High Noon Page 0,152

baby down, that it was time for her nap."

"Off the tracks."

"Well off." Inside the building, Phoebe pushed the button on the elevator. "He was afraid the baby could be hurt, so he put her down, tried to reason with his wife, who proceeded to shoot him."

"Off the tracks and over the cliff."

"Yes. Fortunately, she hit the meat of his bicep for a through-and through. She locked herself in with the baby, shoved the dresser in front of the door. He called the hotline number he'd seen on the TV bulletins. And shortly thereafter, I came on as negotiator."

"The baby make it through?"

"Yes, the baby came out fine. Screaming-hungry by that timebut right as rain." She could hear it, Phoebe realized, she could hear that baby crying in her head. "Brenda Anne Falk, however, did not make it through. After over two hours of negotiations, of believing I was getting through to her, she told me that she thought it was time she gave up after all. And by giving up, she meant putting that thirtytwo to her temple and pulling the trigger."

She stepped off the elevator, checked the names on the doors along the corridor, then opened the one marked COMPASS TRAVEL.

It was a small operation with two desks on opposite sides of the room and a long counter at the back. Stands held a bounty of brochures, while the walls were decorated with large posters of exotic locales.

She recognized Falk immediately, though his hair had thinned some, and there were glasses perched on the tip of his nose. He tapped keys on a computer, but Phoebe shook her head at the woman at the counter and stepped over to Falk's desk.

"Excuse me, Mr. Falk?"

"That's right. I'm happy to help you if you don't mind waiting. Or Charlotte can help you now."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Falk, but I need to speak with you." Phoebe palmed her badge so he could see it.

"Oh. Well, w h a't..."

She saw it come, carving slowly through the puzzlement, that recognition, and the shock. And the shadow of old grief.

"I know you," he said. "You were... you were talking to Brenda when she-"

"Yes, I was. I was with the FBI at that time. I'm Phoebe MacNamara, Mr. Falk. I'm with the Savannah-Chatham Police Department. This is Detective Sykes."

"What do you want?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Falk, is there somewhere private we can talk?" He took his glasses off, set them on the desk. "Charlotte? Would you put the 'Closed' sign up and lock the door? Charlotte and I are engaged. I don't need to be private from her. She knows everything about what happened with Brenda."

Charlotte locked up, came immediately to Falk's side. She was a pretty, sturdy-looking woman, and Phoebe judged her to be in her early forties. Her hand, with its simple, round-cut diamond ring, lay supportively on Falk's shoulder.

"What's this about?" she demanded. "You're getting married?"

"Two weeks from Friday."

"Congratulations. Mr. Falk, I know you went through a very, very difficult time. You did the right thing, and I wasn't able to help you."

"I did the right thing?" His hand came up to squeeze Charlotte's. "No, I didn't."

"Pete-"

"No, I didn't," he repeated. "I didn't get help for Brenda. I knew how much she wanted a baby... I thought I knew," he corrected. "But I didn't get help for her. I didn't see, didn't want to see, didn't look. We had a good life, didn't we? That's what I kept telling her. I bought her a kitten, like that was a substitute."

"Oh, Pete, don't-"

But he shook his head. "We were married eight years, and together nearly two before that, and I didn't know what was inside her. That awful need. I didn't see that what was inside her snapped. Going to her sister's for a few days, well, hallelujah. That's what I thought. She'd stop moping around one minute and rushing around the next. Shouldn't I have seen something was broken in her?"

"I can't tell you that, Mr. Falk."

"Something was broken in her, and I never tried to fix it. She couldn't live that way, couldn't live with what was broken, knowing you were going to take the baby away."

"Rough," Sykes commented when they stepped out into the thick air. "It's a crappy thing to do, taking him back through that."

"It's a crappy thing to do, blowing some poor bastard to juice." Sykes winced. "Sorry, Lieutenant, I forgot for a minute."

"It's all right. What's your take on Falk?"

"He didn't make you when you walked up to him,