A Matter of Time

by Glen Cook

  “Anything else?” he asked, knowing she would resent it, yet totally unable to think of any better course.

  “No. Bye then.” Her tone was disappointed. It always was. Damned, but he wished he knew how to give her more of whatever it was she wanted. Or that she could understand him a little better.

  “Bye.” He hung up with the inevitable feeling of relief.

  Beth still watched with those big brown eyes. They seemed to stare right down inside to those shadowed parts of his soul that were alien even to him. His own gaze slid away.

  Another bad habit. How come he had so much trouble meeting a woman’s eyes?

  Maybe he was the one who should make an appointment with the departmental shrink.

  “Uh... I’m going out. To see O’Brien’s sister.”

  Beth merely nodded. Then, as he was moving out the door,

  “Norm, I’ve got to have your LEA paperwork today.”

  “Aw, shit. Okay. I’ll get it when I get back. Oh. Do me another favor. See if you can track down Tommy O’Lochlain. So I can give him a call.”

  Beth sighed again. Cash went out thinking he should do something special for her. He had been dumping on her a lot this morning.

  Sister Mary Joseph was openly hostile this time around. Cash pretended not to notice. Maybe he should do something for her, too.

  “Just a couple questions this time,” he said. The answers should have been in the Carstairs file. The lieutenant must have carried on a remarkably narrow or uninformed investigation.

  “The day your brother vanished he stole twenty thousand dollars from the people he worked for.”

  He really needed go no further. Her surprise answered his question before he put it into words.

  “I wondered if he’d been home that day? If he had a package or briefcase or anything?”

  “Yes. He was there. For half an hour. To change and eat. He’d been away for three or four days. I told you that before. But he didn’t bring anything home. I don’t think. But I remember he was real happy. Excited.”

  “Tch. Yeah. Pretty much what I expected.” He took a deep breath, plunged. “I’m really sorry about all the trouble I’ve been. Can I do something, a gesture, you know, to make it up? Maybe have you to dinner some night?”

  Damn, it was hard making the feelings translate.

  She was surprised. Then a ghost of a smile flickered across her lips. “Thank you. I might take you up on that. Just to get even.”

  “Well, you’re welcome. Annie would love having you. Just give me a call at the station when you make up your mind.”

  “I will.” She reached out and touched the back of his hand. He returned to the station feeling good.

  “Mr. O’Lochlain is waiting for you to call him at home,” Beth told him, handing him a note. “Your friend from New York called back. He’s set it up with the state police, and he’ll get back to you in a couple days.” She handed him a second note. “I told him to ask them to check back a ways, that we have at least one other crime involving our Groloch here.”

  “Good thinking. Thanks.”

  “John called too. He says he’ll be getting the texts of those classifieds come lunch, and he picked up the historical research from Mrs. Caldwell.” She passed him another note, then a fourth. “Judge Gardner will see you in his chambers. Eleven-thirty.”

  “Ha! It’s moving. Beth, we’re closing in. I can feel it.”

  “Crap, Norm. Bet you dinner — you pick the place if you win — that none of this gets you an inch closer.”

  “You’re on,” he replied without thinking,, turning toward his office.

  “And get on that LEA stuff. You’ve only got an hour.”

  “All right. All right. Why don’t they hire somebody to take care of that crap?” Then he muttered, “Christ. Starting to think like a bureaucrat.” Paying someone to handle LEA paperwork would absorb half the district’s grant, making the whole thing just another exercise in governmental futility.

  He whipped through in time by faking half his data. Lieutenant Railsback was supposed to double-check and countersign before sending the stuff on for the captain’s signature, but Cash knew Hank would never see it. Beth would forge his John Hancock for him, with his blessing.

  Someday they were all going to get their tits caught in the wringer.

  “On my way out, Beth.” He tossed her the papers. “Don’t check them too close.”

  “Who gives a damn, Norm? They just file them. Remember that bet. I mean to collect.”

