I told the operator we’d accept the charges, and Lane came on. “Mr. Chatham?” “Yes. How did you make out?” “Fairly well. Here’s what I’ve been able to round up since you called; so far it’s mostly just the stuff anybody would know who followed the investigation last November. Strader's full name was Albert Gerald Strader, he was thirty-five years old at the time he was killed, and if you were looking around for a good one-word description of him, bum would probably do as well as any. Or lady-killer, except I guess that’s gone out of style. “Not a crook or a hood, however. He had no previous criminal record as far as they could discover—apart from a few misdemeanors like an occasional assault and battery, and a drunk driving or two—and they went into it pretty thoroughly. The F.B.I, had nothing on him. I gather that what you’re trying to find out—along with everybody else who ever had anything to do with the case—is what the hell he was doing up there in that place, and I don’t think there’s much chance it was anything criminal unless being a compulsive tomcat is a crime.
