A Matter of Time Read online

  Luckily, the fusor didn’t go, didn’t take out the agency’s headquarters. Instead, it just died.

  Major Votruba arrived as fire began gnawing at the cabinets containing the master programming disks. They, and the Zumstegs, were beyond salvage.

  For an instant he forgot everything the State had taught him. “Mother of God!” He crossed himself.

  For the first time in seventy years the State and agency would have to meet the future head-on, without foreknowledge.

  Despair soon gripped the Party hierarchy.

  IX

  On the Y Axis;

  1975

  Cash arrived early, but found John in ahead of him. Harald looked as though he hadn’t gotten much sleep.

  “What’d you get?” Cash asked.

  “Christ. I fought it out with a whole battalion of clerks down there, for almost nothing.” He opened his pocket notebook. “About the house. They started building it in 1868 or 1869, depending on who you ask, for two guys named Fian and Fial Groloch. Brothers? Anyway, these guys contracted the whole thing from New York. Never even came out to look at the land. Nobody knows for sure how they got Mrs. Tyler to let them build on her estate. Some people think that Henry Shaw arranged it, that he met them in Europe. If you want, I’ll dig into that. Shaw’s pretty well documented. Fian Groloch came out in sixty-nine to move in. He brought a man named Patrick O’Driscol with him. O’Driscol may have been wanted both in Ireland and New York. He seems to have been a Fenian, and a draft dodger during the Civil War, as well as hooked up with some shady people in New York. Fian also brought either a daughter or niece named Fiala....”

  “Where the hell did you get all this?” That wasn’t the sort of information kept in city records.

  With a sarcastic stress on the O in official, he said, “From the official historian of the Shaw Neighborhood Association. Old dingbat named Mrs. Caldwell. ‘Virginia, if you please.’ You might know her. She lives on Flora too. Her old man, a doctor, died in fifty-nine, left her a bundle. Keeping track of this kind of stuff is all she does. She’s got about three hundred diaries and a ton of papers and letters. Thrilled as hell when I showed up. The way she talks, she’s got enough to tell us every time a Groloch farted. She’s going to dig it up for us. They were great Groloch watchers in the old days. But don’t go to her house unless you got a good excuse to get the hell out again quick. She’ll drive you up the wall. Thinks she’s still nineteen....”

  “What else?”

  ‘Taxes are current. Paid in cash every year. I had a hassle with the IRS, but they did break down and admit she’s up to date with them. Pays quarterly estimates, by money order, on stock dividends that come to around twelve grand a quarter.”

  Cash whistled softly.

  “Yeah. Sweet. That’s about it, except they said she doesn’t collect Social Security. I’ll try to get a handle on her finances next. Banks and brokers. Utilities. Stuff like that.”

  He flipped his notebook shut, stared into space for a moment. “One other thing. O’Brien wasn’t the first disappearing Irishman.”

  “Eh?”

  “O’Driscol. He and Fiala had a thing going on for years, then he disappeared. I’m not sure this’s the same Fiala, by the way. Maybe her mother. I hope. Mrs. Caldwell didn’t say.

  “And what about this Fian, you ask? Just dropped out of sight, apparently sometime in the eighteen eighties. And a guy named Fial apparently never made it out from New York.”

  Cash had the feeling he had ridden the carousel too many times around. “Railsback put a hold on the corpse.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “So I thought we’d take her down. Spring it on her. While she’s off balance, we hit her with questions about the prints.”

  He hadn’t heard. Someone had slipped up. Or maybe not. It was Railsback’s style to play games. “The doll. They got a matching print.”

  “Oh, shit.” The vinegar went out of Harald. He dropped into the chair Railsback had used the previous afternoon, gripping its arms like an old person flying for the first time. Like me, Cash thought, screaming inside all the way, It’s going to crash, it’s going to crash. His face grew pale. His lips trembled. “That old. And now prints.”

  He changed. “Norm, somebody’s set this up. Somebody’s gone to one hell of a lot of trouble to cover a trail.” He had reached the limit of his credulity. His features became set. He wanted an alternate theory. Cash suspected that from now on he would edit all the facts to fit one he liked.

