“You know her?”
“I know her. She’s another crazy, thinks she’s some goddamn witch who was hanged.”
“Would you know if Natalie was living with Wylie?”
“Down on Oberlin Crescent, you mean? I don’t know.”
“Did you mention any of this to my partner?”
“Any of what?”
“Wylie? The VW bus?”
“He didn’t ask. I told him only what he wanted to know. I hope you won’t take this personal, but I didn’t like your partner so much.”
“The witches’ Sabbath you went to. Where was it held?”
“I don’t know. Nat blindfolded me when I got in the car, and she blindfolded me again when we left the place. That was all part of the bullshit, you see.”
“Can you describe the inside of the place for me?”
“It was the basement of a church.”
“But you have no idea where it was.”
“It took us about an hour to get there.”
“From here?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, Mr. Carruthers,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”
“Am I supposed to expect you guys again, or what?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Your partner advised me not to leave town.”
“That’s cop talk.”
“Sure, but cop talk scares me when there’s a homicide involved. You think Nat had something to do with it?”
“I don’t know. We found her pendant at the scene.”
“Then she’s got something to do with it,” Carruthers said flatly. “She never took that thing off. Never. She wore it when she was in the shower, she wore it when we were in bed, she wouldn’t part with it for her life. It was from her
I was walking toward the door. Carruthers opened it for me. I extended my hand.
“Thanks again,” I said.
He took my hand and shook it. “Tell your partner I’m clean, will you? I’ve spent enough time on the inside.”
“I’ll tell him.”
He closed the door behind me. I waited a few minutes, and then pressed my ear to the wood. Inside the apartment, Charlie Carruthers was whistling.
This city is divided into eight different sections, each with a telephone directory of its own. I checked the books for all eight, and carne up with a total of twenty-seven Arthur Wylies scattered north, south, east, and west. With a little luck, if I started a door-to-door search that very minute, I figured I could visit all twenty-seven of them by next Saint Swithin’s Day. I decided to call the Motor Vehicle Bureau instead. There are four police clerks attached to a special unit at the MVB, and their job is to provide information to any police officer, uniformed or plainclothes, investigating a case involving a motor vehicle. The girl who answered the phone sounded nineteen, and made me feel a hundred and four. I identified myself as Detective-Lieutenant Benjamin Smoke.
“Yes, Lieutenant,” she said, “would you mind letting me have your shield number, please?”
“83-074-26,” I said.
“Yes, and what squad is that, Lieutenant?”
“The Nine-One,” I said, giving her the number of the squad I’d commanded in the dear dead days.
“And the telephone number there?”
“Aldon 7-6140.”
“Is this a registration search?” she asked.
“It is.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Arthur Wylie, no middle initial, suspect vehicle a red-and-white Volkswagen bus.”
“What year, sir?”
“I don’t have one. I’m looking for the man’s address.”
“I’ll have to get back to you on this, sir.”
“This is a homicide case,” I said.
“Ah, yes,” she said, “aren’t they all?”
“Victim’s name is Peter Greer,” I said, “employee of Haskins Mortuary on Sixth and Stilson. Check with Lower Homicide, if you like.”
“One moment, sir,” she said.
I waited one moment, and then another, and then deposited a dime when the operator told me my three minutes were up. I was beginning to believe the girl was actually checking with Homicide, and that she’d come back on the line to tell me I was a fraud. Instead, when she did come back, she said, “I’ve got that information for you, sir. We have a 1969 Volkswagen bus, red-and-white, registered to an Arthur J. Wylie at 574 Waverly Street. Did you want the registration number?”
“Yes, please.”
“S22 dash 9438.”
“Thank you,” I said, and hung up. I looked at my watch. It was now twenty minutes past four. Waverly Street was crosstown and all the way uptown, approximately a half-hour’s traveling time from where I’d parked Maria’s Pinto. I hurried back to the garage, paid and tipped the attendant, and drove off with a rising sense of gloom.
The woman who answered the door was a good-looking brunette in her middle thirties. She was wearing dark slacks and a pale-green sweater, no make-up and no shoes. Through the wood, I had told her I was a police officer, and now she asked to see my shield. She glanced at it silently and then stepped back into the apartment I followed her into the living room. It was inexpensively but tastefully furnished; someone had made a small budget go a long way. We sat in chairs facing each other.
“I’m looking for Arthur Wylie,” I said.