“You’ll get confirmed,” Powder said again. “Everybody knows that.”
“What’s the question?”
“Strictly hypothetical,” Powder said.
“Yeah.”
“Well, let’s suppose that I am a computer guy.”
Tidmarsh raised his eyebrows.
“Now I cover the whole damn state of Indiana. I run—actually I work for the guy who runs—the state’s biggest central statistical computer service.”
“Part of the census department?”
“Yeah, sort of,” Powder said enthusiastically. “It’s a special big project based on that. So I have access, in principle, to all the personal data about people that Indiana has on formal records. And in practice, I can get into a lot of the other information banks around the state. Health stuff, spinoffs from the government census, credit ratings . . . all kinds of thing.”
Tidmarsh nodded slowly.
“Now, I just happen to have had a motorcycle accident when I was seventeen and I lost both my legs in it. And I also just happen to have some spare time at work.”
“OK.”
“So, instead of using my idle hours to go to roller discos, I work up a program which goes through the state records and calculates the life expectancy of people of my age, which is twenty-nine, who happen not to have any legs. Actually what I work on is people who have `mobility disablement,’ since `no legs’ isn’t one of the standard medical categories.”
Tidmarsh lifted his eyes and the lids fluttered for a moment. “All right,” he said. “An actuarial calculation. If you have the data . . . OK.”
“Data seems to be my middle name,” Powder said.
“And what do you find?”
“I get a result.”
“So what is the question?”
“Hang on,” Powder snapped. “So I get a number, right?”
“Right.”
“Now what the number shows is that I am likely to die earlier than guys not in wheelchairs, but there is a certain logic to that because some of the guys in wheelchairs aren’t very well guys. Not like me, who is bursting with pus and vinegar.”
“OK.”
“Now,” Powder said, “for reasons best known to myself I get the bright idea to try to apply my program to similar information for some other states. Maybe I’m thinking that the climate is better for guys with no legs elsewhere. I don’t know.”
Tidmarsh sat.
“Not all other states have the kind of system we’ve got here, but I manage to get into the records for five other states. Two in the Midwest, two in the Southwest, and one on the West Coast.”
“And?”
“And I get life expectancies for all of them that are bigger than the number in Indiana.”
“Are the differences statistically significant?”
“That’s a little bit gray, because I’ve had to fudge the comparison in two of the states, but if you take all five of the others together, then the difference between them and Indiana is significant to better than one in a hundred.”
“Which is significant,” Tidmarsh stated. “How big is the difference in the life expectancies?”
“Eleven months,” Powder said.
“Mmmm.”
“Now, I am a cranky guy,” Powder said. “Did I mention that?
Not without considerable charm when I care to trot it out, but I am considered a little nutso by my colleagues.”
Tidmarsh’s expression indicated a willingness to accept the statement.
“But I am also a pretty fair hand with a microchip, and I spend some time going through what I have already done to try to find some reasonable explanation.”
“Is there a difference in the life expectancies between Indiana and these other states for the general population?”
“I take all that into account. In fact, to the best of my knowledge what I have told you has already taken everything into account, everything I can think of.”
“Well . . .” Tidmarsh said. He leaned back in his chair. “So, why are you likely to die eleven months younger in Indiana than anywhere else?”
Powder’s face lit up with his pleasure. “I told you you were good!” he said. “Because I—that’s me the computer guy—I’ve been asking myself the same question. And I couldn’t answer it. So what I’ve done is try to see whether it is just me that’s going to die early. I’ve been working on this one for the last five months.”
“When did you do the original work?”
“In the three months before that.”
“And what have you got?”
“It’s not finished yet. I’ve only done the three easiest states to compare. Two Midwest and the West Coast.”
“But preliminarily?”
“What I am getting is that if I am disabled or a mental patient or in an old people’s home I am not going to live as long in Indiana as I will if I live somewhere else.”
“By how long?”
“About seven and a half months.”
“But significant?”
“Yes. On preliminary findings.”
Tidmarsh sat gravely for a moment. “How good a computer man are you, Powder?”
“I’m not capable of judging,” Powder said.
“Have you talked to other people about all this?”
“Well, that leads me to my next problem. The information I’ve been using out of the state data pool is restricted access. And I never had technical clearance for the other Indiana information. And, of course, I haven’t been authorized to go hacking into the pools of these other states. But on the other hand, I couldn’t just sit on all this, either, not once I really became sure of what I had.”
“So?”
“I took a guy at work aside, a guy I could trust, and I talked a bit to him.”
“And?”
“Last week I got fired.”
“Oh,” Tidmarsh said. “Why?”
“Unauthorized everything. Computer time, accessings.”
“So you couldn’t trust the man you thought you could trust?”