  That had to be aborted. The attitude could leak over into more mundane cases.

  “You were the guy who brought up the science-fiction angle to begin with.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. But I never thought we’d get backed into a corner where it was the only explanation left.”

  “It isn’t. Not yet. That print just proves she knew the guy. Hell, it doesn’t even prove that, really. It just proves that something he touched ended up in her wardrobe. He could’ve been a burglar. But it is circumstantial evidence that she hasn’t told us everything. Hey! Here’s an angle. Suppose he really is a descendant of the original Jack O’Brien? Say he came back to check on Grampa’s old flame?” The possibility had occurred to him on the way to work. “Or, if you want it bizarre, he could be her son and she’s kept him locked up since he was born.”

  “Come on, Norm. She’s fruity, but that’d take a genuine National Enquirer basket case. Anyway, his age isn’t right.”

  “Just a hypothesis. He could be her son but O’Brien’s grandson. How’s that for off the wall?”

  “There would’ve been rumors. You can’t keep babies a secret. They yell all night.” He said that bitterly. Cash now knew why he looked so haggard. His youngest had had a bad night.

  “Just trying to make the point that there’s still lots of possibilities. Probably a lot we haven’t even thought of yet. When we find one that fits all the physical evidence, we’ll have it whipped. Meanwhile, we just keep plugging.”

  That summed up Cash’s philosophy of detective work. No grandstanding, no Sherlock Holmes ingenuity. Like the ram, just keep butting your head against that dam. Sooner or later, something would give.

  “You dig some more this morning. I’ll arrange a viewing for this afternoon. Say around two.”

  “Okay.” Harald left in a hurry, as if glad to escape the speculations. Cash would have liked to have escaped himself. Miss Groloch and Jack O’Brien had driven his thoughts into some truly bizarre channels.

  He did not understand why, for sure, that everyone, even he, assumed the old woman was guilty... of something. If she were really as old as she seemed, might there be an alienness which could be sensed only subconsciously? A natural resentment on the part of the ego?

  “Heard you guys talking,” said Railsback, replacing Harald in the chair. “I think you ought to follow up on your theory.”

  A glance told Cash the chance that incest and/or genuine murder were involved seemed, to Railsback, a piece of spider’s silk thrown to a drowning man. He wanted logically neat, if morally outrageous, answers.

  Even if the evidence at the scene hadn’t suggested any direct connection with Fiala Groloch. Cash cautioned himself against grabbing for scapegoats, for easy outs.

  He dithered a while, pushing papers, then checked out and went to the convent.

  Sister Mary Joseph kept him waiting fifteen minutes, then appeared with a curt, “What is it this time?”

  Cash was startled. But even nuns had to have their bad days, he supposed.

  “A favor.”

  “And only I can help.”

  “We’re going out on a limb. If you’ll help, we’re going to try jarring some information loose from Miss Groloch. Seems like it’s the only way to get the whole story.”

  She crossed herself. “What would I have to do?”

  “We figured we’d bring her in to view the body. And have you there to see what happens.”

  “You should take her into the room with the rubber hose
s.”

  Cash shook his head. The sister seemed to have an overpowering, irrational hatred of the old lady.

  “All right. But these interruptions are getting to be a habit.”

  “I’m sorry. I really am. If there were some other way... Well, my partner, the young officer, will pick you up about one-thirty. I’ll try to have him call ahead so you’ll know exactly when.”

  “Do that.”

  Cash beat a hasty retreat, involved himself in some unrelated legwork, a call home, and his daily Big Mac.

  During the drive to Miss Groloch’s he caught himself listening to the dispatcher with a grim intensity, as if subconsciously hoping something would interfere with his complicated, makeshift scheme.

  Among other maneuvers, just this once, he had decided to bring Annie into the game.

  Miss Groloch no longer appeared pleased to have company, though she remained a polite and fussy hostess. She even asked if he would like to see anything special on the television she had been watching.

  The change was more marked in the behavior of her cat, who watched him warily, tail lashing, while he sipped tea, and sneaked amazed glances at the television. It had materialized overnight.

