"Yes. And why didn't she tell her mother where she was going?"
I gave him a sour grin. "Elementary, my dear Duke. Because her mother had forbidden her to go there. And, from the way she was talking, I gather the mother had expressly directed her to stay away from the river." I looked back over the retaining wall again. "But it just doesn't sound right, does it? Surely someone would have seen any sort of attack like that. Of course, it's possible that she did fall in the river, and that this case doesn't have anything to do with Nestor at all, but—"
"It doesn't feel that way to me, either," said the Duke.
"Let's go talk to the mother again," I said. "There are plenty of men down there now; they don't need us."
The woman, Mrs. Ebbermann, had calmed down a little. The police surgeon had given her a tranquilizer with a hypogun, Officer Ramirez was getting everything down in his notebook, and his belt recorder was running.
"No," she was saying, "I'm sure she didn't go home. That's the first place I looked after she didn't answer when I called. We live down the block there. I thought she might have gone home to go to the bathroom or something—but I'm sure she would have told me." She choked a little. "Oh, Shirley, baby! Where are you? Where are you?"
I started to ask her a question, but she suddenly said: "Shirley, baby, next time, I promise, you can bring your water gun with you to the park, if you'll just come back to Mommie now! Please, Shirley, baby! Please!"
I glanced at the Duke. He gave me the same sort of look.
"What was that about a water gun, Mrs. Ebbermann?" I asked casually.
"Oh, she wanted to bring her water gun with her, poor baby. But I made her leave it at home—I was afraid she might squirt people with it. But I shouldn't have done that! She's a good girl! She wouldn't squirt anybody!"