Part 81 (1/2)

moment he had mentioned the night her brother had died her eyes had gone

blank and her body had stiffened. Instinct told him she had seen or

heard something, but her memory of that night was already bluffed. It

was peopled with monsters and snarling shadows.

He didn't care to admit that breaking the case depended on a terrified

six-year-old whose memory of that night, according to the psychologists

he'd interviewed, might never return.

There was still the pizza man, Lou thought grimly. It had taken him two

days to locate the right shop and the clerk who'd been working the

graveyard s.h.i.+ft. He'd remembered the order for fifty pizzas, and had

considered it a joke. But he'd also remembered the name of the person

who'd placed the order.

Tom Fletcher, a session musician who played both alto and tenor sax, had

had a yen for pizza that night. It had taken weeks to track him

down, and weeks more to put through the paperwork to bring the musician

back from his gig in Jamaica.

Lou preferred pinning his hopes there. Whoever had been in Darren's

room hadn't come back down the main stairs or climbed out of the window.

That left the kitchen stairs where Tom Fletcher had been trying to

convince the night clerk to deliver fifty pizzas with everything.

”Hey, Dad, that was the best.” Michael dragged his feet on the sidewalk

to give himself a few more moments. He pulled open the door of his

father's '68 Chevelle, craning his neck to look at the upper windows of

the building at his back. ”The guys are going to go nuts when I tell

them. It's okay to tell them now, right? Everybody knows you've got

the case.”