After a quick supper of pastrami and fruit at Uncle Sally's Galley, Dean pedaled 27 hard miles, working up a good sweat and a painful case of shin splints. He was still wobbly as he stood in the hot shower while the sun dipped below the horizon. He felt good, though he couldn't put his finger on the reason. The Byrne case was closed but in spite of Winston's admonishment, the matter wouldn't leave his mind. All he needed was a nice brick wall to halt the nagging speculation Byrne might have skipped-like a body or something equally definitive. Instead, there were sneaky little maybes and what-ifs. Perhaps his continued attachment to the case was simple curiosity or his promise to Cynthia Byrne to be thorough, or, he reluctantly admitted, a reason to maintain contact with the attractive woman. Or maybe it was the intriguing matter of 2.8 million dollars.
Three more telephone calls to Cece Baldwin were as unsuccessful as the first and Dean spent the rest of the evening poring over the Byrne file. He paid particular attention to the March expense accounts and itineraries. Jeffrey Byrne spent Tuesday and Wednesday in early March in Scranton. He listed Markham Party on Thursday, but no overnight lodging. His evening dinner tab was $23.88 and the receipt showed pizza and beer. Dean had no way of checking Byrne's mileage and if by chance he had detoured east on Interstate 84, probably 30 miles further, instead of taking the more direct south-easterly route between Scranton and Parkside. Milage logs were kept not with the drivers but with the pool cars, and World Wide must have more than 100.
Dean was still shuffling papers when Fred ambled in the door. The beautiful sounds of The Coleman Hawkins Quartet doing "The Man I Love" as it ought to be done were playing and Mrs. Lincoln never looked more content. The smile on Dean's face made Fred wonder which cat swallowed which canary.
"I won 67 dollars," Fred said. "Two winning weeks in a row!"
Dean let him explain the details of his latest roulette system until Fred asked Dean for an update on the events of the day. Dean presented the facts unemotionally but as soon as he mentioned Scranton, the old man caught the coincidence and could hardly contain himself. Dean laughed. "Give me a plausible scenario."
Fred thought a minute. "Try this on for size. You're in Scranton on business. You go out with the local World Wide guy and have pizza and beer-lots of beer, considering what he spent. Then you start home."
"Wrong direction. He'd take the turnpike extension south. Going due east out I-84 is way out of his way. Two sides of a triangle instead of one."