I imagined melodramatic statements I might make, picturing myself as Annie Oakley riding to the rescue of both Ballantine and Marcus Whitby. Maybe I was just Lassie the dog, though, barking around frantically for help.

“Timmy’s in the well,” I said aloud as I unlocked my car. A woman with a couple of toddlers passed me just then, but she barely spared me a glance: people saying odd things to themselves are commonplace at the public library, after all.

CHAPTER 18

Crocodile in the Moat

I’m going out to New Solway,” I told Amy Blount when I reached her on her cell phone. “I didn’t find anything definite in the Ballantine papers, but there’s a possibility that Marc tried seeing Calvin Bayard, who published one of Ballantine’s books. I want to talk to Mr. Bayard, if I can get in-his wife has a shark-filled moat dug around him. Did you find out anything?”

“Like you, nothing definite. The woman who lives on Marc’s south side thinks she saw lights at three yesterday morning-she’s got a newborn who woke her up around then, and she was rocking by the window, but she wasn’t really paying attention. She couldn’t be a hundred percent sure it was Sunday-she’s up most nights and she’s pretty sleep deprived. And anyway, she didn’t look at the front walk, so she wouldn’t know if it was Marc or an intruder. The old man across the street, he save Marc bring a woman home with him once or twice, but no one had spent the night here for several months, as far as the local gossip columns know.”

I was on Ninety-fifth Street, heading west to the tollway, doing the worst kind of driving: the steering wheel wedged between my knees, one hand on the cell phone, one on a raspberry smoothie I’d picked up in lieu of lunch. When I had to brake for a semi that suddenly changed lanes, I dropped the smoothie.

I swore and pulled over to the curb, where I daubed pink liquid from my green-striped trousers. I’d lost the connection by the time I finished with my clothes. When I redialed I asked how many people Amy had left to talk to. She hadn’t reached the neighbor on his north, or the kids-school wouldn’t get out for another hour.

“If you have the time, stay down there until you talk to some of the kids. What about the autopsy? Have the Whitbys come to a definite decision on that? They have? Then I’ll find a funeral director who will get Mare’s body from DuPage and deliver it to Bryant Vishnikov.” That was the kind of detail Mary Louise Neely knew from her years of police work; I’d give her a quick call at her fancy new office.

“Finally,” I said to Amy, “do you think Harriet is up to a trip to T-Square? I’m wondering if Simon Hendricks-Mare’s editor-knows more than he would tell me about Mare’s current project. Maybe he’d be more forthcoming with you and Harriet.”