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lap.
    â€œNow’s your chance,” I said. “Make a break for it.”
    After Elmer made his escape, Pearl and I sat on the couch for a while until I was sure Elmer hadn’t hurt her feelings. Then I took her to Susan’s house. Susan was seeing patients on the first floor. Pearl ran up the stairs to the second floor where Susan lived. When I opened the door she raced into Susan’s bedroom, jumped on the bed, clamped onto one of the pillows, and subdued it ferociously. Her self-esteem seemed intact. I gave her a cookie, made sure there was water, left a note on the front hall table for Susan, and went to Manchester.

8
    S et well back from the road, on a corner lot, devoid of foundation plantings, the Rowley house was as big and costly and ugly as anything north of Boston. Post-modern, the designer probably said. The look of the twenty-first century without sacrificing the values of the past, he probably insisted. I thought it looked like a house assembled by a committee. There were dormers and columns and niches, and peaks and porches and round windows and a roof line that fluctuated like my income. In the front yard there were no flowers, shrubs, or trees. Just a long dull inexpensive sweep of recently cut grass, traversed by a hot top driveway that led to a turnaround apron in front of the garage. It was as if they’d run out of money after the house was built. The place was painted an exciting white. With imaginative gray shutters.
    I parked around the corner on the side street where Icould see Rowley’s driveway through the shade trees along the road. I played my new Gerry Mulligan/Chet Baker CD. I sang along a little with Chet. They’re writing songs of love, but not for me . . . Then I played Lee Wiley and Bobby Hackett. At 4:30 in the afternoon a silver Lexus SUV came down the street and pulled into the driveway. It parked at the head of the driveway and Marlene got out, carrying a pale pink garment bag. A dark maroon Chevy sedan came down the street in the same direction Marlene had come from, and turned in onto my side street. The driver looked at me carefully as he passed. I read his registration in my rearview mirror, a trick that always impressed people, and wrote it down. Maybe fifty yards up the street he U-turned and parked behind me.
    We sat. I listened to some Dean Martin. I always thought he sounded like me. Susan has always said he didn’t. Some starlings were working the lawn in front of the Rowleys’ house, and two chickadees. I turned Dean down, and called Frank Belson on my car phone and got shuffled around the homicide division for about five minutes before I got him.
    â€œCan you check a car registration for me,” I said.
    â€œOf course,” he said. “I welcome the chance to do real police work.”
    â€œDon’t let them push you around at the Registry,” I said, and gave him the number and hung up. In my rearview mirror I could see the guy behind me on his car phone. I smiled. Pretty soon we’d know each other’s name. I listened some more to Dino, and watched the birds foraging on the lawn some more until Belson called me back.
    â€œCar’s registered to the Templeton Group, one hundred Summer Street,” Belson said.
    â€œCompany car,” I said.
    â€œUnless there’s some guy walking around named Templeton Group.”
    â€œYou know what the company does?”
    â€œI figured you’d ask so I used a special investigative tool known only to law enforcement.”
    â€œYou looked them up in the phone book.”
    â€œI did. Detective agency.”
    â€œOf course it’s a detective agency,” I said.
    â€œYou owe me two martinis and a steak,” Belson said.
    â€œPut it on my account,” I said.
    â€œThere’s no room left on your account,” Belson said and hung up.
    I called Rita Fiore.
    â€œCone, Oakes use a particular detective agency?” I