'But she moved out first?'
'You didn't know that? She left him, left him flat with the two kids. She closed the whatchamacallit, the day- care center, and the next thing you know he's got to find a day-care center for his own children.
I'm sorry, but I can't imagine a mother walking out on her own children.'
'Do you know where she might have gone?'
'Greenwich Village, I suppose. To pursue her art. Among other things.'
'Her art?'
'She fancied herself a sculptor. I never saw her work so for all I know she may have had some talent.
I'd be surprised if she did, though. There was a woman who had everything. A nice apartment, a husband who was an awfully sweet guy, two beautiful children, and she even had a business that wasn't doing too badly. And she walked away from it, turned her back and walked away.'
I tried a long shot. 'Did you happen to know a friend of hers named Barbara Ettinger?'
'I didn't know her that well. What was that name? Ettinger? Why is that name familiar to me?'
'A Barbara Ettinger was murdered down the block from where you lived.'
'Just before we moved in. Of course. I remember now. I never knew her, naturally, because as I said it was just before we moved in.
She was a friend of the Corwins?'
'She worked for Mrs. Corwin.'
'Were they that way?'
'What way?'
'There was a lot of talk about the murder. It made me nervous about moving in. My husband and I told each other we didn't have to worry about lightning striking twice in the same place, but privately I was still worried. Then those killings just stopped, didn't they?'
'Yes. You never knew the Ettingers?'
'No, I told you.'
An artist in Greenwich Village. A sculptor. Of the J. Corwins I'd been unable to reach, had any lived in the Village? I didn't think so.
I said, 'Would you happen to remember Mrs. Corwin's maiden name?'
'Remember it? I don't think I ever knew it in the first place. Why?'
'I was thinking she might have resumed it if she's pursuing an artistic career.'
'I'm sure she did. Artistic career or not, she'd want her own name back. But I couldn't tell you what it was.'
'Of course she could have remarried by now-'
'Oh, I wouldn't count on it.'
'I beg your pardon?'
'I don't think she remarried,' Mrs. Pomerance said. There was a sharpness to her tone and I wondered at it. I asked her what made her say that.
'Put it this way,' she said. 'Sculpture or no sculpture, she'd probably live in Greenwich Village.'
'I don't understand.'
'You don't?' She clicked her tongue, impatient with my obtuseness. 'She left her husband-and two children-but not to run off with another man. She left him for another woman.'
JANICE Corwin's maiden name was Keane. It took a subway ride to Chambers Street and a couple of hours in various offices of the Department of Records and Information Services to supply this kernel of information. Most of the time was spent getting clearance. I kept needing the permission of someone who didn't come in on Saturdays.
I tried marriage licenses first, and when that failed to pan out I had a shot at birth certificates. Mrs.
Pomerance had been a little hazy on the names and ages of the Corwin children, but she was pretty sure the youngest's name was Kelly and that she'd been five or six when her mother left. She'd been seven, it turned out; she'd be around fifteen now. Her father was Edward Francis Corwin, her mother the former Janice Elizabeth Keane.
I wrote the name in my notebook with a sense of triumph. Not that there was much likelihood that it would slip my mind, but as a symbol of accomplishment. I couldn't prove that I was an inch closer to Barbara Ettinger's killer than I'd been when Charles London sat down across from me at Armstrong's, but I'd done some detecting and it felt good. It was plodding work, generally pointless work, but it let me use muscles I didn't get to use all that often and they tingled from the exertion.
A couple of blocks from there I found a Blarney Stone with a steam table. I had a hot pastrami sandwich and drank a beer or two with it. There was a big color set mounted over the bar. It was tuned to one of those sports anthology shows they have on Saturday afternoons. A couple of guys were doing something with logs in a fast- moving stream.
Riding them, I think. Nobody in the place was paying much attention to their efforts. By the time I was done with my sandwich the log-riders were through and a stock-car race had replaced them. Nobody paid any attention to the stock cars, either.
