“Maybe it does. I can think of another subscription that got canceled recently.”
“Phil Newly’s,” Frank said.
“Yes. Nick Parrish is someone who has obviously made a study of police and forensic procedures. He knows what might trigger a missing persons investigation. A pile of newspapers on the driveway might be noticed by neighbors who don’t even know the victim’s name.”
“I’ll make another push to take a look at Newly’s house. But as I’ve said, in general, judges don’t like cops to take uninvited tours of defense lawyer’s homes.”
We went early to Jo Robinson’s office. She had arranged to see Ben just before she saw me. “We should try to get a two-for-one rate out of her,” I said, but needless to say, Ben wasn’t in an especially humorous mood.
He ran over into my time, but I didn’t mind. I thought that meant I might be able to cut it a little short, but no deal.
“How’s he doing?” I asked, when she had closed the door to begin our session.
She smiled and said, “You don’t expect me to answer that do you? This is your time. How are you?”
“I’m still working lousy hours,” I said.
“They were supposed to be somewhat improved.”
“They are,” I admitted.
Now that my big gripe was out of the way, I sat studying my toes.
“Otherwise, how have things gone?” she prompted.
I told her about talking to the Sayres.
“Great. And have you thought more about Parzival?”
“A little.” I mentioned that telling the story of Parzival’s visit to Wild Mountain led to my talking to Ben that very morning. I related the gist of our conversation.
“Hmm.”
“Hmm?” I repeated. It isn’t easy to imbue a sound like that with sarcasm. I made it drip with the stuff.
She smiled again. “You know, I think your friend Jack was right. You forgot to tell the best part of the story.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean?” she repeated. She left out the sarcasm — all but a tinge, anyway.
“It’s not the best part of the story — it’s the saddest part. Parzival goes off in disgrace; he loses his faith. He tells others that he refuses to serve a God who has the power to always be merciful, but who instead is the . . . How does he put it? ‘The godfather of all my troubles.’ ”
“Why would a good God let so many terrible things happen?” she asked.
“Right. Or let someone with good intentions cause so much harm?”
“In the story, how does Parzival feel as he goes riding off on his quest for the Grail?”
“Angry.”
“Hmm.”
I didn’t bother echoing that one.
“Remind me,” she said, “what must he do before he can find Wild Mountain again?”
“Regain his faith.”
“Is that all?”
“No, there’s more to it than that,” I said, trying not to lose my patience. “It’s a story about compassion, but not just toward others. That’s what I was saying to you earlier — about talking to Ben this morning. Parzival has to be compassionate toward himself. He has to forgive himself.”
“Oh,” she said.
I was silent.
“Keep thinking about it, then. Now, despite the horrible hours, how did the return to work go?”
I told her about the support of my friends, the visits by Travis and Stinger, and about Leonard and Café Kelly.
“And since the problem with the van—”
“You mean the fingers and the toes and the skull?” I asked, showing no mercy.
“Any other contact? Any other times when you’ve seen him?”
I hesitated only briefly before recounting it all to her. “Oh, and I almost forgot the underwear business.”
“Underwear business?”
So I told her what had happened on my first day back at work.
“You wrote the article, but you didn’t file it?” she asked.
“Right.”
“You were angry when Parrish sent this package?”
“Yes.”
“But you fought an impulse to get back at him that must have been almost irresistible.”
“When I considered the possible consequences, it didn’t seem worth it.”
“Do you remember what you said to me when you first came here, about feeling out of control?”
“Yes. I don’t feel that way very often now,” I admitted, then added, “does that mean I’m done?”
She laughed. “Keep thinking about Parzival, and we’ll see what can be done about this urgent desire of yours never to see me again.”
Frank ate dinner with us, and held off arguing with me about work. But in the middle of the meal, he got a call. He came back from the phone smiling at me, and saying someone had seen a car parked near the ice rink at about three that morning, and could describe it — it matched the description of a car that a neighbor had seen going in and out of Phil Newly’s garage at odd hours.
“A dark green Honda Accord,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder, so that he must have felt my relief.
“Who saw it at the ice rink?” I asked.
“The driver of a delivery truck for the Express,” he said. “Taking papers to a newsstand at a coffee shop near the rink.”
“Did either the neighbor or the truck driver get a look at the person driving the car?” Ben asked.
“No, and neither of them got a plate number. But we’re going to be asking around here and in your neighborhood to see if anyone has seen the car lately. Somewhere, somebody must have seen that driver. Best of all, Pete thinks we’re well on our way to a warrant to search Newly’s place.”
A little later, Frank left to meet Pete — they had another lead on the car. Just before he left, he said, “I won’t ask you to stay home. Maybe you’d be safer there than here. I don’t know. Oh — and here — I brought this back.” He handed the cell phone to me. “Battery is all charged up. Keep it on from the moment you pull out of the driveway, okay? A patrol car will follow you in, but Wrigley’s been a little fussy about letting us on to the property — even so, don’t work alone, okay? Tell Leonard I’ll get him into the academy if he’ll stay next to you all shift. I’ve called Travis and Stinger — they’ll be stopping by. Spend the whole shift up on the roof with them if you have to. And don’t leave the—”
“Frank, any more instructions and Pete’s going to wonder what happened to you.”
“I just don’t want you to be there alone,” he said.
“I’m going with her,” Ben said.
“Ben—” we both protested.
“I can’t sit around here all night. It would make me crazy.”
I wasn’t sure it was a great idea for him to be in the newsroom that night, especially since there might be a certain amount of activity there that centered on covering the story of Camille’s death.
But he told me to remember that he was an expert when it came to dealing with the media — then smiled a little, letting me see that some part of his sense of humor was gradually returning.
Jack came over and offered to go in his stead, but by then Ben was entrenched in the idea of fulfilling his promise to Frank to keep an eye on me that day.
“You’re both wearing on my nerves,” I said, which didn’t faze either of them.
“Okay, I’ll stay here and keep an eye on Cody and the dogs,” Jack said, much to Ben’s relief. “If you change your mind about being at the paper, Ben, just call here and we can switch.”
We hadn’t gone very far from the house when the cell phone rang, making me jump. I fumbled a little, and ended up hanging up on the caller.
“Hell.”
“Maybe it was Parrish,” Ben said, in a flat tone of voice that made me worry about him.
The phone rang again. It was Jack.
“Why’d you hang up on me?” he asked.
“Inexperience.”
He laughed. “Frank wanted me to let you know he got the warrant for Newly’s house. Quite a surprise, huh?”