Six
In Boston
Ryerson Biergarten did many things on impulse. He'd married Coreen on impulse, and it had turned out to be a mistake. He'd bought his first house on impulse-after Conversations with Charlene topped the country's best seller lists-and got taken. It was an old farmhouse just outside Boston which the owner swore was in top condition. And Ryerson, trusting his hunches, and reading nothing but goodwill from the man, bought it. It was six months later that he discovered the dry rot, and the leaky roof, when its temporary patches gave way, and the equally leaky cellar walls, whose equally temporary patches had also given way. It was then that Ryerson resolved to remember that some people could lie with goodwill not only on their lips but in their hearts as well.
Most of his impulses, however, proved out.
His '48 Ford wagon-known as a "Woody" because of the genuine wood paneling along the doors and rear quarter panels-was one of those impulses. He hadn't bought the car merely because it was an antique. He couldn't have cared less about its age per se. He'd bought it because it was full of happy memories that he could feel and taste and enjoy as strongly as anyone else experienced the smell of a new car. He found that those memories faded over time, as if, he theorized, he'd somehow coaxed them away with the memories that were piling up in his own life. But, happily, they did not fade altogether. What remained after two years was like the faint odor of a delicate perfume that lingers in a room long after the woman wearing it has gone. It made driving the car a distinct pleasure. It was, he admitted-moving along the Massachusetts Turnpike at fifty miles per hour, the car's top speed-the only thing that made driving it a pleasure. Not only was it slow, it also handled like a truck, which it was, in essence, and its suspension system was long past due for an overhaul. (He'd been waiting six months now for the right parts. "Car that old," the mechanic told him, "ain't a jiffy to get parts for, you know.") He was on his way to Buffalo. His hunch was that Joan Mott Evans was already back there, and if she wasn't, he'd surprise her.