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the file to disk and had moved it to her own PC. Industrious of her, he thought, realizing he would have to watch out for her.
    Dart read the screen. Recognizing the kind of notes that had been taken, he realized immediately that Kowalski had interviewed a witness to the Gerald Lawrence suicide. Quotation marks peppered the page.
    Dart’s first instinct was to believe the witness had proven a washout, as so many did. It would explain perfectly why Kowalski had not bothered to include the text of the questioning. Dart snagged the file—Kowalski’s official investigative report—from Abby’s desk. Procedure required the investigating officer to list the name, or names, of each and every witness to the crime, including those deemed useless. Dart could find no reference to any witness.
    â€œHer name is Lewellan Page,” Abby announced.
    Dart read quickly down the screen. He didn’t like being behind Abby on this. Reading, he protested, “She’s twelve years old, Abby!” greatly relieved. “No wonder he didn’t bother listing her.”
    â€œBut he interviewed her, Joe,” she reminded. “He’s required to list her.” She hesitated and asked, “So why did he leave her out? What did she see?”
    â€œAbby,” he cautioned, “it’s speculation.” But for the second time the hopeful thought nagged at him: Is Kowalski involved in this?
    She advanced the screen to the bottom of the page. Her finger pointed out a sentence. Dart read:
    â€œI seen a white man. A big white man. He gone on upstairs and …”
    â€œThe next page is missing,” she informed him.
    Dart reread the material several times. Ohmy-god , he thought. A white man.
    â€œI want to talk to her, Joe. I want to know what it is—who it is—that she saw.”
    â€œCan you find her?”
    â€œI don’t know,” she said. “But if I do, I want you there.”

CHAPTER 6
    Jackson Browne’s music played in the background. He sounded lonely. So was Dart. Ginny wouldn’t agree to meet him at his apartment, and he had no desire to chance an encounter with some boyfriend of hers. So it was to be neutral ground—Smitty’s Bar, a place neither of them haunted, not that Dart haunted any bar. He was more a library man, though loath to admit it.
    It was a yuppie bar, with dark wood furniture, white linen, and an island bar that dominated the entrance. It catered to an insurance clientele, white men and women in their thirties wearing dark suits, drinking light beer, and making conversation in the most animated voices they could muster.
    Aside from the core downtown, with its gleaming skyscrapers, the only place a bar like this could exist was West Hartford and the valley. Whites, a minority in this city, had to pick their watering holes carefully.
    Jackson Browne sang that he would do anything, from flying airplanes to walking on the wings. Dart had felt like that once with her. And maybe, just maybe, she had felt that way with him. But it had failed. Dissolved like a figure walking into a thick fog. He had watched it recede, had reached for it, called out to it, and cried when it had vanished, for such things can never come back—at least that was what she had said.
    Ginny Rice turned a couple of heads when she entered, not so much for her looks as her presence—she commanded attention. He thought of her affectionately, though he hoped she wouldn’t sense this, and he feared that she might because for her he was an easy read. She wore blue jeans, a brown bomber jacket zipped halfway to counter the air-conditioning, a teal blue stone-washed silk shirt and the diamond and gold heart necklace that he had given her on an insignificant anniversary. This outfit alone set her apart from the nearly uniform crowd, just as Dartelli’s khakis and blue blazer had differentiated him. She had cut her dark brown hair short, well off her