Free A Matter of Time by Glen Cook Page B

about three hundred diaries and a ton of papers and letters. Thrilled as hell when I showed up. The way she talks, she's got enough to tell us every time a Groloch farted. She's going to dig it up for us. They were great Groloch watchers in the old days. But don't go to her house unless you got a good excuse to get the hell out again quick. She'll drive you up the wall. Thinks she's still nineteen…"
     
    "What else?"
     
    'Taxes are current. Paid in cash every year. I had a hassle with the IRS, but they did break down and admit she's up to date with them. Pays quarterly estimates, by money order, on stock dividends that come to around twelve grand a quarter."
     
    Cash whistled softly.
     
    "Yeah. Sweet. That's about it, except they said she doesn't collect Social Security. I'll try to get a handle on her finances next. Banks and brokers. Utilities. Stuff like that."
     
    He flipped his notebook shut, stared into space for a moment. "One other thing. O'Brien wasn't the first disappearing Irishman."
     
    "Eh?"
     
    "O'Driscol. He and Fiala had a thing going on for years, then he disappeared. I'm not sure this's the same Fiala, by the way. Maybe her mother. I hope. Mrs. Caldwell didn't say.
     
    "And what about this Fian, you ask? Just dropped out of sight, apparently sometime in the eighteen eighties. And a guy named Fial apparently never made it out from New York."
     
    Cash had the feeling he had ridden the carousel too many times around. "Railsback put a hold on the corpse."
     
    "Yeah? So?"
     
    "So I thought we'd take her down. Spring it on her. While she's off balance, we hit her with questions about the prints."
     
    He hadn't heard. Someone had slipped up. Or maybe not. It was Railsback's style to play games. "The doll. They got a matching print."
     
    "Oh, shit." The vinegar went out of Harald. He dropped into the chair Railsback had used the previous afternoon, gripping its arms like an old person flying for the first time. Like me, Cash thought, screaming inside all the way,
It's going to crash, it's going to crash.
His face grew pale. His lips trembled. "That old. And now prints."
     
    He changed. "Norm, somebody's set this up. Somebody's gone to one hell of a lot of trouble to cover a trail." He had reached the limit of his credulity. His features became set. He wanted an alternate theory. Cash suspected that from now on he would edit all the facts to fit one he liked.
     
    That had to be aborted. The attitude could leak over into more mundane cases.
     
    "You were the guy who brought up the science-fiction angle to begin with."
     
    "Yeah. Yeah. But I never thought we'd get backed into a corner where it was the only explanation left."
     
    "It isn't. Not yet. That print just proves she knew the guy. Hell, it doesn't even prove that, really. It just proves that something he touched ended up in her wardrobe. He could've been a burglar. But it is circumstantial evidence that she hasn't told us everything. Hey! Here's an angle. Suppose he really is a descendant of the original Jack O'Brien? Say he came back to check on Grampa's old flame?" The possibility had occurred to him on the way to work. "Or, if you want it bizarre, he could be her son and she's kept him locked up since he was born."
     
    "Come on, Norm. She's fruity, but that'd take a genuine
National Enquirer
basket case. Anyway, his age isn't right."
     
    "Just a hypothesis. He could be her son but O'Brien's grandson. How's that for off the wall?"
     
    "There would've been rumors. You can't keep babies a secret. They yell all night." He said that bitterly. Cash now knew why he looked so haggard. His youngest had had a bad night.
     
    "Just trying to make the point that there's still lots of possibilities. Probably a lot we haven't even thought of yet. When we find one that fits all the physical evidence, we'll have it whipped. Meanwhile, we just keep plugging."
     
    That summed up Cash's philosophy of detective work. No grandstanding, no Sherlock Holmes