"Such as?"

"I have no intention of telling you,or anyone. Besides, Luke had been talking for months about killing himself,especially when he was in his cups."

"You said you hadn't been close to him formonths."

"No, but I got reports, from mutualfriends."

"Was Hoffman one of them?"

"Hardly. I didn't consider him a friend."

"Yet he hushed up your husband's suicide for you.Your husband's alleged suicide."

"He was ordered to. He had no choice."

"Who gave the order?"

"Presumably the Commissioner of Police. He was afriend of mine, and a friend of Luke's."

"And that made it all right for him to order thefalsification of records?"

"It's done every day," she said,"in every city in the land. Spare me your moralizing, Mr. Archer.Commissioner Robertson is long since dead. The case itself is a deadissue."

"Maybe it is to you. It's very muchon Hoffman's mind. His daughter's murder revived it."

"I'm sorry for both of them. But Ican't very well alter the past to accommodate some theory you may have. Whatare you trying to prove, Mr. Archer?"

"Nothing specific. I'm trying to findout what the dead woman meant when she said that Bridgeton had caught up withher."

"No doubt she meant something quiteprivate and personal. Women usually do. But as I said, I never knew HelenHoffman."

"Was she involved with yourhusband?"

"No. She was not. And please don'task me how I can be sure. We've scratched enough at Luke's grave, don't youthink? There's nothing hidden there but a poor suicide. I helped to put himthere, in a way."

"By cutting off his funds?"

"Precisely. You didn't think I was confessing toshooting him?"

"No," I said. "Would you like to?"

Her face crinkled up in a rather savage smile."Very well. I shot him. What do you propose to do about it?"

"Nothing. I don't believe you."

"Why would I say it if it wasn't true?" Shewas playing the kind of fantastic girlish game old women sometimes revert to.

"Maybe you wanted to shoot yourhusband. I have no doubt you did want to. But if you actually had, you wouldn'tbe talking about it."

"Why not? There's nothing you couldpossibly do. I have too many good friends in this city, official and otherwise.Who incidentally would be greatly disturbed if you persisted in stirring upthat old mess."

"Am I to take that as a threat?"

"No, Mr. Archer," she said withher tight smile, "I have nothing against you except that you're a zealotin your trade, or do you call it a profession? Does it really matter so muchhow people died? They're dead, as we all shall be, sooner or later. Some of ussooner. And I feel I've given you enough of my remaining time on earth."

She rang for the maid.

chapter22

I still had time for another try at EarlHoffman. I drove back toward his house, through downtown streets depopulated bythe Sabbath. The questions Mrs. Deloney had raised, or failed to answer, stuckin my mind like fishhooks which trailed their broken lines into the past.

I was almost certain Deloney hadn't killedhimself, by accident or intent. I was almost certain somebody else had, andthat Mrs. Deloney knew it. As for the suicide note, it could have been forged,it could have been invented, it could have been misread or misremembered.Hoffman would probably know which.

As I turned into Cherry Street, I saw aman in the next block walking away from me. He had on a blue suit and he movedwith the heavy forcefulness of an old cop, except that every now and then hestaggered and caught himself. I saw when I got closer that it was Hoffman. Theorange cuffs of his pajama legs hung below his blue trousers.

I let him stay ahead of me, through slumsthat became more blighted as we went south. We entered a Negro district. Theadult men and women on the sidewalk gave Hoffman a wide berth. He was walkingtrouble.

He wasn't walking too well. He stumbledand fell on his hands and knees by a gap-toothed picket fence. Some childrencame out from behind the fence and followed him, prancing and hooting, until heturned on them with upraised arms. He turned again and went on.

We left the Negro district and came to adistrict of very old three-storied frame houses converted into rooming housesand business buildings. A few newer apartment buildings stood among them, andHoffman's destination was one of these.

It was a six-story concrete structure witha slightly rundown aspect: cracked and yellowing blinds in the rows of windows,brown watermarks below them. Hoffman went in the front entrance. I could seethe inscription in the concrete arch above it: Deloney Apartments, 1928. Iparked my car and followed Hoffman into the building.

He had evidently taken the elevator up.The tarnished brass arrow above the elevator door slowly turned clockwise to

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009