Harriet gave a shaky laugh. “Thank you, I needed to hear someone say that. All day I’ve been thinking, my God, am I going to find out Marc was a drug addict?”

The woman waiting for the phone made a loud remark about how inconsiderate some people are. I smiled and nodded.

“Can you call Amy for me?” I said to Harriet. “I want to compare notes with her and I’ve got to surrender this phone. See if she can come to my office tomorrow morning.”

“She’s meeting me at the hotel tonight,” Harriet said. “Why don’t you join us?”

“If the police aren’t holding me.” I gave her Mr. Contreras’s number in

case she couldn’t reach me on my cell phone. “And just in case the law thinks I’m such a scintillating conversationalist that they want to listen in, keep your phone comments on the short and simple side.”

The waiting woman grabbed the phone from me when I’d hung up. She snapped, “Short and simple? That’s what you think is short and simple?” The woman dragged out her conversation as long as she could, but I waited, since I still needed to talk to Vishnikov and to my neighbor, and I didn’t want to scour the streets for another pay ph ?. When she finished, the woman gave a triumphant nod with the comment that now I knew what it felt like.

I blew her a kiss and dialed Vishnikov’s home number. “Jeesh, Bryant, good thing you only deal with the dead: your bedside manner gets the living totally weirded out. You really think Whitby looks like a user?”

“I just don’t want the family refusing to pay the bill if I find out what they don’t want to know.”

“Well, talk to me about it next time. I will guarantee the bill,” I said grandly.

“In that case, we’ll use the new spectrometer, Warshawski. Time on it’s five hundred bucks an hour, but you’ll be happy with the results.”

He hung up, pleased with himself. I hoped he was joking. Or that the Whitbys could pay his bill.

I phoned Lotty next, but only got her answering machine. Where was everyone on Saturday afternoon? I needed a human voice right now. I left a message saying I was fine, just bruised a bit in body and mind, and I’d try her again over the weekend.

Finally, I put two more quarters into the phone and called my neighbor. Mr. Contreras was predictably upset and voluble. He, too, had heard the news, and not only had my name been on it as someone Sheriff Rick Salvi was eager to talk to-but deputies had come around the apartment twice already today, and where was I and what was I doing?

I fed quarters into the phone until my supply dried up, giving hire the details of last night’s excursion-except, of course, my escape with Benjamin. Mr. Contreras vigorously approved of my jumping out the bathroom window to get away from the sheriff, but wanted to know why I hadn’t come home then.