Without bothering to put the phone back in its cradle, I dialed information again and was connected to the Pullman Police Department. The dispatcher there passed me along to the Whitman County Sheriff's Department, where I found myself talking with a young man named Mac Larkin.
Speaking calmly but firmly, I attempted to express the urgency of my concern that Machiko and Kimi Kurobashi might be in jeopardy out at the Honeydale Farm. With the bland indifference of youth, Larkin assured me that I shouldn't panic about someone's telephone being out of order since there were scattered reports of telephone outages coming in from all over Whitman County that night.
I tried to let what he said allay my fears, but it didn't work. An insistent alarm continued to hammer in my head. The picture of Tadeo Kurobashi's mutilated body was fresh in my memory. His killer was free to kill again.
When I voiced my concern to Ralph Ames, he immediately began playing devil's advocate. "From what you told me about the hurried way they left town, how would anyone know exactly where they were going?
"They wouldn't, I replied, "unless they followed them out of town. With that I was back on the phone to Mac Larkin.
"You again? he demanded.
"When are they going to restore service to the Honeydale Farm area? I asked.
"The phone company fixes phones, he replied curtly. "They don't tell us how to do our job, and we don't interfere in theirs. All I know is, they're doing the best they can.
Another line buzzed, and Larkin left me sitting on hold for the better part of five minutes. "Have you been helped? he asked, when he came back on the phone.
"As a matter of fact, I haven't, I replied. "I'm still worried about those women. I'm telling you, the woman's husband was murdered last night. It's possible the killer will come after them next.
"And it's also possible that California is going to fall into the Pacific. Possible, but not very likely. This line is for emergency calls, Detective Beaumont.
"Couldn't you at least send a deputy by? I asked.
"I've entered your call into the log, and I'll see what I can do, but I'm not making any promises. With that he hung up.
"Do any good? Ames asked.
"Not much, I answered. "No way could I build a fire under that little jackass on the phone.
"You've done as much as you could, Ames said. "It'll probably be all right.
But his words offered small comfort. While I had been on the phone, Ralph had turned around in the love seat and was sitting facing out the window, watching the pattern of splashing raindrops on the glass.
"Who all knew about the poem? Ames asked thoughtfully a moment later.
"The one on the computer? Well, there was Doc Baker, George Yamamoto, Big Al-
"No, no, Ames interrupted. "I don't mean who saw it on the computer this morning. How many people around him were aware that it was Tadeo Kurobashi's favorite poem?
"Probably several. Yamamoto said it was familiar as soon as he saw it, but he couldn't remember where he'd heard it. Kimi knew it well, and I would imagine so would her mother. Why are you asking about the poem?
"Because it sounds to me as though whoever fed the virus into the MicroBridge computers must have known Tadeo Kurobashi very well in order to pick that particular verse, to know unerringly that it was part of his favorite poem.
"So? I asked. "What are you getting at?
Ames cocked his head to one side. "Think about it. If you were a young woman struggling to get along on whatever crumbs the university dishes out to instructors and on what you could make shoveling horse manure in someone else's barn, and if you knew your father was busy squandering your entire inheritance, wouldn't you be tempted to do something about it?
"I might, I said, "but not in this case. Kimiko Kurobashi isn't the type.
Ralph Ames looked at me sadly and shook his head. "Beau, you of all people should know better than that. It seems to me that we were both suckered very badly once by a lady who didn't look the part at all, remember?
Remember? Of course I remembered, and the memory of Anne Corley caused a burning pain in my chest that didn't seem to lessen with the passage of time. I got up and poured myself another drink. That was easier than talking.
"I'll look into it, I said at last.
Ralph Ames nodded. "All right. In that case, I'm going to bed, he said.
I followed suit, but once in bed, I didn't go to sleep. For a long time, I lay there, doing all kinds of mental gymnastics in an effort to keep my mind off Anne Corley. By focusing completely on the hows and whys of Tadeo Kurobashi's murder and other more immediate matters I managed to keep her at bay somewhere outside my conscious memory. Eventually my mind wandered away from Tadeo Kurobashi's mystery to one of my own, one much closer to home and very much in need of a solution.
Where was my missing chunk of time? I worried the question like an old dog gnawing a bone. What had happened to the part of my life that contained my agreement to go to the mystery meeting with Ralph Ames and where I had somehow, inexplicably, smashed my fingers badly enough to require the attention of a doctor? How could I possibly have forgotten those things so completely? As if on cue, the constant throbbing reasserted itself, a pulsing reminder.
Try as I might to remember, though, there was nothing there, not a trace. It was as if a heavy black curtain had been pulled over the window of my memory. A blackout curtain.
As soon as the word came into my head, so did a sickening inkling of where that piece of my life had gone. I had forgotten things before on occasion. Everybody does that, but it had never been anything terribly important. I could recall misplacing my car once, finding it late the next day in the parking lot outside the Doghouse. But this time it was blatantly clear to me that, despite my desperately wanting to remember, I was missing pieces of my life that nobody else was. And there was a distinct cause-and-effect relationship that was hard to deny.
I thrashed around in bed and fought with the covers in a vain effort to deny the word's reality, to make the ugly possibility rebury itself somewhere far away, but it didn't. The word blackout was an evil genie let out of its bottle. It was out, and it wouldn't disappear.
And so I waited for sleep and mostly didn't find it until close to daylight. The rain had stopped. The last thing I heard before I fell asleep was the raucous squawk of a marauding sea gull. And that's when the dream came. I know it by heart. I see it over and over, and it's always the same.
Anne Corley, vibrant and alive and wearing the same red dress she wore when I first saw her, stands in a windswept park with the breeze rippling her hair. I call to her and she turns to look at me. She is holding a rose, a single, long-stemmed red rose. I go to her, running at that desperate nightmarish pace that robs you of strength and breath but covers no distance. At last I stop a few feet away from her, and she starts toward me. I reach out to clasp her in my arms, but as I do, the rose in her hands changes to a gun, and I step back screaming, "No! No! No!
I awoke in a room awash in daylight with streams of sweat pouring off my body. Lying there alone in bed, waiting for the shaking to stop and my heartbeat to steady, I cursed Fate and any other gods who might be listening for making me be one of the few men I know who dreams in living color.
In black and white, it might not hurt as much.
An hour or so later, Ames and I were drinking coffee at the kitchen counter when the phone rang. I more than half expected the call to be from Peters-it was about time for him to check in-but the voice on the other end of the line was that of a total stranger.
"Is this the Seattle Police Department? the gruff male voice asked.
"No it isn't, I answered. "This is a private residence.
"I'm looking for somebody named Beaumont. Anybody there by that name?