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exotic.
Garreth put back the tooth and turned his attention to the books.
Nonfiction outnumbered the fiction, but of the several hundred volumes
covering a wide range of subjects, including extraterrestrial visitors and
medical texts on viruses, only music, dancing, and folklore were represented
by any substantial number of books.
He glanced through the folklore. All the books contained sections on
vampires.
The publication dates of the library as a whole went as far back as 1919. A
couple of children's books-printed with large color plates tipped in and
black-and-white drawings, not the large print and easy vocabulary of the books
he bought to give Brian-bore inscriptions in the front: "To Mada, Christmas
1920, Mother and Daddy," and "To Mada, Happy Birthday, 1921, Mother and
Daddy." The ornate penmanship looked vaguely familiar.
He went on to check for inscriptions in the front of other books. A few had
them, written in varying hands with dates from the twenties to the
midseventies: "To Maida," "To Della," "To Delaine," "To Mala." Some were also
signed by the person giving the book, but never with more than a first name.
Mrs. Armour, peering over his shoulder, remarked, "It's odd that the books
are inscribed to so many different people, isn't it?"
"Maybe she bought them in used-book stores," Garreth said. Now, why, he
wondered almost immediately, had he covered for Lane? Guilt? Let no normal
human have the chance to discover what Lane is, for by giving that away, he
would give away himself, too?
He searched the desk. Not that he expected Harry or the lab boys to have
overlooked anything useful, but he wanted to make sure. A slim chance existed
that they might not recognize something as useful that he, with his special
knowledge, would. But he found nothing except blank writing paper and some
felt-tip pens . . . no checkbooks, canceled checks, credit card records, or
copies of tax returns.
Moving on to the kitchen, he found it as bare as Harry and Serruto had
described, nor did the bedroom yield him information aside from the fact that
she bought her clothes all over the world and with discrimination. He pursed
his lips thinking of the price tags that accompanied labels like those.
"Can you tell me what clothes might be missing?" he asked Mrs. Armour.
She frowned. "Now, how should I-well," she amended as he raised a brow, "I
guess I did peek in once. I think there used to be a blue Dior suit and some
English wool skirts and slacks hanging at the end there." She described those
and some other items in detail.
The dresser had been cleaned out. So had the bedside table and the bathroom
medicine cabinet.
"Can you think of anything usually in the apartment that you haven't seen
here today?" he asked.
From the bathroom doorway, Mrs. Armour considered the question. "I don't
know. I haven't been here all that often, you know."
"Keep looking around, will you, please?"
He could understand Lane destroying papers but he had trouble believing
that she would just walk away from all her personal belongings, an
accumulation that she had obviously brought with her through the sequential
changes of identity. She must have a few items too loved or revealing to be
left behind.
He headed back for the living room. It had more of her effects than any
other room. It also had the desk. He stared at it, pulled by some magnetism he
could not explain. A letter had been on that desk the first time he saw it. He
wished he had seen more than the address on it before Lane turned out the
light.
He tried to visualize the envelope in his mind, picturing the ornate
lettering. He paused. That was where he had seen the writing that matched that
on the flyleafs of the children's books.
A letter from Lane's mother! He ticked his tongue against his teeth in
excitement.
"I remember something," Mrs. Armour said. "There used to be two photographs
on that top shelf."
Photographs. He turned his full attention on her. "Do you remember what
they were?"
"One was of her grandparents. She never said so, but I assumed it. It was
very old, that brown color, you know, and the woman's hair and dress were
World War I style. I have a wedding picture of my parents that looks very much
like it. The other looked old, too . . . three little girls sitting on the
running board of a car."
An outdoor picture? "What was the background behind the car like?"
"Background?" She blinked. "Why, just a street, I think. Maybe there was a
house in it."
"What kind of house? Brick? Stone? Wood frame? Large or small?"
She stared at him. "Really, Inspector, I never paid that much attention. Is
it important?"
"Perhaps." Little girls might well include Lane as a child. A close look at
the background might have helped tell him where she came from . . . and where
she came from could give him someone who knew where Lane was now.
2
"I never thought we'd see you again, Inspector," Nikki said. The Barbary
Now barmaid set a glass of soda water in front of Garreth, eyeing him with
avid curiosity. "The cops who came in the other night, your partner and the
handsome one, said you'd been killed."
Garreth smiled thinly. "I was, but death was so boring I gave it up. Can
you stand to answer a few more questions about Lane Barber?"
She sighed. "Shit. More? I've told every frigging detective in the city
every damned thing I know . . . which is zip, nada. We never passed more than
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