  Railsback shoved in the door. “Oh. Sorry, Norm. Well, I got what you wanted. Captain says we can polygraph everybody who had anything to do with the stiff, long as they’re willing. Only, you ain’t going to like the arrangements. Says we’ve got to do it on their time, meaning second shift, which is where most of them still are.”

  “Gah. Annie’s going to love that. When can I start?”

  “How about tonight? I want this done with. Oh, one other thing. If you start this, the captain says you have to go with it all the way. Meaning you, the kid, Smith, and Tucholski got to take the test too.”

  “O joy, O joy. All right. I’ll show the troops how. Be the first victim. Beth...”

  With one of her long-suffering sighs, she replied, “I’ll find the people and set it up, Norm. You want me to call your wife?”

  “No. I’ll handle that. No point you taking the shit for me. Look, Hank, I got to meet Judge Gardner at eleven-thirty.”

  “Okay. So go.”

  “Norm,” said Beth, “did you call Mr. O’Lochlain yet?”

  “What’re you doing messing around with that hood again?”

  “Damn. I clean forgot. I’ll do it from downtown.” Cash patted his pockets to make sure he had his keys and Beth’s notes.

  “I get tired of explaining about O’Lochlain,” Railsback grumbled.

  “He said he’d only be there till one.”

  “Okay. Okay. Bye, all.” He sailed down the hall with Hank glaring after him.

  He had trouble finding a parking place, so was five minutes late. The judge didn’t mind. “They’ve turned half of downtown into a parking lot the last ten years,” the man observed, “and still there’s no place to park. I have a theory that says building a parking space spontaneously generates two cars to compete for it. Sit down. Tell me about your case. The girl who called was pretty vague.”

  Good girl, Cash thought. “Probably nerves. She’s shy.” He began a quick outline while studying Gardner, whom he hadn’t seen for ten years.

  The man had aged well. He looked and sounded like a fiftyish Everett Dirksen. The most amazing thing about him, in Cash’s opinion, was that he refused to use his bench as a springboard to political office.

  Only the unicorn is more rare than the lawyer without political aspiration.

  Perhaps it was because he was so controversial. He had as many liberal enemies as he had conservative cheerleaders. And there was some sort of fiscal foul-up in his court which, while due only to clumsy administration, didn’t look good in the papers.

  “Hold it, Sergeant. Seems to me there was another officer here with the same story a while back.”

  “My partner. And you turned him down. But there’s been a new development.” He explained about the counterfeit money and outlined his other plans.

  “You’re coming out of left field and I think you know it. You want me to let you go looking for the money because you hope you’ll find something else. You know perfectly well that anything you found would be constitutionally questionable.”

  “I know. What I’m really after is a gap in the old lady’s story. She knows a lot more than she’s telling.”

  “They all do. That’s not the point. To be frank, I think you’re getting damned near harassment. I can’t do anything the way it stands. Suspicion of possession of counterfeit is a federal thing anyway. And I doubt if they’d be interested. First, statute of limitations. Second, you couldn’t pass one of the real bills nowadays.”r />
  “Well, if you can’t, you can’t. Thanks for your time.” Cash rose.

  “Hang on. First run out your other leads: O’Lochlain; these polygraph interviews. If you come up empty, and only if — no, if you get something supportive, too — call me back. I’ll see how I feel about it then. I go by intuition sometimes. But you make damned sure you’ve tracked that money, that you’ve eliminated all the other possibilities. You’d better check with the Secret Service, too. See what their attitude is.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Cash couldn’t help whistling as he waited for a down elevator.

  He grabbed a quick lunch at a chili joint four blocks east. His stomach didn’t know how to take it. It had grown accustomed to an endless progression of Big Macs. After browsing through a bookstore, picking out a couple mysteries as a peace offering to Annie — he had wanted The Dreadful Lemon Sky, but the clerk told him the paperback wasn’t due till September — he called home. Annie was more understanding than he had expected, though still irritated.

