“I’m sure. Yes.”
“Okay. Get whatever you want to take along and wait for me in the cabin. I’ll come get you pretty quick.”
“Where are you going?”
“To talk to somebody. An idea I have. I won’t be more than ten minutes.”
I veered around to the front of the main resort building and went into the cafe. Hal Cantrell was where I figured he’d be, at the bar — chattering to two other guys, a bottle of beer in his hand and an excited gleam in his eye. Enjoying himself. One of the blood-and-disaster freaks. Well, maybe I could turn that to our advantage if I handled him right.
It took a little doing to pry him away from his audience and get him outside and off to where we had some privacy. I managed it by whispering to him that I needed a favor, an important favor, and that he was the only one who could help me with it.
“So,” he said when we were alone, “what’s this favor?”
“Make a couple of phone calls for me.”
“Phone calls? Who to?”
“Your real-estate office, first. Have somebody run a rental listings check — all the brokers county wide — and find out if Donald Latimer rented a house or apartment in the Half Moon Bay area at any time in the past month to six weeks. Under his own name or as Jacob Strayhorn. That’s possible, isn’t it?”
“Possible, sure, but— Hey, why Half Moon Bay?”
“Chance he lived there before he came up here.”
“Not Stockton, huh?”
“Not Stockton.”
“Why do you care if he lived in Half Moon Bay?”
“Never mind why. Will you do it?”
His mouth quirked in a sly, boozy little grin. “What’s in it for me?”
“A hundred bucks, cash. And some free publicity if it turns out to be useful information that helps nail Latimer.”
“Yeah? You think it will?”
“Pretty good chance,” I lied.
“Well, I always did like to see my name in the papers. Who’s the other call to?”
“Me. My car phone as soon as you get the information.”
“You leaving here?”
“Driving Mrs. Dixon back to San Francisco.” I dragged my wallet out. I’d brought plenty of cash along, the way you do on vacations; I picked out five twenties, but I didn’t let him have the money yet. “One other thing. This is just between you and me. Don’t discuss it with anyone, and I mean anyone, for twenty-four hours.”
“Law included?”
“The law included. If you do, you won’t like what I have to say to the media about your cooperation.”
Cantrell shrugged. “A deal’s a deal with me,” he said. Now he was serious; the grin was gone. “I’ll take your money” — he plucked the twenties out of my fingers — “but that’s not the real reason I’m going along. Not for any glory, either.”
“No, huh?”
“No. For the woman and her kid. I got kids of my own, you know.”
“I’ll bet you’re a good father.”
The sarcasm was lost on him. “Better’n most.”
“And a good citizen.”
“Try to be,” he said, and he even managed to sound sincere. If he didn’t believe it now, he’d manage to talk himself into it before long. He was just that variety of self-serving, self-deluded asshole.
I took him with me to the Judsons’ cabin, told Rita what he was going to do without getting into specifics and asked her to please make sure her phone stayed free until he had the information I was after. She said she would and she didn’t ask questions. I wrote my car phone number on a piece of notepaper, handed it to Cantrell. In return, he gave me a mock salute and went off with Rita to the kitchen.
Marian was ready. I hustled her out of there, across the lot to where she’d parked my car. We were just getting inside when a couple of guys came running toward us, one with a camera in his hand, the other shouting, “Hey! Hey, wait a minute!” Reporters. I told Marian to lock her door, locked mine, fired up the engine as the two guys reached the car and the shouter started banging on the window glass. I managed not to do him any damage as I drove us away.
16
The first thing I did when we cleared the immediate area was to try calling Tamara on the car phone. No good; I couldn’t get through a wall of static. I’d had trouble with the mobile unit before in mountainous terrain, particularly bad-weather or windy days, and during the past hour or so a high, sharp wind had begun to blow up here. Kerry kept telling me to get the thing replaced with a more sophisticated cell phone and I kept putting it off like the bullheaded procrastinator she said I was. Damn car was going in for a new unit first of next week.
I drove too fast along the rough road, Marian sitting rigidly beside me, staring straight ahead and not making a sound even when a bump or pothole bounced us around like clay figures in a box. She didn’t want conversation right now and that was fine with me. There was plenty of time — between five and six long hours — for what talking we had left to do.
We cleared the last sheriffs roadblock at the Bucks Lake Road intersection, began to wind down to lower elevations. I tried the phone again as we neared Quincy. Still staticky, but I could make out circuit rings through the crackle, which meant Tamara and I could hear each other. I stayed on until she answered, and it was all right as long as both of us spoke loudly and distinctly.
“Been hoping you’d call,” she said. “Bombs, kidnapping — man, shit does happen when you’re around.”
“Yeah. How’d you hear about it?”
“Joe DeFalco. Called a while ago, said soon as he got word what was going down up there he knew you were involved.”
“What’d you tell him?”
Mutter, mutter wrapped in static.
“Say that again. Louder.”
“Told him everything I know — nothing much. Where’re you?”
I told her that and who was with me and where we were going; the rest could wait until later. “What I need,” I said then, “is for you to keep on top of the situation with Latimer. I don’t mean media reports, I mean an official pipeline — I want to know immediately if and when anything breaks over the next five hours. Can do?”
Static. Then, “…be no problem. Felicia owes me one.”
Felicia was Felicia Jackson, a friend of Tamara’s who worked in the SFPD’s communications department. Tamara never ceased to amaze me, not only with her computer skills but in other ways; in a few short months she’d made personal contacts in strategic places that it would’ve taken me years to establish.
“Any news,” I said, “even if it’s unconfirmed.”
“You got it.”
Into Quincy, out of it again rolling southeast on Highway 70. Traffic was fairly light; I let the speedometer needle ease up over seventy and hang there. My instinct was to bear down even harder, but I was afraid to run the risk of accident or attracting the attention of the Highway Patrol. There were quite a few HP patrols in the Sierras during summer months and they weren’t inclined to be forgiving of speeders.
Marian still had nothing to say. I glanced over at her now and then and her position didn’t change; she seemed almost catatonic, lost deep inside herself. The inside of my head was not a good place to be right now; the inside of her head, I thought, must be three times as bleak and haunted.
We were coming up on a wide place in the road called Cromberg when the phone buzzed. I yanked the receiver out of its cradle, almost dropped it in my haste to get the line open.
Cantrell. And a static-free connection. I heard him loud and clear when he said, “You’re out of luck.”
“What does that mean?”
“No rentals in the Half Moon Bay area by Donald Latimer or Jacob Strayhorn.”
“Your office is sure of that?”
“Positive. I even had my girl check back two full months, just in case.”