She heard his voice and turned her head, and her arm spasmodically jerked across her desk, away from him. Her hand held a slip of blue paper; her face was locked with sudden conscious control, which produced a weak smile.
He continued without a break, "-a prerequisite waiver; I don't seem to have any more. I'll need a permission number."
"Of course," she said. "Let me see…"
He looked unwaveringly into her eyes, but he was tracking her hand and the blue paper with his peripheral vision. She casually opened a drawer, slipped her hand in, riffled some papers, and said, "Where did I put those?" When her hand emerged, there was no paper in it. She opened the next drawer down, said, "Ah. Here," and handed him a half-dozen slips.
"The number?"
"Just a second…" She pulled down a file in her computer and said, "Make that 3474/AS."
"Okay," he said. He jotted the number on one of the forms and left the office. Stopped and looked back. Was she hiding something from him?
He was sensitive to the idea because of the discovery of the body, then the images on the television. He cleaned up some last-minute chores around the office, then headed home. He brooded about Neumann. What was she doing? Why did that slip of paper stick in his mind like a thorn?
BARSTAD CALLED, AND he put her off. "I'll try to get over later tonight, but if not tonight, tomorrow for sure. I've got a surprise treat for you."
"A treat?" She sounded delighted. She was a moron. "What kind of treat?"
"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise," he said, thinking of his camera. "I'll call you tonight if I can get away. If I can't, I know I've got time tomorrow afternoon. Can you get away?"
"Anytime," she'd said.
AT SEVEN O'CLOCK that night, with the janitors caucusing in the maintenance room, he went back to Neumann's with his butter knife and a flashlight. Her desk was unlocked, and he opened the drawer and looked inside. No blue paper. He checked the other drawers, nervous, listening for footfalls. Still nothing.
Checked her bulletin board, found nothing blue. Was about to leave, when he saw all the little tag-ends of paper sticking out from under her desk calendar. He lifted it up, one edge, deflected the beam of the flashlight beneath it. Still nothing; and he'd felt so clever when he lifted the pad, a sense of inevitable discovery.
Damnit. He let himself out of the office and walked down to his own, turned on a study light, swiveled his chair so that his face was in shadow, and closed his eyes. He knew that blue…
He might have dozed for a few minutes. When he opened his eyes again, they wandered, almost by their own accord, it seemed, to the bottom drawer of an old wooden file cabinet. Had he seen that blue in his own files?
He dropped to his knees and pulled the drawer out. A half-dozen fat files were stuffed with paper he hadn't expected to look at again until he retired and had to clean out the cabinet. He riffled through them, and the label "Planes on Plains" caught his eye. Notes, letters, comments on his cubism book. He pulled it, opened it, and saw the blue. He slipped it out, turned it, and recognized it instantly.
Jesus. Four years old, and somehow she'd remembered, long after he'd forgotten. An invitation to a publication party for Planes on Plains. The publisher, even cheaper than most of that notoriously penurious breed, hadn't been willing to pay for much of anything, so he'd done the party invitations himself. He'd done a quick little self-portrait for the front page of the blue invitation.
The drawing looked nothing like the drawings on television, really. But his historian's eye felt the resemblance-something in the technique, and the choice of line. Neumann was a historian herself. Qatar closed his eyes, swayed, nearly fell, overcome by the image of Neumann taking the paper to the police. They were that close.
Had she talked to anyone? Maybe not. To make this kind of accusation would be extremely serious, and if she was wrong, could end her career. She'd have to be careful. Sooner or later, though…
"She's gotta go," he mumbled.
Right away. Tonight. He'd seen the logic of it in a flash: If she'd talked to other people about the drawing, he was finished. If he killed her, he might be finished, but then again, he'd killed a lot of people, and the police had never had a sniff of him. If he moved quickly enough, directly enough, he might pull it off again.
He walked straight out of his office, down the stairs, and out to his car. He'd been to her house, twice, and it wasn't far away, just across the river and a little north and east. He drove over, calculating. Park at her house, or down the block? If he parked down the block, he'd have to walk, and that would increase his exposure. If he parked in front, somebody might remember his car when she came up missing. He'd walk, he thought. It was raining. With a raincoat and an umbrella, nobody would recognize him.
Then he would… what? Knock on the door? Try to grapple with her? She was a big woman. Even if he managed to take her down, there'd be a fight, there might be blood-his blood-and she might even make it out of the house. She might scream, she might wake up the neighborhood. There might be somebody else in the house.
Then he'd be cooked…
Had to think. Had to think. Was thinking: His mind was a calculating machine, and ran through the possibilities with insane precision.
HE WAS CRUISING her house, a quick pass, when he saw the lights come on in the garage. The garage door started up, and a car backed down the driveway, into the street, coming after him. He pulled to the side and let her pass. Was it her? He could see only a profile, but thought the profile looked like hers… He didn't know her car. Now what?
She turned right at the corner, and he followed, slowly. Another car went by, and he fell in behind it, watching Neumann's car-if it was her car-continuing ahead. They drove together for four blocks; then the car in front of him slowed and turned, and Neumann was directly in front of him. Down to Grand Avenue, to a supermarket. He pulled into the parking lot behind her and watched as she got out and hurried into the store.
There were only a few cars in the lot; if he had a gun, he could wait until… But then, he had no gun. No point in thinking about it.
She should be heading back home fairly quickly, he thought. Nobody buys groceries and then goes on to a movie. You take them home, put them away. Get the hamburger in the refrigerator. If she weren't getting a bunch of groceries, if she were just out for a pack of gum, she wouldn't have driven past a convenience store to a supermarket.
He decided. Wheeled the car in a circle and drove as fast as he could-without attracting police attention-back to her house. He parked a block down, got a collapsible umbrella from the backseat, turned up the collar on his raincoat, and got out.
He saw not a single person along the sidewalk: The rain was so cold and so enduring that the locals were all hunkered down in front of their natural-gas fireplaces, watching Fox, or whatever it was they did in these old houses.
Neumann's house was one of the prewar clapboard places that never quite slipped into the slums but had come close. It looked like a child's drawing: a peaked roof with a single window under the peak, a front door centered under that window, a window on each side of the door, a short stoop leading to the door. The garage sat to one side, originally detached, but now connected to the house with a breezeway.
Qatar turned smartly at the front walk, climbed the stoop, and rang the doorbell. Nobody answered. He pulled open the storm door and tried the doorknob. Locked.
All right. He hurried back down the steps and tried the breezeway door. Locked. He looked around, saw nobody, heard nothing but the rain. The house across the street showed a light at the front window, but the drapes were pulled. He left the shelter of the breezeway nook and walked back around to the front of the garage. Tried the main door: locked down. He continued around to the side of the garage. The next house was only twenty feet away, but a hedge ran between them. He could see no lights, so he lowered the umbrella and walked down the length of the garage, the wet leaves of the hedge flicking against his face and neck, chilling him.