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a visit.”
    “And what good would that do?”
    “I have my reservations about the woman, you understand. Turk thinks the world of her, but there’s no telling how much he’s told her.”
    “You’re saying that she might be the leak?”
    “Just supposing he mentioned the outing a couple of days ago, maybe in passing? She might have passed word on to certain friends. I’m not saying it’s so. I’m saying maybe. Now for obvious reasons I can’t question her. She’ll only get right back to Turk on it, and it’s my ass. You, you’re from outside, you are working on an ongoing investigation. So what if she bitches to Turk. What’s he going to do? And anyhow, the way I see it you two aren’t exactly the best of friends. Am I right?”
    Harry wasn’t certain how much good seeing this woman would do, but he was willing to take a gamble. At the very least his curiosity was peaked. He couldn’t imagine what Turk’s girlfriend looked like. He wasn’t expecting very much.
    “What is her name and how do I find her?”
    “Her name is Elsie Cranston and she lives right down that street over to your right, fourth house on the left.”
    “Anything pertinent I should know about her besides the attraction she exerts on Turk?”
    “Well . . . ,” Davenport wasn’t quite sure how to put it. “Well, she does lots of drugs. That seems to be her profession and avocation as it were. I know, it doesn’t make sense, what with Turk being a nark, but there it is. That’s how they met. She was busted once along with several others, released with a fine and a reprimand as I recall. She wasn’t carrying so they didn’t want to press charges against her. But she was consorting with known dealers who were carrying. Turk liked the looks of her. He figured he could straighten her out. You ask me, I honestly think that he believes he’s done just that, straighten her out I mean. But take it from me she’s not straight. I know straight, and she’s not it.”
    This case is getting stranger by the minute, thought Harry as he began in the direction of Elsie Cranston’s home, a rambling structure with pink paint and crumbling plaster.
    The wooden stairs rattled loudly as Harry ascended them to the capacious porch.
    Only a screen door guarded the entrance. Harry knocked. Hearing no response, he opened the screen door and walked in.
    “Elsie? Hello?”
    There seemed to be a great many rooms, each with furnishings that you might expect to find at a Salvation Army store. He wondered if she lived by herself.
    From somewhere in the rear of the house there came the steamy odors of food cooking. There was also the sound of music, which grew louder and more identifiable the farther back Harry went. Linda Rondstadt was belting out her version of “Heatwave.” An old song though not nearly as old as “Viper Mad.”
    Her back was turned to him. Obviously, she’d not heard him with the music so loud. She was either putting a pie into the oven or removing it.
    Elsie was wearing a man’s checkered shirt and jeans as faded as the walls of the kitchen. Her hair was concealed by a red kerchief. From Harry’s vantage point, by the doorway to the kitchen, there was no way of determining whether her face was as intriguing as her body. But she did move nicely.
    Perhaps the intensity of his stare was what alerted her. In any case, she turned, started, then studied Harry long and hard as though she were trying to place him in her mind.
    Not beautiful but pretty, and probably not more than twenty-five, not at all what Harry had anticipated. Moreover, her skin had the color and texture that intimated at a life of health and regular hours. No matter what Davenport had said, she did not give one the impression that she relied heavily on drugs. But then Harry was skeptical enough not to dismiss Davenport’s words out of hand.
    “Who are you?”
    He identified himself, displaying his credentials.
    “Ah, you’re one of those,” Elsie said, making it