'Yeah. No disturbance anywhere except the living room. This doesn't look like robbery to me, Lieutenant. The drawers and cupboards are closed.'
Then a crackle of static was followed by the voice of the other searcher. 'I wouldn't bet on that. His car isn't in the garage.'
'They took the car,' said Easdand. He turned to Stein and asked him to get a computer check on Leapman's license plate number.
Diamond groaned in frustration. 'Can we take a look for ourselves now?'
'Not yet. Crime Scene has to go through.'
'How long before they get here? Look, I'm not asking to tramp through the room where the assault took place. I'd like to see the rest of the house.'
'What exactly is your problem?' asked Eastland. 'Not satisfied with the search?'
'I'd like to take a look for myself, that's all.'
'There's no evidence that the perps went anywhere except the living room.'
But they wouldn't permit Diamond to step inside until an hour and twenty minutes later, after the crime scene people had been through. The possibility that Eastland was exacting some kind of revenge for the liberties Diamond had taken at the murder scene in the Firbank Hotel did occur to him at the depth of his frustration while he was waiting, but probably he was wrong. They had their procedures and they observed them rigidly. Nevertheless he was hunched and resentful as he limped about the drive.
He was unsure what he might find, if anything. He just felt driven by some inner force. Maybe, he reflected, he'd taken to heart that advice from the librarian, to unlock his sixth sense, or right hemisphere, or whatever the man had been rabbiting on about. It wasn't easy to recall on a chilly morning.
Eventually, the Crime Scene Unit passed on the word that, apart from the living room, the house was open to inspection. Leaving his new sneakers on the doorstep, he stepped inside with Eastland.
'You're looking for evidence that the kid was here, aren't you?' the lieutenant said.
'I'm keeping an open mind.'
'Yeah?'
The lights were on all over the house. It was very much the bachelor businessman establishment, with the feel of a furniture showroom rather than a home. Leapman seemed to be a man of tidy habits who favored light oak and muted colors. The pieces of furniture had their functions, and there was little in the way of ornament, and certainly no clutter.
'Want to start upstairs?' Eastland suggested.
'The bedrooms.'
It wasn't entirely Diamond's sixth sense that was motivating him. If Naomi had been kept here for any appreciable time, it was likely that she would have been confined in a room out of sight of the neighbors.
At the top of the stairs, they glanced into a couple of rooms, getting their bearings. A guest bedroom attracted Diamond's attention. It was small and it faced the back of the house. However, there was nothing to suggest anyone had occupied it. The duvet was positioned foursquare on the divan, the pillow plumped and tidy. Eastland went systematically through the chest of drawers and found only some spare bedding in the bottom drawer.
'Satisfied?' he inquired of Diamond.
'Almost.' Intuition was prompting him strongly now, spurred on by something Julia Musgrave had said. He told Eastland, 'Autistic kids quite like to hide things, toys and so on, objects that they value. If I'm right, it's just possible mat she used a hiding place she once favored before, in another place.' He crouched by the bed. 'It was this side last time.' He slipped his hand between the mattress and the spring box of the divan with a sense of anticipation little less than Lord Caernarvon's at the opening of Tutankhamen's tomb. His fingertips had touched something solid. He took it out in triumph: a ballpoint pen. 'I would say that it's ninety-nine percent certain that Naomi was here.'
'You knew it would be in there?' said Eastland.
Elated, Diamond risked more strain on his battered body by pulling up the mattress. There may be something to intuition, but good luck is a deception. There was no drawing pad lying under the mattress. Not even a sheet of paper.
Cause for celebration: Naomi was alive-or had been at the time she hid the pen here. Cause for concern: the trail had gone cold again; there was no telling who was holding her now. The forensic tests might provide clues, but the men in white coats always take days to report their findings.
'Did Sergeant Stein get anything on the stolen car?' he asked Eastland.
'Leapman's car? It was a dark blue Chevy Citation. We have the license plate number from Central. Every radio car in New York has it'
There was nothing to detain them any longer. Knowing that he would keel over if he didn't get some sleep soon, Diamond asked for a lift to his hotel.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
One can only guess at Lieutenant Eastland's thoughts next morning when he arrived at the station house to find his office occupied by Peter Diamond wearing just an unbuttoned shirt and red jockey shorts. The fat Englishman was standing with the phone anchored between his shoulder and his fleshy jowl. The desk was heaped with clothes, some discarded, some obviously back from the cleaner. Judging by the clutter of phone books, notepads, pens and screwed-up tissues, he had been installed there for some time. 'Beef, for a start,' he was saying. 'Have you got beef?… Right. What else? Liver, I should think. Lamb, yes… Well, as much as you can manage at short notice… Excellent. How soon?… Oh, give me strength! I'm talking about lunchtime today… Yes,
Eastland regarded him with glazed, red-lidded eyes.
Diamond told him, 'My clothes came back.'
'So I see.'
'There's just time to get down to the Sheraton Center.'
Eastland said, 'This used to be my office.'
Diamond announced in the same up-lads-and-at-'em tone, 'The conference opens at eleven.'
'Conference?'
'Manflex. Remember? This is the big one, when they unveil the wonder drug. David Flexner will be there and so will Professor Churchward. We've got to be there.'
'Who do you mean-
'You and I. Sergeant Stein as well if you want.'
Eastland ran his fingertips down the side of his face as if to discover whether he'd shaved yet 'The Sheraton Center, you said?'
'Seventh Avenue and Fifty-third.'
'I know where the Sheraton is,' Eastland said in a growl.
'Snap it up, then.'
'Diamond, you have all the finesse of a sawed-off shotgun.'
To be charitable to Eastland, he hadn't seen Diamond so animated before. The Englishman was unstoppable. Within three minutes they were in a car heading downtown.
'I've been turning things over in my mind,' Diamond said, as if to explain the transformation. 'Last night, the scene at Leapman's house seemed all wrong.'
'Wrong?'
'What we found.'
'The ballpoint?'
Diamond stared in surprise at the lieutenant. 'No. The ballpoint wasn't wrong. That was a genuine find. Just about everything else was wrong.'
'For instance?'
