"As far as we can ascertain, Ivanovich is unofficially retired. His duties witht he delegation are almost nonexistent and look like a polite fiction to justify what's essentially a nice long capitalistic vacation."
As Knight paused to drink from a foam coffee cup, Sigrid was inwardly amused to note his drawl almost disappeared when he spoke officially.
"He may look like a friendly Russian teddy bear," she said, "but without a Red Snow link for Flythe, Vassily Ivanovich is our only sure expert in handling high explosives. Could he have been sent here simply because he once was friendly with Dixon 's father and could get close to her without arousing suspicion?"
"It's possible," said Knight. ^
"What about her work?" asked Elaine Albee. "Does Dixon work with secret documents or something? Is anything missing?"
Knight hesitated. "I can't go into a lot of detail. There's not a lot to go into, actually. Most of her work is in a supervisory capacity and deals with computer-generated-well, call it code work. So there aren't any documents per se."
"Floppy disks? Software?" asked Lowry.
"Her people have been working double shifts since Friday night trying to check. If anything's been compromised, they haven't found it. And just for the records, there's never been the slightest question of Commander Dixon's loyalty or integrity. Her people say that if Ivanovich had made the smallest overture no matter how subtle, she'd have reported it immediately.
"On the other hand," he said with a wry grin, "that's what every spy's friends and co-workers have said."
"Makes security officers old before their years, I'm told," Sigrid said with such dryness that Jim Lowry began to wonder for the first time if maybe Tillie'd been right about the lieutenant having a sense of humor.
"The problem with Ivanovich, though," she continued, "is that he's at least six-three and doesn't look like Peters' invisible man. If Ivanovich had been lurking around the Maintenon's display cases Thursday, they certainly would have spotted him."
Elaine began riffling through her notes.
"I can't find it right this minute, but someone-oh, here it is. One of the players was ticked off because Ivanovich got up and walked out on their match a few minutes after eleven o'clock."
"Yes, he followed us out into the hall," Sigrid said.
"What annoyed the man was that Ivanovich was late getting back after the break. If you're more than five minutes late, it's supposed to be an automatic forfeit; but the guy decided to be nice about it and then, two hands into their match, Ivanovich just split."
Alan Knight recalled the timetable. "Pernell Johnson was last seen at ten-forty-one. Flythe called for order around ten-fifty-five, so that makes it no earlier than eleven o'clock for Ivanovich to sit down to play." The drawl was back. "Looks like a few cribbage players'll have to be questioned again; see if any of 'em saw what Comrade Ivanovich was doing during that time."
Albee grinned and said she'd be plumb tickled to do that little old thing.
"Has anyone spoken to Johnson's aunt?" asked Sigrid sharply. There wasn o criticism in her tone but the others shifted uncomfortably as her slate-colored eyes swept around the table.
"I'll go,"' volunteered Jim Lowry, somewhat nettled with Elaine for flirting with Knight.
"That brings us back to Ted Flythe. Even without a Red Snow connection, he's still in the running. He was in the hotel Wednesday morning when the CUNY professors met to discuss their dinner, he had ample opportunity to steal a cribbage board from the display and switch it when the ashtrays were being changed, and so far as we know he doesn't have an alibi for those missing fourteen minutes when Johnson was killed. Somewhere we might find that his path has crossed Sutton's."
Matt Eberstadt cleared his throat. "Now that everything's up for grabs again, what about the possibility that the bomb was meant for Tillie?"
"I don't know," Sigrid said doubtfully. "We haven't seen any linkage. On the other hand, if the commander hadn't dropped a peg so that her chair was pushed away from the table and Tilliew as actually under the table when the bomb went off, they probably would have been killed, too."
"It would certainly help if we knew who the real target was," Albee complained.
"The right jack," said Knight.
They looked at him curiously.
"It's a cribbage term," he explained. "When you're counting up points after the hand's been played, if a jack in your hand matches the suit of the turned card, you get an extra point. It's called the right jack."
"So all we have to do is find out what suit the turned card is?" Elaine Albee smiled.
"You got it, honeybunch."
24
WHILE Alan Knight used her typewriter to type up his notes from all their interviews that weekend, Sigrid went to Captain McKinnon's office to deliver a progress report. She had never felt entirely at ease with him and had tried in the past to cover it with strict professionalism. Knowing now that he and her father had once been partners, that he must have recognized her the moment she was assigned to him and yet had never spoken of it-all these combined to make her more distant than ever.
A gruff man who did not lightly suffer fools, McKinnon was usually accessible to his staff. 'If my door's open,' he was wont to say, 'then walk in. If it's closed, stay out.'
The door was open today and Sigrid paused on the threshold while her boss finished speaking to one of the clerks.
As the other man left, McKinnon beckoned for Sigrid to enter. "Close the door and have a seat."
She closed the door, but remained standing. "This will only take a moment. I wanted to post you on the status of the Maintenon homicides."
"I understand Detective Tildon's better," he said, sounding equally stiff. He was large and solid and he filled the battered leather chair behind the wide cluttered desk. His big hand absently shuffled papers.
"Yes, he was moved out of intensive care into a regular room yesterday. I plan to see him after lunch today."
"And that Navy commander. Too bad about her arm. How's your arm?" he asked, glancing at the loose sling.
"It feels much better. My doctor's going to take a look at it today."
"Not rushing things too much, are you?"
"No, sir."
The crisp monosyllables seemed to bring him back to the official nature of her visit. "Okay, what do you have?"
As she succinctly outlined the facts learned, people interviewed, alibis established, and theories they had formed, McKinnon leaned back in his chair and listened with half his attention, while the other half studied her face.
An odd combination of her parents, he thought. Leif's tall slender build and Anne's coloring, although Anne's eyes were more hazel than gray.
His thoughts flew back across the years. 'She's such a serious little thing,' he remembered saying as he watched Leif and Anne's baby daughter try to wind the musical toy he'd brought for a Christmas present.
'It's her eyes,' Anne had laughed. 'They're too big for her face right now. Our baby owlet. She'll grow into them.'
Anne had knelt gracefully on the carpet to turn the blue knob. As a nursery tune tinkled from the toy radio, the child's large gray eyes caught the glow of the Christmas tree and her solemn little face had beamed in delight.
"Will that be all, Captain?" Sigrid repeated, and a tinge of color flushed her thin cheeks, as if she were aware of his scrutiny and his memories.
"No, that's not all," he growled. "Ands it down, dammit!"
She sat and gazed at him warily.
"I've been calling all weekend," he said bluntly. "Anne doesn't answer the phone."
"No, she's on assignment in Peru."
" Peru?"
"An interview with El Diego, the poet."
"Oh."
McKinnon had picked up a pencil from the desk top and he turned it in his big hands while the silence grew.