“Sims isn’t trying to solve Wren Denniston’s murder,” I continued. “Instead he’s running after the one point seven million in cash that the good doctor embezzled from the Gregor Trocek who was in my apartment. That’s why Sims stuck you with the task of taking me to the Roundhouse, so he could chase the money.”

Hanratty gave me a quick and ugly glance in the rearview mirror as he kept driving. We were headed north now, toward Race Street, where we would turn east again. The Roundhouse was only a few minutes away.

“I know who killed the doctor. It was a drug-addicted Byron wannabe by the name of Terry Tipton, who is an old boyfriend of Julia’s. The story is sad and sordid and Shakespearean in the literal sense, but he admitted it to me and to someone else and on tape.”

Hanratty cocked his granite face without saying anything.

“Ah, so you are listening. Good. No, I don’t have the tape. Julia Denniston has the tape, and she’ll do anything she can to protect this Tipton. But Sims doesn’t care about the tape, or this Terry Tipton, or anything other than the money.”

Hanratty’s jaw clenched the way it seemed to clench whenever I mentioned his partner. But he still was headed to the Roundhouse and my appointment in arraignment court.

“‘What about the gun?’ you might ask. It was planted in my apartment by Mrs. Denniston just before you showed up. She tried to convince me not to give you the tape. I tried to convince her to give up her old boyfriend. As always, neither of us convinced the other of anything. She took the tape and left the gun. Where’d you find it anyway?”

He glanced at me again.

“Let me guess,” I said. “In the desk drawer.”

His eyes blinked.

“That’s her place. She likes to hide things there. And it’s funny, isn’t it, how you missed the gun the first time you searched my apartment? But your slimy partner isn’t the only one chasing after the money. Gregor Trocek is after it, too. Nice guys, the two of them. It would be quite the show if ever they meet again. And it should happen soon, since I set the two of them on a collision course.”

The car swerved. We were on Race Street now, racing through Chinatown and toward the Roundhouse, and the car swerved, hard left, before straightening again to the bray of horns.

“I sent Gregor Trocek after Clarence Swift, who was Wren’s partner in the embezzlement. I sent Sims after Mrs. Denniston, who is the object of Clarence Swift’s affection and who will, this very evening, I believe, meet with him on her way out of town. I expect it will end in extreme violence well away from here before it’s over. Which, except for Mrs. Denniston’s presence in the middle of it all, suits me just fine, because I think I know where the money is, and we can beat them both to it. And once the money is tucked safely away with the U.S. Trustee, we can deal with this whole situation like gentlemen.”

“You want to take me to the money?” said Hanratty, shock in his voice.

“Yes, I do.”

“You don’t want to keep it for yourself?”

“If I thought I could get away with it, sure. But I can’t. There are too many people looking for it, too many willing to perpetrate anything to get their hands on it. Gregor Trocek thinks I’m hoping he ends up with it, because I negotiated a piece of what he recovers, but I know he’d kill me before I got a cent. And Sims thinks I want him to find it, because he promised he’ll keep me out of jail, but I trust him like I’d trust a ferret in my pants.”

“And what about me?”

“Sims says you’re a fool who’s too honest to deal with. McDeiss says I can trust that you’re after the right thing. Both pretty good recommendations in my book. So let’s you and me, Detective, go get the money and then solve the murder and then save Mrs. Denniston while we bag a couple of crooks.”

“Are you crapping in my hat?”

“Would I get away with it if I did?”

“No.”

“There you go.”

We were stopped at a red light at Eighth and Race. To our right, filthy with grime, was the ugly, circular skin of the Roundhouse. Straight ahead and to our left was the entrance to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, the blue paint of the bridge gaily striped with light.

“You could take a right here, send me to arraignment court, and let everything play out for better or for worse without you. Or you could get into the left-hand lane and follow the signs for the Ben Franklin.”

“New Jersey.”

“That’s the place.”

“I think you’re full of it.”

“But you’re not sure,” I said. “You don’t like me much, do you?”

He glanced at me again in the rearview mirror. “Every time I see your face, I want to smash my fist into it, over and over, until the blood bubbles.”

“I tend to have that effect on people.”

Hanratty didn’t respond, he just stared forward, letting his jaw work as if he were cracking walnuts between his teeth.

The light turned green.

The car stayed still for a moment and then started forward, eased left, slid into the lane of traffic headed over the Delaware River and into New Jersey, where a cat, gray and fluffy, waited for us.

The cat sat in the window well of a little Cape Cod in Haddonfield, New Jersey. The house was white and freshly painted, the lawn cared for, the perennials beneath the dogwood neatly weeded. As I rubbed my wrists while we made our way up the walk, from behind the brightly lighted window the cat hissed. It remembered me. Of course it did, it was a cat. And maybe it had the same reaction as Hanratty every time it saw my face.

Then the cat reached out a foreleg and gently tapped the window with the pads on the underside of its paw, leaving a streak of red.

42

Hanratty was on the phone to 911 even as he slammed his shoulder into the door, once, twice, and then thrice, shattering it to bits. He climbed over the splintered wood into the living room, one hand on the phone, the other gripping his drawn revolver.

“That’s right,” he barked. “Blood on the window.” He looked around. “Blood on the floor. I’m inside now. Get an ambulance here and a bunch of black-and-whites. And tell your guys not to come in shooting. I’m going to find the victim, see if there’s anything I can do.”

Following behind the rampaging detective, surveying the scene for myself, I doubted there would be.

The tracks led through the undisturbed living room, into the dining area, and then into the kitchen, where they were most vivid on the white linoleum. Cat tracks, leading backward to the scene of the crime, as if gray and fluffy itself had done the vile deed.

“She’ll be in the basement,” I said.

“Where’s the door?” said Hanratty.

“Through the kitchen.”

With his gun leading the way, Hanratty stepped carefully around the cat tracks into the kitchen and then halted at an open door that led to a set of rough wooden stairs descending into darkness.

“Hello,” he called down. “This is the police. Is anyone there?”

No answer.

He looked around, found the switch, flicked it. A dim light flowed up the stairs and out the doorway. Hanratty carefully stepped toward it, and then, moving sideways with the gun held in both hands and pointed forward, he slowly climbed down. I followed.

The basement was unfinished, old, about twenty by ten, with the ceiling beams bare, the concrete floor cracked, the uneven plaster on the walls flaking off. There was a concrete sink, there was an old washer and dryer, there was a small tool bench and a sump pump in the corner.

And there was the freezer.

It was a chest model, white, about five feet long, with its lock clasp broken and blood smeared about its sides. Tossed haphazardly around it were frozen steaks, still in their tight plastic wrapping. A dark red puddle, just to the right of the chest, was the apparent source of the cat’s prints, with paw marks circling back and around in a sad record of feline agitation. Beside the puddle was a red plumber’s wrench.