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“No absentees at the Hug, Danny?”

“Only Cecil Potter and Otis Green, who’d already finished for the day. Both of them were at home when Miss Dupre called. She says everyone else was present and accounted for.”

“What can you tell me about the Murrays? All I managed to find out is that one parent is black, the other white.”

“They’re just like all the rest, Carmine — the salt of the earth,” said Marciano, sighing. “Only difference is no Caribbean connection as far as anyone knows. They’re regulars at the local Baptist church, so I took the liberty of calling its minister, a Leon Williams, and asking him to go over and break the news. It’s spreading at the speed of light, and I didn’t want some bug-eyed neighbor getting there first.”

“Thanks for that, Danny. What else?”

“The black half is the father. He’s a research associate in electrical engineering in the Susskind Science Tower, which means he’s junior faculty on reasonable pay. Mom is white. She works the lunch rush in the Susskind cafeteria, so she’s there to see the kids off to school, and home again before they are. They have two boys, both younger than Francine, who go to the Higgins middle school. The Reverend Williams told me that the Murrays caused a bit of talk when they moved to Whitney nine years ago, but the novelty faded and now they’re just a part of the local woodwork. Very well liked, have friends of both colors.”

“Thanks, Danny. See you later.”

The Valley was an area with a fairly mixed population, not affluent, but not impoverished either. Racial tensions broke out there from time to time, usually when a new white family arrived, but property rates were not sufficiently high to make blackness a real financial liability. It was not an area famous for hate mail, killing of pets, dumping of trash, graffiti.

As the Ford turned onto Whitney, all half-acre blocks with modest houses, Carmine could feel Abe and Corey stiffen.

“Jesus, Carmine, how did we let this happen?” Abe burst out.

“Because he changed pace, Abe. He outfoxed us.”

As they drew up to a yellow-painted house Carmine put his hand on Corey’s shoulder. “You guys stay here. If I need you, I’ll holler, okay?”

The Reverend Leon Williams admitted him to the Murray house. This is becoming a habit, Carmine.

The two sons were elsewhere; sounds from a TV came faintly. Seated together on a sofa, the parents were trying valiantly to remain composed; she held his hand as if it were a lifeline.

“You’re not Caribbean, Mr. Murray?” Carmine asked.

“No, definitely not. The Murrays have been in Connecticut since before the Civil War, fought for the North. And my wife is from Wilkes-Barre.”

“Have you a recent photograph of Francine?”

A sister to the other eleven.

And so it went all over again, the same questions he’d asked eleven other families: whom Francine saw, what good deeds she did, if she’d mentioned any new friend or acquaintance, if she’d noticed anyone watching her, following her. As always, the answers were no.

Carmine didn’t stay a moment longer than he had to. Their minister is a greater comfort to them in their pain than I could ever be. I’m the agent of doom, maybe of retribution, and that’s how they see me. They’re in there praying that their little girl is fine, but terrified that she is not. Waiting for me, the agent of doom, to return and tell them that she is not.

“I agree with the police commissioner,” he said, discovering a crushed cashew nut hiding beneath some lettuce. “A very smart fellow. What the Monster does is disgusting, but I do admire his competence. He’s made total fools out of the police.” The nut melted on his tongue like nectar. “Who,” he said bitterly, “had the gall to order Desdemona Dupre to hunt us down like animals and ask us where we’d been! We have a spy in our midst, and I for one will not forget that. What her idiocies mean is that I’m behind in my clinical notes. Don’t wait up for me. And throw out that quart of ice cream in the freezer, do you hear me?”

“Maurie, you don’t need to be in the dark tonight!” she cried.

“I’m in the dark all the time, Cathy. All the time.”

