Vince nodded as if such childishness was exactly what he'd come to expect of his managing editor, then took up the thread of his story once more. "George the Artist, be he Rankin or Franklin, told Arla that Jim had pretty much reached the top end of that which his talent was capable, and he was one of the fortunate people who not only knew his limitations but was content with them. He said Jim's remaining ambition was to someday head Mountain Outlook's art department. And, given that ambition, cutting and running for the New England coast on the spur of the moment is just about the last thing he would have done."

"But she thought that's what he did do," Stephanie said. "Isn't it?"

Vince put his coffee cup down and ran his hands through his fluff of white hair, which was already fairly crazy. "Arla Cogan's like all of us," he said, "a prisoner of the evidence.

"James Cogan left his home at 6:45 AM on that Wednesday to make the drive to Denver by way of the Boulder Turnpike. The only luggage he had was that portfolio I mentioned. He was wearing a gray suit, a white shirt, a red tie, and a gray overcoat. Oh, and black loafers on his feet."

"No green jacket?" Stephanie asked.

"No green jacket," Dave agreed, "but the gray slacks, white shirt, and black loafers was almost certainly what he was wearing when Johnny and Nancy found him sittin dead on the beach with his back against that litter basket."

"His suit-coat?"

"Never found," Dave said. "The tie, neither-but accourse if a man takes off his tie, nine times out of ten he'll stuff it into the pocket of his suit-coat, and I'd be willin to bet that if that gray suit-coat ever did turn up, the tie'd be in the pocket."

"He was at his office drawing board by 8:45 AM," Vince said, "working on a newspaper ad for King Sooper's."

"What-?"

"Supermarket chain, dear," Dave said.

"Around ten-fifteen," Vince went on, "George the Artist, be he Rankin or Franklin, saw our boy the Kid heading for the elevators. Cogan said he was goin around the corner to grab what he called 'a real coffee' at Starbucks and an egg salad sandwich for lunch, because he planned to eat at his desk. He asked George if George wanted anything."

"This is all what Arla told you when you were driving her out to Tinnock?"

"Yes, ma'am. Taking her to speak with Cathcart, make a formal identification of the photo-'This is my husband, this is James Cogan'-and then sign an exhumation order. He was waiting for us."

"All right. Sorry to interrupt. Go on."

"Don't be sorry for asking questions, Stephanie, asking questions is what reporters do. In any case, George the Artist-"

"Be he Rankin or Franklin," Dave put in helpfully.

"Ayuh, him-he told Cogan that he'd pa.s.s on the coffee, but he walked out to the elevator lobby with Cogan so they could talk a little bit about an upcoming retirement party for a fellow named Haverty, one of the agency's founders. The party was scheduled for mid-May, and George the Artist told Arla that her mister seemed excited and looking forward to it. They batted around ideas for a retirement gift until the elevator came, and then Cogan got on and told George the Artist they ought to talk about it some more at lunch and ask someone else-some woman they worked with-what she thought. George the Artist agreed that was a pretty good idea, Cogan gave him a little wave, the elevator doors slid closed, and that's the last person who can remember seeing the Colorado Kid when he was still in Colorado."

"George the Artist," she almost marveled. "Do you suppose any of this would have happened if George had said, 'Oh, wait a minute, I'll just pull on my coat and go around the corner with you?' "

"No way of telling," Vince said.

"Was he wearing his coat?" she asked. "Cogan? Was he wearing his gray overcoat when he went out?"

"Arla asked, but George the Artist didn't remember," Vince said. "The best he could do was say he didn't think so. And that's probably right. The Starbucks and the sandwich shop were side by side, and they really were right around the corner."

"She also said there was a receptionist," Dave put in, "but the receptionist didn't see the men go out to the elevators. Said she 'must have been away from her desk for a minute.'" He shook his head disapprovingly. "It's never that way in the mystery novels."

But Stephanie's mind had seized on something else, and it occurred to her that she had been picking at crumbs while there was a roast sitting on the table. She held up the forefinger of her left hand beside her left cheek. "George the Artist waves goodbye to Cogan-to the Colorado Kid-around ten-fifteen in the morning. Or maybe it's more like ten-twenty by the time the elevator actually comes and he gets on."

"Ayuh," Vince said. He was looking at her, bright-eyed. They both were.

Now Stephanie held up the forefinger of her right hand beside her right cheek. "And the counter-girl at Jan's Wharfside across the reach in Tinnock said he ate his fish-and-chips basket at a table looking out over the water at around five-thirty in the afternoon."

"Ayuh," Vince said again.

"What's the time difference between Maine and Colorado? An hour?"

"Two," Dave said.

"Two," she said, and paused, and said it again. "Two. So when George the Artist saw him for the last time, when those elevator doors slid shut, it was already past noon in Maine."

"a.s.suming the times are right," Dave agreed, "and a.s.sume's all we can do, isn't it?"

