The Gingerbread Man by MAGGIE SHAYNE Page B

ears pierced, and Sydney is arguing her case for her,” she replied. “I figure I have a fashion model and a litigator on my hands.”
    “Just as long as they don’t grow up to be cops,” he said. “I really need to talk to Jerry.”
    He heard the phone shift hands, heard Katie call to her husband, and then Jerry’s voice came. “Vince? Where the hell are you, anyway?”
    “I’m fine, lounging in a nice little rustic cabin on a lake. It’s freaking paradise, pal.”
    “So what’s wrong, Vince?”
    Vince frowned at the phone. “What makes you think anything’s wrong?”
    “You called me.”
    Vince drew a breath. His partner knew him too well. “I need a favor.”
    “I knew it.”
    “A discreet favor, Jerry.”
    “You’re working the Prague case, aren’t you? Dammit, Vince—”
    “I have a name I want you to run for me. Not just for a criminal record-I really don’t think you’ll find anything there. But check anyway. And newspapers, too, old files. I’ll take anything you can come up with, going back...”—he paused to flip open a notebook, for the date he’d found stamped on the library book—“go all the way back to eighty-three, just for the hell of it.”
    Jerry sighed and said nothing.
    “You want to put away the creep who murdered those kids or not, partner?”
    “You know damn well I do. I’d also like to keep my job long enough to collect my pension, you know what I mean?” Another sigh. “What’s the name?”
    “Newman,” Vince said. “Holly. Mother’s name is Doris. They lived in Syracuse until five years ago. That’s about all I have.”
    He heard Jerry scribbling. Then, “Vince, you know most of these types of crimes are committed by men.”
    “I know. But this woman knows something, I’d lay money on it.”
    Silence, long and drawn out. Then, finally, Jerry said, “Tell you what. I’ll run the info if you’ll tell me where the hell you are.”
    “Place called Dilmun, on Cayuga Lake,” he said. “That’s between you and me.”
    “For now, it is,” Jerry replied. “What are you doing there, Vince?”
    “I told you,” Vince said. “I’m on vacation.” He hung up the phone, and told himself he wasn’t interested in Holly Newman’s background for any other reason than how it might tie in with his case. He couldn’t care less what kinds of demons haunted her. It was no concern of his.

    “ S O JUST WHAT HAPPENED OUT THERE, Holly?”
    Looking sideways at the chief as he drove, Holly shook her head. “I was just walking.” She tried to keep her voice from trembling, and giving away her true state. She was shaken, right to the core. She was scared on so many levels she couldn’t begin to take stock. And her sense of security, which she’d built so carefully and so strongly here in this town, was shattered. Something was happening. Something was bringing it all back, and it seemed as if she had no control over it whatsover.
    That was what shook her most of all. That feeling of things moving beyond her control.
    “You don’t go walking. You go straight home, every’ day, same route. You know it and I know it.”
    Holly sighed and faced him. “I’m trying to get over that,” she said, and she knew damned good and well it was a lie. She didn’t want to get over it. She needed it. “I’m trying new things, breaking old habits. It’s good for me.”
    “I wouldn’t say it was all that good for you today.”
    He was almost pouting. Big, strong Chief Mallory, looking like a scared kid. She forced a smile that was far from genuine. “You sure did get there in a hurry,” she said, trying to change the subject. “What did you do, fly?”
    “I was on my way home. When O’Mally called I was just around the comer. I called Bill and told him to meet me here.” He shook his head slowly. “Your mother is going have kittens over this, Holly.”
    “Not if you don’t make a big deal about it, she won’t.”
    He pursed his lips, turned the car onto