Hope to Die

"You'll be fine."

"I guess I'm not expected to give them milk and cookies," she said, "so I don't suppose it matters if they're there or not. I mean if I know if they're there or not."

"I know what you mean."

"Thank you. It's a little weird being cooped up like this. I wanted to order a pizza, but I didn't know if I should, because you said not to open the door. Is it okay to open the door for a pizza delivery boy?"

I was begi

"No, of course not. I know it's tough for you."

"It's just being cooped up with nothing to do but listen to my own head. Oh, I know what I wanted to tell you!"

"What?"

"I almost forgot. Remember I was supposed to see if there was anything missing? Anything taken in the burglary and not returned?"

"And is there?"

"I think so," she said, "but I don't know if it means anything. I mean, it's not valuable or anything. So if it is missing, that doesn't mean anybody took it. It could just be lost."

"What is it, Kristin?"

"Do you know what rhodochrosite is?"

"A gemstone?"

"Well, I guess they call it semiprecious. Or maybe not even that. It's sort of a rosy pink, but… you know what? Why don't you come over here and I'll show you?"

"If it's missing," I said, "how can you show me?"

"It's an earring," she said.

"Oh."

"And that's how I knew it was missing, because there's only one of them left."

"Yes, of course." I looked at my watch. I'd been thinking of going to a meeting, but the hell with it. "I'll be right over," I said. "And make sure it's me before you open the door."

"I will. Oh, Mr. Scudder? Do you think… no, never mind, it's silly."

"Say it anyway."

"Well," she said, "do you suppose you could pick up a pizza?"

I'd seen the stone before, in shop windows, but I'd never known what it was called. It was rhodochrosite, she told me, and it wasn't valuable, it was too soft and too fragile, but she thought it was pretty.

"Very pretty," I agreed, and turned the earring over, examining it from different angles. The stone was smooth, cool to the touch, the clip silver.

"I bought them for her," she said, "while I was still at Wellesley, but I bought them here in New York, in a little shop on Macdougal Street. They're not there anymore, I guess they went out of business. They weren't expensive. Maybe thirty-five dollars? Under fifty, certainly. I gave them to her for her birthday."

"And she still had both of them when…"

"As far as I know. But, you know, it's real easy to lose an earring. Especially clip-ons. She'd had her ears pierced, and most of her earrings were for pierced ears, but these only came with clips, and I thought they were pretty, and she liked clips sometimes. But they're easier to lose. And she might not have wanted to say she lost one, because I gave them to her, you know? Or maybe she just didn't get around to mentioning it."

We were in the kitchen, a pizza box open on the table between us. She'd already eaten two slices and was working on a third. "When you want pizza," she said, "nothing else really does it."

It wouldn't have been my first choice, but I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, aside from a few handfuls of the popcorn Elaine bought as an accompaniment to Adam Sandler. It wasn't bad pizza.

I said as much, then held the earring to the light. "May I take this?"

"Yes, of course. Do you think…"

"That he took it? Probably not. But if we pick him up wearing it, it'll be interesting to hear him explain it."

THIRTY-TWO

I called Wentworth as soon as I got home, and was assured that he'd get the message. I don't know when he got it, but it was the next morning when I heard from him.

There was something in his voice I hadn't heard before, but I chalked it up to the hour and gave him my news. He was silent for a beat, and then he said, "An earring."

"One of a pair. Maybe it's nothing, and then again maybe he wanted a souvenir."

"Nadler, you mean."

"Of course."

" 'Of course.' Thing is, there's a problem. Nadler didn't do it."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean Seymour Nadler's a perfectly respectable psychiatrist who never even got caught jaywalking."

"That's not surprising, is it? We know he'd have to have a respectable front, and- "

"He's also got a respectable alibi. I spoke to him yesterday, couple of hours after I talked to you."

"And?"

"I would have liked to talk to him face to face. Mano a mano, you know? But I didn't figure my lieutenant would authorize the plane fare."

"What plane fare?"

"To Martha's Vineyard, which is where he and Mrs. Nadler have been for the past eight days. I had one hell of a time getting the number there from his fucking service. I guess I must have sounded crazy enough to be one of his patients, but eventually I convinced them I was worse than that, I was crazy enough to be a detective with the New York City Police Department."

"He's been there all this time?"

"Since a week ago yesterday. They go up every year, him and his wife, the last two weeks in August. Most shrinks take the whole month, he said, but he just takes two weeks in August, and then in February he spends two weeks in the Caribbean."

"He came back," I said. "He must have. He caught a flight to New York, killed Lia Parkman, and caught the next flight back."

"You know, believe it or not I thought of that possibility. I didn't think it made much sense, but it was worth a couple of phone calls. There's this little airline, has a schedule of flights between Teterboro Airport and the Vineyard. They're very cooperative, I don't think their employees have a whole lot to do, and they checked the passenger manifests for me. Nadler and his wife flew up right when he told me they did, and they're scheduled to fly back a week from now. And that flight up a week ago yesterday is the only one he's been on."

"Unless he used another name."

"They want to see photo ID these days, even the little puddle-jump operations. And there can't be more than eight people in total who work for this outfit, so how could you fly on it a couple days apart under two different names?"

"Then he found some other way to get to New York," I said.

"Because he must have."

"Yes."

"Because he's the one who killed Parkman, and you happen to know that for a fact."

I didn't say anything.

"It sounded very good," he said, "when you were spi

"Now wait a minute- "

"No, you wait a minute. What somehow slipped my mind is the fact that there's never been a damn thing to tie him to the people he's supposed to have killed. Why should he pick on the Hollanders? Because they've got money? He's got money himself, he's doing fine. Two weeks on the Vineyard, two weeks in Virgin Gorda- the guy's not living hand to mouth."

"That doesn't mean he doesn't want more."

"Still, make the co

"Bierman and Ivanko."

"Well, did he? Did he know Lia Parkman? Somebody did, somebody knew all those people and had some kind of reason to kill them, but I don't see any reason to figure it was Nadler. Because he picked a dead shrink's name for an alias? And only a shrink would do that, and he's a shrink, so it's gotta be him? Am I getting through here at all?"