  “Norm, you’re scaring me.”

  “Eh? Why?”

  “Because you’re getting so involved in this. Almost obsessed.”

  “Hey. Not to worry, Hon. We’re just getting close. Smelling the kill. Anyway, it’s a lot more challenging than your usual family murder or gang killing.”

  “You’re making excuses.”

  He knew it, and had begun worrying a little himself.

  He said good-bye with a smile. She seemed to be having a good day. That was encouraging. She had so few anymore.

  “Norm! Hey!”

  He was stalking back to the courts building when John hailed him. He waited as Harald and the woman slipped through traffic, jay-walking.

  “Hi. You’re looking good, Teri.” She was. She had turned into a damned sexy woman. He envied John. “I appreciate what you’re doing for us. How have you been?”

  Trying to cover what he suddenly perceived as a tactical error, John interposed himself and began flashing papers. “Mrs. Caldwell’s stuff.”

  “Jesus.”

  The woman had done a hell of a job, typing everything up and inserting it into an Accopress binder. It ran more than fifty pages.

  “She really must be lonely.”

  It didn’t take much sensitivity to feel the scream for notice implicit in so much hard, unnecessary work. He would have to show his appreciation somehow.

  “She is. You got to feel sorry for her. But she comes on in a way that makes you look for excuses to get out.”

  “I know the type. Lot of old people get that way. You know, we’re piling up some debts on this one.”

  “You are. I haven’t been making any friends. In fact, I’ve about run out of angles.”

  “Yeah?” Cash grinned. “I’m just getting started. Got so much going today that I won’t have time for it all. Been driving Beth crazy.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Fifteen minutes. And I’ve still got a call to make.” He had come near forgetting O’Lochlain again.

  “I’ll catch you in the courtroom, then. It’s twelve, in Kiel.”

  “Right. Nice to see you again, Teri.” He chuckled as John hurried her away before she could strike up a conversation. She began giving him hell before they were out of earshot.

  The Fates were conspiring to make him late today. After finally getting change from the blind couple who ran the courts building canteen, he found the phones tied up. He got through to O’Lochlain barely in time.

  “Hey, Rookie. I’d given up on you. I’m on my way to the club now.”

  Couldn’t be too bad, being retired, Cash thought. Phone in his car yet. “I won’t tie you up long, Tommy. Remember what we talked about last time?”

  “O’Brien?”

  “Right. I wanted to go over some things again. Especially the twenty thousand. That ever turn up?”

  “No.”

  “Not even one bill?”

  “Not a one.”

  “How much looking did they do?”

  “Plenty. They covered every step he took from the train to the girl friend’s house. It disappeared when he did.”

  It seemed to Cash that, for twenty-thousand 1921 dollars, rough riders like Egan’s Rats would not have balked at manhandling Miss Groloch. “Anybody talk to the woman?”

  There was a long silence.

  “I take it they did. Come on, Tommy. What’s to worry now?”

  “I wasn’t in town, so I don’t know the details. The bet was that they got the cash and decided to vacation.”

  “Who?”

  “The two guys they finally sent in a couple weeks later. Only, when they never turned up, they sent a couple more to make sure.”

  “Four men? You mean a whole gang disappeared there?”

  “Five-guys if you count O’Brien. It was so spooky that after that they couldn’t get nobody to go ask the questions.”

  “Four more. Jesus. How come you didn’t tell me before?”

  “You didn’t ask. You got to ask, Rookie. Anyway, you was just interested in O’Brien. Look, we’re coming to the club. I got to go.”

  “Do me a favor. Just one more. Drop me a postcard. Just four names on it. Okay?”

  “I’ll think about it. Watch yourself, Rookie.” He hung up before Cash could respond.

  Norman first ascribed the disturbance to the chili. Then he remembered a time when his stomach had felt the same with nothing in it at all.

