“What we do know is that shortly after three a.m 911 logged an anonymous call from someone-a male-who claimed to have just seen two men, one carrying a pair of scissors, come out of Mrs. Locher’s house.”

“She was killed?” Ralph exclaimed, realizing two things simultaneously: that he sounded more believable than he ever would have expected, and that he had just crossed a bridge. He hadn’t burned it behind him-not yet, anyway-but he would not be able to go back to the other side without a lot of explanations.

Leydecker turned his hands palms-up and shrugged. “If she was, it wasn’t with a pair of scissors or any other sharp object. There wasn’t a mark on her.”

That, at least, was something of a relief.

“On the other hand, it’s possible to scare someone to deathespecially someone who’s old and sick-during the commission of a crime,” Leydecker said. “Anyway, this’ll be easier to explain if you let me just tell you what I know. It won’t take long, believe me.”

“Of course. Sorry.”

“Want to hear something funny? The first person I thought of when I looked over the 911 call-sheet was you.”

“Because of the insomnia, right?” Ralph asked. His voice was steady.

“That and the fact that the caller claimed to have seen these men from his living room. Your living room looks out on the Avenue, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Uh-huh. I even thought of listening to the tape, then I remembered that you were coming in today… and that you’re sleeping through again. That’s right, isn’t it?”

Without an instant of pause or consideration, Ralph set fire to the bridge he had just crossed. “Well, I’m not sleeping like I did when I was sixteen and working two after-school jobs, I won’t kid \’OLI about that, but if I was the guy who called 911 last night, I did it in my sleep.”

“Exactly what I figured. Besides, if you saw something a little offkilter on the street, why would you make the call anonymously?”

“I don’t know,” Ralph said, and thought, But suppose it tta.v a little more than off-kilter, John? Suppose it was completely unbelievable?

“Me, neither,” Leydecker said. “Your place has a view of Harris Avenue, yes, but so do about three dozen others… and just because the guy who made the call said he was inside, that doesn’t mean he really was, does it?”

“I guess not. There’s a pay-phone outside the Red Apple he could have called from, plus one outside the liquor store. A couple in Strawford Park, too, if they work.”

“Actually there are four in the park, and they all work. We checked.”

“Why would he lie about where he was calling from?”

“The most likely reason is because he was lying about the rest of what he had to say, too, Anyway, Donna Hagen said the guy sounded very young and sure of himself.” The words were barely out of his mouth before Leydecker winced and put a hand on top of his head. “That didn’t come out just the way I meant it, Ralph.

Sorry.”

“It’s okay-the idea that I sound like an old fart on a pension is not exactly a new concept to me. I am an old fart on a pension.

Go on.”

“Chris Nell was the responding officer-first on the scene, Do you remember him from the day we arrested Ed?”

“I remember the name.”

“Uh-huh. Steve Utterback was the responding detective and the O.I.C-officer in charge. He’s a good man.”

The guy ’ the watchcap, Ralph thought.

“The lady was dead in bed, but there was no sign of violence.

Nothing obvious taken, either, although old ladies like May Locher aren’t usually into a lot of real hockable stuff-no VCR, no big fancy stereo, nothing like that. She did have one of those Bose Waves, though, and two or three pretty nice pieces of jewelry. This is not to say that there wasn’t other jewelry as nice or nicer, but-”

“But why would a burglar take some and not all?”

“Exactly. What’s more interesting in this case is that the front door-the one the 911 caller said he saw the two men coming out of-was locked from the inside. Not just a spring-lock, either; there was a thumb-bolt and a chain. Same with the back door, by the way.

So if the 911 caller was on the up-and-up, and if May Locher was dead when the two guys left, who locked the doors?”

Maybe it was the Crimson King, Ralph thought… and to his horror, almost said aloud.

“I don’t know. What about the windows?”

“Locked. Thumb-latches turned. And, just in case that’s not Agatha Christie enough for you, Steve says the storms were on. One of the neighbors told him Mrs. Locher hired a kid to put them on just last week.”

“Sure she did,” Ralph said. “Pete Sullivan, the same kid who delivers the newspaper. Now that I think of it, I saw him doing it.”

Mystery-novel bullshit,” Leydecker said, but Ralph thought Leydecker would have swapped Susan Day for May Locher in about three seconds. “The prelim medical came in just before I left for the courthouse to meet you. I had a glance at it. Myocardial this, thrombosis that… heart-failure’s what it comes down to. Right now we’re treating the 911 call as a crank-we get em all the time, all cities do-and the lady’s death as a heart-attack brought on by her emphysema.”

“Just a coincidence, in other words.” That conclusion might see him a lot of trouble-if it flew, that was-but Ralph could hear the disbelief in his own voice.

“Yeah, I don’t like it, either. Neither does Steve, which is why the house has been sealed. State Forensics will give it a complete top-to-bottom, probably starting tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, Mrs. Locher has taken a little ride down to Augusta for a more comprehensive postmortem. Who knows what it’ll show? Sometimes they do show things. You’d be surprised.”

“I suppose I would,” Ralph said.

Leydecker tossed his toothpick into the trash, appeared to brood for a moment, then brightened up. “Hey, here’s an idea-maybe I’ll get someone in clerical to make a dupe of that 911 call. I could bring it over and play it for you. Maybe you’ll recognize the voice. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.”

“I suppose they have,” Ralph said, smiling uneasily.

“Anyway, it’s Utterback’s case. Come on, I’ll see you out,” In the hall, Leydecker gave Ralph another searching look. This one made Ralph feel a good deal more uncomfortable, because he had no idea what it meant. The auras had disappeared again.

He tried on a smile that felt lame. “Something hanging out of my nose that shouldn’t be?”

“Nope. I’m just amazed at how good you look for someone who went through what you did yesterday. And compared to how you looked last summer… if that’s what honeycomb can do, I’m going to buy myself a beehive.”

Ralph laughed as though this were the funniest thing he had ever heard.

1:42 a.m Tuesday morning.

Ralph sat in the wing-chair, watching wheels of fine mist revolve around the streetlights. Up the street, the police-line tapes hung dispiritedly in front of May Locher’s house.

Barely two hours’ sleep tonight, and he found himself again thinking that dead might be better. No more insomnia then. No more long waits for dawn in this hateful chair. No more days when he seemed to be looking at the world through the Gardol Invisible Shield they used to prattle about on the toothpaste commercials. Back when TV had been almost brand-new, that had been, in the days when he had yet to find the first strands of gray in his hair and he was always asleep five minutes after he and Carol had finished making love.

And people keep talking about how good I look. That’s the weirdest part of it.

Except it wasn’t. Considering some of the things he’d seen just lately, a few people saying he looked like a new man was far, far down on his list of oddities.

Ralph’s eyes returned to May Locher’s house. The place had been locked up, according to Leydecker, but Ralph had seen the two little bald doctors come out the front door, he had seen them, goddammit But had he?