Choir, that was also new, and must be the reason McWhitney had left the van at that shop.
Why would McWhitney use a name like that? What would it mean?
He wasn’t surprised, several blocks later, when the van signaled for a right and took the on-ramp to the Belt Parkway, heading east and then north. We’re going to New England, he thought, pleased, and the radio switched to Prokofiev.
6
The police meeting in the bank building was breaking up, and Gwen walked out to the main bank lobby with Captain Modale from New York State, saying, “I want you to know, Bob, I’m glad you made the trip over here.”
“Somewhat to my surprise,” the captain told her, with a little grin, “I am as well. All the way over here yesterday, I’ll have to tell you the truth, I was in quite a sour mood.”
They’d stopped in the lobby to continue their conversation as the others left. Gwen said, “You thought it was going to be a big waste of time.”
“I did. Mostly, because I was convinced my Ed Smith was likely to be anywhere on earth except this neighborhood right here.”
“I’m almost as surprised as you are,” Gwen told him. “When I talked with my John B. Allen, he just didn’t seem like somebody who’d take unnecessary risks.”
“I imagine,” the captain said, “two million dollars could be quite a temptation.”
“Enough for him to make a mistake.”
“We can only hope.”
“But now we’ve got a better likeness,” Gwen said, “we maybe have more than hope. Which is the main reason
“I almost wish I could stay for it,” the captain said. “But I’m sure you’ll let us know.”
“You’ll be the
“Do.” The captain stuck his hand out. “Nice to meet you, Gwen.”
“And you, Bob,” she said, as they shook hands. “Safe trip back.”
“Thank you.” The captain turned. “Trooper Oskott?”
The trooper had been seated at a loan officer’s desk, reading a hunting magazine, but he now stood, pocketed the magazine, and said, “Yes, sir.”
The two men left, and Gwen paused to get out her cell phone and call her current boyfriend, Barry Ridgely, a defense lawyer who spent his weekdays in court and his Saturdays on the golf course. When he answered now, in an outdoor setting from the sound of it, she said, “How many more holes?”
“I can do lunch in forty minutes, if that’s what you want to know.”
“It is. You pick the place.”
“How about Steuber’s?” he said, naming a country place that had originally been very Germanic but was now much more ordinary, the Wiener schnitzel and saurbraten long departed.
“Done. See you there.”
* * *
Leaving the bank building, putting her cell phone away, Gwen turned toward her pool car when someone called, “Detective Reversa?”
She turned and it was Terry Mulcany, and it seemed to her he’d been waiting on the sidewalk specifically for her to come out. “Yes?”
“I’ve been waiting for you to come out,” he said. “I have two questions, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. Go ahead.”
“Well, the first is,” he said, “I know my publisher, when the book comes out they’re going to want pictures, and particularly the detectives who worked on the case. So what I was wondering is, if you’ve got a picture of yourself you especially like.”
And have you, she wondered, asked the same question of the other detectives on the case? Of course not. Smiling, she said, “When the time comes, your editor can call me or someone else at my barracks. I’m sure there won’t be any problem.”
“That’s fine,” he said, with a hint of disappointment. What had he been hoping for? That she would suddenly hand him her
Wanting to get to Steuber’s, she said, “Was there something else?”
“Yes. The other thing,” he said, “is, I’ve been trying to remember where I saw that guy.”
“My John B. Allen.”
“Yeah.” He twisted his face into a Kabuki mask, to demonstrate the effort he was putting in. “I don’t know why,” he said, “but there’s something about a pear it reminds me of. The place where I saw them.”
She did her own Kabuki mask. “A pear?”
“You know this area,” he said, “a lot better than I do. Is there someplace around here called like the Pear Orchard, or Pear House, or something like that?”
“Not that I’ve ever heard of.”
“Oh, well,” he said, and elaborately shrugged. “If I figure it out, I’ll give you a call.”
“You do that,” she said.
* * *
Barry’s current client was a veterinarian who either had or had not strangled his wife. A jury would answer that question very soon now, probably early next week, and at lunch Barry was full of the problems besetting a poor defense counsel merely trying to put his client in the best possible light. “The judge just isn’t gonna let me show the video in my summation,” he complained, crumbling a roll in vexation. His client, in happier times, had won a humanitarian award from some veterinarian’s association, and Barry insisted that no one who watched the video of the man’s acceptance speech would ever he able to convict him of anything more nefarious than littering. “He’s not even gonna let me show a
“Well,” Gwen said, being gentle, “that is kind of far from the subject at hand.”
“Which of course is what the judge insists. But if I were to just
“Bartlett,” Gwen said.
Barry frowned at her. “What?”
“Bartlett pear,” Gwen said, “Mrs. Bartlett. Bosky Rounds.”
“Gwen,” he said, “is this supposed to be making sense?”
Beaming at him, Gwen said, “All at once, it does.”
7
When Trooper Louise Rawburton signed in at the Deer Hill barracks at three fifty-two that afternoon, she was one of sixteen troopers, eleven male and five female, assigned to the four-to-midnight shift, two troopers per patrol car, doing this three-month segment with Trooper Danny Oleski, who did most of the