  He was sitting in a peasant shack in eastern France on December 17, 1944, supposedly safely behind the lines. He had been in France just two weeks. Somehow, during the night, he had lost his first patrol and himself. Exhausted, he had decided to hole up till morning before trying to find his unit.

  The only evidences of war were an abandoned German field telephone and a tiny wood stove the Krauts had made from a fuel can.

  A nagging sound from afar wakened him, a growling, metallic cling with overtones of squeak. Twice he tore himself away from the stove to look out across winter at nothing but skeletal, distant woods. The sky was so heavily overcast that nothing was in the air, and few shadows stalked the earth below. The third time he looked he saw the vague shapes of the winter-camouflaged Tigers and Panthers. The Fifth Panzer Army was on the move.

  The feeling was terror. Stark, unreasoning terror.

  Five men had vanished without a trace. He and John could have gone the same way....

  “Hey, buddy, you going to fart around all day?”

  He realized he had been staring into nothing for several minutes, reliving the past. He glanced at his watch. “Shit.” He was late already and still had two blocks to walk. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  The assistant prosecuting attorney scowled as Cash slipped into the pewlike courtroom bench next to John. The man was one of the young firebreathers, bound for political glory. The judge, defense attorney, and court staff barely glanced his way. The jury and other witnesses paid him no heed either.

  “Anything happened?” he whispered.

  “Still making speeches.” John handed him a manila envelope. It contained two-dozen Xeroxes of classified pages, Personals. The key item on each had been circled in red magic marker.

  Most began with a cryptic, “Thanks to St. John Nepomuk for favors received,” and a date, followed by two or three vaguely religious and completely uninformative lines.

  Nepomuk? Wasn’t that a Czech saint? Cash asked himself. There was a Czech Catholic church at Twelfth and Lafayette dedicated to him. Why would a German, especially one who showed no religious inclinations in her home, be invoking a Czech saint?

  Wait. Parts of Czechoslovakia... the Sudetenland, Bohernia. That had been Hitler’s excuse for invading Czechoslovakia — to liberate the German minority. People who spoke German, anyway. In fact, Czechoslovakia as a country only went back to the First World War, didn’t it?

  What was it before that? Part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But the part called Bohemia had
been an independent kingdom once. Prague was the capital. Hadn’t there been a Mad King Ludwig once? No, he had been king of Bavaria. Hadn’t he? Or was that Leopold? No, that was in Belgium....

  There were times when he wished he knew more. About everything.

  “The dates are important,” John whispered.

  Teri had gone to the bother of typing up a catalog list. Most of the dates, the earlier ones, were at regular six month intervals. But since March there had been four, at erratic intervals. Cash reread those ads. He couldn’t see where they varied significantly from the others, but their publication seemed timed to his encounters with Miss Groloch.

  “How’d she put them in?”

  John grinned. “Through her accountants. I did a little number on them this morning. Had to stretch the truth a little and hint that we were on a narcotics case. The boss finally admitted that he got his instructions by phone.”

  “But she doesn’t have one.”

  “There’s an outside pay phone at the service station at Russell and Thurman. Only two blocks. She called the man at home, late at night.”

  Cash laid a hand on John’s arm. Both prosecutor and judge were eying them in irritation. “Later.”

  He began browsing through Mrs. Caldwell’s report, which told him almost nothing he really wanted to know. It was thick because the woman had reproduced the entirety of dozens of letters or diary entries which mentioned the Grolochs only in passing.

  During the first few decades, when there had been few neighbors, there seemed to have been a great deal of traffic to and from the Groloch house, mainly the coming and going of tradesmen. Letters of the period remarked on the odd bent of the Grolochs’ interests. They were believed to be inventors, working with telegraphy, telephonies, or electricity. But Miss Groloch also seemed immensely interested in things medical.

  She received dozens of journals, many from Europe.

  Was invention the source of their fortune? Cash wondered. Was he going to have to undertake a stalk through patent records?