Free The Missing and the Dead: A Bragg Thriller by Jack Lynch

guest."
    "Was the man from Coast West that you spoke to named Jerry Lind?"
    "Something like that. He came around a few days after it happened. Couldn't tell him much more than I'm telling you. The snatch was on a Wednesday evening, when we're open till nine. One of the guards just noticed on his rounds that somebody had cut the thing right out of its frame. It was simple enough to do. The painting was on treated canvas."
    "How big was it?"
    "It was a little larger than the other Pavel pieces. About twenty by thirty inches. Showed a woman looking over a porchrailing as if she'd just seen her little boy swallowed up by a hay baling machine."
    The Horace Day Hospital was two blocks from the Sears store on Geary. At a little before noon I was lounging around the third-floor corridor. I was in time to see the girl Laurel Benson had described coming into work. She bordered on the petite, but had a brisk manner.
    "Miss Westover?"
    "Yes?"
    I opened my wallet. "My name's Peter Bragg. Jerry Lind's secretary over at Coast West said you might be able to help me on a matter."
    The small girl in white glanced around, looked in the doorway of a nearby room and motioned me in. It was unoccupied. Donna Westover closed the door and turned like a young lynx.
    "What is this? Are you working for his wife?"
    "No, his sister. Did you know that he's missing?"
    It surprised her. "No, I didn't."
    "When was the last time you saw him?"
    "He was in the hospital last December."
    "That isn't what I asked."
    "What you asked isn't really anybody's business, is it?"
    "Suppose he's lying dead somewhere, Miss Westover? Then the last few months of his life would be police business. Maybe I can keep it from going that far if people cooperate. So maybe I've learned Jerry was seeing other women. It doesn't exactly scandalize me. All I want to do is find him. Honest."
    Her mouth softened a little. "What is it you want to know?"
    "When was the last time you saw him?"
    "Three or four weeks ago."
    "Can you pin it down any closer?"
    She took a wallet out of her purse and looked at a calendar. "Friday, three weeks ago."
    That had been a week before Lind dropped out of sight. "What did you do?"
    "We had dinner together."
    "That's all?"
    "That's all you're going to hear about. I'll admit that I saw him from time to time. I thought he was cute. But I don't intend to tell you anything more than that. I don't know where he is, and I don't know what happened to him."
    "I'll accept that. But I'd like to know if you went to bed with him."
    "You're out of your mind."
    "It would help if I could learn he was apt to do that."
    "You can believe he was apt to do that, or at least to try. Whether or not he did with me I won't tell you. It doesn't matter now anyway."
    "What makes you say that?"
    "Anything we might have had between us is finished."
    "You quarreled?"
    "No, we didn't quarrel. He just phoned one night to tell me it was all over. He said he'd been chatting with an old art school pal about his life, and had decided to give another try to being an honest husband. That's how he put it. As if I had tainted him somehow."
    "Don't let it bother you, if it still does. From what I've learned about Jerry, and what I've seen of you, I think you could do a whole lot better."
    "Thanks so much. Anything else?"
    "Yes. When did he phone to tell you this?"
    "That one's easy. It was a Monday evening, a week after our last date."
    "You're sure of that?"
    "Yes. Unlike most people I try not to repress the bad in my life. I had to work the entire following week after the dinner we had together. Two other girls on the floor were out sick. Jerry andI had a dinner date for the next Tuesday evening. I was looking forward to it. But he phoned just the night before. It was the shining end to a wonderful work week."
    "Did he call from in town here?"
    "I wish he had. He called collect. I accepted because I figured he was stuck somewhere without change. And of course I didn't know then he was about to call