“A little damp behind the ears. The pay was no good, so they were all kids.”

Roberts nodded as he swallowed. “What you deserved. That’s not fair. They do good things.”

“I never worked with them. On the way in from the airport Norma raised a question that I told her to put to you.”

She looked surprised. She knew enough about him to realize he would not have spoken if he had not had a reason. He wanted to get out from under Roberts’ questions.

She asked Roberts if he had heard the news about the Shoftel killing. He said no. She told him the police had found the body and what its condition had been, and finally, that the police were looking for a man in his sixties who had disappeared the night after the girl had been taken from the sidewalk in front of her home.

Roberts looked at Leland. “Do you think he did it?”

“I’d like to talk to him.”

“Nothing else?”

“I’d have to see the evidence.”

“That’s right, of course.” Roberts turned to Norma and a momentary glance back at Leland betrayed that he was thinking that he had not been answered. “I don’t know what I can tell you, sugar. The man could have a long history of this sort of thing. We’ll have to wait until they catch him.”

“I see,” she said. She was dissatisfied, and so was Leland, who could have no complaint. He thought that she wanted to be told what went on in a man’s mind when he committed such a crime.

“How have you made out so far?” Roberts asked Leland.

“We’ve had progress,” he said.

Roberts nodded. “I’ve always been curious about how the police learn all the things they do. I remember that case of yours that was in the paper yesterday. Did you see the paper? You knew what the roommate looked like before you found your witness. That was amazing.”

“That was a time we took a chance.”

Roberts drank his milk. “Tell you what. I like to have a can of beer at night. Why don’t you join me? Norma said she was going to ask you to use her guest room.”

Leland’s mind was working. “Tonight is all right with me.”

“Is ten o’clock too late?”

“No, I’ll see you then.”

“Good.” Roberts got up to put his dishes in the sink. He was well over six feet three inches tall, and he could not weigh more than one hundred seventy pounds. For a man in his fifties he was in excellent physical condition, straight-backed, rangy, and lithe. He had the quick, relaxed moves of a major league first baseman or a pro football end. Leland wondered about his vanity, how much he worked out, and why.

“I’m glad you two have hit it off,” Norma said.