"Don't be."
She was in the car now, looking out.
"We should talk about counseling and social work sometime," I said.
"Did a bit of it yourself, from what I hear."
"More like I muddied the water."
"So we should. Just don't tell me I'm wrong, okay?" Hauling her seat belt across. "See you tomorrow, Turner." Face in the rearview mirror as she drove away. Objects may be closer than they appear.
Back at the motel I punched my way through a thicket of numbers, 9 for an outside line, 1 for long distance, area code, credit-card number, personal code. Quite the modern lawman.
"Sheriffs office."
"Who's speaking?"
"Rob Olson."
"Trooper?"
"You bet. Who's this?"
"Turner, up in Memphis."
"The deputy, right?"
"Right. Don't guess Lonnie'd be around this late, would he?" "He's always around. Though it might be best if you didn't tell him I said that." Miles and miles away, coffee got slurped. "Be here right this minute save he's out to an accident. Told him I'd go but he wouldn't hear of it. You hold a minute, Turner? Got someone on the other line."
Then he was back.
"That's Bates on line two. He's at the hospital with an accident victim, wants to speak with you. Hold on, I'll try to transfer you."
Some time went by.
"Turner. You there? I can't get this damn thing to work. And I think I just hung up on the sheriff. He's still over to the hospital. You wanta call him there?"
He gave me the number, and I did.
"Those boys at the barracks are the best you'll see at paperwork," Lonnie said when I told him what happened. "Other things…"
Someone was there by him, complaining. I'd probably called in to the ER nurse's station, which might be the only line functioning this time of night. The local hospital wasn't a hell of a lot larger or more complicated than our office.
"Official police work," he said. "Chill, Gladys." Then to me: "So you're still in Memphis. Any action?"
I filled him in on my visit. Connecting with Sam Hamill, meeting Tracy. Think I may have found out where to go to get what I'm looking for, I told him.
"That's good. Quick."
"I followed your advice."
"Hamill put you and Tracy together knowing she'd give up the contact, he wouldn't have to." As always, Lonnie was a move ahead.
"Way I saw it, too."
"So why the fancy footwork?"
"Maybe they figure I can take care of a problem they haven't been able to."
Lonnie was silent for a moment.
"In which case, since Hamill laid out the official face of the thing for you, even assigned an officer, the MPD can in no way be held responsible. Either you handle it and you're home before anyone knows better-"
"Or I get, as our British friends say, nicked for the deed, in which case Sam and the MPD disclaim to their heart's content."
"Clean."
"More than one way to get the job done."
"Always. Damn! Now the goddamned beeper's going off. Hang on."
I heard voices behind, just out of range of intelligibility.
"Shirley checking in," Lonnie said moments later.
"You've got a beeper now."
"Simon has a band concert tomorrow, some kind of solo. Wife wanted to be sure I would make it, gave me hers." Simon in buzz-cut and baggies was the older of two sons. The younger, Billy, despite the flag of multiple piercings, had no direction any of us could discern but was a sweetheart, maybe the closest thing to an innocent human being I've known.
"How's June?"
"Cleared by her doctors and home with us. Mostly herself, but sometimes it's like she's not really there, she's gone off someplace else."
"Not surprising, with what she's just been through."
"I hope."
"Give it time. Don Lee?"
"Stable, they keep telling me-though he hasn't come round yet. Wait and see, they say, we just have to wait and see."
Gladys was back, loudly demanding return of the phone he'd taken hostage. Lonnie ignored her.
"Trooper said you wanted to talk to me. What's up?"
"May be nothing to it, but the accident I answered the call to?"
"Yes?"
"It got called in as a collision, but what happened was, Madge Gunderson passed out at the wheel and ran into a tree."
"Madge okay?" Madge had been a not-so-secret drinker most of her life. Her husband Karel died last year, and since then, maybe from grief, maybe from the fact that she didn't have to hide it anymore, the drinking had kind of got out of control.
"She will be. Just some gashes and the like. Looked worse than it is. This happened out on State Road 419. Woman driving behind her saw the whole thing, called it in on a cell phone."
"Okay."
"Woman's from up Seattle way, just passing through. I thanked her, naturally, took her statement. Then she says, 'You're the sheriff?' and when I say, 'Right now I am,' she asks does a man named Turner work with me."
"Say what she wanted?"
"Not a word. Sat there smiling at her and waiting, all she did was smile back."
"What's she look like?"
"Late twenties, early thirties, light brown hair cut short, five-eight, one-thirty. Easy on the eye, as my old man would of said. Jeans and sweatshirt, kind with a hood, ankle-high black Reeboks."
"Name?"
"J.T. Burke. That's Burke with an e, and just the initials."
No one I knew. Maybe a patient from my days as a counselor, was my first thought. Though it was doubtful any patient could have traced me here, or would have reason to.
"Don't suppose she said where she was headed."
"Gave me that same smile when I asked."
"That it, then?"
"Pretty much."
"So give Gladys back her phone already."
In exchange I gave him the name and location of my motel and my phone number, told him to call if he had any updates on Don Lee or happened to hear again from Ms. Burke.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Couldn't sleep.
Out on the streets at 2 a.m. looking for an open restaurant. Back to city habits that quickly. Had my book, just needed light, coffee, maybe a sandwich. Do the Edward Hopper thing.
Dino's Diner, half a mile in towards the city proper. "Open 24 hours" painted on the glass in foot-high blue letters. Also "Daily Specials" and "Hearty Breakfasts." These in yellow.
"Getchu?" the waitress, Jaynie, said, handing over a muchsplattered menu. "T'drink?"
Coffee. Definitely.
And received a reasonable facsimile of same, though it took some time. Peak hour, after all. Had to be three or four other patrons at least.
"Two scrambled, bacon, grits, biscuit," I told Jaynie when my coffee came.
Eggs were rubber-no surprise there-bacon greasy and underdone, biscuit from a can. Here I am in the Deep South and I get a canned biscuit? On the other hand, the grits were amazing.
The book also disappointed. Three refills and I was done with it, wide margins, large type, pages read almost as quickly as I turned them. Novels tend to be short these days. Probably most of them should be even shorter. This one was about a doctor, child of the sixties and long a peace activist, who goes after the men who raped and killed his wife and disposes of them one by one. Title: Elective Surgery.
I took out my wallet, unfolded the notebook page Tracy Caulding had given me. Three addresses, none of which meant much to me. A lot of Lanes and Places, bird names the rage. Meadowlark Drive, Oriole Circle, like that. But just then a cab pulled up out front and the driver came in. Jaynie slapped a cup of coffee down before him without being asked. He was two stools away. One of those in-betweens you find all over the South, darkish skin, could be of Italian descent, Mediterranean, Caribbean, Creole. Fine features, a broad nose, gold eyes-like a cat's. Wearing pleated khakis with enough starch to have held on to their crease though now well crumpled about the crotch, navy blue polo shirt, corduroy sport coat.