“One thing I’m wondering, Hub, is why you didn’t tell me you and Janet were in a car accident the day after Dorian Munz was executed.”
Again, Walker looked back over at me, eyebrows arched, surprised that I knew.
“Where’d you hear that?”
“A little bird told me.”
He put away the mustard, formulating his words carefully. “Janet called me up out of nowhere. Said she wanted to talk. I agreed to meet her for coffee. She said she was upset about what happened to Munz. Felt like it was all her fault. Said she wished she’d never testified. I told her Munz deserved what he got for killing Ruthie. She wouldn’t hear it, though. Kept saying she was to blame. Over and over.”
“How’d the accident happen?”
“I rear-ended her car when we were both pulling out of the parking lot. Foot just slipped off the brake. Stupid. Police officer happened to be going in for lunch. He issued us a report number for the insurance. Nobody got hurt. Nobody got a ticket. That was about it.”
A sour queasiness coated the back of my throat. Maybe it was the melodramatic way he’d responded to the news of the assault on Janet Bollinger, or the expression on his face when he realized I knew about the car accident, but I was left with the unswerving impression that Hub Walker somehow was already aware of what had happened that afternoon to Bollinger.
“How well did you know Janet, Hub?”
Walker shrugged. “We had her over for Sunday supper a time or two. Came to Thanksgiving one year, as I recall. Jan and Ruth were pretty close there for awhile. Then, after Ruth broke up with Munz, Jan started going out with him, and that was about it. She wrote me a note after the trial. Apologized for ever getting involved with him. Said it was a big mistake.”
“Did you respond to her?”
Walker shook his head. “Wasn’t nothin’ gonna bring Ruthie back anyhow. Some things are best left alone. First time I heard from Jan Bollinger in years was when she said she wanted to meet for coffee.”
He asked me if the police had any idea who might’ve attacked Bollinger. I said I didn’t know. He said he wanted to send her flowers and asked what hospital she’d been transported to. I said I didn’t know that, either.
“It’s somewhere in Chula Vista. That’s what the paramedics said.”
Walker scratched his ear. “She was living down in Imperial Beach last I remember.”
I nodded.
“Plenty of shady characters down there these days,” he said.
“Plenty of shady characters everywhere these days.”
I heard the low hum of an electric garage door opener kick on, and a garage door being raised. Walker ambled across the kitchen and opened a side door leading to the garage. A car pulled in and shut down. A car door opened and slammed shut. From inside the garage, Crissy Walker said, “We were out of milk. I stopped off on the way home. Whose Escalade is that in the driveway?”
“Mr. Logan’s.”
“He’s here?”
“He is. Got in a while ago.”
“Where’s Ryder?”
“Upstairs, playing. I fed her supper.”
Crissy Walker entered the kitchen lugging two cloth bags from Trader Joe’s overloaded with groceries and set them on the counter.
“Welcome, Mr. Logan,” she said. “So nice to see you again.”
“Nice to see you, too.”
I slid off my stool and asked if there was anything else to carry in. Crissy said no and thanked me for offering to help. She was wearing purple Nike running shoes, matching nylon warm-up pants and a silver leotard. The hair of her loose bun hung down in damp strands, like she’d been working out. Even sweaty, the former centerfold was a sight.
“Somebody stabbed Janet Bollinger,” Hub said grimly.
Crissy’s jaw fell open. “What?”
“This afternoon. In her apartment. Mr. Logan just told me.”
She clasped a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God. How badly is she hurt? Is she gonna be OK?”
I shrugged. “She didn’t look too good when they were putting her in the ambulance.”
“Well, have they at least caught who did it?”
“Not that I’m aware of. One of the detectives working the case wants me to help them out a little.”
Walker frowned, was none too pleased by my revelation.
“What do you mean, ‘help out a little’?”
“They want me to pass along any info I might trip over in the course of the work I’m doing for you, anything that might be relevant to their investigation. No big deal.”
“I’m paying you good money to work for me,” Walker said, “not the police.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, I feel terrible about what happened to Jan, and I’m not saying that it’s her own fault, but she shouldn’t have been living in Imperial Beach to begin with. It’s just not safe down there.”
“It’s not like the sheriff’s department deputized me, Hub. I’m doing my civic duty. You’d do the same.”
Walker exhaled his disapproval, reached down into a cabinet and got out a bottle of Jim Beam.
“I suppose you can do whatever the hell you want.”
A disconcerting thought came to Crissy. She looked over at her husband. “This couldn’t possibly have something to do with Ruthie and Dorian Munz, could it?”
“I’m starting to wonder the same thing,” Walker said, pouring himself three fingers of Kentucky sour mash.
After I finished my turkey sandwich, Hub showed me where I’d be bunking, a small but comfortably appointed casita that doubled as a pool house out back. I dumped my duffel bag and drove to the Amtrak station in downtown San Diego to meet Savannah’s train. I got there ten minutes ahead of its scheduled arrival. Chronically punctual. Another of my many character flaws. I planted myself on a bench trackside, with time to think.
Was there a connection between the stabbing death of Walker’s daughter, Ruth, and the stabbing nearly a decade later of her former Best Friend Forever-turned-romantic rival, Janet Bollinger? I didn’t know enough to proffer a reasoned opinion one way or the other. But if I knew anything, it’s that most people go their entire lives without being violently knifed, or knowing anyone who has. The coincidence seemed more than coincidental.
People lie. Faces never do. The manner in which Walker responded to the news of the assault on Bollinger, as if he already knew, left me uneasy. Not that his response was a slam-dunk psychological assessment. Human behavior is always subject to interpretation. Failing to make eye contact, for example, does not automatically convey deceit. Nor does someone looking you in the eye confirm complete honesty. Those of us assigned to Alpha learned that we had to closely observe our enemies, taking note of their baseline behaviors — how they reacted when you knew they were lying or telling the truth — to accurately assess their nonverbal clues. Still, I couldn’t shed the disquieting notion that Hub Walker, Medal of Honor recipient and living aviation legend, knew something about the attack that afternoon on his daughter’s former friend that he wasn’t telling.
It’s just a job, Logan. You’re only in it for the money.
I forced myself to think other thoughts. The sea air was cool and damp on my face, carrying with it a sweet fragrance I couldn’t place at first. Pittosporum, maybe. Possibly jasmine.
Or pee.
A homeless teenager was using a bush not ten feet behind me as a toilet.
“Hey.”
He glanced over at me, fear in his hollow eyes. He was about sixteen, garbed in a gray hoodie and jeans turned black with filth.
I started to read him the riot act, only I really don’t know what the riot act is. The sugary odor of the kid’s urine told me he was likely diabetic and dehydrated. He also looked hungry and scared.