Page 9 (1/2)

"Can they keep you there beyond the maximum sentence? Isn't that a violation of due process?"

"Not if you're a very bad boy That sort of thing happens now and then You can go to prison for ninety days and still be inside forty years later"

"God," she said "I guess prison didn't rehabilitate hiot out in July So that's plenty of tiuess it's tih"

"And time to clip the story out of the paper and send it to ets off on fear, you know"

"It could still be a coincidence"

"How?"

"The e said last night A friend of hers knew you were her friend and wanted you to knohat had happened"

"And didn't send a note? Or put on a return address?"

"Soet involved"

"And the New York post on the couch and looking at Long Island City 's skyline "Maybe she didn't have your address Maybe she put the clipping in an envelope andhim or her to look up your address and send it on"

"That's pretty farfetched, isn't it?"

It had see dawn break Now it did look like a stretch

And it seeot back to es inI collected the letters I'd left behind the previous night There was some junk mail, and a credit-card bill, and there was an envelope with no return address and my name and address block-printed in ballpoint

It was the sa scribbled in the h, word for word The way you'll watch a sad old

United had a nonstop out of La Guardia at 1:45 that was due into Cleveland at 2:59 I put a clean shirt and a change of socks and underwear in a briefcase along with a book I was trying to read and took a cab to the airport I was early, but after I'd had a bite in the cafeteria and read the Ti to wait

We were on ti off and five minutes early at Cleveland-Hopkins International Hertz had the car I'd reserved, a Ford Teave me an area map with hter I followed her directions and made the drive in a little over an hour

On the way, it occurred to s you didn't forget how to do, because I'd done precious little of it in recent years Unless there was a ti, it had been over a year since I'd been behind a steering wheel Last October Jan Keane and I had rented a car and driven to the A weekend of turning leaves and folksy inns and Pennsylvania Dutch cooking It started off well but we'd been having our problems and I suppose the weekend was an atteht for five days in the country to carry Too ht, as it turned out, because ere sullen and sour with each other by the tiot back to the city We both kneas over, and not just the weekend In that sense you could say the trip accoh not anted it to

Police Headquarters in Massillon is housed in adon on Tremont Avenue I left the Tempo in a lot down the street and asked the desk officer for a Lieutenant Havlicek, who turned out to be a big ht in the gut and jowls He wore a brown suit and a tie with brown and gold stripes, and he had a wedding ring on the appropriate finger and a Masonic ring on the other hand

He had his own office, with pictures of his wife and children on his desk and fraroups on one wall He asked how I took ling three things when you called this ht You're with the NYPD?"

"I used to be"

"And you're working private now?"

"With Reliable," I said, and showed him a card "But this matter doesn't involve them, and I don't have a client I'ht tie in with an old case of mine"

"How old?"

"Twelve years old"

"Froht I arrested a man with a history of violence toomen He took a couple shots at ainst higravated assault The judge gave hiot into trouble in prison and didn't get out until four ot out at all"

"The warden at Dannemora says he killed two inmates for sure and was the odds-on suspect in three or four other ho around?" He answered his own question "Although there's a difference between knowing a uess that goes double inside a state penitentiary" He shook his head, drank some coffee "But how does he hook up with Phil Sturdevant and his wife? They weren't the kind of people who lived in the same world as him"

"Mrs Sturdevant lived in New York at the tie, and she'd been on the receiving end of some of Motley's violence"

"That's his name? Motley?"

"James Leo Motley Mrs Sturdevant- her name was Miss Cooper Motley of assault and extortion, and after sentencing he swore he'd get even with her"

"That's pretty thin That hat, twelve years ago?"

"About that"