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didn’t ask for details, since I’d worked with him long enough and on such a variety of matters to know that it could be any one of a number of things. He’d tell me in good time. “Oh, and thanks again for inviting us to the opening,” I said. “We had a nice time—that poor guy’s accident aside, of course. Have you found out anything else about it?”
    “Actually, that’s what I want to talk to you about. I’m waiting for more information and hope to have it by this afternoon.”
    You’re slipping, Hardesty , a mind-voice said, disapprovingly, and maybe it was right. My immediate reaction to his asking to see me had not been that it might be related to the accident.
    “Okay,” I said. “I’ll see you at nine thirty tomorrow, then.”
    Well, if I hadn’t been curious before, I certainly was now. Being of a somewhat suspicious nature—and given the fact that I am a private investigator, after all—I had to wonder if Glen had reason to suspect Taylor Cates’ death just might not have been an accident—and what led Glen to think so. Well, there was little point in speculating until I knew more of what was going on.
    *
    Joshua greeted me at the door holding a Munchkin-sized loaf of bread in a Munchkin-sized wrapper.
    “Look what I got, Uncle Dick,” he said happily, holding the bread out toward me at arm’s length.
    “That’s great, Joshua,” I said as Jonathan came out of the kitchen for our now-traditional group hug. “Where did you find a loaf of bread like that?”
    I should have learned by then that when you ask a four-year-old boy a question, you should, depending on the kid’s degree of enthusiasm for the subject, be prepared for a deluge of information, some of which may actually be related to the question. It seemed that the Bronson sisters, who ran the day-care center Joshua attended, had arranged with some other day-care centers to have the older kids tour a local commercial bakery. I learned this by patching together Joshua’s account of his adventure and Jonathan’s interspersed interpretations given between living room and kitchen and preparation of my Manhattan. At the end of the tour, all the kids had been given perfectly proportioned miniature loaves of bread.
    It was only through Jonathan’s diplomacy and art of persuasion that the loaf had lasted this long, Joshua, of course, having wanted to eat it immediately. But Jonathan had promised that we’d make a very special dessert (toasted, buttered, and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon) of it after dinner, and that seemed to hold Joshua at bay.
    After dinner I watched some TV while Joshua played on the floor. Jonathan, I was a little surprised to see, did not haul out his school books as usual, but instead sat reading (or rather “re-reading”) A Game of Quoits , a mystery novel by…guess who?… Evan Knight. I’d read it at Jonathan’s insistence right after he first got it, and had to admit it was pretty darned good. The guy had an uncanny ability to evoke the sense of time of the book, which was set in the late 1930s through the late 1940s, as were all his books. Considering he’d probably just been born around that time, I had to hand it to him.
    *
    I got off the elevator on O’Banyon’s floor at 9:20. Only 10 minutes early! I was proud of myself. The receptionist sent me back to the small waiting room just off O’Banyon’s private office, where his secretary, Donna, offered me a cup of coffee. Since I’d come directly from home without yet stopping at my office, I accepted the offer with thanks. My high opinion of her was reinforced when she remembered I took it black.
    I was standing at the window, looking out over the city, when O’Banyon hurried in, briefcase in hand, surrounded by an almost palpable aura of business and efficiency.
    “Hi, Dick,” he said, without stopping. “I’ll be right with you.”
    He went into his office, followed by Donna with a note pad.
    You know that old expression, “How the