Small Town

“Do you believe me now?”

Oh, yes. Billy, I miss you.

“I miss you, too, my darling.”

I wish you could come home with me.

“Soon,” he said. He looked at her, took in her gentle smile, breathed in her scent. “You’re wearing Woodhue,” he said.

She smiled, delighted. Yes, do you remember? I always wore it. It seems to agree with me again. Isn’t that funny?

“I’ll buy you some for your birthday.”

Oh, Billy. That would be very nice.

“Carole,” he said, “do you see the children?”

Oh, yes. They miss you, too.

“And you’re all right? All of you?”

We’re all fine, Billy. Everybody’s fine.

He had a million questions to ask her and couldn’t think of a single one.

I wish you could come with me, Billy.

“I have something I have to do, my darling.”

Oh, I know. Men always have their work, and it’s important that they do it.

He’d done his work for years, and had it been so important? Any of it?

“I’ll be done soon,” he said. “A matter of days.”

I have to go now, Billy.

“Don’t go,” he said. “Not quite yet. Stay a few more minutes, Carole.”

But she was fading, disappearing even as he looked at her. He watched her fade away to nothing, and felt her energy dissipate. The scent of her perfume lingered in the cabin for a time, after every other trace of her was gone.

thirty-four

The doorman’s name was Viktor, and his English pronunciation was careful and deliberate. Yes, Peter Shevlin lived in the building, and it had been a while since he’d seen him. But he understood one of the other men checked his apartment, and everything was all right.

“I think maybe he goes away for vacation,” Viktor said.

“That’s possible,” Buckram allowed. “I understand one of the tenants was asking about him. A woman, I believe her name is McGann.”

“I don’t know this name,” Viktor said, and asked him to spell it. He looked at the list of tenants, moved his forefinger down the page as he scanned the names, looked up, shook his head.

Buckram took the list from him, checking for first names. No Kates, but one Katherine, a Mrs. Mabee. If Kate McGann had kept her husband’s name after the divorce, and if it had been Mabee, well, then there she was. A definite Mabee, he thought, and grinned.

“Mrs. Mabee,” he said. “Was she asking about Mr. Shevlin?”

“She does not ask me. This woman asks.” And he pointed to Mazarin, Mrs. Helen. “Every day she asks. You want I call her?”

“Let me start with Mrs. Mabee,” he said.

Kate Mabee, Née McGann, was a small woman, barely over five feet tall. The first thing she did, even before she asked to see some identification, was tell him she used to be taller. “I’m shrinking,” she said indignantly. “I’m down three or four inches already, and it’s not like I’ve got them to spare. I swear it’s not fair. I got a sister-in-law, I should say an ex-sister-in-law, but I stayed friends with her after I threw him out. You would say she’s statuesque. Three years older than me, and she hasn’t lost an inch. She can still pick apples off the trees.”

“While all you can do,” he said, “is charm the birds out of them.”

“Oh, Jesus, an Irishman,” she said. “Now that I’ve let you in the door, why don’t you show me something that says you’re you?” He showed her some membership cards — the Detectives’ Endowment Association, the International Narcotics Enforcement Officers Association, the National Association of Police Chiefs. And his driver’s license, with his picture on it.

“I know who you are,” she said. “You were the commissioner.”

“For a few years, yes.”

“And now you want to ask me about Peter Shevlin? Jesus, what has he done? If he took money and ran, I hope it was at least a million. Less than that and it’s not worth it, is what my father used to say.”

“My father said the same thing.”

“I suppose it’s too early to offer you a drink?”

He said it was, but she should feel free to have one herself. Oh, but it was hours too early for her, she said with a laugh. A small drink before dinner, she said, was her limit, and she’d give that up soon if she kept on shrinking. Not that the two were related, it was calcium fleeing from her bones that caused her to shrink, but the shorter she got the quicker the drink seemed to go to her head, and she was beginning to suspect she’d do better without it.