  “It’s my boss. Lieutenant Railsback. The woman claims the dead man’s her brother. He says that, being’s you’re the only other one we can find who knew him, you’ll have to come down and take a look too.”

  The woman was no fool. From her four-feet-ten she looked up and smiled a thin, I-don’t-believe-a-word smile. Well, so much for poor Hank, he thought. For once the horns and tail couldn’t be sloughed off on him. My turn in the barrel.

  But she didn’t call him on it. He suspected she had already decided that it would come to this and had elected for continued cooperation. Even if she were guilty of something, the net he was drawing closer had holes big enough for much larger fish to slip through.

  “Just let me get my hat and coat,” she said. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  To his surprise, that was all it took. As she returned, she said, “I hope you will understand if I’m nervous. I have not been anywhere in so long.”

  Her stepping-out togs, which included a parasol, confirmed her claim. Coat and hat were ancient, and looked it, though they weren’t threadbare. Cash thought his mother, at thirty, would have looked stylish in them. He hoped no one laughed. He was causing the woman enough distress as it was.

  “I look how?”

  His pause gave him away.

  “Behind the times, yes? I can see out my windows, Sergeant.” Her accent thickened. She smiled nervously. “Maybe, for my trouble, around the shops I should make you take me.”

  He groaned inwardly, dreading the chance. Annie was a window-shopping terror who drove him squirrely, and her wardrobe was up to date. Shopping with any of the women he knew sent him up the wall. His style was to decide what he wanted beforehand, get in, grab it, and get the hell out.

  His dread showed. “Not to fret,” she said. “Force you I won’t. Well, let us be off.” Her nervousness grew more intense.

  Cash glanced at his watch. He was running early. He led the way to the car, making sure he held doors and gates. Neighborhood children stared. Some ran to inform their mothers. Miss Groloch pretended not to notice.

  Cash was about to pull out when a truck stopped alongside him. A boy ran the afternoon paper to Miss Groloch’s door. No big thing, Cash thought, but proof she wasn’t completely out of touch.

  Cash’s home was just two blocks south and two east. He had to kill time. Miss Groloch had gotten ready far faster than expected.

  “This’s my home,” he told her as he rolled to the curb. “I’m going to pick up my wife. I thought you’d be more comfortable if she went with us.”

  She did not respond positively or negatively. All during the drive her gaze had been aflutter as she devoured the changes time had wrought on the neighborhood.

  “Is possible I can wait inside? Meaning no imposition.”

  “Of course.” She would feel exposed, Cash thought. He hurried around to her door, saying hello to a neighbor’s child on her way home from some special event at St. Margaret’s School. Another dozen children were in sight. Miss Groloch paid them no heed.

  He hoped Annie would be as slow as usual.

  She was, the mindreader.

  Miss Groloch prowled his living room like a cat in a strange environment, saying, when he offered her a chair and tea, “I’m too skittery. You don’t mind?”

  “No. Go ahead and look around.”

  She examined the television, apparently comparing it to her own, the telephone, a clock radio, and other impedimenta that had been developed or refined since she had gone into seclusion, and seemed especially intrigued by the concept of a paperback book. Several lay scattered about. Annie couldn’t work on just one at a time.

  “The kitchen? May I look?”

  “Sure. Sure. I like to show it off. Did it over myself, about five years ago. It was a real antique. Same icebox and stove as when we moved in in forty-nine.”

  Miss Groloch seemed amazed by the smooth, coilless surface of the electric stove, and by the freezer compartment atop the refrigerator.

  “So pretty. And convenient. And reliable? But wasteful, I suppose.”

  “Up here, someday, I’m going to put a microwave oven.”

  In moments he was doing all the talking, revealing plans of which even Annie was unaware. Time whipped past. He might have conducted the grand tour had Annie not decided it was time to go.

  Miss Groloch had not, till that moment, seen Cash’s wife. When she did, she peered at her queerly for a moment, then snapped her fingers. “The pears. Ripe pears from the tree beside the carriage house. I never did catch you, did I? “

  Annie’s eyes got big. One hand fluttered to her mouth. She grew more red than she had when Cash’s Uncle Mort, drunk as usual, had gone further than usual with his off-color remarks at Michael’s wedding reception. “Oh....” was all she could say, then and now.

