'Where to?'
'The ticket records were screwed up.'
'That figures. Let the government run something… I got about seventy leagues of legwork for you. We came up with something interesting from that fire.'
'Fire? Shit. Let Smith and Tucholski handle it. I've got my own case.'
'Looks like the same one now.'
'What?' Cash slumped into the one extra chair.
'The coroner's office was on the horn while you were gone. They were raising hell about us trying to run the same corpse through twice.'
'Huh?'
'One of those four bodies was in halfway human shape. The coroner claims it's the guy we already had so much fun with: O'Brien.'
'Can't be. I was there when they planted him. I even got a look at him in the casket before they put him down.'
'I know. And you're going to make sure nobody dug him up again. And then you're going to run down this list and find out how and why your doctor friend was spending so much money.'
Cash accepted a wrinkled sheet of typing paper covered with tiny, difficult handwriting. Business names with dollar amounts beside them. Large dollar amounts.
'Looks like he had money up the yang-yang,' Railsback observed.
'Yeah. I figured he had some. He had to be able to afford some of those stamps. But not where he could lay out a hundred grand in one chunk…Where'd you get this?'
'Some kid found it in the parkway. Must've blown out during the fire somehow. Kid tried to give it to Tucholski. Thought it might be important, on account of the numbers were so big. Tucholski did like he always does when the peasants get in the act. So Smith took it so the kid's feelings wouldn't be hurt. He got to thinking it might give us a clue after he looked it over.'
'There's a pattern, I think. The places I know here all sell hospital stuff.'
'That's what Smith thought. But what about the others? Can't figure out who half of them are.'
Beth leaned in. 'I just talked to Smitty. He's been digging around in the garage behind that place that burned down.'
'So?'
'He found this thing he says would look like a zeppelin if you blew it up.'
'A zeppelin? What the hell does that have to do with anything?'
'You're the lieutenant. I guess he figured you'd know what he was talking about. He didn't tell me.'
'I know,' Cash declared.
'So spill it,' Railsback grumbled.
'Oh, no. It's so simple it's beautiful. So simple we never thought of it. You figure it out for yourself. When you do, you'll have a big chunk of the original puzzle.' He slipped the list into a shirt pocket that still felt empty without its pack of cigarettes. 'I'm on my way to the cemetery.'
'Bastard.'
'Not anymore. Mom and Dad got married last week.'
Tran followed Cash. In the parking lot he asked, 'It was a zeppelin?'
'Or something enough like one to make no difference.'
'One rational explanation, then. Perhaps more will follow.'
'I hope.'
The grave hadn't been disturbed.
'Well, I expected it. This thing always seems to take the least likely alternative,' Cash grumbled. 'One mystery solved, so we get a bigger one.'
He began his rounds of the identifiable businesses on the list.
Again and again people made him wait. Once, for an hour. The records, where they existed at all, were buried deeply.
Smiley had made the most of his purchases during the period 1957-1964.
Yet the noted pattern proved out. Medical supplies, advanced surgical equipment, life-support systems, big stuff, expensive.
'What the hell does a retired doctor do with an electron microscope in his basement?' Cash asked at one point.
Tran could suggest no reasonable answer. The saleswoman just looked blank.
Yet Cash began to suspect something underneath, began to catch whiffs of the spoor of a quarry that was a shaggy old beast his detective's nose just couldn't identify. Vague sketches of its silhouette formed and unformed in the cutting rooms of his mind. Something Annie had talked about? Something from an article he had read? The
