Vic Daniel 6 - As she rides by

she was free, I could find out who owns what property without moving. With a license plate number, who owns the car. With just a name, or maybe even an alias, I could pull a suspect’s whole record, home address, place of business, known acquaintances, everything, whatever state he lives in, because there’s one beautiful, big, national hookup now. I could get a picture of him, even, if I knew what I was doing and had the right printer. Bank statements, passport details, plane reservations, it’s endless.”
    “Ah, but is it legal?” Debby said.
    “There is that,” I said, “I suppose. But wouldn’t it be loverly. Anyway. There they are at the theater, and you ain’t. How come?” She shrugged.
    “She never asked me.”
    “Just John?”
    “Just John. I vaguely remember something about her husband being tied up at the last moment so she had a free ticket, and did John want to go? I think he said something about talking business too.”
    “All seems normal enough,” I said. “Nice night, was it, if you can possibly remember?”
    She thought for a moment. “Not sure. But John was taking our beautiful brand-new car, and even though he was a terrific driver, I remember telling him to be extra careful, or else; one scratch on that paintwork and was he in trouble. Extra careful—that’s a good one.”
    “Did he smoke?”
    She looked surprised. “No; why?”
    “Just wondered. Drink?”
    “Always a martini after work. At a party, sociably. Beer and football on Saturdays, usually with a few pals. Sometimes a couple of Bloody Marys on Sunday. He always used that terrible mix that I hated so he’d make mine up special. I always said if you have to make mine up special, how come you don’t make them all up special? He always said because to him that gruesome mix was the best part. Yecch.” She snuck a glance at her watch.
    “Just one or two last desperate flings,” I said hastily. “Then we are history, I promise. The sergeant who broke the awful news to you, Sergeant Brav, he said you told him that night that the only insurance policy your husband held was a company one for fifty grand that hadn’t been altered for years and years.”
    “What I told that nice man, who even called the credit companies for me to cancel John’s stolen cards—which were never recovered, by the way, or used, thank goodness—anyway what I told him was, as far as I knew. I went down the next day to check, and I was right.”
    “Went down where?”
    “To the bank, where else? To our safe-deposit box. John’s oldest friend, who’s also our lawyer, he went with me and helped me do it all, thank God. We needed John’s birth certificate, the insurance, the title deed to this place, we needed to change all three accounts into my name, change the car registration, you name it. Look into his pension. File the will. Check with the police when his body would be released. Make the funeral arrangements. Buy a plot. Be polite to his sister. You cannot imagine, Victor. You cannot imagine.” Well, I thought I might be able to, if you really want to know, having been through much of the same when my mother died, but I didn’t bother telling her so. Of course, there were minor differences—Mom didn’t have any ski clothes for me to dispose of.
    “Your safe-deposit box,” I said. “All neat and tidy within, I suppose? No surprises? No gold bars, illicit diamonds, or stacks of century notes?”
    “Pu-leese,” she said. “I should be so lucky. John was an accountant, after all, and you know what they’re like. Neat and tidy is right.”
    “What did he account? Anything in particular?”
    “Pensions,” she said.
    “Know what Thoreau said?” I said, getting to my feet. King immediately did likewise.
    “Yeah,” she said. “ ‘Gone fishin’.’ ”
    “He said a happy man is one who can keep all his accounts on one thumbnail.”
    “Tell that to IMM,” she said, getting up in her turn. “Their pension department alone is humongous.”
    “Debby, thank you,” I said. “You’ve been swell. And if I may say so, I think you are pretty swell, too.”
    “Why, thank you, sir, she said, coloring prettily,” she said. “I only wish I could have been of some help, come up with something, anything, to try and make a little sense of it all. As it is, it all seems so totally unnecessary, somehow. Why John?”
    Why John indeed, I thought. She took us out the back way this time and around the house and then across the lawn