Act of God

to Holman, right?”
    “Close.”
    “She cared about whatever you’ve got, she’d be here herself.”
    “She would.”
    “So, what is it you’ve got?”
    “Not much, but I think it might have to do with Barbra Proft.”
    “Proft. The one who went off the building six, seven years back.”
    Folino didn’t phrase it like a question. I said, “Almost six, from the papers.”
    “The papers, I don’t remember they did much with the case. Just one day in the Herald and the Globe, two in the Patriot Ledger .”
    “Did it merit more?”
    He moved his tongue around inside his mouth. “What makes you ask?”
    “The daughter of the dead woman is missing. The son of the dead woman hired me to find her.”
    “The daughter was the one with the funny name.”
    “Darbra.”
    “Right, Darbra. Christ, she was a cold one.”
    “How do you mean?”
    “Well, we get the call. A neighbor in the building’s looking out her window, making breakfast, and she sees this Barbra Proft’s body on the ground. Medical Examiner figured she fell some time the day before, but she took her dive into the window well, and nobody noticed her till the next morning.”
    “Nobody heard a scream or anything?”
    “We had two neighbors, both retired, both with windows onto the well. One’s deaf as a stone, the other’s watching Hawaii Five-O and God knows what else and said she didn’t notice any ‘unusual’ screams. Some commentary, huh?”
    “So time of death’s screwed up.”
    “Enough so everybody’s—I mean your Darbra there, the brother—I don’t get his name.”
    “William.”
    “William, even the spooky aunt from up in witch country. Everybody’s got an alibi or doesn’t. It’s not like on TV, you know, where everybody can account for their whereabouts and you got to figure who’s lying. I mean, who remembers where they were, and how can you pin them down if the M.F.. can’t give you a decent time of death?”
    “You can’t.”
    “Of course you can’t. Besides, we didn’t have any physical evidence. No bruises, nothing missing, nothing where it shouldn’t be.”
    “You got there before the staties and the lab people?”
    “Yeah. Four, five minutes after the neighbor called it in, we’re at the scene. The roof—it was ten stories, I think. I haven’t been by the building in a couple, three years, but I’m pretty sure it was ten. After about five floors, though, might as well be fifty.”
    “I know.”
    “Right. Sorry, I forgot you’d been in.”
    “Didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
    “Hey, don’t worry about it. Truth is, I’m on my own here, so a little interruption’s kind of a nice change of pace, you know?”
    It was more a statement than an opening, so I didn’t take it. “Nothing up on the roof, then?”
    “Nothing but what you’d expect. A lounge version of what we’re sitting on now, near enough to the edge. Some piping they had exposed there, right around the ankles, if you were walking. All kinds of signs, DON’T GO NEAR THE EDGE or some shit like that. You live there a year, though, you don’t even notice the signs anymore, much less read them or do what they say. Even had a drink, the ice melted, decedent’s prints all over the glass.”
    “Nothing in the drink?”
    “Gin. Just about straight, you figure she must have had a couple cubes in it, chill the booze for her a little, hot day like it was.”
    “And Proft was sunbathing?”
    “Yeah, at least she was wearing a bikini. Your Darbra told me she still had a good figure, too, but except for the legs, which looked all right, you couldn’t tell, her hitting facedown and all. That’s what I meant about cold.”
    “Darbra being a cold one?”
    “Yeah. The staties, they like to leave the notification to us. We found out from the decedent’s address book the kids’ names—they weren’t exactly kids, your Darbra being early twenties, though she looked older. The brother William, only late twenties, I think, but he could pass for a lot older, kind of... pasty. I saw him, I thought he might have done some time, till you talk to him and realize he’d catch a shank the first day on the yard just for being such a tight-ass.”
    “You run him anyway?”
    “Yeah. Clean. Back then, anyway. When I told him—oh, sorry, I was talking about your Darbra, got sidetracked.”
    “That’s okay.”
    “It’s just that an old case, it comes back to you in chunks like that, you know? It’s not like it’s a whole story, more