The Sins of the Fathers

There were tears in their corners. "I only hope he did," he said. "I only hope he did."

Chapter 8

I got out of bed while the sky was still dark. I still had the same headache I'd gone to bed with. I went into the bathroom, swallowed a couple of aspirins, then forced myself to put in some time under a hot shower. By the time I was dry and dressed, the headache was mostly gone and the sky was starting to brighten up.

My head was full of fragments of conversation from the night before. I'd returned from Brooklyn with a headache and a thirst, and I'd treated the second more thoroughly than the first. I remember a sketchy conversation with Anita on Long Island-the boys were fine, they were sleeping now, they'd like to come in to New York and see me, maybe stay overnight if it was convenient. I'd said that would be great, but I was working on a case right now. "The cobbler's children always go barefoot," I told her. I don't think she knew what I was talking about.

I got to Armstrong's just as Trina was going off duty. I bought her a couple of stingers and told her a little about the case I was working on. "His mother died when he was six or seven years old," I said. "I hadn't known that."

"Does it make a difference, Matt?"

"I don't know."

After she left I sat by myself and had a few more drinks. I was going to have a hamburger toward the end, but they had already closed the kitchen. I don't know what time I got back to my room. I didn't notice, or didn't remember.

I had breakfast and a lot of coffee next door at the Red Flame. I thought about calling Hanniford at his office. I decided it could wait.

The clerk in the branch post office on Christopher Street informed me that forwarding addresses were only kept active for a year. I suggested that he could check the back files, and he said it wasn't his job and it could be very time-consuming and he was overworked as it was. That would have made him the first overworked postal employee since Benjamin Franklin. I took a hint and palmed him a ten-dollar bill. He seemed surprised, either at the amount or at being given anything at all besides an argument.

He went off into a back room and returned a few minutes later with an address for Marcia Maisel on East Eighty-fourth near York Avenue.

The building was a high-rise with underground parking and a lobby that would have served a small airport. There was a little waterfall with pebbles and plastic plants. I couldn't find a Maisel in the directory of tenants. The doorman had never heard of her. I managed to find the super, and he recognized the name. He said she'd gotten married a few months ago and moved out. Her married name was Mrs. Gerald Thal. He had an address for her in Mamaroneck.

I got her number from Westchester Information and dialed it. It was busy the first three times. The fourth time around it rang twice and a woman answered.

I said, "Mrs. Thal?"

"Yes?"

"My name is Matthew Scudder. I'd like to talk to you about Wendy Hanniford."

There was a long silence, and I wondered if I had the right person after all.

I'd found a stack of old magazines in a closet of Wendy's apartment with Marcia Maisel's name and the Bethune Street address on them. It was possible that there had been a false connection somewhere along the way-the postal clerk could have pulled the wrong Maisel, the superintendent could have picked the wrong card out of his file.

Then she said, "What do you want from me?"

"I want to ask you a few questions."

"Why me?"

"You lived in the Bethune Street apartment with her."

"That was a long time ago." Long ago, and in another country. And besides, the wench is dead. "I haven't seen Wendy in years. I don't even know if I would recognize her. Would have recognized her."

"But you did know her at one time."

"So what? Would you hold on? I have to get a cigarette." I held on. She returned after a moment and said, "I read about it in the newspapers, of course. The boy who did it killed himself, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"Then why drag me into it?"

The fact that she didn't want to be dragged into it was almost reason enough in itself. But I explained the nature of my particular mission, Cale Hanniford's need to know about the recent past of his daughter now that she had no future. When I had finished she told me that she guessed she could answer some questions.

"You moved from Bethune Street to East Eighty-fourth Street a year ago last June."

"How do you know so much about me? Never mind, go on."

"I wondered why you moved."

"I wanted a place of my own."

"I see."

"Plus it was nearer my work. I had a job on the East Side, and it was a hassle getting there from the Village."

"How did you happen to room with Wendy in the first place?"

"She had an apartment that was too big for her, and I needed a place to stay.

It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"But it didn't turn out to be a good idea?"

"Well, the location, and also I like my privacy."