"Found something?"
Cash evaded by ducking back into the memoir. It was richly detailed, yet told him nothing Sister Mary Joseph hadn't covered orally.
"Honey, you ever hear of Miss Groloch having another boyfriend after O'Brien?"
"I don't think so. Why?"
"Just curious. Been wondering, off and on." He phoned the station. Old Man Railsback answered. "Is Beth around? Well, have her call me when she gets back. At home. Never mind what I'm doing here. Just do it."
Hank's father was making himself useful, more or less, while Beth was in the can.
The phone rang within five minutes. "Beth? Yeah. Do me a favor, will you? Check the O'Brien autopsy sheet and see what he had in his stomach." He wasn't sure, but didn't think the report jibed with the sister's statement. She claimed his last meal had consisted of cold roast beef and cold boiled potatoes, washed down with homemade beer.
Beth took another five minutes. Then she asked, "You still there?"
"Gathering cobwebs."
"Hank's kicking up dust about something. I was helping his dad calm him down. Norm, this thing don't look right. It says there wasn't anything in his stomach. Except almost indetectable traces of what may have been pureed beef liver, and what may have been applesauce."
"No potatoes? No roast beef? No beer?"
"No." She sounded puzzled.
Cash let out a whoop. "We did it! We proved it! The guy ain't O'Brien."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Babe, I'll tell you all about it when I get there. Don't let John get away. He'll want to hear this too." He hung up, wrapped Annie in a powerful hug.
"Norman, will you please calm down long enough to explain?"
"Honey, I just made a breakthrough. It'll put Hank on Cloud Nine. The dead guy can't be Jack O'Brien."
"I heard. So how can you prove it?"
"He ate meat and potatoes before he disappeared. The dead guy ate liver and applesauce."
She smiled, sharing his joy. Then, "You'd better sit down. You forgot something."
"Like what?"
"Like you only proved that he wasn't run through the time machine right away."
"Hunh?"
"Those meat and potatoes wouldn't stick to his ribs forever. Fifty years is plenty of time to digest them."
"Oh." He slumped against the back of the couch. "I went off half-cocked, didn't I?"
"Looks like." She took one of his hands in hers. "It'll be okay. You'll get to the bottom of it."
"Shit."
"Norm!"
"Okay. Look, I got to get back. Hank's pissed enough now, we spend so much time screwing around with this thing."
"Don't let him keep you too late. Major Tran called. They'll be here in time for supper."
"Damn. I don't know if I'll be able to cope. Unless John's got something to cheer me up. There was another one, honey. I found out today. Besides O'Brien and the four hoods."
"What?"
"Another victim. A kid. Twelve years old. Carstairs never found out about him or the hoods. But he must've felt something. That had to be why he was so stubborn about letting go."
"Evil. I told you…"
"I'll be home as soon as I can." He kissed her good-bye. They still did that, after all these years.
"What happened to the high?" Beth asked as he slouched through the office door.
"My old lady shot it down." He explained. "Where's John? What'd he get?"
"I haven't seen him. I thought he was with you."
"But…" What the hell? John had had plenty of time… Teri? The sonofabitch was making whoopie on company time. He grabbed a phone, then thought better of it. No point stirring things up, or playing Typhoid Mary with his depression. Let John enjoy till he decided it was time to come in.
A thump startled him.
Old Man Railsback had dozed off. A book had fallen off his lap.
Hank's door was closed, but the sound of his feet as he paced could be heard.
"Beth, see if you can get Judge Gardner for me. If you can't, just leave a message saying I dug up another disappearance. With a witness."
"At the Groloch place again?"
"Yeah. I'll be in here shuffling papers."
Quitting time arrived. Still no John. This was going to have to stop. Sooner or later, Cash decided, Harald was going to force him to take official notice.
Irked, he returned home. He had been counting on John to give the day a bright ending.
It was just the day that had him down. John had been vanishing without explanation since before Christmas.
A cool shower did wonders. Norm felt human by the time Tran and his family arrived.
XX. On the X Axis;
1889-1945;
A Bohemian Physician
Neulist arrived May 12,1889.
The crone of a midwife strained cataracted eyes-and screamed. "Another one! Another devil!"
No one listened. She had been going on this way for twenty-five years, since the flight of her husband and children. Her warnings had been so fervent for so long that even the most compassionate villagers shunned her as a madwoman.
Those same villagers shunned the growing boy. His approach stirred irrational loathings. Even his parents barely tolerated him.
He had spent years in isolation, hated by millions. The antipathy of a few hundred superstitious peasants troubled him not at all. What bothered him was being a child.
Children in this age were little more than slaves.
He found the midwife's past overwhelmingly intriguing. All that talk about her husband and children, about possession and flight…
The other villagers were bored with it. Possession? By now they believed she had driven them off with her shrewish ways.
The mayor once mentioned having received a letter all the way from America, from Fiala, asking after her mother. The boy broke into the man's home and stole it when he was seven.
It gave him an address.
He mulled that letter, and the old woman's story, for years. And knew were his destiny lay.