  Cash frowned at each in turn.

  “Oh, she was a demon,” said Miss Groloch. “Bolder than any of the boys. They thought I was a witch, you know. She would climb the fence and steal the pears. The boys would hide in the alley behind the carriage house.”

  Cash looked at his wife, trying to picture her as a tomboy child. He didn’t doubt that she was guilty as charged. He decided not to tease her about it just yet, though. She looked frightened.

  A memory that good did seem witchy.

  Annie valiantly tried playing hostess all the way downtown, but couldn’t get into the role. She kept lapsing into long silences. For Cash’s part, he was thinking about carriage houses. Miss Groloch’s, and any neighboring pear tree, was gone now, but its location was interesting.

  He had seen Miss Groloch’s backyard. There was room for a carriage house in just one place. Against the alley where the body had been discovered.

  Had the carriage house been there still, there would have been little mystery in most of the physical evidence. The man could have stepped out and collapsed.

  The bustle of downtown did nothing to settle anyone’s nerves.

  John met them in the hallway outside the morgue. He looked grim.

  “Problems?” Cash asked.

  “I feel like a Fed trying to make a tax case against Tony G. The trails are invisible. And none of them lead anywhere anyway.” He then shut up. Miss Groloch was perturbed enough.

  Sister Mary Joseph, in full habit, was with the body, which could not be seen from the doorway. The same nervous attendant hovered nearby. He was a young black man who, likely, had gotten his job on patronage. He was clearly uncomfortable with his work. If he remained a good party man, though, he would soon move to something better.

  He was having trouble waiting.

  So was Sister Mary Joseph, in her way. She crossed herself when Miss Groloch entered.

  Cash wasn’t sure how he had expected the old woman to react. Certainly with more e
motion than she showed. But she had been forewarned, hadn’t she?

  “I will say this,” she said. “It certainly looks like Jack. Paler, thinner, and shorter than I remember him, but memory plays tricks. Uhm?”

  John removed the sheet, exposing the entire body.

  “Himmel! Is this a bad joke, Sergeant? He could pass as Jack’s double.”

  Cash and Harald turned to Sister Mary Joseph, who had been staring fixedly at Miss Groloch since her entry. The nun could not bring herself to speak. John signaled the attendant. The man produced the plastic bag containing the clothing and effects that had come with the corpse.

  Miss Groloch examined them carefully, but with distaste. Finally, “Sergeant, I think I am going to contact my solicitors.”

  Harald grinned, thinking they had her on the run.

  “Either you men, or his baby sister there, or someone you know, are doing what, I think, you Americans call the frame-up. Sergeant, I think you better take me home now.” She was cool and hard..

  John’s grin evaporated. Now she was an extra step ahead.

  “Is this, or is this not, Jack O’Brien?” Cash asked, using his Official tone. “I’m afraid I have to insist on an unequivocal answer.”

  “If this were fifty years ago, I would say yes. But this is 1975, Sergeant.”

  “Miss Groloch, there’re a lot of things here that look impossible. And I think you know what I mean. If this isn’t Jack O’Brien, then who is it?”

  “Sergeant, I don’t know. If you have any more questions, wait until I talk to my solicitors.”

  “Miss Groloch, we aren’t accusing anyone of anything. We don’t have to wait on lawyers. Now, it doesn’t seem possible to me that you can’t identify the man. You yourself gave us a doll that had his fingerprints on it. That, you have to admit, gives us some justification for asking questions.”

  Her face registered shock. She turned to the corpse once more, hardly listening as Cash kept on.

  “Now, we don’t know that any crime has been committed. We’re not saying one has. That’s what we’re trying to find out. You see? If we do find out, and you’ve been holding back, then you’ll have been an accessory. Do you understand that?” He paused a moment for it to sink in, though he wasn’t sure she was listening at all. “Look, I don’t like this any more than you do, but the man died weird. We have to find out how and why. And who he was. And you’re our only lead.”