"Would it work?" she asked them. "Could he possibly have gotten here in that length of time?"

"Yes," Vince said.

"No," Dave said.

"Maybe," they said together, and Stephanie sat looking from one to the other, bewildered, her coffee cup forgotten in her hand.

16.

"That's what makes this wrong for a newspaper like the Globe," Vince said, after a little pause to sip his milky coffee and collect his thoughts. "Even if we wanted to give it up."

"Which we don't," Dave put in (and rather testily).

"Which we don't," Vince agreed. "But if we did...Steffi, when a big-city newspaper like the Globe or the New York Times does a feature story or a feature series, they want to be able to provide answers, or at least suggest them, and do I have a problem with that? The h.e.l.l I do! Pick up any big-city paper, and what do you find on the front page? Questions disguised as news stories. Where is Osama Bin Laden? We don't know. What's the President doing in the Middle East? We don't know because he don't. Is the economy going to get stronger or go in the tank? Experts differ. Are eggs good for you or bad for you? Depends on which study you read. You can't even get the weather forecasters to tell you if a nor'easter is going to come in from the nor'east, because they got burned on the last one. So if they do a feature story on better housing for minorities, they want to be able to say if you do A, B, C, and D, things'll be better by the year 2030."

"And if they do a feature story on Unexplained Mysteries," Dave said, "they want to be able to tell you the Coast Lights were reflections on the clouds, and the Church Picnic Poisonings were probably the work of a jilted Methodist secretary. But trying to deal with this business of the time..."

"Which you happen to have put your finger on," Vince added with a smile.

"And of course it's outrageous no matter how you think of it," Dave said.

"But I'm willing to be outrageous," Vince said. "h.e.l.l, I looked into the matter, just about dialed the phone off the d.a.m.n wall, and I guess I have a right to be outrageous."

"My father used to say you can cut chalk all day, yet it won't never be cheese," Dave said, but he was also smiling a little.

"That's true, but let me whittle a little bit just the same," Vince said. "Let's say the elevator doors close at ten-twenty, Mountain Time, okay? Let's also say, just for the sake of argument, that this was all planned out in advance and he had a car standin by with the motor running."

"All right," Stephanie said, watching him closely.

"Pure fantasy," Dave snorted, but he also looked interested.

"It's farfetched, anyway," Vince agreed, "but he was there at quarter past ten and at Jan's Wharfside a little more than five hours later. That's also farfetched, but we know it's a fact. Now may I continue?"

"Have on, McDuff," Dave said.

"If he's got a car all warmed up and waiting for him, maybe he can make it to Stapleton in half an hour. Now he surely didn't take a commercial flight. He could have paid cash for his ticket and used an alias-that was possible back then-but there were no direct flights from Denver to Bangor. From Denver to anyplace in Maine, actually."

"You checked."

"I did. Flying commercial, the best he could have done was arrive in Bangor at 6:45 PM, which was long after that counter-girl saw him. In fact at that time of the year that's after the last ferry of the day leaves for Moosie."

"Six is the last?" Stephanie asked.

"Yep, right up until mid-May," Dave said.

"So he must have flown charter," she said. "A charter jet? Are there companies that flew charter jets out of Denver? And could he have afforded one?"

"Yes on all counts," Vince said, "but it would've cost him a couple of thousand bucks, and their bank account would have shown that kind of hit."

"It didn't?"

Vince shook his head. "There were no significant withdrawals prior to the fella's disappearance. All the same, that's what he must have done. I checked with a number of different charter companies, and they all told me that on a good day-one when the jet stream was flowing strong and a little Lear like a 35 or a 55 got up in the middle of it-that trip would take just three hours, maybe a little more."

"Denver to Bangor," she said.

"Denver to Bangor, ayuh-there's noplace closer to our part of the coast where one of those little burners can land. Not enough runway, don'tcha see."

She did. "So did you check with the charter companies in Denver?"

"I tried. Not much joy there, either, though. Of the five companies that flew jets of one size n another, only two'd even talk to me. They didn't have to, did they? I was just a small-town newspaperman lookin into an accidental death, not a cop investigating a crime. Also, one of em pointed out to me that it wasn't just a question of checking up on the FBOs that flew jets out of Stapleton-"

"What are FBOs?"

"Fixed Base Operators," Vince said. "Chartering aircraft is only one of the things they do. They get clearances, maintain little terminals for pa.s.sengers who are flyin private so they can stay that way, they sell, service, and repair aircraft. You can go through U.S. Customs at lots of FBOs, buy an altimeter if yours is busted, or catch eight hours in the pilots' lounge if your current flyin time is maxed out. Some FBOs, like Signature Air, are big business-chain operations just like Holiday Inn or McDonald's. Others are seat-of-the-pants outfits with not much more than a coin-op snack machine inside and a wind-sock by the runway."

"You did some research," Stephanie said, impressed.

