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"How do you s in that room you won’t want to look at"

"I know that"

"And that’s why you have to"

"That’s right"

I finished my coffee I put the cup down and took a deep breath "Yeah," I said, "I’ll give it a shot"

He settled into his chair, took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one It was his first since he’d walked in Soarette when they’re tense, others when the tension passes He was looser now, and looked as though he felt he had acco

I had a new cup of coffee in front of es filled inon the sas I would never need to know about his daughter But any of the things he said uess which ita man had to say

So I learned that Wendy was an only child, that she had done well in high school, that she had been popular with her classirl, not sharply defined, but a picture that would eventually have to find a way of blending with one of a slashed-up whore in a Village apartment

The picture started to blur when she went away to college in Indiana That was evidently when they began to lose her She overnraduate she packed a suitcase and disappeared

"The school got in touch with us I was very worried, she had never done anything like this before I didn’t knohat to do Then we had a postcard She was in New York, she had a job, there were sos she had to work out We had another card several months after that from Miami I didn’t knohether she haduntil the telephone rang and they learned she was dead She was seventeen when she finished high school, twenty-one when she dropped out of college, twenty-four when Richard Vanderpoel cut her up That was as old as she was ever going to get

He began telling ain in more detail from Koehler Na bothered me, and I let it sort itself out in my mind

He said, "The boy who killed her Richard Vanderpoel He was younger than she was He was only twenty" He frowned at a memory "When I heard what happened, what he had done, I wanted to kill that boy I wanted to put hihtened into fists at the recollection, then opened slowly "But after he coed inside me It struck me that he was a victim, too His father is a minister"

"Yes, I know"

"A church in Brooklyn somewhere I had an impulse I wanted to talk to the ht want to say to him Whatever it was, after a moment’s reflection I realized I could never have that conversation And yet-"

"You want to know the boy In order to know your daughter"

He nodded

I said, "Do you knohat an Identikit portrait is, Mr Hanniford? You’ve probably seen them in newspaper stories When the police have an eyewitness, they use this kit of transparent overlays to piece together a composite picture of a suspect ’Is this nose like this? Or is this one er? Wider? How about the ears? Which set of ears comes the closest?’ And so on until the features add up to a face"

"Yes, I’ve seen how that works"

"Then you’ve probably also seen actual photographs of the suspect side by side with the Identikit portraits They never seem to resemble one another, especially to the untrained eye But there is a factual reseood use of it Do you see what I’hter and the boy who killed her I’ up enough facts and impressions to make composite Identikit portraits for you, but the result may not be all that close to what you really want"

"I understand"

"You want o ahead?"

"Yes Definitely"

"I’encies They’d work for you either per diem or on an hourly basis Plus expenses I take a certain amount of money and payrecords I also don’t like writing reports, or checking in periodically when there’s nothing to say for the sake of keeping a client contented"

"How much money do you want?"

I never kno to set prices How do you put a value on your time when its only value is personal? And when your life has been deliberately restructured to minie the man who forces you to involve yourself?

"I want two thousand dollars fro this will take or when you’ll decide you’ve seen enough of the dark roo the way, or after it’s over Of course you always have the option of not paying me"

He smiled suddenly "You’re a very unorthodox businessman"

"I suppose so"

"I’ve never had occasion to hire a detective, so I don’t really kno this is usually done Do you mind a check?"

I told hiured out what had been bothering me earlier I said, "You never hired detectives after Wendy disappeared fro before we received the first of the two postcards I’d considered hiring detectives, of course, but once we knew she was all right I dropped the idea"