"I don't understand the issue,"Jerry said, but he edged between us as if he expected trouble. He touched myshoulder. "Let's get out of here, Lew, and let the doctor get about hisbusiness. He's cooperated beautifully and you know it."

"Who with? Bradshaw?"

Codwin's face turned pale. "My first duty is tomy patients."

"Even when they murder people?"

"Even then. But I know Roy Bradshawintimately and I can assure you he's incapable of killing anyone. Certainly hedidn't kill Constance McGee. He was passionately in love with her."

"Passion can cut two ways."

"He didn't kill her."

"A couple of days ago you were telling me McGeedid. You can be mistaken, doctor."

"I know that, but not about Roy Bradshaw. The manhas lived a tragic life."

"Tell me about it."

"He'll have to tell you himself. I'm not a juniorC-man, Mr. Archer. I'm a doctor."

"What about the woman he recently divorced, Tishor Letitia? Do you know her?"

He looked at me without speaking. Therewas sad knowledge in his eyes. "You'll have to ask Roy about her," hesaid finally.

chapter29

On his way to the courthouse to questionMcGee, Jerry dropped me at the harbor, where my car had been left sitting. Themoon was higher now, and had regained its proper shape and color. Its lightconverted the yachts in the slips into a ghostly fleet of Flying Dutchmen.

I went back to my motel to talk to MadgeGerhardi. She had evaporated, along with the rest of the whisky in my pintbottle. I sat on the edge of the bed and tried her number and got no answer.

I called the Bradshaw house. Old Mrs. Bradshawseemed to have taken up a permanent position beside the telephone. She pickedup the receiver on the first ring and quavered into it:

"Who is that, please?"

"It's only Archer. Roy hasn't come home, hashe?"

"No, and I'm worried about him,deeply worried. I haven't seen him or heard from him since early Saturdaymorning. I've been calling his friends—"

"I wouldn't do that, Mrs. Bradshaw."

"I have to do something."

"There are times when it's better to do nothing.Keep still and wait."

"I can't. You're telling me there's somethingterribly wrong, aren't you?"

"I think you know it."

"Does it have to do with that dreadful woman—thatMacready woman?"

"Yes. We have to find out where sheis. I'm pretty sure your son could tell me, but he's made himself unavailable.Are you sure you haven't seen the woman since Boston?"

"I'm quite certain. I saw her only once, when shecame to me for money."

"Can you describe her for me?"

"I thought I had."

"In more detail, please. It's veryimportant."

She paused to think. I could hear herbreathing over the line, a faint rhythmic huskiness. "Well, she was quitea large woman, taller than I, red-haired. She wore her hair bobbed. She hadquite a good figure, rather lush, and quite good features, too—a kind of brassygood looks. And she had green eyes, murky green eyes which I didn't like atall. She wore very heavy makeup, more appropriate for the stage than thestreet, and she was hideously overdressed."

"What was she wearing?"

"It hardly seems relevant, aftertwenty years. But she had on a leopardskin—an imitation leopardskin coat, as Irecall, and under it something striped. Sheer hose, with runs in them.Ridiculously high heels. A good deal of costume jewelry."

"How did she talk?"

"Like a woman of the streets. Agreedy, pushing, lustful woman." The moral indignation in her voice hardlysurprised me. She had almost lost Roy to the woman, and might yet.

"Would you know her if you saw her again, indifferent clothes, with her hair perhaps a different color?"

"I think so, if I had a chance to studyher."

"You'll have that chance when we find her."

I was thinking that the color of a woman'seyes was harder to change than her hair. The only green-eyed woman connectedwith the case was Laura Sutherland. She had a conspicuously good figure andgood features, but nothing else that seemed to jibe with the description of theMacready woman. Still, she might have changed. I'd seen other women changeunrecognizably in half the time.

"You know Laura Sutherland, Mrs. Bradshaw?"

"I know her slightly."

"Does she resemble the Macready woman?"

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009