“ Then we’ll burn it,” Glenna said. “Us sisters have to stick together.”
“ Sisters?”
“ She’s Maori, that makes her black as far as I’m concerned. She’s a sister.”
He sat up and let the cool night breeze wash over his sweat drenched body.
“ We have to find my father,” Glenna said. “If anyone can find where she is and save her, he can. He’s the best.”
“ Isn’t he just an ordinary police officer?”
“ Would just any police officer have found you at that motel so fast?” She went on to tell him about her father and how he was the best homicide detective that ever lived. She thought a lot of him and if only part of what she said was true, then Jim wanted his help.
“ We need this man,” Donna thought.
“ I agree.”
“ How do we find him?”
“ He’ll go for Kohler. He’ll watch and wait. If we find Kohler, he’ll find us.” She stood up and offered him her hand. He gave it and she helped him up. “Did you get the keys?”
He nodded.
“ I can’t go back behind that garage, could you go and get my laundry bag? I have to change.”
“ Here? Now?”
“ I peed my pants when that thing was after me.”
He was gone less than half a minute. She took a pair of the jeans out of her bag.
“ Turn around,” she said, “so I can change.”
He turned away from her.
“ Okay, I’m ready,” she said after less than a minute. “Let’s go.”
“ We have to go back through the fence to get the car.”
“ But not behind the garage?”
“ Not behind the garage.”
“ What if it comes after us?”
He reached into his laundry bag, withdrew the forty-five and handed it to her. “Do you know how to use this?”
“ Of course. Daddy’s a cop and I’m Daddy’s little girl.”
He reached behind his back and brought out the other gun.
“ You took more than the keys?”
“ Yes I did.” He stood, listened to the night for a few seconds, then he walked the plank over the drainage ditch and went through the gap in the fence, holding the gun in front of himself, the bag behind. She followed, copying his moves. They slipped along the side of the garage, like ninjas in the night, both aware that there were people in the house.
There were two cars in the driveway now. The red Miata and a Chrysler LaBaron. He dropped his gun in the bag and went through the key ring till he found what he was looking for.
“ We’ll take the Miata,” he whispered. He unlocked the door and they put their bags behind the passenger seat. “We can’t start it here. We’ll have to push it down the street.” He was still whispering. “You get behind the wheel and I’ll push.”
Five minutes later they were roaring out of town, headed toward the Interstate, with Glenna driving. He was thinking about Donna. Donna back in his head again. Donna strapped to a hospital bed halfway around the world. She was part of him now. However evil the intent of the man that abused them, he had fused them. They were one. He could no more live without her than he could his heart. He still loved Julia, but like a sister. What he felt for Donna was what great poets wrote about. And he didn’t even know what she looked like.
“ I’m terribly pretty and I love you too,” she thought.
“ Hey, those thoughts were private.”
“ I love you,” she thought.
“ I love you too, more than anybody’s ever loved anything,” he thought back.
“ I want to be with you always, Jim Monday, always. Come to New Zealand. Come and get me and make me yours.”
“ Not even death itself could stop me. I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
“ No. First you must confront this man that killed your friend. I’ve felt your grief, this man must pay.”
“ We only have a week to find you. I can deal with Kohler later.”
“ No, if he’s the one responsible for your friend David’s death, your wife is in danger, too. If something happens to her and we could have stopped it, we couldn’t live with ourselves. Find this Dr. Kohler you hate so much and do what you must, but let’s do it quickly, because this man, Manfred, is coming soon. And who knows what else his wicked servant has planned for me.”
“ I hope her father’s half the detective she said he is and I wonder where he is now?” Jim thought, as Glenna braked for the stop sign by the Mobil Station just before the Interstate.
“ Penny for your thoughts?” Glenna said, interrupting his conversation with Donna.
“ I was thinking about your father. Wondering where he is right now.”
“ He’s in Tampico. I’m sure of it.” She popped the clutch, smoking the tires as she flew through the gears like a pro, making the Miata scream as they sped onto the freeway.
Chapter Sixteen
Hugh Washington rummaged in his pocket for his room key, his head still spinning from the drink. He keyed the door. The blast of hot air from inside caused him to flush. He’d left the heat on. He turned it off, flopped down on the bed and watched the ceiling move. He hadn’t sat in a bar till last call since before he was married, and the way he felt, it would be another twenty years before he did it again.
When he left the motel five hours earlier, he hadn’t intended on getting drunk, hadn’t even intended on going to a bar. Seeing Susan Spencer again after thirty years made him homesick, so he took the ten minute drive down Across The Way Road and found himself back in Palma.
The lazy main street of thirty years ago now sports two bars, three restaurants, a sporting goods store, two pharmacies, a bookstore, two banks, two gas stations and a few other small businesses. Not a big town by anybody’s standards, but not the one bar, one gas station town that he’d grown up in.
He parked in front of the bookstore. He wanted to walk the street. A few minutes wouldn’t hurt. Plenty of time to get back and watch Kohler’s place. Besides, he still needed a warm jacket, though he doubted he’d find anyplace open.
He moved up the street with an easy stride, curious as any vacationing tourist. He was reminded of the many vacations he’d gone on with his family and how he and Jane used to love window shopping, looking at things they couldn’t afford. He’d sense the longing in her heart and he’d say, ‘Someday I’ll buy you one of those,’ and she’d always answer, ‘You’re all I want. You and Glenna.’ But he always suspected she wasn’t being completely truthful, because she stared at the new dresses and the jewelry with a kind of burning intensity, like she was carving the image into her mind. If she couldn’t possess it physically, she would posses it mentally.
He was feeling sorry for himself and he hated it. He stopped in front of Dewey’s Tavern. A drink might help chase the blues away and some of the cold as well. He went in. The tavern might have been transported from London. Even the smell was authentic. He bellied up to the bar and ordered a Guinness. When in Rome.
“ Mr. Washington, we are meeting again.” Hugh recognized the voice of Jaspinder Singh even before he turned around. He shook his hand. Singh was drinking a coke.
“ You live in Palma?” Hugh asked, making conversation.
“ Eleven years, since I bought the market Tampico side.” Tampico was on the north side of the bay, Palma the south.
“ You work Tampico side, live Palma side. You must know everybody in the area?”
“ Are you wanting more information?”
“ A little. I was wondering if you could help me put a couple of names to a couple of descriptions.”
“ I could try.”
“ The first fellow is a skinny little man, losing his hair, combs it over, right to left,” Washington swept his hand across his head to show what he meant, “slanty eyes, reminds me of a weasel.”
“ And the other,” Jaspinder Singh said, “Looks like an ape?”
“ Yep.”
“ They are Frank and Bobby Markham. Frank is the older brother, Bobby is as stupid as he looks. Not retarded. Just stupid.”
“ You can see it in his eyes,” Hugh said.