Then, over coffee, we got back on track. 'Why I asked about a photo,' he said, 'is at this point you haven't given me enough to justify reopening the case. We'll have to see what we get from the lab work they'll be doing at Booth inCleveland . If they can say for sure that semen's from somebody else, maybe that'll tilt the balance. Meanwhile, what we got is a piece of mail mailed and delivered inNew York City , and that doesn't mean a lot to my chief here inMassillon .'
'I can understand that.'
'Let's assume you've got the right reading on this and your man did it. The murders took place a week ago last night. I'd say he'd have had to've been in town a few days beforehand, and possibly as much as a week. I suppose it's theoretically possible that he committed the murders the day he arrived, but I'd say
it was more likely he took some time to look the situation over.'
'I would certainly think so. He's a planner, and he had twelve years to let it all ripen. He'd figure to take his time.'
'And he left town with a clipping from Thursday night's paper, so he was still here when the paper hit the street that afternoon. There's a downtown newsstand that gets it around four, but most places don't have it for sale until five or six. So he was here that long, and maybe overnight. When was the postmark?'
'Saturday.'
'So he clipped a newspaper Thursday night inMassillon and mailed it Saturday inNew York . And it was delivered Monday?'
'Tuesday.'
'Well, that's not so bad. Sometimes they take a week, don't they?
You know what the post office and the Florsheim Shoe Company got in common?' I didn't. 'Half a million loafers they'd love to unload but nobody wants 'em. Why I asked about the postmark, if he mailed it Friday we could be pretty sure he flew from here toNew York . Not a hundred percent, because you can drive it in ten hours if you push it.
You happen to know if he has a car?'
I shook my head. 'I don't even know where he lives, or what he's been doing since they cut him loose.'
'I was thinking we could check with the airlines, look for his name on the passenger manifests. You think he'd use his right name?'
'No. I think he'd pay cash and use an alias.'
'Or pay with a stolen credit card, and that wouldn't have his right name on it, either. He probably put up at a hotel or motel here, and again I don't suppose we'll find James Leo Motley signed on any registration cards, but if we had a photo to circulate somebody might recognize his picture.'
'I'll see what I can do.'
'If he flew, he'd have needed a car to get around. He could have come by bus fromCleveland but he'd still need a car inMassillon . You have to show a license and a credit card to rent one.'
'He could have stolen one.''
'Could have. Lot of things to check, and I don't know what any of
'em might prove. I don't know how much effort I can get the department to put into checking, either. If the right word comes back from Booth Memorial, then we might do something. Otherwise I have to say our effort will most likely be minimal.'
'I can understand that.'
'When you've only got so many man-hours available to you,' he said, 'and when you're looking at a case you were able to close half an hour after it opened, well, you can see how you wouldn't be in a hurry to open it up again.'
Afterward he gave me precise directions to the Hall of Fame inCanton . I listened, but without paying much attention. I was willing to believe it was fascinating, but I wasn't in the mood to stare through plate glass at Bronko Nagurski's old jersey and Sid Luckman's leather helmet.
Besides, I had to turn in the Tempo inCleveland or Hertz would charge me for a second day.
I gave it back to them with time to spare. My flight turned out to be overbooked, and before boarding they asked for volunteers to relinquish their seats and take a later flight, with the reward of a free trip anywhere in the continentalUnited States . I couldn't think of anyplace I wanted to go. Evidently enough other people could, because they got their volunteers in short order.
I fastened my seat belt, opened my book, read a paragraph of Marcus Aurelius, and promptly fell asleep with the book in my lap. I didn't stir until we were making our descent into La Guardia.
My seat companion, wearing granny glasses and aWestern Reserve sweatshirt, pointed to my book and asked me if it was something like TM. Sort of, I said.
'I guess it really works,' she said enviously. 'You were truly spaced.'
I took a bus and a subway intoManhattan ; the rush hour was in full swing, and that figured to be faster than a cab, and twenty dollars cheaper. I went straight to my hotel and checked my mail and messages, none of them important. I went upstairs and took a shower and called Elaine and brought her up to date.
We didn't talk long, and then I went downstairs and had a bite and went over toSt. Paul 's for a meeting.
The speaker was a regular member of the group, sober a good number of years, and instead of telling an elaborate drinking story he talked this time about what he'd been going through lately. He'd had conflicts at work, and one of his kids was in bad trouble with drugs and alcohol. He wound up talking a lot about acceptance, and that became the meeting's unofficial topic. I thought about Marcus Aurelius's wise words on the subject, about everything happening the way it was supposed to happen, and during the discussion period I considered talking about that, and relating it to what had happened in a picture-book suburb ofMassillon,Ohio . But the meeting ended
