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never found the son either.
    I spent the morning following the Thayer killing through the papers and making notes. The Free Press ran the usual sidebars calling for stiffer handgun laws, the News made a case in favor of a get-tough-on-murder stance on the bench, and USA Today described the black taffeta shift Constance Thayer wore to her arraignment. One of the names connected with the story came as no surprise and I dialed a number at Detroit Police Headquarters. A woman whose voice I didn’t recognize answered on the private line.
    “Lieutenant Alderdyce, please,” I said.
    “You mean Inspector Alderdyce?”
    I took my feet off the desk. “How come hell froze over and nobody called me?”
    “The promotion came down last week. He’s testifying in court today. This is Detective Deming. Perhaps I can help.”
    Another lady detective at 1300 Beaubien. It made me wonder again about the temperature down below. Aloud I said, “This is Amos Walker, a friend of John’s. He was one of the Detroit people called in to help with the Doyle Thayer Junior homicide. I thought he could tell me the name of the federal agent in charge there now.”
    “I’ve heard your name.” Her tone sounded less professionally cordial, if you can trust the telephones at headquarters. “The Thayer killing took place in Iroquois Heights. That’s out of this jurisdiction.”
    “Detective Deming, you know and I know and everyone but the voters in Iroquois Heights knows the cops there couldn’t tell a murder from a tufted titmouse. If you don’t, their chief does, and that’s why he called your chief.”
    “Even if he did, it’s their case now. Certainly it isn’t federal. What’s your interest, Mr. Walker?”
    I made some doodles in my pad. “The metro cops wouldn’t hear anything about the Feds clearing several hundred long tons of military arms out of a private house ten miles from Detroit, huh.”
    “I didn’t say that. But I’d be interested in where you heard it.”
    “Don’t tell me. John Alderdyce approved your promotion from Records.”
    “Traffic. Good-bye, Mr. Walker. Remember, we’re only a phone call away.” This one had a way of hanging up delicately that was worth any sweaty male sergeant’s slam-dunk in my face.
    Cops. Way back when, I had entertained the idea that the women would change things downtown, but when you mix fresh water with salt you still can’t drink it.
    Iroquois Heights was growing; noxious weeds generally do little else. It had a brand-new school, construction had begun on a civic center to incorporate all the city offices under one roof for the first time, and there was the usual talk of building a domed stadium where a dozen sports could be played indoors on artificial turf. Athletes of the future will be known by their silver skins and white eyes, like aquatic lizards that spend their entire lives in subterranean pools and never see sunlight. The well-heeled local citizenry, who had fled Detroit to avoid having their skulls cracked open and their pockets picked, would be emptying their wallets for that project for years to come, and the mayor and the city council wouldn’t even have to raise a lead pipe.
    The Thayer home was a large brick colonial occupying four acres at the end of a cul-de-sac, surrounded by great oaks planted in martial rows and black with shade. That was as much of it as I saw, because a seven-ton truck with a square silver grille blocked the entrance to the street facing out. Its box took up the entire street.
    I parked against the curb, got out, and waited, smoking, with my back against the Chevy’s roof. If what Krell and Mrs. Thayer had told me was true and it wasn’t just someone moving into or out of the neighborhood, I wouldn’t have to wait long. In any case the day was warm and I could do worse than lean there listening to a squirrel perched high in one of the oaks chattering angrily at the big metal thing spoiling its view of the acorns below.
    After a couple