When he came round to that point again, he got up and shut the case book. On his way over to Police Headquarters, he told himself that from another angle, it was safer really-if you came to murder-to do it cold, thinking. If you had to, if you could, if you could face the issue and take the only decision…
The waiter at Federico's saw Mendoza come in, and when he presented the menu also brought the two fingers of rye that was usually Mendoza's one drink of the day, and, five minutes later, the black coffee. They never hurried you at Federico's, and they knew their regular patrons.
Mendoza brooded over the coffee; he had something else to think about now, which was probably quite irrelevant, and that was Morgan. Morgan, so much friendlier than he had been this morning, expanding on what information he'd got at the school, and then asking questions. Had Mendoza got anywhere on the Lindstroms, anything suggestive from the men watching the apartment, and just how did they go about that anyway, he'd think it was an awkward job, that they'd be spotted… oh, from a car, and tailing the woman when she-and only up to midnight, that was interesting….
Morgan, being affable in order to ask questions? And just why? Morgan-now Mendoza looked at him with more attention-strung-up, a little tense, putting on an act of being just as usual. So all right, he was worried about something, he'd had a fight with his wife, he was coming down with a cold or-quite likely-he'd felt a trifle ashamed of his barely courteous manner this morning and was trying to make up for it.
There were more interesting things to think about than Morgan. Over his dinner Mendoza thought about them.
The school, somewhat bewildered at being asked but polite to an accredited civic agency, said in effect that young Martin Lindstrom was one of its more satisfactory pupils. A good student, not brilliant but intelligent, cooperative, well-mannered and reliable. He had a good record of attendance and punctuality. He was somewhat immature for his age, not physically or academically but socially: not a particularly good mixer with other children, shy, a little withdrawn but not to any abnormal degree. Mrs. Lindstrom had never attended any P.-T.A. meetings, none of the teachers had ever met her, but that was not too unusual.
The tailers. Mendoza had debated about taking them off: a waste of time? Not likely to come up with anything, and there was no real reason to single these people out…. In twenty-four hours she had left the place only once, between seven and eight last evening, the boy then being home; she had walked three blocks to a grocery store on Main and home again with a modest bag of supplies.
On Thursday she had an appointment at the county clinic. He toyed with the idea of putting a policewoman in there, to inveigle her into casual conversation, but what could he hope to get, after all? No lead, no line… He'd like to talk with her himself, judge for himself what kind of woman- See the boy, get some idea- Remembering Mrs. Cotter's graphic description, he reflected that Mrs. Lindstrom wouldn't be an easy woman to talk with, sound out.
The doll, his only excuse for approach, and not a very good one. He knew now definitely that it was the same doll: the factory had identified it by a serial number as the one sold to Mrs. Breen, and that was something: it might be a lot. Definite facts he liked: this was one of the few he had to contemplate in this business. But-as he'd said to Mrs. Breen and Mrs. Demarest-make it an excuse to see the Lindstrom woman: forget Elena Ramirez and go back to Brooks, say, you were inordinately interested in this piece of merchandise-and all the rest of it.
She would only tell him some plausible tale of a niece or godchild, and that was that-no further excuse to pry at her.
He got out the little strip of lace and booded over that a while. He muttered to it, ' Eso no vale un comino - not worth a hang!' Both ends of this thing had come to a dead stop: blind alleys. There was nowhere new to go, on either Brooks or Ramirez. And yet at the same time he felt even more certain now that the cases were essentially the same case, that the Lindstroms were the link (or one of them), and that just a couple of steps beyond this dead end lay something-someone-someone more definite fact-that would lead him to the ultimate truth, and to a murderer.
He had also, for no reason, a feeling of urgency-a feeling that time was running out.
When he left Federico's he went back to his office. And that was for no reason either. He stood there, hat and coat still on, looking down at that doll on his desk.
He thought, It might mean this and it might mean that, but the one thing it meant, sure as death, was that somebody was trying to tell him something with it. And what he would like to think somebody was telling him was that the Lindstroms were definitely involved.
Suddenly he swore aloud, folded the wrapping paper round the thing and thrust it under his arm. There were times you had to sit down and think, and other times you had to act, even if you weren't sure what action to take- there was a chance you'd pick up a new lead somehow, somewhere, if you went out and about just at random.
Take the excuse: go and see the woman, talk with her-about anything; something might show up, he might get the smell of a new line.
It was just before seven when he nosed the Ferrari into the curb outside Graham Court. Already dark, but the city truck had been around, finally, to replace the bulb in the street lamp a little way down from the entrance to the cul-de-sac, and he recognized the man just turning in there, walking fast.
Morgan. Small and rather dubious satisfaction slid through Mendoza's mind for a possible answer to this one little irrelevant puzzle: Morgan, perhaps, infected with boyish detective fever, using his own excuse to get at the Lindstroms?
If so, and if they were involved in this thing, the blundering amateur effort might warn them-or it could be useful, frightening them into some revealing action.
Mendoza got out of the car and stood there a minute at the curb with the doll under his arm, debating his own next move now-whether to join Morgan or wait until he came out.
Marty hadn't gone home after school, and he wasn't lying to himself about why: he couldn't. He was just plain scared, more than he'd ever been before his whole life. It had been bad enough this morning, he'd got out just as quick as he could, long before usual, and of course she couldn't come after to drag him back, make him answer questions. This morning had been pretty bad.
He'd had some idea what was going to happen right off, but he just hadn't cared-then. The thing was, maybe like a silly little kid believing in fairies and like that, when he thought about the afterward part (vague and eager) he'd thought, if it was going to tell Them anything at all, it'd be right away, and maybe even by this morning-some time today-everything would Not like that. Maybe not even some time Today. Maybe never. And what might happen now, when he went home, he just couldn't imagine how bad it'd be, or even what it might be. She knew he had something to do with its being gone, with the door always locked inside and all.
And besides Ma, what she'd do and say and ask This had been about the longest and awfullest day of his whole life. He'd got up early, before it was light even: he hadn't really got to sleep after he was back in from doing that-just laid there miserable and scared and wondering what would happen now. And then getting out soon as ever he could, after it started to happen. He hadn't really had breakfast, she'd been too upset and he thought some scared too, to fix much, and he hadn't wanted that; and she hadn't fixed his lunch to carry either, so he didn't have any.
Times today he'd felt sort of empty, but not like being hungry. An awful day, other ways: all the ways it could be. He'd been dumb in history class and Mr. Protheroe had scolded him, and then in English class he'd felt so sleepy, couldn't lift his head up hardly, take in what Miss Skinner was saying, and she'd been mad. He was glad, sort of, when it was three thirty and school was out, but another way he wasn't, because it was at least somewhere to be.
He didn't go home. He had the thirty cents Ma'd given him, hadn't bought anything in the school cafeteria at lunchtime, because he wasn't hungry then, but now he was and he bought a ten-cent chocolate bar and ate it while he just walked along going nowhere. Staying away from Home.
He walked for a while, just anywhere, and sat on the curb sometimes to rest; he started to feel like he
