Fig vine had a tenacious hold on much of the facade, but it had been neatly trimmed around the four tall windows that offset the front door. Beneath each of these windows was a window box overflowing with ferns and white impatiens. No lights were on.
Just as Hammond was stepping off the curb to cross the street for a closer look, the door of the house behin
d him opened and an enormous gray and white sheepdog bounded out, dragging his owner behind him.
“Whoa, Winthrop!”
But Winthrop would not be restrained. He was raring to go and straining against his leash as he reached the end of the walkway and came up on his back legs, throwing himself against the gate. Instinctively Hammond took a couple steps back.
Laughing at his reaction, the dog owner pulled the gate open and Winthrop bolted through. “Sorry about that. Hope he didn’t scare you. He doesn’t bite, but given the chance, he might lick you to death.”
Hammond smiled. “No problem.” Winthrop, showing no interest in him, had hiked his leg and was peeing against a fence post.
Hammond must have looked harmless but lost, because the man said, “Can I help you?”
“Uh, actually I was trying to locate Dr. Ladd’s office.”
“You found it.” The young man pointed his chin toward the house across the street.
“Right, right.”
The man gave him a politely quizzical look.
“Uh, I’m a salesman,” he blurted. “Medical forms. Stuff like that. The sign doesn’t say what time the office opens.”
“About ten, I think. You could call Alex to confirm.”
“Alex?”
“Dr. Ladd.”
“Oh, sure. Yeah, I should’ve called, but… you know… just thought I’d… well, okay.” Winthrop was sniffing beneath a camellia bush. “Thanks. Take it easy, Winthrop.”
Hoping the neighbor would never connect the inarticulate idiot to the assistant D.A. frequently seen addressing reporters on TV, Hammond patted the shaggy dog on the head, then set off down the sidewalk in the direction from which he had come.
“Actually, you just missed her.”
Hammond whipped back around. “Her?”
* * *
Mr. Daniels avoided looking either Smilow or Steffi in the eye when they returned to his hospital room and took up positions on either side of his bed. To Smilow the patient seemed more uncomfortable now than he had fifteen minutes earlier, but it wasn’t gastrointestinal discomfort. It looked more like a bad case of guilty conscience.
“The nurse said you remembered something that might help our investigation.”
“Maybe.” Daniels’s eyes nervously sawed back and forth between Smilow and Steffi. “See, it’s like this. Ever since I strayed—”
“Strayed?”
Daniels looked at Steffi, who had interrupted. “From my marriage.”
“You had an affair?”
Leave it to Steffi to cut to the chase, thought Smilow. “Tact” wasn’t in her vocabulary. Mr. Daniels looked completely miserable as he stammered on.
“Yeah. This, uh… a woman where I work? We… you know.” Uneasily he shifted his skinny frame on the hard mattress. “But it didn’t last long. I saw the error of my ways. It was just one of those things that happens before you know it. Then you wake up one morning and think to yourself, what the hell am I doing this for? I love my wife.”
Smilow was sharing Steffi’s obvious impatience with Daniels’s long-winded confession. He wished the man would get to the point. Nevertheless, he warned Steffi with a hard look to give Daniels time to tell his story at his own pace.