NOBODY WAS HOME at Brendan Harris's address, so Sean called in, got two troopers to cover the place and call them when Harris returned.
They went to Mrs. Prior's house next, and sat through tea and stale coffee cakes and Touched by an Angel turned up so loud Sean could hear Della Reese in his head for an hour afterward screaming "Amen" and talking about redemption.
Mrs. Prior said she'd looked out her window around 1:30 A.M. the previous night, seen two kids playing in the street, little kids, out at a time like that, throwing cans at each other, fencing with hockey sticks, using foul language. She thought of saying something to them, but little old ladies had to be careful. Kids were crazy these days, shooting up schools, wearing those baggy clothes, using all that foul language. Besides, the kids eventually chased each other away and down the street and then they were someone else's problem, but the way they behaved today, I mean, is that any way to live?
"Officer Medeiros told us you heard a car around one-forty-five," Whitey said.
Mrs. Prior watched Della explain God's way to Roma Downey, Roma looking all solemn and dewy-eyed and filled to the brim with Jesus. Mrs. Prior nodded several times at the TV, then turned and looked back at Whitey and Sean.
"I heard a car hit something."
"Hit what?"
"The way people drive today, it's a blessing I don't have a license anymore. I'd be afraid to drive these streets. Everyone's just so mad."
"Yes, ma'am," Sean said. "Did it sound like a car hitting another car?"
"Oh, no."
"Hitting a person?" Whitey said.
"Good Lord, what would that sound like? I wouldn't even want to know."
"So it wasn't a really, really loud sound," Whitey said.
"Excuse me, dear?"
Whitey repeated himself, leaning in.
"No," Mrs. Prior said. "It was more like a car hitting a rock or a curb. And then it stalled and then someone said, 'Hi.'"
"Someone said, 'Hi'?"
"Hi." Mrs. Prior looked at Sean and nodded. "And then part of the car cracked."
Sean and Whitey looked at each other.
Whitey said, "Cracked?"
Mrs. Prior nodded her little blue head. "When my Leo was alive, he snapped the axle on our Plymouth? It made such a noise! Crack!" Her eyes grew bright. "Crack!" she said. "Crack!"
"And that's what you heard after someone said, 'Hi.'"
She nodded. "Hi and crack!"
"And then you looked out your window and saw what?"
"Oh, no, no," Mrs. Prior said. "I didn't look out my window. I was in my dressing gown by then. I'd been in bed. I wasn't looking out the window in my dressing gown. People could see."
"But fifteen minutes before, you'd-"
"Young man, I wasn't in my dressing gown fifteen minutes before. I'd just finished watching TV, a wonderful film with Glenn Ford. Oh, I wish I could remember the name."
"So you turned off the TV..."
"And I saw those motherless children in the street, and then I went upstairs and changed into my dressing gown, and then, young sir, I kept my shades drawn."
"The voice that said, 'Hi,'" Whitey said. "Was it male or female?"
"Female, I think," Mrs. Prior said. "It was a high voice. Not like either of yours," she said brightly. "You two have fine masculine voices. Your mothers must be proud."
Whitey said, "Oh, yes, ma'am. Like you wouldn't believe."
As they left the house, Sean said, "Crack!"
Whitey smiled. "She liked saying that, you know? Got some blood pumping in the old girl."
"You thinking snapped axle or gunshot?"
"Gunshot," Whitey said. "It's the 'Hi' that's throwing me."
"Would suggest she knew the shooter, she says hi to him."
"Would suggest. Wouldn't guarantee."
They worked the bars after that, coming away with nothing but boozy recollections of maybe seeing the girls in here, maybe not, and half-assed lists of possible patrons who'd been in at the approximate times.
By the time they got to McGills, Whitey was getting pissed.
"Two young chicks-and they were young, by the way, underage actually-hop up on this bar right here and dance, and you're telling me you don't recall that?"
The bartender was nodding halfway through Whitey's question. "Oh, those girls. Okay, okay. I remember them. Sure. They must have had great IDs, Detective, because we carded 'em."
"That's 'Sergeant,'" Whitey said. "You barely remembered they were here at first, but now you can remember carding them. You remember what time they left, maybe? Or is that selectively foggy?"
The bartender, a young guy with biceps so big they probably squeezed off the blood flow to his brain, said, "Left?"
"As in departed."
"I don't-"
"It was right before Crosby broke the clock," a guy on the stool said.
Sean glanced over at the guy-an old-timer with the Herald spread out on the bar between a bottle of Bud and a shot of whiskey, cigarette curling down into the ashtray.
"You were here," Sean said.
"I was here. Moron Crosby wants to drive home. His friends try to take his keys. Shithead throws them at them. He misses. Hits that clock."
Sean looked up at the clock over the doorway leading to the kitchen. The glass had spiderwebbed and the hands had stopped at 12:52.
"And they left before that?" Whitey asked the old-timer. "The girls?"
"About five minutes before," the guy said. "The keys hit the clock, I'm thinking, 'I'm glad those girls aren't here. They don't need to see that shit.'"
In the car, Whitey said, "You work up a timeline yet?"
Sean nodded, flipped through his notes. "They leave Curley's Folly at nine-thirty, do the Banshee, Dick Doyle's Pub, and Spire's in quick succession, end up at McGills around eleven-thirty, are inside the Last Drop at ten past one."
"And she's crashing her car about half an hour later."
Sean nodded.
"You see any familiar names on the bartender's list?"
Sean looked down at the list of Saturday night patrons the bartender at McGills had scribbled on a sheet of paper.
"Dave Boyle," he said aloud when he got to it.
"The same guy you were friends with as a kid?"
"Could be," Sean said.
"He might be a guy to talk to," Whitey said. "He thinks you're a friend, he won't treat us like cops, clam up for no good reason."
"Sure."
"We'll put him on tomorrow's to-do list."