“How they do insult my intelligence sometimes,” Charles said to Claire as Hindemith entered a quieter phase. “Desdemona Dupre came looking for all of us with some tale of needing all of our signatures on a document that Bob certainly knew nothing about, then an hour later the police arrived in their thousands. Just when I was in the middle of a train of thought that did
not
need the thump of jackboots. Where was I all afternoon? Tchah! I was tempted to tell them to go to hell, but I didn’t. I must say that Delmonico runs a smooth operation, though. He didn’t deign to grace us with his own presence, but his minions betray the stamp of his style.”

“Dear, dear,” she said placidly, fingers twined loosely about the stem of her wine glass. “Are they going to persecute the Hug every time a girl is abducted?”

“I imagine so. Don’t you?”

“Oh, yes. How sad a place the world becomes. Sometimes, Charles, I am very glad that I walk through it blind.”

“You walked through it blind today, you always do. Though I wish you wouldn’t. There’s some story going around that Desdemona Dupre is being stalked. Though what
she
could have to do with the other business is a bit of a mystery.” He giggled. “Such a vast and unprepossessing creature!”

“Threads weave predictable patterns, Charles.”

“That,” he said, “depends upon who’s making the predictions.”

The Ponsonbys laughed, the dog wuffed, Hindemith let loose.

“I thought you might need company. How’s the food in there? Any hamburgers to take away?”

“No burgers to go, but let’s eat inside. It’s warm.”

“I did my best for Captain Marciano this afternoon,” she said, eating a fry (she called it a chip) in her fingers, “but it took half an hour to track them all down. I couldn’t find a one of the researchers themselves until I realized that it might be the first of December, but up on the roof it was warm and sheltered from the wind. They were up there having a round table discussion on Eustace. All of them, and they looked as if they hadn’t moved in yonks.”

“Yonks?”

“A long time.”

“I’m sorry to have inflicted it on you, but I couldn’t spare any cops while there was a hope of finding Francine.”

“It’s all right, I blamed you. Very caustically.” She picked up another fry. “Ever since word got round about my police guard, I’m regarded differently. Most of them think I’m putting it on.”

“Putting it on?”

“Making it up. Tamara says I’m trying to catch you.”

He grinned. “A tortuous scheme, Desdemona.”

“A pity my ruined work didn’t yield that clue.”

“Oh, he’s far too smart to have left one beyond the first time. He knew you wouldn’t report it.”

She shivered. “Why do I think you think it’s the Monster?”

“Because it’s a red herring, woman.”

“You mean I’m not in danger?”

“I didn’t say that. The cops stay.”

“Is it possible he thinks I know something?”

“Maybe, maybe not. Red herrings don’t need reasons apart from creating illusions.”

“Let’s go back to your apartment and watch the Commissioner on the late news,” she said.

Then, afterward, she smiled. “The Commissioner looks like a sweetie. Didn’t he handle madam smarty-pants anchorwoman well?”

Carmine’s brows rose. “Next time I see him I’ll tell him that you think he’s a sweetie. Cute word, but your sweetie once took on a twelve-man German machine gun nest single-handed and saved a whole company. Among other things.”

“Yes, I can see that side of him too. But you won’t mention me. When you see him it will be a very serious meeting because the situation is very serious. The Monster is really clever, though perhaps that’s to underestimate him.”

“He’s a whole bunch of things, Desdemona. Smart — clever — insane — maybe a genius. What I do know is that the façade he presents to the world is totally believable. His guard never drops. If it had, someone would have noticed. I think he might be a married man whose wife doesn’t suspect him. Oh, yeah, he’s one smart cookie.”

“You’re pretty smart yourself, Carmine, but you’ve got more going for you than that. You’re a bulldog. Once the teeth lock in, you can’t let go. Eventually the extra weight of dragging you around with him will exhaust him.”

Warmth flooded through him, whether from the cognac or the compliment he wasn’t sure; Carmine preened a little inside his mind, very careful that the rest of him didn’t bat an eyelash.

“Delmonico.”

“Lieutenant, this is Derek Daiman from Travis High. Could you possibly come up here straightaway?”

“I’ll be there in five minutes.”