10

Susan Pegans stared at the detectives with eyes flashing in outrage. "No! Absolutely not! I didn't go anywhere with Gary. He's a very happily married man. He calls his wife every evening when he's away from home."

But Garreth heard the note of regret in her voice as she said it. He was willing to bet she would have gone with Mossman in a moment, given an invitation.

"Alex Long and I had dinner in Chinatown with a couple of Iowa contractors and their wives. Ask Alex."

They would, but for the moment, Garreth continued to press her. "Had you seen him spending an unusual amount of time with any single person here?"

"He spent time with everyone. What does it take to make you understand that Gary doesn't—" She broke off, eyes filling with tears. She wiped at them with the handkerchief Garreth handed her. "Gary didn't play at conventions, not ever. He worked. Why do you think he was sales manager?"

"But you knew where he was going Monday night. Verneau said he told all three of you," Harry said.

"Yes, so we would know who had been contacted and not duplicate efforts."

"Yet you didn't think it strange when he said nothing to you about Tuesday night?"

She shrugged, sighing. "I wondered, yes, but . . . I thought he'd tell us Wednesday. I—" She broke off again, shaking her head.

"Pity unrequited love," Harry murmured as they left her. "Well, do we take her at her word or start questioning some of the other ladies? You'll have noticed how many really beautiful ones there are here."

"Maybe we ought to think about guys, too," Garreth said. "That would be a better reason for keeping it quiet."

"You talk to beautiful young men, then; I'll stick to the ladies. Just find someone who went out with him."

Garreth found no one. He worked his way straight down the section of the membership list Harry gave him and heard negative answers in every interview. As far as Garreth could determine, Mossman had said to hell with the convention on Tuesday. Checking with Harry later, he found his partner having no better luck.

"Maybe you ought to start on the cab companies," Harry said. "I'll keep working here."

"Let me bounce one more idea off you. You mentioned that he may have met someone Monday evening. So let's talk to the people he was with on Monday. Do you have their names?"

"Verneau gave them to me." Harry checked off two names on the membership list. "You take this half of the group."

Garreth made it easy on himself. He rounded up both and talked to them at the same time, hoping one might stimulate memory in the other. "Where did you go?" he asked them.

Misters Upton and Suarez grinned at each other. "North Beach. That's some entertainment up there"

"It offers a little of something for everyone. Do you remember the names of the clubs you visited?"

"Why do you want to know about Monday?" Suarez asked. "Wasn't Gary Mossman robbed and killed on Tuesday night? That's what's going around."

"We need to know about people he met on Monday. Please, try to think. I need the club names."

They looked at each other. "Big Al's," Suarez said.

Between them, Suarez and Upton named half a dozen of the better known clubs. Garreth jotted the names down. "Any others?"

"Oh, yeah. We must have hit a dozen or more. We'd just walk down the street and drop in, see a girl or two dance, and go on."

"Did you talk to anyone?"

Their eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

Garreth gave them a man-to-man smirk. "You were five guys out on the town alone. Didn't you buy drinks for any girls?"

The contractors grinned. "Well, sure. We kind of collected four and took them along with us."

Four. Garreth raised an eyebrow. Who had not had one? "Did Mossman pay special attention to any of them? Did he ask any of them back to the hotel?"

"No."

"Are you thinking he met someone Monday he might have seen again Tuesday, and that's who killed him?" Suarez asked.

"We're checking all the possibilities. Can you give me the names of the girls? I also need to know if he met anyone outside your group."

"The girls only told us their first names, and Mossman didn't talk to anyone except us and the girls," Upton said.

"Give me the girls' names then and their descriptions." Inwardly, Garreth groaned. Track down four girls in North Beach by first name and description. Shit.

"Except the singer," Suarez said.

Garreth blinked, feeling he had missed a connection somewhere. "Except what singer, Mr. Suarez?"

The contractor shrugged. "We were in this club—I don't remember the name—and Mossman couldn't do anything except stare at the singer. She kept looking at him, too, giving him the eye. I remember he hung back a bit as we left, and when I looked around, he was talking to her. It was just for a minute, though."

"What did this singer look like?"

Suarez grinned. "Spectacular. Tall, and I mean really tall, man. Her legs went on forever. She was built, too."

Something like an electric shock trailed up Garreth's spine, raising every hair on his body. He stared at Suarez, hardly breathing. "Do you think she was five ten?"

"Or taller. She had on these boots, see, and—"

"What color was her hair?"

"Red. Not that bright color but darker, like mahogany."