"Ayuh, enough to know that it isn't just Colorado pilots and Colorado planes that used Stapleton or any other Colorado airport, then or now. For instance, a plane from an FBO at LaGuardia in New York might fly into Denver with pa.s.sengers who were going to spend a month in Colorado visiting relatives. The pilots would then ask around for pa.s.sengers who wanted to go back to New York, just so they wouldn't have to make the return empty."

"Or these days they'd have their return pa.s.sengers all set up ahead of time by computer," Dave said. "Do you see, Steff?"

She did. She saw something else as well. "So the records on Mr. Cogan's Wild Ride might be in the files of Air Eagle, out of New York."

"Or Air Eagle out of Montpelier, Vermont-" Vince said.

"Or Just Ducky Jets out of Washington, D.C.," Dave said.

"And if Cogan paid cash," Vince added, "there are quite likely no records at all."

"But surely there are all sorts of agencies-"

"Yes, ma'am," Dave said. "More than you could shake a stick at, beginning with the FAA and ending with the IRS. Wouldn't be surprised if the d.a.m.n FFA wasn't in there somewhere. But in cash deals, paperwork gets thin. Remember Helen Hafner?"

Of course she did. Their waitress at the Grey Gull. The one whose son had recently fallen out of his treehouse and broken his arm. She gets all of it, Vince had said of the money he meant to put in Helen Hafner's pocket, and what Uncle Sam don't know don't bother him. To which Dave had added, It's the way America does business.

Stephanie supposed it was, but it was an extremely troublesome way of doing business in a case like this one.

"So you don't know," she said. "You tried your best, but you just don't know."

Vince looked first surprised, then amused. "As to tryin my best, Stephanie, I don't think a person ever knows that for sure; in fact, I think most of us are condemned-d.a.m.ned, even!-to thinking we could have done just a little smidge better, even when we win through to whatever it was we were tryin to get. But you're wrong-I do know. He chartered a jet out of Stapleton. That's what happened."

"But you said-"

He leaned even further forward over his clasped hands, his eyes fixed on hers. "Listen carefully and take instruction, dearheart. It's long years since I read Sherlock Holmes, so I can't say this exactly, but at one point the great detective tells Dr. Watson somethin like this: 'When you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left-no matter how improbable-must be the answer.' Now we know that the Colorado Kid was in his Denver office buildin until ten-fifteen or ten-twenty on that Wednesday morning. And we can be pretty sure he was in Jan's Wharfside at five-thirty. Hold up your fingers like you did before, Stephanie."

She did as he asked, left forefinger for the Kid in Colorado, right forefinger for James Cogan in Maine. Vince unlocked his hands and touched her right forefinger briefly with one of his own, age meeting youth in midair.

"But don't call this finger five-thirty," he said. "We needn't trust the counter-girl, who wasn't run off her feet the way she would have been in July, but who was doubtless busy all the same, it bein the supper-hour and all."

Stephanie nodded. In this part of the world supper came early. Dinner-p.r.o.nounced dinnah-was what you ate from your lunchpail at noon, often while out in your lobster boat.

"Let this finger be six o'clock," he said. "The time of the last ferry."

She nodded again. "He had to be on that one, didn't he?"

"He did unless he swam the reach," Dave said.

"Or chartered a boat," she said.

"We asked," Dave said. "More important, we asked Gard Edwick, who was the ferryman in the spring of '80."

Did Cogan bring him tea? she suddenly found herself wondering. Because if you want to ride the ferry, you're supposed to bring tea for the tillerman. You said so yourself, Dave. Or are the ferryman andthe tillerman two different people?

"Steff?" Vince sounded concerned. "Are you all right, dear?"

"I'm fine, why?"

"You looked...I dunno, like you came over strange."

"I sort of did. It's a strange story, isn't it?" And then she said, "Only it's not a story at all, you were so right about that, and if I came over strange, I suppose that's why. It's like trying to ride a bike across a tightrope that isn't there."

Stephanie hesitated, then decided to go on and make a complete fool of herself.

"Did Mr. Edwick remember Cogan because Cogan brought him something? Because he brought tea for the tillerman?"

For a moment neither man said anything, just regarded her with their inscrutable eyes-so strangely young and sweetly lad-like in their old faces-and she thought she might laugh or cry or do something, break out somehow just to kill her anxiety and growing certainty that she had made a fool of herself.

Vince said, "It was a chilly crossing. Someone-a man-brought a paper cup of coffee to the pilot house and handed it in to Gard. They only pa.s.sed a few words. This was April, remember, and by then it was already going dark. The man said, 'Smooth crossing.' And Gard said, 'Ayuh.' Then the man said 'This has been a long time coming' or maybe 'I've been a long time coming.' Gard said it might have even been 'Lidle's been a long time coming.' There is such a name; there's none in the Tinnock phone book, but I've found it in quite a few others."