“Yeah.”

“You told me you thought it was ten or so months into the case, remember? You said you were working other cases by then and Jack took over lead on Angella Benton. Her murder was May sixteenth of ’ninety-nine. Martha Gessler disappeared the following March nineteenth. That’s almost exactly ten months later.”

“So I remembered it right. What else you want from me?”

“It’s just that . . .”

I didn’t finish. I was trying to figure out what to ask and how to say it. Something wasn’t right about the chronology.

“It’s just what?”

“I don’t know. It seems to me if Jack had recently talked to this agent he would have said something about it when she went missing. It was a big story, you know? In the papers and on the TV every night. Is there any way the call could have come earlier? Closer to the beginning of the case? That way Jack might have forgotten about it and her by the time she hit the news.”

Cross didn’t say anything for a while as he considered this. I considered other possibilities, too, but kept hitting logic walls.

“Give me another shot of that stuff, would you, Harry?”

He tried to suck too much of it down and it backed up and burned his throat. When he spoke again his voice was hoarser than usual.

“I don’t think so. I think it was ten months.”

“Close your eyes for a second, Law.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just close your eyes and concentrate on that memory. Whatever it is that you have, that you’re keying on, concentrate on that.”

“You trying to hypnotize me, Harry?”

“I’m just trying to focus your thoughts, help you remember what Jack said.”

“It won’t work.”

“Not if you don’t let it. Relax, Law. Relax and try to forget everything. Like your mind’s a blackboard and you’re erasing it. Think about what Jack said about the call.”

His eyes moved under the thin, pale eyelids but after a few moments they slowed and stopped. I watched his face and waited. It was years since I had tried any hypnotic techniques, and that had been to draw out visual descriptions of events and suspects. What I wanted from Cross now was a memory of a time and place and the dialogue that went with it.

“You see the blackboard, Law?”

“Yeah, I see it.”

“Okay, go to the board and write Jack’s name on it. Write it at the top so you have room underneath it.”

“Harry, this is stupid. I —”

“Just humor me, Law. Write Jack’s name at the top of the board.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, Law, that’s good. Now look at the board and underneath Jack’s name write the words ‘phone call.’ Okay?”

“Okay, did it.”

“Good. Now look at those three words and concentrate on them. Jack. Phone call. Jack. Phone call.”

The silence that followed my words was punctuated by the barely discernible ticking of the new clock.