With my eyes shut, I let Bach float my mind away. Recordings. Sandra said Freddy had demanded recordings. When I was young, that meant 45s. That was why Sandra had said Freddy was talking to her as if she were a radio station. I had a brief memory of secretly listening to WVON when I was in high school—it was a black station, where the coolest music was played, and in those civil rights battle days, white girls who listened to WVON could get beaten up by their enlightened peers.

But a recording, that could also be a record of a conversation. I saw Marcena Love’s wolfish smile as she held her fountain-pen recorder out to catch people’s comments during the By-Smart prayer meeting we’d gone to. She recorded everything. Her little gizmo held up to eight hours of conversation; she could download its digital brain into her computer. So someone had taken her computer to destroy those records. But they didn’t have the device, that red recording pen. If she had dropped it when she was in the Miata, it might still be back under the Skyway. Someone had searched the Miata pretty thoroughly, so if she’d dropped it in the car the people who searched it would have it—and they wouldn’t have hired Freddy to look for it here. It could have fallen out when Marcena was dragged from the Miata—if that had happened under the Skyway, the pen might still be there.

I didn’t relish a return to the underpass at this time of night. In the morning, I could bring Amy Blount down to help me look, if I didn’t have any appointments. I pulled my Palm from my bag and saw the time: I’d told Mary Ann I’d call her at nine if I was going to be late and it was a quarter of ten now.

I tapped the screen with my pen. I should stop at her apartment on my way home—her manner had been so odd when we talked that I wanted to make sure she was really all right. I could leave the groceries in the kitchen for her, and maybe take the little dachshund out for a quick breath of air.

I looked at my Friday appointments. Nothing until one o’clock. I’d have the morning free, a welcome breather—I could sleep in, I could go to the Belmont Diner for corned beef hash and eggs. The thought almost made me drool, and I realized I hadn’t eaten since grabbing that bowl of chicken noodle soup nine hours ago. I went to the trunk and broke off a piece of the goat feta I’d bought for Mary Ann. The tangy-sweet cheese was so delicious I ate another chunk. Before I knew it, I’d finished the whole piece. Oh, well—I’d get her some more next week.