Another slow rise from the table and a five-minute absence allowed me to finish my scotch. Beamish reappeared holding a piece of white paper folded to a two-inch square. Gnarled fingers labored at unfolding and smoothing.

Half a sheet of heavy-stock letterhead stationery.

Martin, Crutch, and Melvyn

A Legal Corporation

Olive Street address, long list of small-print names, Beamish’s near the top.

At the bottom of the page, shaky handwriting in black fountain pen, smeared around the edges.

Marcia Peaty. A 702 number.

“I looked it up, that’s Las Vegas,” said Beamish. “Though she didn’t seem like the Vegas type.”

“She’s the Dowds’ cousin?”

“So she said and it doesn’t seem the kind of thing one would pretend. She wasn’t particularly well-bred, but not vulgar, and nowadays that’s an accomplishment— ”

I refolded the paper. “Thanks.”

“A little light just switched on in your eyes, Dr. Delaware. Have I been useful?”

“More than you might imagine.”

“Would you care to tell me why?”

“I’d like to but I can’t.”

As I started to rise, Beamish poured me another finger of scotch. “That’s fifteen dollars’ worth. Don’t sip standing up, terribly vulgar.”

“Thanks, but I’ve had enough, sir.”

“Temperance is the last refuge of cowards.”

I laughed.

He pinged the rim of his glass. “It’s absolutely necessary that you bolt like a panicky horse?”

“I’m afraid so, Mr. Beamish.”

I waited for him to get to his feet.

He said, “Later, then? Once you’ve put them all away, would you let me know what I’ve accomplished?”

“Them?”

“That one, her brothers— nasty lot, just as I told you the first time you and the fat detective came traipsing around.”

“Persimmons,” I said.

“That, of course,” he said. “But you’re after more than purloined fruit.”

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 38

It took six minutes for the jail deputy to return to the phone.

“Yeah, he’s still here.”

“Please have him call me when he gets out. It’s important.”

He asked me for my name and number. Again. Said, “Okay,” but his tone said don’t count on it.

An hour later, I tried again. A different deputy said, “Let me check— Sturgis? He’s gone.”

* * *

I finally reached him in his car.

He said, “Vasquez wasted my time. All of a sudden he remembers Peaty threatened him overtly. ‘I’ll mess you up, dude.’ ”

“Sounds more like something Vasquez would say.”

“Shuldiner’s gonna push a chronic bullying defense. Anyway, I’m finished with it, finally able to focus on Nora and Meserve. Still no sign they took any commercial flight but Angeline Wasserman’s I.D. of the Range Rover can probably get me some subpoenas for private charter lists. I’m off to file paper. How you feeling?”

“Is the woman the coroner referred to you named Marcia Peaty?”

“Yeah, why?”