Fare Play by Barbara Paul Page A

suppressed a smile. “So you were trying to trace the movement of this contractor’s money. Where were you? Physically.”
    He looked faintly surprised at the question. “In my office.” Like, where else ?
    â€œHow did you know when this woman came in?”
    â€œShe didn’t come in, at first—the door’s kept locked. She pressed a buzzer and my security light started to flash. It was my week to cover when the receptionist went to lunch. So I looked at the monitor and saw it was just a woman, alone.”
    Just a woman . “So you buzzed her in. Then what?”
    Marian took him through the encounter step by step. André told her what he could, his eyes fixed throughout on some spot in the vicinity of her left ear. It became clear that André had paid no more attention to Laura Cisney’s face than he was paying to Marian’s now. She got the distinct impression that Holland’s young computer genius was giving her maybe one percent of his attention. He was just going through the motions of being interviewed because Holland had ordered him to come in; but his mind was elsewhere. Probably in South America , Marian thought. When she’d asked all the questions she could think to ask, she still had nothing more than André’s original description of the woman who wanted Oliver Knowles followed: she was medium.
    Finally she said, “I’m disappointed, André. I was hoping you’d be able to help us.”
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    But he wasn’t, Marian thought, watching him watching the wall behind her head. He wasn’t sorry and he wasn’t even interested. André wasn’t being uncooperative; he just wasn’t … here. Whatever problem Marian had, it was hers alone; he was totally detached from it. Marian speculated over whether he wasn’t responding to her because: a) she was a police lieutenant; b) she was female; c) she was not of his generation; d) she didn’t live her life through computers. She suspected the answer was d).
    At last she let him go, wondering if he’d recognize her the next time he saw her.

9
    Mrs. Austin Knowles opened the door to Marian’s ring. Redhead, in her late thirties, her pretty face drawn into tight lines of distress. She was wearing a ruffled peach blouse with slim black trousers; something green sparkled at her earlobes. Marian introduced herself and was invited in after only a momentary hesitation.
    â€œAustin is lying down,” Mrs. Knowles explained, offering Marian a seat on a white sofa as long as Marian’s kitchen. She herself sat on a facing black sofa, equally long and about ten feet away. Marian could visualize a party in this room— Oh, do come in … I think there’s a place left on the black sofa . Two rows of people talking at each other over a ten-foot space. Marian put the image out of her head and murmured a conventional expression of sympathy.
    â€œThis is very hard for Austin,” Mrs. Knowles said, “losing both parents so close together.”
    â€œHis mother died recently?”
    â€œJust last month. It was cancer … a long, drawn-out illness.”
    â€œI’m sorry.” Marian let a moment pass and then said, “Mrs. Knowles, do you have any idea why someone would want your father-in-law dead?”
    She shook her head. “I have to think the … the killer shot the wrong man. Oliver was just an old man who liked to play with toys.”
    â€œBut he was a wealthy old man. Who inherits all that?”
    Mrs. Knowles flared. “Are you accusing my husband?”
    Marian tried to look startled. “No. I’m asking a question. I’m assuming your husband is the main beneficiary, but was anyone else named in the will?”
    The woman looked uncertain. “You’d better ask Austin.”
    â€œAll right, I will. I’m sorry to disturb Mr. Knowles, but I do need to talk to him now.”
    Mrs.