CHAPTER 19The Phone buzzed. Kintyre snatched it up. “Well?” he cried.
“Trig. Headquarters has just gotten word from San Francisco. Miss Lombardi isn’t home. They checked inside with the superintendent’s passkey. No trace of a ruckus. Couldn’t she simply have gone out?”
“Look,” said Kintyre. His vocal chords felt stiff. “This concerned her own family, herself—and O’Hearn, whom she had been forced to slug. I’d promised to call with the latest news. Would you have stepped out, even for a minute?”
“No. Of course, they queried her neighbors, parents, employer, and so forth. At last reports they were still getting nulls.”
“Another thing,” said Kintyre. “Clayton knew she saw me last night. I mentioned it to him yesterday afternoon!”
It whistled in his receiver. Then: “So you think he picked