Powder pursed his lips. “So it seems, though it might only be that he alerted someone else accidentally. It’s not straightforward because I have this real personality problem that people where I work think I am a joker and a stirrer and a pain in the ass so maybe I wasn’t taken seriously.”
“So what about your project?”
“Don’t ask me how I managed it, but I have all my records and programs and everything I need to continue my work. Except the right mainframe computer.”
“What kind of computer would that be?”
“Your kind of computer,” Powder said.
“Ah.”
The two men sat in silence and stared at each other across the desk that divided them.
“What I am saying,” Powder said, “is that I think this guy ought to be seen.”
“You’ve seen him,” Tidmarsh said.
“But what do I know? About people, maybe. But not about computers or data pools or tests of statistical significances.”
“And suppose his work is correct,” Tidmarsh said.
“That is something else again,” Powder said. “Look. I didn’t think I had the right to ignore him.”
“I can’t conceive how I could get clearance for a civilian to use our mainframe.”
“I suppose not. But you’ll see him?”
“How did you come across this man, Powder?”
“He reads the papers too.”
Tidmarsh frowned.
“He saw Sergeant Fleetwood’s picture. Quite apart from having an eye for the ladies, he thought she might have a special interest in a diminished life expectancy for the mobility disabled.”
Chapter Three
Howard Haddix, a twenty-five-year-old hypochondriac with red crew-cut hair and a fine moustache, was the only person in the office when Powder returned. He was completing one of the department’s “short forms”—for registering someone as missing without initiating a search—
and didn’t notice Powder’s entry at first.
Powder came to Haddix’s shoulder and watched his work. He shook his head and made a short sucking sound. “Damn, I wish you were right-handed,” he said. “You lefties write so slowly.”
“Lieutenant?”
“Yeah?”
“There was a man looking for you five minutes ago. Some kind of lawyer.”
“For me? Specifically?”
“He had some kind of envelope and said that it was important that he see you personally. Carollee asked him if it was a subpoena, but he only said it was private business.”
“Why didn’t he wait?”
“We didn’t know how long you’d be gone, so Noble took him to the canteen to get some coffee. The guy said he had some calls to make anyway.”
“Where has Fleetwood rolled off to?”
“Detective Day Room. And I think she’s going down to the Print Shop after that.”
“And Swatts?”
“She wrote whatever it was in the log.”
Powder looked in the log and saw that Officer Swatts had gone to County Hospital to look at bodies.
“How’s your mother, Haddix?”
“Pretty well, thanks for asking,” Haddix said. “But I’m still having these attacks of light-headedness.”
“Great,” Powder said. He turned to the list of log entries and went through them. “It’s been a busy morning.”
“Not many we can do much about,” Haddix said.
Powder frowned at the concept. “We need more exposure,” he said.
“How about a missing persons cable TV station?”
Powder considered the suggestion.
“It was just a thought. Lieutenant.”
“Twenty-four hours a day, stories of the people we’re looking for. Interviews with the relatives. Celebrations for the ones who come home.” Powder rubbed his face with both hands. “You’re not as stupid as you look, are you, Howard?”
When Noble Perkins, a tall, pale young man of twenty-three with platinum-blond hair, returned to the office, he was alone.
“Thought you were nursemaiding somebody,” Powder said.
“I showed him where to get a cup of coffee and left him to drink it,” Perkins said.
“It’s polite to make conversation with visitors,” Powder said.
Perkins wrinkled his nose. “I’m not so hot on conversations.”
“You’re a stereotype of the computer age. Noble, do you know that?”
“I can’t help what I am. Lieutenant, and at least what I am has some things that can do some things.”
“True.”
“Like, I worked through for that police file you wanted. Sidney Arthur Sweet?”
“What did you get?”
“Nothing. He doesn’t have any record of any kind.”
“Good,” Powder said, feeling predisposed in favor of the kind of man who left notes regularly for his son.
A few minutes later Carollee Fleetwood appeared in the doorway.
“Hey, Powder,” she called, “that lawyer with the paternity suit caught up with you yet?”
Back-wheeling quickly, Fleetwood disappeared.
Almost immediately two stout men tried to get through the doorway at the same time. Then they both stepped back and gestured to each other to go first. After a moment, the invitations were accepted and they both stepped forward together again. It looked like a stylish-stout dance routine.
Finally the man in the dark suit persuaded the man in the green flannel shirt to go first.
Powder said in a low voice to Haddix, “Remind me to get the door widened.”
The flannel shirt strode up to the counter and said, “Hey, this where I find my uncle?”
“Depends which he is,” Powder said affably, looking around the room.
“I got this uncle, see, who quit his house and I want to find him.”
“How long ago was this?”
The man squinted in thought. “This was . . . eighteen year and seven month. Yes, seven.”
Powder stared at the man. “Was he reported to us as a missing person when he left in the first place?”
“No, no. He just go and leave his wife and his little girl.”
