The Judgment by William J. Coughlin Page A

one so that their son would get everything? I said that could be arranged. Then I said something to the effect of I-told-you-so. That was when the wife explained that their son had decided not to marry “that woman” after all. The husband looked embarrassed. The wife looked smug.
    Once again I took down the facts and got rid of the couple as quickly as possible. I decided to keep their original will on file for their next visit. When would parents stop using money as a weapon against their children? Maybe never.
    Once they’d left, I dialed Sue at her office.
    “Gillis.”
    “It’s me, Sue. How did it go last night?”
    “Oh, Charley.” It came out in a sigh. She sounded exhausted. “By the time I finished up at the medical examiner’s, it was nearly two. When I got home and went to bed, I couldn’t sleep. Kept seeing that little girl on the slab.”
    “The parents identify her?”
    “Yes. Her name was Catherine Quigley. She was an only child.”
    “Jesus, those poor people.”
    “I sent them home in a patrol car and stuck around to get some details from the medical examiner.”
    “What does it look like for cause of death?” I asked.
    “Well, it’s all preliminary, of course—the autopsywon’t be until this afternoon—but it looks like asphyxiation, the same as the boy. No marks on the body. Again, probably a pillow was used.”
    “Any sexual evidence?”
    “No, nothing detected. But I don’t care what the physical evidence says, Charley, this was a sex crime. By whatever sick, screwed-up logic, that’s what it was.”
    She sounded overwrought, strung out, on the verge of tears.
    “I understand, Sue.” And I did, too. It was this sense of desecration that had her going, the same reaction that had sent me out into the night, screaming to Bob Williams for help.
    “She was so clean!” Sue went on. “Bathed! Her underpants had even been washed. Oh, this guy is sick, really sick.”
    She had that right. What kind of geek was doing this?
    “We’re going out around noon to take another look at the area where the body was found now that the snow’s melting,” Sue said. “Maybe we’ll find something we didn’t see last night.”
    “I hope so.”
    “Later then, Charley. Thanks for the call.”
    I swung around in my chair and took a look out the window. The sun shone down brilliantly on the river and what was left of last night’s snow. Already the streets were clear and so were the sidewalks. There were dark patches all around where the snow had melted to reveal the bare ground. And slush, a lot of slush.
    I felt vaguely guilty because I’d slept so well last night. Did that mean I was callous and indifferent where Sue was sensitive and responsive? No, I remembered just how frantic I’d been. I decided the difference between us was that I’d gone to confession and she had not.
    Mark Conroy arrived a little earlier than he’d promised, and he seemed willing to talk. One thing he asked wasthat we conduct our interview away from my office.
    “What’s the matter?” I asked. “You afraid Mrs. Fenton will listen in? You think I’ll tape-record you on the sly?”
    He gave me one of those ironic smiles that seemed a specialty with him. “No,” he said. “I’m starving. I was hoping we could go someplace where I could get something to eat. If it’s not too crowded, we can talk.”
    So we wound up together back at Benny’s Diner. It was between the breakfast rush and the noon rush, and the place was just about as empty as it had been the night before. We sat in that same back booth that Bob and I had been in. There was no question of being overheard, not even by the waitress. After rudely slamming down Conroy’s order of ham and eggs and my coffee, she seemed to make it her business to ignore us. I think she disapproved of his two-thousand-dóllar suit. I wasn’t too keen on it myself.
    I told him about my visit to the Mouse. The main thing was that the Mouse had claimed that Conroy was