Because ol’ Jack was gay.

Myron turned his focus back to Kiana. “Could you describe the man he was with?”

“Older—maybe fifty or sixty. White. He had this long dark hair and a bushy beard. That’s about all I can tell you.”

But Myron did not need more.

It was starting to come together now. It wasn’t there. Not yet anyway. But he was suddenly a quantum leap closer.

38

As Carl drove out, Esperanza drove in.

“Find anything?” Myron asked her.

Esperanza handed him a photocopy of an old newspaper clipping. “Read this.”

The headline read: CRASH FATALITY

Economy of words. He read on:

Mr. Lloyd Rennart of 27 Darby Place crashed his automobile into a parked car on South Dean Street near the intersection of Coddington Terrace. Mr. Rennart was taken into police custody under suspicion of driving while intoxicated. The injured were rushed to St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, where Lucille Rennart, Mr. Lloyd Rennart’s wife, was pronounced dead. Funeral services are to be arranged.

Myron reread the paragraph twice. “ ‘The injured were rushed,’ ” he read out loud. “As in more than one.”

Esperanza nodded.

“So who else was hurt?”

“I don’t know. There was no follow-up article.”

“Nothing on the arrest or the arraignment or the court case?”

“Nothing. At least, nothing I could find. There was no further mention of any Rennarts. I also tried to get something from St. Elizabeth’s, but they wouldn’t help. Hospital-patient confidentiality, they claimed. I doubt their computers go back to the seventies anyway.”

Myron shook his head. “This is too weird,” he said.

“I saw Carl heading out,” Esperanza said. “What did he want?”

“He came by with a maid from the Court Manor. Guess who Jack Coldren was linking up with for a little afternoon delight?”

“Tonya Harding?”

“Close. Norm Zuckerman.”

Esperanza tilted her head back and forth, as though sizing up an abstract work at the Met. “I’m not surprised. About Norm anyway. Think about it. Never married. No family. In public, he always surrounds himself with young, beautiful women.”

“For show,” Myron said.

“Right. They’re beards. Camouflage. Norm is the front man for a major sports fashion business. Being a known gay could destroy him.”

“So,” Myron said, “if it got out that he was gay …”

“It would hurt a lot,” Esperanza said.

“Is that a motive for murder?”

“Sure,” she said. “It’s millions of dollars and a man’s reputation. People kill for a lot less.”

Myron thought about it. “But how did it happen? Let’s say Chad and Jack meet up at the Court Manor by accident. Suppose Chad figures out what Daddy and Norm are up to. Maybe he mentions it to Esme, who works for Norm. Maybe she and Norm …”

“They what?” Esperanza finished. “They kidnap the kid, cut off his finger, and then let him go?”

“Yeah, it doesn’t mesh,” Myron agreed. “Not yet anyway. But we’re getting close.”

“Oh sure, we’re really narrowing down the field. Let’s see. It could be Esme Fong. It could be Norm Zuckerman. It could be Tad Crispin. It could be a still-alive Lloyd Rennart. It could be his wife or his kid. It could be Matthew Squires or his father or both. Or it could be a combination plan of any of the above—the Rennart family perhaps, or Norm and Esme. And it could be Linda Coldren. How does she explain the gun from her house being the murder weapon? Or the envelopes and the pen she bought?”

“I don’t know,” Myron said slowly. Then: “But you may be on to something here.”

“What?”

“Access. Whoever killed Jack and cut off Chad’s finger had access to the Coldren house. Barring a break-in, who could have gotten hold of the gun and the stationery supplies?”

Esperanza barely hesitated. “Linda Coldren, Jack Coldren, maybe the Squires kid, since he liked to crawl in through the window.” She paused. “I guess that’s it.”

“Okay, good. Now let’s move on a little. Who knew that Chad Coldren was at the Court Manor Inn? I mean, whoever kidnapped him had to know where he was, right?”

“Right. Okay, Jack again, Esme Fong, Norm Zuckerman, Matthew Squires again. Boy, Myron, this is really helpful.”

“So what names show up on both lists?”

“Jack and Matthew Squires. And I think we can leave Jack’s name off—his being the victim and all.”

But Myron stopped for a moment. He thought about his conversation with Win. About the naked desire to win. How far would Jack go to guarantee victory? Win had said that he would stop at nothing. Was he right?

Esperanza snapped her fingers in his face. “Yo, Myron?”

“What?”

“I said, we can eliminate Jack Coldren. Dead people rarely bury murder weapons in nearby woods.”

That made sense. “So that leaves Matthew Squires,” Myron said, “and I don’t think he’s our boy.”

“Neither do I,” Esperanza said. “But we’re forgetting someone—someone who knew where Chad Coldren was and had complete access to the gun and stationery supplies.”

“Who?”

“Chad Coldren.”

“You think he cut off his own finger?”

Esperanza shrugged. “What about your old theory? The one where the kidnapping was a hoax that went out of control. Think about it. Maybe he and Tito had a falling-out. Maybe it was Chad who killed Tito.”

Myron considered the possibility. He thought about Jack. He thought about Esme. He thought about Lloyd Rennart. Then he shook his head. “This is getting us nowhere. Sherlock Holmes warned that you should never theorize without all the facts because then you twist facts to suit theories rather than theories to suit facts.”

“That never stopped us before,” Esperanza said.

“Good point.” Myron checked his watch. “I gotta go see Francine Rennart.”

“The caddie’s wife.”

“Yup.”

Esperanza went sniff, sniff.

“What?” Myron asked.

One more big sniff. “I smell a complete waste of time,” she said.

She smelled wrong.

39

Victoria Wilson called on the car phone. What, Myron wondered, did people do before the car phone, before the cell phone, before the beeper?