“So why are you looking for him now?”
The man drew himself up. “Because his little girl, my cousin, she is getting herself married and we decide in the family that the father ought to know something like that, maybe to give a present to the young couple, help them get started ’cause they’re not so well off.”
“And what makes you think we can find your uncle after all this time?”
“Hey, I didn’t say you can find him. He could be dead or something. But I read in the papers, we got this thing to be proud in Indianapolis, we find more missing people than anywhere else in the Midwest. So we say in the family, hey, we got a missing people. Why not let’s try? So that’s why I’m here.”
“When is the wedding?”
“End of July. We think June first, tradition, but July’s more time for arrangements. Now May. No rush, my cousin, you know? A good girl, a real good girl for a father to be proud of and be generous.”
Powder turned to Howard Haddix. “Do a long form on it,” he said. Then he moved down the counter and looked at the man in the dark suit. The man rose and came to face him.
“Are you Leroy Yount Powder?”
Powder studied the man.
“Are you Leroy Yount Powder?” the man asked again.
“Yes,” Powder said.
“Son of Martha Johnson Yount and Brendon Wilson Mallin Powder?”
“Look, what’s all this about?”
“Those were your parents’ names?”
“Yes.”
“I can see that you are a busy man, Mr. Powder. What this is about is that a relative of your late mother’s died recently and left you a substantial share of his estate.This letter”—the man produced an envelope from an inside pocket—“explains in full the relationship, details of the bequest, and what happens now. Rather than go into it here, I would ask that you read the contents and then get in touch with me in due course. Let me introduce myself. Jonathan Lindwall.”
The man extended his right hand for shaking.
Powder shook it.
The man extended his left hand with the envelope in it.
Powder took it.
Chapter Four
“Give me a break, Lieutenant—it’s lunchtime!”
“You’re too fat anyway.”
The parole officer sighed. “I just cannot give Richard much more latitude. He has become extremely lax regarding the terms of his parole. I have a certain amount of discretion, but I am already past my normal limit. Richard had all the conditions of his parole laid out in plain English and he agreed to meet them. But lately he’s missed reporting dates. He’s quit his job. I don’t even know for certain that he is still living at the address I’ve got for him. Whenever I call, he’s out. There is nothing I can do but send him a letter threatening to initiate proceedings to revoke his parole. What the hell do you expect?”
Powder telephoned his ex-wife soon after he left the parole office. He said, “All I could find out is that Ricky has broken several conditions of his parole.”
“He hasn’t . . . done anything, has he?” she asked, her voice bordering on the shrill.
“If he had done anything, I would have said `Ricky has done something.’ The basic problem is that his parole officer—”
“That’s that unsympathetic McClarron man?”
“McClarron, yes. McClarron hasn’t seen him. Doesn’t know where he is.”
“He’s staying with me!”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“I see him quite often.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Don’t you interrogate me, Leroy Powder.” After a moment she said, “I talked to him three days ago.”
“On the telephone?”
“Well ..
.”
“You haven’t seen him for, what? A month?”
“Not as long as that.”
“Three and a half weeks? It would have helped if you had said so when you told me about the letter. Damn, I should have known. He’s been gone so long you’re opening his mail now.”
“It looked official,” she said. “Maybe important.”
“You’re right,” Powder said. “It is important.”
“Maybe if you saw McClarron, face to face . . .”
“I did see McClarron face to face and if he doesn’t see Ricky face to face the kid’s going back to the joint.”
“There’s no call to use vulgar terms.”
“It’s a vulgar place.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do about it?”
“You can pass the message on. And you can ask our son why the hell he can’t do something as simple as show up to see his parole officer once a week.”
“He said he thought McClarron would be angry when he found out he had left his job.”
“So you knew about that too?”
“They were making life very unpleasant for him there, Leroy.”
“More unpleasant than prison?”
“If it wasn’t for you, he wouldn’t have gone to prison.”
“He would have managed to get there all by himself in due time. And a smart kid would have learned enough not to want to go back.”
“I would have thought that if anyone should know that all they do in prisons is teach each other different kinds of crimes, it’s you.”
“That’s not all they do in prisons,” Powder said quietly. “But I will grant you it doesn’t seem to have done him any good.”
“If you can admit you made a mistake it will be a pleasant change.”
“I didn’t say that I made a mistake.”
“Typical. You haven’t got any heart left at all, have you?”
“Just explain the situation in Dick and Jane words the next time Ricky deigns to telephone you.”
“Congratulations, Lieutenant!”
Powder stared at Sue Swatts, a tall, muscular, twenty-two-year-old woman with short brown hair, an engaging smile and an unpolicelike ability to remain cheerful in almost any situation. “What for?”
“I heard at lunch that you just inherited a million dollars or something.”
Late Payments Page 2