Mary bobbed her head on its slender white swanlike neck. “Well, yes, I believe Howie does have a young lady with whom he can... well, you know, talk and things...” She trailed off, then added sorrowfully, “It must get so lonesome for those poor boys there in prison, without anyone of the opposite sex to make them want to act like gentlemen...”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Kearny. Ballard hated the unction in his voice, necessary as it was to get Odum’s whereabouts out of this sweet and gentle lady. “Now, if we could just have the young lady’s name...”
Mary looked at them, her features placid. Finally she answered. “Piss off,” she said distinctly. Distinctly, but also gently.
Kearny was still laughing when they got back into Ballard’s car. Ballard was stiff with rage.
“When she dies,” said Kearny, “I’d like to mount her and hang her on the wall at DKA. Just as a reminder.”
“Over a sign reading Cheer Up, She Might Still Be Alive,” snarled Ballard.
Dammit, there was nothing to laugh about. There went their last lead down the drain. They didn’t have a thing. Not a thing.
“I’ll go over to Beaghler’s place for one last check,” said Kearny cheerfully. “You stake out this place in case the T-Bird shows.”
It wouldn’t, of course, thought Ballard; they both knew that. He burst out, “What gets me, Dan, is that goddamn woman covering up for Odum with his parole officer! Hell, I’ll bet she’s got hot goods in the garage from jobs her tenants have pulled with her furnishing the alibi.”
“Probably,” said Kearny with a grin. He started to get out.
“ ‘Why, it couldn’t have been little Howie, Mr. Parole Officer,’ ” said Ballard mincingly. “ ‘Howie was drinking tea and eating crumpets with me at the exact instant that...’ Oh, shit!”
Eighteen
At exactly 7:07 P.M., a black hand jerked convulsively on the white sheet. Corinne Jones’ head snapped up, her mouth popped open in excitement and disbelief. It had been sixty-six hours.
Heslip sighed, stirred, tried to roll over. Corinne was already clawing the bell at the head of the bed which was to bring the nurse. It did, fast. And the doctor.
Heslip moaned, made a sort of clucking sound in his throat, and began a regular even grating sound. The little mod medic, Whitaker, far from being alarmed at the sound, seemed delighted. He laid a hand on Corinne’s arm in a gesture that should have been avuncular but which somehow came off closer to a caress. He chuckled softly.
Bart Heslip had started to snore.
At exactly 7:07 P.M., Dan Kearny drove down Mount Diablo Street in Concord. The sun had another hour of Daylight Saving, but it was low and its light was pink-tinged. The shadows it now cast were long and thin, unlike the round fat ones Ballard had found earlier.
Kearny went a full block beyond the house before U-turning, and parked far enough down the street so his car would be out of sight. He ambled slowly back, tasting the neighborhood. Small one-stories built as veterans’ dream homes after World War II. Still bungalows then, instead of the pervasive California ranch style.
In front of the house next door, Kearny paused to pat a mongrel pup that had cantered up with unsuspicious puppy friendliness. Kearny’s hard gray eyes roamed the street, the setup at the Beaghler house.
There were too many cars parked in front of it. Five of them.
The red and white Olds compact convertible in the driveway — Sharon’s car, of course. A dusty black Chevy Nova with the slightly splay-footed stance that too-wide tires give small cars. Beaghler’s. Probably jazzed-up to get out and move, a useful trait for a number of things both legal and illegal.
Kearny thumped the dog in the ribs. The dog loved it. Looking too hard for illegal setups today? No. There were those extra cars outside Beaghler’s house. Three of them. And they were all wrong.
What about people over to supper? Ballard’s description of the living room said no. Even crappy housekeepers clean up for company. But what about an early poker game with the boys? That was a possibility — what did men care about housekeeping as long as the beer held out? Yes, a good possibility. Except.
Except that Kearny knew damned near everything there was to know about cars. Not just how to open them without keys, or run them without switching on the ignition. Everything. And just driving by those three late-model sedans, all with California plates, all recently washed, he had spotted the odd fact about them.
All three were rental cars.
He gave the dog a final friendly thump, went by the cars toward the house. Check. Each had the unobtrusive Dymo-printed adhesive tab used to identify rental vehicles. Rear bumper. Lower left-hand corner of the windshield. Back of the rear-view mirror.
Which meant three different rental companies.
Picking his way across the overgrown yard, Kearny tried to come up with a legitimate explanation. Friends coming in from out of state. Then why three different companies? Family reunion, people coming in at different times from different places. On a weekday? A business conference. That could explain the cars; coincidence could explain the choice of three different rent-a-car companies. It also could explain the poker table. A conference, not cards.
But how many business conferences with out-of-state associates did an auto mechanic living in a twenty-five-year-old $18,000 tract home have? Legitimate business conferences?
Kearny rang the bell.
He stood turned slightly from the door, the perfect picture of a bored salesman or house-to-houser. Then the door opened, and Kearny immediately recast his role.
This man had never been an auto mechanic, or a homeowner, or would have worked for anyone else. He was wide and blocky, with flat square shoulders, a good half-head taller than Kearny’s five-nine. His hands were out of a foundry, his wrists roped with veins. His face was bony, as flat and hard as the shoulders, rough-hewn in the same foundry as the hands.
He didn’t say anything, he didn’t have to. He confirmed what the clustered rental cars suggested, and made it even more certain by stepping out on the porch and closing the door firmly behind him.
Kearny had to make the motions, anyway. “Mr. Beaghler?”
“No.” Just a monosyllable, nothing more.
“How about the little lady of the house? Is Mrs. Beaghler—”
“No.”
“You mean she isn’t here at the present time, or that—”
“I already said no.”
The big catlike man reached behind him without looking, twisted the knob, started to slide through the door sideways and back in, automatically not letting Kearny see into the house. As he automatically had stepped outside the door and shut it behind him, just in case Kearny had been fuzz. Once you let a cop in, he was in. If you came out to him and shut the door, then he needed a warrant to go through it.
Until Kearny spoke, he had no idea he was going to; the face was totally unfamiliar. But something in his computer mind, programed by a quarter-century of investigations to indelibly retain detail, because detail so often broke cases, had recognized those hands, the ears set flat to the square skull, the black dry hair, the voice. Even though it had been a single night ten years before.