"I'm hungry now." 'Okay, honey," Clark said, "in just a little while."
He and I stepped outside on the bright cement walkway.
"Did talking to her help you any?" he asked.
"I know more than I did."
Clark slipped his hands into his pants pockets and stood with his shoulders back, as if to expose himself to the maximum amount of sunlight. "Why do you think this Branly guy called himself Vic?"
I glanced down at the kids yelling and thrashing their way through cool water in the pool. "We'll know that when we find out why he was killed."
"And why Joan's disappeared?"
I nodded. "Why everything." I watched him half close his eyes to the sun. "Do you think Joan might come back to you?"
"No, but I'll let you know if she does." Clark smiled his curiously dreary smile, shook my hand. "I'll mail you the second part of your fee."
"That won't be necessary," I told him. "I didn't earn it." As I heard myself speak, I was amazed at the generosity rooted in my newfound wealth.
"I have Melissa back."
"You probably would have got her back without me."
He slipped the fingertips of his right hand back into his pocket. "I feel I should warn you about something, Nudger."
"Go ahead," I told him. "I have so much to worry about now, it probably won't make much difference."
"In confidence, of course."
"Of course."
"I don't think you should trust your client all the way."
I waited for him to tell me why. He chose not to, so I nodded and thanked him for the word of caution. He was Dale Carlon's son-in-law; he should know.
When Clark opened the door to go inside, Melissa peered out from the comparative dimness of the motel room.
"Come back when you have your beard," she said.
I decided to have dinner at a western-style steak house in Orlando before driving back to Layton. As I ate the surprisingly good rib-eye and baked potato, I thought over my conversation with Melissa. She was a typically succinct and scatterbrained seven-year-old, and though our talk had brought out a few hard facts, I suspected that what she'd given me were puzzle pieces much like the ones she'd held in her hands. Why did Branly use two first names? Where was the apartment in which they'd lived? Who were the people who had visited them often? And what the hell was "ingerence?"
By the time I reached dessert I knew which way I'd have to go in the investigation. Melissa hadn't given me a starting point, so it would have to be the dead David Branly. He was easy enough to keep tabs on, and the Layton police should have had some background information on him by now. If I probed about in that area of time just before his death and traced his movements, I was bound to learn something of the recent activities of Joan Clark. The trouble was that Branly's murderer was also a part of that area of time, making it a dangerous area in which to be probing about.
The house on Star Lane would be the place to start, and with Dale Carlon's influence the Layton police should be completely cooperative.
I finished my ranch-house pudding and signaled a cowgirl for a refill on the coffee. It was going to be a long drive back to Layton.
8
Gaining access to the Star Lane house was no problem, involving only a phone call to Dale Carlon, who offered to meet me there the next day with the key.
In the morning, again using Carlon's influence,.1 phoned Dockard at the Layton police headquarters from my cabin at the Clover Inn and asked him what had been turned up on the Branly killing.
"To date, nothing much," Dockard said. "The ME tells us Branly died in his late twenties, perfectly healthy except for all those shotgun pellets. Nothing on the gun yet, either. Wiped clean of prints. You know how impossible it is to trace a shotgun. It's an Ithaca twelve-gauge semi-automatic with the stock and barrel sawed down. A fairly expensive gun, about seven years old, according to the company's check of the serial number."
"Making it all the harder to trace. Anything found in the house that might help?"
"We combed it fine; there's nothing there, but you're welcome to look for yourself if you want."
As long as Carlon's behind me, I thought. "What about Branly's fingerprints? You should be able to get some specific information about him through them."
Dockard's tone was tolerant. "His prints aren't on file. Apparently he was never in the service and hasn't got a record."
I thanked the lieutenant and hung up. The fact that Branly had no record was in itself interesting. It made the possibility of his having been killed in a gangland assassination all the more unlikely.
There was little comfort for me in that unlikelihood. The lone and unpredictable killer frightened me more than the underworld hit man. If I had to be murdered, I wanted it done by a professional. Anything to reduce the possibility of prolonged pain.
I shook my head and called myself a few derogatory but accurate names. After setting my watch by the clock on the nightstand, I left for my appointment with Carlon at the Star Lane house.
I was ten minutes early but Carlon was there, waiting in front of 355 Star Lane in his gray Mercedes. When he saw me drive up in the green compact, he got out of his car and came toward me. He was dressed in a tailor-made, very expensive navy-blue suit that was as out of place on Star Lane as was his Mercedes. I, on the other hand, fit right in.
Carlon nodded a hello to me, then handed me a house key. "You might as well keep it, Nudger."
"Okay," I said, "let's go see if it works."
I unlocked the front door and we stepped inside, onto the red shag carpet. The atmosphere was hot and stifling, and I had the same claustrophobic feeling that I'd experienced entering the house the first time, with Dockard and Avery. There was even an aftertaste of fear.
"My God!" Carlon said. "Don't they have any air conditioning?" He spotted a thermostat and went for it, pushing something that brought a click, a rattling hum and supposedly cool air.
I walked around the living room slowly, then went into the kitchen. The rotting remains of the carryout chicken dinner had been removed. The slugs had been dug from the wall, and presumably, the bullet in the cupboard had been located and removed. Everything else seemed unmoved, as if I were looking at a photograph for the second time. The chrome-legged chair still lay on its side on the linoleum, and I saw that the kitchen wastebasket still contained litter.
"The landlord's being compensated to keep hands off for a while," Carlon explained behind me.
I opened the green refrigerator, found a still-sealed quart of milk, a few condiment jars and some bologna going bad on the top shelf. The refrigerator clicked on to add its hum to the air conditioner's, and I closed the door.
"Do you really expect to find something here that the police missed?" Carlon asked.
"Not necessarily, but I might interpret something differently."
He faded back into the living room. After checking out the kitchen, looking inside cupboards and drawers, under shelf paper, behind the stove and then through the litter in the wastebasket, I joined him.
"Find anything?" he asked.
"Only what you'd expect after somebody moved out on a few hours' notice." I went to check the bedrooms.
The first bedroom must have been Melissa's. There were a few toys lying about, some brightly covered books and some threadbare dresses in the closet. The dresser drawers contained only the usual assortment of underclothes and some blankets. Decals of cartoon characters covered the wall behind the bed, and their happy, zany expressions seemed out of place in the otherwise drab room.
The other bedroom had been Branly and Joan's, a pale blue room furnished cheaply and sparsely. There was little sign of Joan there-a pink hairbrush on the dresser top with a few dark hairs caught in its bristles, an empty perfume bottle and a pair of high-heeled shoes with one of the heels broken. There were more of Branly's effects in the bedroom, but they were curiously impersonal. A suit and three shirts in the closet- pockets empty-and some socks and underwear in one of the dresser drawers. I could almost imagine Joan Clark removing anything,that might pertain to his identity before she left. Sadly enough, she seemed to have forgotten nothing.