He didn’t have to act surprised. Hardest thing was trying not to show how frustrated and pissed off he was, not that it would of mattered if he’d clapped his hands and danced a jig. He had two more boilermakers because he needed them and because maybe it’d look funny if he rushed out without hoisting a couple. He was on his second when Ramsey said Verriker didn’t have insurance or much savings, why didn’t they take up a collection to help pay for poor Alice’s funeral. Alf got a jar and passed it around. Balfour had to kick in, too-two bucks, all he had in his wallet except for twenties. Lucchesi gave him a dirty look and somebody else muttered, “Cheap bastard.” Screw ’em all. He didn’t care what they thought as long as they didn’t start up with that mayor shit.
He was still pretty shook up when he got back to the house. More whiskey and beer didn’t help, all it did was make him fuzzy-headed. He turned on the TV, turned it off again, then just sat in his chair, drinking and trying to think what he was going to do about Verriker.
Couldn’t just back off, let him go on living and making Pete Balfour’s life miserable. Had to find some other way to fix him.
And the woman on the logging road… real problem there, too. She’d said something about a husband before he jumped her. Staying at the Murray place with her husband, that was it. Husband would report her missing if he hadn’t already. County cops’d be out looking for her sooner or later, combing the woods. Christ, what if they found her? No, they wouldn’t find her, not where he’d stashed her. But he couldn’t just leave her there. Had to find some permanent place to hide her body so they’d never be able to tie her to him. Body. Jesus. But what other choice did he have?
Maybe he should No, forget it. Deal with that tomorrow.
Verriker, too-tomorrow. Couldn’t think straight now, couldn’t plan.
He poured another drink, cracked another brew.
Why didn’t nothing ever work out easy for him?
7
The sheriff’s deputy in charge of the Six Pines substation was the fresh-faced young guy who’d come running up to me in the Verrikers’ driveway. His name was Broxmeyer. I waited half an hour for him; the only person in the station when I walked in just before dusk was a gray-haired woman who worked the desk and the radio dispatch unit, and she wasn’t in a position to help me. So I waited, alternately squirming on a wooden chair and pacing, sweating even though the air-conditioning was on, trying to adopt Jake Runyon’s method of blanking his mind during a downtime period. It didn’t work. All sorts of dark images kept spinning and sliding around inside my head, banging into one another. The knot that had formed in my stomach, cold and hard and acidic, kept funneling the sour taste of bile into the back of my throat.
Broxmeyer looked draggy and worn out when he finally showed. His uniform was rumpled and stained under the armpits; a smudge of something darkened one cheek. He smelled of smoke and sweat. So did I, probably; I hadn’t even thought about changing clothes.
The woman asked him if the fire at the Verriker place was completely out and contained yet. He said yes, but there was still some concern about a flare-up that would endanger the surrounding timber; one of the VFD trucks would remain on watch all night. I made some noise getting up off the chair to remind the woman that I was there. She said to me, “This is Deputy Broxmeyer,” and then to him, “Man’s been waiting to see you, Greg.”
Broxmeyer took a look at me. “You’re the man I talked to at the fire scene.”
“That’s right.” I told him my name.
“You’re not local. What were you doing there?”
“Looking for my wife. She’s missing. That’s why I’m here.”
“Missing? For how long?”
“Since sometime this afternoon. Six, seven hours.” I was making an effort to keep my voice even, unemotional, but some of the fear leaked through and made it break a little here and there. “She went for a walk, just a short walk, and she hasn’t come back. I can’t find her anywhere.”
Broxmeyer ruminated for a few seconds, chewing on a corner of his lower lip. Then he said, “Let’s talk in my office.”
He led me through a gate in the waist-high partition that cut the station into two uneven halves, then through another door into a glass-walled cubicle. He said, “Have a seat,” and sat heavily behind a modular gray desk strewn with papers. I stayed on my feet; I was too jittery to do any more sitting.
He took off his cap, revealing a mop of lanky blond hair, and pinched at his eyelids with thumb and forefinger before he was ready to talk. “Your wife went for a walk, you said. From where to where?”
“The Murray place on Ridge Hill Road. She may have gone into the woods nearby… I don’t know for sure. I was away part of the day fishing.”
“And when you came back, she was gone?”
“Yes. She left me a note about the walk. I waited until I got worried enough and then went out looking for her. In the woods first, on foot. Then in the car. I was up on Skyview Drive when the house exploded. That’s the reason I was on the scene so quick.”
“Uh-huh. I wondered about that.”
“I talked to some of the neighbors before I came here, as many as were home. None of them had seen her.”
Broxmeyer nodded and then asked, “Has your wife ever done anything like this before? Gone off someplace and not returned when she was supposed to?”
“No.”
“Two of you have an argument, anything like that?”
“No.”
“Was she upset or worried about anything?”
“Not that I know about. No.”
“What was her frame of mind when you left her?”
“She was fine. Cheerful. We’re enjoying… were enjoying the stay. Like the area, were thinking about making an offer on the Murray property.”
“Retiring up here?”
“No. Second home.”
“Where’s your first home?”
“San Francisco.”
“Uh-huh,” Broxmeyer said. “Well. How long have you been here?”
“Since early Saturday.”
“No, I don’t mean Green Valley. I mean waiting here in the station.”
“Better than half an hour.”
“Could be your wife’s come back in the meantime.”
“She hasn’t,” I said. “I tried calling on my cell phone a couple of minutes before you came in.”
“She have a cellular, too?”
“Yes, but she didn’t take it with her. It’s in her purse at the house.”
Broxmeyer scrubbed at his face again, blew out his breath in a heavy sigh. “Well, I hate to say this, but there’s not much I can do for you right now. Officially, I mean. A person has to be missing forty-eight hours before I can make a report, mount any kind of organized search.”
“I know that. But at least you can put out a BOLO alert.”
“BOLO alert. You seem to know a lot about it.”
“I’m in the business myself.”
“Is that right?” He was more alert now. “Police officer?”
“I used to be. Licensed private investigator since I left the SFPD twenty-five years ago.”
I had my wallet out and opened it to the license photostat, laid it on the desk in front of Broxmeyer. He leaned forward to look at it, looked at me, looked at the license again before he shunted the wallet back across the desktop. Whatever he thought of my breed, he wasn’t letting me see it; his lean face was expressionless.
“About that BOLO,” I said.
“Sure,” he said, “I’ll do that for you. Least I can do. I’m married myself-I know how worried you must be.”
No, you don’t, I thought. You can’t imagine how worried I am. Or how much I love Kerry. Or that I’d cut off my right arm, give up my life in a nanosecond, to save her from harm. Nobody can possibly know how I feel right now but me.