Second Chance by Jonathan Valin Page B

didn't have to be in
Wednesday's papers. Ethan could have spotted the picture in an older
newspaper—a paper from the day before or the day before that. Or it
could have been that he'd gone down to the library like I had, and
combed through months of back issues. Years of them.
    That way lay madness.
    I dragged myself to my feet and returned to the
stacks. The Tuesday the 15th and Monday the 14th editions of the Post
were the last two papers on the shelves. Anything before them meant
sitting in front of a microfiche machine for hours.
    I tried the Tuesday paper first and found nothing.
Then I tried the Monday paper—and got lucky. On the fourth page of
the Monday the 14th Post, the court news page, there was a tiny
mugshot of a middle-aged black man. According to the paragraph
beneath the photo his name was Herbert Talmadge, and he'd been
released from Lexington the week before on parole, after serving
thirteen years of a twenty-to-life sentence for the rape and murder
of a Kentucky nurse. The killing had occurred in Newport in December,
1976, and it must have been particularly brutal or they wouldn't have
printed Talmadge's picture. Talmadge was clearly a bad character, and
that bothered me. But the newspaper picture itself, the tiny mugshot,
was just as unsettling. I sat there and stared at it dumbly for a
full minute, wondering whether my lack of sleep and the general
weirdness of the Pearson case were combining to unhinge me. Simply
put, Herbert Talmadge had the same face as the man in Ethan Pearson's
drawing—the same V-shaped goatee, the same pointed chin, the same
peppery hair and slanted, menacing eyes.
    Even allowing for the crudity of a ten-year-old's
drawing skills, the resemblance was close enough to give me a feeling
of déja vu. It must have scared hell out of Ethan Pearson. What I
couldn't imagine was where a ten-year-old kid had run across the
likes of Herbert Talmadge. He had to have seen him somewhere, because
the likeness he'd drawn was just too damn close to be coincidental.
    I made a dozen copies of the article on a Xerox
machine. Then I found a phone in the lobby and called Al Foster at
CPD.
    "I need another favor, Al," I said. "Get
me a last known address on an ex-con named Herbert Talmadge. He just
did thirteen years in Lexington for rape and murder."
    "This have something to do with your missing
persons?" he asked.
    "It might."
    "I'll see what I can turn up."
    "One more thing?"
    "We're here to serve and protect you, Harry."
    "Can you dig up a file on Estelle Pearson?"
I spelled the name for him. "She committed suicide in September,
1976. I'd like to see the examining officer's notes and the coroner's
report."
    "What's this one for?"
    I didn't tell him, but I
was curious to see if Ta1madge's name popped up anywhere in the case
as a witness or a bystander. He had to be connected to the woman or
to Ethan in some way, even if it was only by chance.
    * * *
    I went back to my offce in the Riorley Building and
managed to sneak in a couple of hours of sleep on the couch before
the phone woke me around one p.m. At least my eyes felt better. I
couldn't speak for the rest of my body—it wasn't speaking to me.
    The phone call was from Sid McMasters of the CPD. "Al
Foster told me to give you a buzz," Sid said. "We got a
previous address for Herbert Talmadge."
    I picked up a pencil and said, "Go ahead."
    "Sixty-seven fifty-five West McMicken. Al said
to tell you that Talmadge was a mental case. In and out of Rollman's
before he got busted."
    Rol1man's was a state psychiatric hospital in East
Walnut Hills.
    "This McMicken address is from '76?"
    "Yeah. A1 tried to get in touch with the Newport
cops to get a current address. But the P.O. in Newport said Talmadge
hadn't reported since his release."
    " So he's in violation?"
    "He will be if he doesn't come in before this
Friday. Al also said for you to pick up a report he dug up for you.
I'll leave it at the front desk."
    "Be right over."
    Before I left I called