“You met her on the investigation?”

“Yeah.”

“Who told you about her?”

“The fat girl.”

“Patty? Patty Afantakis?”

“Yeah.” He managed to get the top of his can open. It was a struggle. It nearly cost him his seat in the chaise longue.

“How did you find Patty?”

“I was a local cop. You think I’m stupid?” This was not a question to be ignored or sloughed off.

“No,” I said, and Howard grumped his acceptance.

“I knew about the post-race thingamajig. The girl walks into town, makes sense she’s Goin’ there, right? But she brings a change of clothes. You know what I’m sayin’? Why’s she do that? You can wear anything you fuckin’ want to that party. Some people, you know what? They wear costumes.” He elongated his face, emphasizing the strangeness of the world in which we live. Then he negotiated the beer can to his mouth.

I drank from my own can and waited for him to get back on track.

“So she’s got a change of clothes, means she’s expectin’ to go someplace. I can’t find she got a boyfriend, so I’m castin’ around. Know what I mean?”

It was tiresome to keep reassuring him, but we were getting somewhere and it did not require much more from me than a nod or a single word of affirmation.

“Who’s at the party? Who’s at the party she might know is gonna be at the party? Huh?” He drank. “Huh?”

I tried to move things along. “The Gregorys.”

I got rewarded with one finger raised from the hand holding the beer can. “There you go. They’re the obvious ones. So I go check ’em out. No reason other than that. Go to the house, talk to the gatekeeper. The security guard, whatever. He’s just a kid. Knows somebody, so he gets the job. Black kid. Nice kid.”

Howard had gotten distracted. I had to bring him back. “What did you learn?”

“What did I learn? I goes, ‘Was there a party here the other night?’ I’m talkin’ about a party after the party. Black kid goes, ‘There wasn’t a party, but there was people here.’ This is early in the investigation, so nobody even knows I’m lookin’ at the Gregorys. Why not answer the question? Nobody’s told him not to. I mean, all I’m lookin’ for is where did Heidi Telford go? Is it possible she ended up here?”

“And what did he tell you?”

“He gets out this list. Like I said, nobody’s tellin’ him shut up, don’t talk to the cops. I think all anybody cares about at this point is don’t let nobody know Ned’s rammin’ the babysitter.”

Once again, Howard Landry stretched his face in a show of amazement.

“Except you didn’t know that at the time, did you?”

The face-stretching ended. “No. I didn’t know nothin’ except here’s something I might as well go check out. The black kid goes, ‘Here’s the people was here.’ Blah, blah, blah, and the fat girl.”

“Patty Afantakis.”

“Yeah, got her name and car registration, both. But there was no party. And he don’t remember seein’ Heidi. Don’t mean she wasn’t there because, look, the Gregory kids are drivin’ in and out and they don’t keep a record of that. She coulda been in one of their cars. I mean, this isn’t like Stalag Thirteen or anything. The kids wanna bring friends in, nobody asks who they are. They’re friends, right?”

I didn’t get the Stalag reference, but I told him right.

“So that’s all I got. Wait, no.” He had to take a long drink before he could continue. “There were a couple of guys had cars, but they had been there all weekend. The only car come in and out that night was the fat girl’s.”

“Patty’s.”

“Yeah. So I get the number and I track her down.”

“But you didn’t report this anywhere.”

“Nah. Because all I’m doin’ at this point now is I’m castin’ pearls before swine.”

“What?”

“It’s a sayin’. It’s like … I don’t know, maybe I got the wrong one. I’m just castin’ about. I’m just fishin’, that’s all I’m doin’. Maybe I wanted a trip up to Boston. What time of year was it?”

“Heidi was killed the end of May.”

“Right. So maybe I wanted to go to a game. The team any good that year? Probably not. They sucked until ’04. Anyhow, I goes up there, I talk to Patty. At this point, you know, she’s another one got no reason not to talk to me. Well, she’s got a reason, it turns out, but she’s willin’ to tell me some stuff. Yeah, her and her friend went to the Gregorys’ that night. They met these guys, the guys with the cars I was tellin’ you about. Met ’em at the after-race party, and the guys told them there was another party at the Gregorys’. So they go there and there wasn’t no party, so they left. That’s what she tells me. Just to be sure, I get her friend’s name, because I can tell, like, this Patty’s holdin’ back. Holdin’ something back.”

“So you went to see her friend and the friend turns out to be Leanne Sullivan.”

“Best-lookin’ girl you ever seen. Got this red-blond hair, goes all the way down to her waist. Little freckles on her nose. Body that won’t quit.” He sighed, probably inadvertently, then started up again. “And she tells me the truth. Her and Patty met these guys, went to the Gregorys’, had sex with them on the beach, went back up the house. Just comes right out and admits it. She says there were other people there, all kinds of commotion, she says. Couple of the Gregory boys were having a fight with each other, but the guys the girls was with kinda whisked them outta there before she could learn what that was all about. I show her the picture of Heidi and she can’t remember one way or another whether she seen her.”

Howard’s beer was gone. He looked at the can regretfully. I gave my own can to him and he gurgled it for me.

“Thing was,” he said when he was done, which took about two seconds, “thing that was different was that Leanne was still in touch with the guy she was with.”

“Mr. La-de-da.”

“Yeah, him.” Howard crushed the can. “I mean, it wasn’t him wanted them to leave after the beach thing. He knew a good thing when he seen it. It was the other guy, wanted to get rid of the fat girl. So Leanne gives La-de-da her phone number and the fucker calls her. Wants her to go down to New York to visit him.”

“I thought he lived in Connecticut.”

“She tells me New York,” Howard said, “and I tell her, next time he calls, I’d like to talk to him.”

He stopped then. He looked at the crushed can and dropped it on the grass next to his chair.

“And did you?” I prodded. “Talk to him, I mean.”

“Well, first I go back to the Gregorys’, start askin’ questions for real, because now I know there been at least a couple people at their place that night Heidi Telford gets killed.”

“Who did you ask?”

“I asked whoever was there, okay? The one with the babysitter, definitely him. And one other.”

“Could it have been Peter Martin?” I was surprised that my heart raced when I said the name.

“That little shit.”

“Peter’s a big guy.”

“He’s still a little shit. Mr. La-de-da’s friend, Mr. Ha-ha-ha.”

“He laughed at you?”

“Fuckin’ wise guy. Thinks he’s a fuckin’ duke or something just because he’s a fuckin’ Gregory.”

“But you didn’t put anything in the file about talking to him.”

“Okay, here’s the thing. Ned, that’s the guy with the babysitter, he admits to what he was doing. Asks me to keep it quiet unless I really have to use it. Obvious reasons, he says.”

“And you agreed?”

“Well, I talked to the chief. And the chief talked to Mr. Fuckhead, and everybody said all right, keep it quiet unless you need it. And then, like, nothing else came up so it went like, pfft, under the door.”

“Who’s Mr. Fuckhead?”

“The other guy there.” Howard closed one eye to help him concentrate. He put both arms on the arms of the lounge chair to ride out some particularly bumpy waves. “The real D.A., Mr. White.”

All right. So both Mitch and the chief at least knew the lead investigator was talking to the Gregorys. And both had to know there was nothing in the file about such talks. Pfft, as Howard had just said.