Nothing.
I took a step back, stood on the porch, and wondered where she'd gone after the doctor's appointment she'd told Boris about — assuming she even had a doctor's appointment in the first place. It was 4:47. On the walk back down the path, I called Elmer's. After six rings a recorded voice message clicked in and told me my call was important to Elmer's and that I should try ringing during business hours, which were between nine a.m. and five p.m. Monday to Saturday, and nine a.m. to two p.m. Sundays and public holidays, except for Christmas Day, New Year's Day, and Thanksgiving when they weren't open at all, and my call would be happily handled by their expert trained staff. I wondered in what field Boris's expert training lay. Maybe it was in finishing up early.
Despite my earlier belief to the contrary, I was reasonably sure Boris took me seriously enough not to piss me off. I believed he would have called had Amy turned up for work, even if just to get revenge on her for leaving him alone in that wasteland of weight machines for the day. I got to the SUV and wondered what to do next. It would be dark in an hour. If I drove to Hurlburt Field, I'd only have to drive back out to Pensacola in the morning. My cell rang. Another blocked number. I answered it anyway.
“Hey. I thought you'd have called, or maybe sent flowers.”
“Ma'am…”
“It's Clare to you now, OK?”
“OK.”
“Anyway, now you've made me call you. Where are you? It's New Year's Eve, for Christ's sake, and I've got the night off.”
“New Year's? Jesus, when did that happen?”
“At least try to sound enthusiastic, Vin. You might give a girl a complex.”
“Sorry, Clare. Last night was amazing — you're amazing…”
“But something's wrong,” she said. “Yes, you've had an attack of the guilts — haven't you? — and now you don't want to see me because seeing me will remind you of your pathetic weakness for truly beautiful women.”
I laughed. I'd forgotten how to do that with a woman — laugh.
“So, what are you doing tonight? Mom and Dad have Manny. I've bought a bottle of vodka, the cutest underwear ensemble you've ever seen, and some whipped cream.”
“Whipped cream?”
“You'll never know unless you come over.”
“I'm still in Pensacola.”
“Really?”
“Actually, I'm parked a block away from the home of a woman by the name of McDonough.”
“Who's she?”
“She was Wright's girlfriend, and maybe Butler's too.”
“Did Wright know that?” Clare asked, turning instantly into a cop.
“I don't know. That's one of the things I want to ask her.”
“So what's going on at her house?”
“Nothing. She's not home. Went out this morning and hasn't come back. I'm going to sit in the SUV and wait for her to turn up.”
“Now there's a New Year's Eve to remember. How has the rest of the day gone? Dig up anything interesting?”
“Yeah — bits and pieces.” I gave her a rundown — she was still the DI on the case.
When I'd finished, Clare said, “And you're hoping Amy will provide the piece that makes it all fall into place?”
“That'd be convenient, wouldn't it?”
She agreed that it would. Having gone through everything with Clare, I realized I now had a pretty good picture of Ruben Wright on his last jump. To begin with, he was not the man I knew. He was sick, his face and hands possibly numb, his legs possibly spasming as MS attacked the nerve endings in his brain. He was also more than likely to have been clinically depressed, and jumping in the company of a man he despised, not least because he probably knew the guy was boning his girlfriend — something Wright was more than likely no longer capable of doing. That would have been hard for a man like Ruben — at least, the man I knew — to take. In my first conversation with Clare on this case, her view, as well as my own, was that the circumstances surrounding Ruben Wright's death were, at the very least, suspicious. They still were, only now I was equally suspicious of Ruben Wright. He at least had the motive to take his own life. What was Butler's motive? He had the girl, didn't he? The guy might have been an asshole but he wasn't a psychopath — the type who killed just for the sake of killing. The picture didn't make a hell of a lot of sense. I had Butler's version of events, a little interesting forensic evidence, plus a few conflicting interviews. Was it possible the facts could be put together to form a different picture, one that made total sense?
I was aware of the silence, but it wasn't an uncomfortable one. It was almost as if the discussion about the case we'd just had was the small talk buffering the major issue still to be resolved — namely, were we somehow going to overcome the tyranny of distance between us and get together for some serious action with her bottle of whipped cream, or what?
“Where are you going to stay?” Clare asked, finally.
“Well, I currently have a room at the Ford Explorer, but the room service sucks.”
I heard her laugh. “What if McDonough doesn't show?”
“Then I'll try to find the complaints box and leave a note.”
“Why don't you just go to a hotel and make sure you're up early enough to catch the worm?”
It didn't take much to convince me that this would be a much better idea.
“I know a place just after you cross the bridge, coming into town. It's clean and the rooms don't smell of old sex,” Clare said.
“Okay, you've talked me into it.”
“Great. I'll see you there in an hour and a half. Wait up.” There was a pause. And then she added, “On second thought, have a quick nap. Might as well get some sleep while you can.”
I found the place Clare recommended. As promised, it was clean and fresh — more in the country bed-and-breakfast mode than hotel-style accommodation — and run by a tough little granny in orthopedic shoes whose thinning hair was dyed chestnut. As she handed over the key she informed me that I was lucky to be getting a room, it being New Year's Eve with folks down from the colder northern climes to enjoy the warmer weather. The old lady had apparently had a last-minute cancellation.
I ordered a club sandwich in my room, and took a shower. The sandwich arrived just as I was toweling off. Perfect timing. I had no fresh clothes, so I put on the robe supplied, ate the sandwich, and tried not to think too much about the case at hand. I succeeded, but only because I couldn't shake the feeling that I still had work to do on the Tanaka/Boyle case. Under my skin was that feeling I'd had in the morning, the one I'd woken up with. I wanted to call Arlen. I wanted him to check on whether Al Cooke's faxed statement had turned up. I wanted him to look into the guy's bank account for me. Cooke was on deck the same time as Tanaka. He'd told me it was Boyle who'd murdered Tanaka. But what if it'd gone down another way and he was more involved in the murder than he was prepared to admit? Boyle was the only other person who could have verified his story, and now Boyle was dead. I picked up the phone, then put it down. New Year's Eve was New Year's Eve. My crap could wait twenty-four hours. And anyway, I knew what he'd say: “That's not your case anymore.”
I turned on the television for company. The screen filled with some local doll presenting the news. The lead stories were still related to the hit on the Transamerica Pyramid building and the Four Winds apartments. Rescue efforts were about to end, the emergency crews standing by, engines idling. There was a piece shot on a set of steps in downtown San Francisco, the President noting with thanks the condolences sent by a host of nations and angered by some that hadn't, most notably Pakistan's new anti-West government whose thinly veiled message in their statement about the bombing basically said we deserved it.
The President's general displeasure with Pakistan dovetailed with a report about Islamabad announcing the resumption of nuclear testing. Apparently, they had one ready to go. India had reacted by placing its military on high alert, and rushing reinforcements through midwinter blizzards to defend the disputed patch of high-altitude dirt and ice in Kashmir.