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"Let us know if we can bring you anything."
"I will."
Judy had paused to restore the papers fallen from the table. Looking at one sketch, she gave a little sniff
and almost smiled. "Know who this looks like to me? I met him once, when he was trying to get Kate to
go on a skiing weekend with him. Craig Walworth."
FIFTEEN
You didn't just find upper-crust society in the Chicago phone book, of course. But if you were in the
police department you knew a number to dial to be told the address of someone with an unlisted phone.
Alone after dropping Judy and Clarissa off in Glenlake, driving on south toward the Loop's sky-notching
towers, Joe considered for the dozenth time why he shouldn't just lay Craig Walworth's name on Charley
Snider. The main reason, he decided, was his feeling that the evil old man wanted him to do just that.
Why else had the old man brought the name up out of nowhere when they were alone?Who is Craig
Walworth? Damn the old man to hell, anyway, for asking that and then disappearing. So there was no
real Walworth-connection to be pointed out to Charley. One question, from someone who was very
clever and not to be trusted; and one sketch that might look a little like Craig Walworth but had evidently
been discarded because it didn't look too much like the bearded kidnapper.
When they had given Joe his days off to mourn for Kate, they hadn't specifically warned him to keep
from muddling up the Southerland investigations by doing any poking around on his own. The captain
evidently hadn't thought him dumb enough to need a warning of that kind. Well, he wasn't dumb. And he
wasn't getting into the investigation, he told himself now. He was only trying to get it clear in his own mind
whether there might be anything that could tie Craig Walworth into it.
While driving Judy home he had questioned her casually as casually as he could manage about that
skiing weekend invitation. Judy had been very definite that Kate had never accepted any proposition like
that from Craig Walworth. But Judy would say that now, anyway, just to spare Joe's feelings.
When he reached the tall apartment building on Lake Shore Drive, Joe had a qualm about using his
police ID to get in. He compromised by using it and then telling the doorman he wanted to see Walworth
on personal business. The doorman, an old-timer whose badly fitting jacket suggested he might just have
been called out of retirement, told him, sure lieutenant, that's okay, I'll watch your car, just leave it in the
drive. I'll just give him a buzz to let him know you're coming. Oh, yes, the ID helped.
Joe went up alone in the small elevator, up to a small marbled foyer where someone's old raincoat hung
covering a mirror or picture. He touched a bell button beside a dark door of massive wood, that
reminded him of yesterday's broken-in front door. A lean old fellow like Corday, wiry-strong or not,
could hardly have done that without a sledge . . .
Walworth himself came to answer the door. And Judy had been right about the sketch, it hadn't been far
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off at all in depicting this man's face. The dark hair and even the short beard were messed up now.
Walworth was wearing a loose, short, very fancy robe of some kind, his hairy, muscular arms and legs
protruding. He had the look of someone just out of bed, even to the puffiness around the eyes. He also
looked a little jumpy. But a great many perfectly innocent people looked jumpy when you came on as the
police.
"If you're a cop," said Walworth in a voice whose loudness sounded habitual, "come in and get it the hell
over with, whatever it is."
"Thanks." Joe came in, let Walworth close the door behind him. The palatial apartment was a littered
mess, evidently from last night's party. "But like I said, it's not police business. I just wondered if I could
have a word with you about Kate. Sorry I got you up."
"Kate?" The dumb look might be genuine.
"Kate Southerland."
"Oh. Oh, yeah. Sure. Terrible. What can I tell you? I hardly knew her." Walworth picked up a
half-empty bottle, frowned at it, put it down. No doubt the maid, or a battalion of maids, would soon be
along to see that it was disposed of.
Joe said: "You see, I had asked her to marry me."
"Oh," said Walworth, and his face went through several changes of expression, the first of which looked
like genuine surprise. None of the expressions seemed likely to be helpful. "I'm very sorry," he thought of
saying finally.
"Yeah. Well, I just wondered if you could tell me about what happened the last night she was here." Joe
had designed this question, or statement, with great care, and had rehearsed it on the long drive down
from Glenlake.
"Here?" For a moment, consternation. "But she was neverhere ."
Joe had also rehearsed his next step, to be taken after this anticipated denial; but before he could put his
plans for further probing into effect, he heard a door opening and closing somewhere down a hallway.
"Craig?" The one tentative word in a softly feminine voice preceded the girl around a corner and into the
room. She came wearing a cloud of red hair almost the color of fresh copper wire, and a large green
towel wrapped around her body from armpits to hips. She had a green-eyed pixie face, with an
upturned, freckle-sprinkled nose that made her look so young thatstatutory jailbait was the first
thought or anyway the second that sprang into Joe's police-trained mind. But she could have been six
months or a year past eighteen.
"Craig?" Her voice was still soft but Joe could tell now, watching her sober face, that there was intense
anger driving it. "Where did you put my clothes?"
Walworth gave Joe a look that seemed to be meant as an appeal for man-to-man solidarity in this
situation. Then, shaking his head, the host walked out of the room in the direction the girl had come from.
Now looking at Joe, the girl in the green towel announced, in a different though still distant voice: "My
name is Carol."
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"I'm Joe."
"Joe, could I ask you to give me a lift? It won't be very far."
"Sure. I've got a car."
Carol continued to look at him, as if daring him to try to say something about the towel. He had nothing
funny available, even if he had wanted to try. He walked over to one floor-to-ceiling window and looked
out through the thick protective glass at the Drive twenty stories below, a strip of snowbound park
beyond, and then the winter-blackened lake, a rim of white snow and broken ice extending outward from
the shore a hundred yards or so. A very dull December day. What day was it, Wednesday?
He would try to pump the girl a bit before he decided whether to come back to Walworth, or to give
Walworth's name to Charley Snider, or just what to do.
In about one minute Walworth was back in the room, carrying an armful of assorted garments.
Wordlessly Carol accepted these, meanwhile maintaining her towel's position carefully. The she went out
the way that she had come, silent pink feet sinking into carpet. Her legs were very nice.
Walworth paced the floor, showing no inclination to say anything more to Joe. Once he stopped to pick
up a stray bottle, take a drink from it and grimace. All right, Joe told him silently, you've answered my
question. You'll find out about it if I decide your answer doesn't stick.
Before Joe had begun to expect her, Carol was back in the living room with them, wearing boots and
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