“Alan Schumway called YOU?"
“Well, no. Yeah. His secretary did. And then he got on the line for a minute. We talked. He seemed real concerned. I don't know."
“When was this?"
“Last night. About ten o'clock. He wanted to know if we all could meet and I told him I was too tired last night. And I really was. I was just exhausted. I hadn't slept for the last two days. So I guess I'll get together with them tonight. She's coming over to pick me up after work. I never realized, you know, Diane never said anything about him being in a wheelchair and I—"
“Listen, Bonnie—” He had a shortness of breath. “I, uh, want you to forget we had this conversation. Temporarily, please don't say anything about this call. Be sure not to mention it to anybody. Now, what I want you to do is this...” He was having a hard time swallowing. “I want to make sure you are safe for the next day or so. I will clear all this with your employers, but I want you to take sick leave this afternoon. You feel awful and you have to go home. I don't care what you use as your health excuse. Dizziness. Whatever. Just don't come back after your lunch period. When is your lunch hour?"
“It's at eleven-thirty. I don't understand. How come you want me to—"
“Bonnie, I don't want to take time to explain right now, but make sure you don't go home. Not for any reason. Do you have a cat or dog that has to be fed? Anything like that?"
“No."
“I want you to go to a hotel or motel. Don't tell any of your friends where you are. Don't tell the bank. I'll take full responsibility. How about relatives, Bonnie—anybody who might worry if you couldn't be reached for twenty-four hours or so?"
“They're all in Florida."
He ended up explaining to her what he wanted. Took her parents’ phone number in Ft. Lauderdale. Had her vow she'd call and leave word in a certain way as soon as she checked in. If he should be away from his desk, she was to leave word with anyone there in Homicide that Mrs. Lauder was in such-and-such a room at this number. It wasn't particularly clever, but his brain had vapor locked and it was the best he could improvise. He hung up and was out of the squad bay all in one motion.
He drove to Buckhead Springs first. Trying to decide which way to go on it. The search warrant, that was the biggie. Should he get the goddamn thing or not? Which way to go? Finally, he decided what he'd do. It scared him a lot to think about the plan. It made him want to pee, and he was glad the traffic wasn't too bad. He didn't want to red-ball it. In a few minutes he was parking in their garage. Donna was gone. This was her shopping morning. She had Jonathan with her. He checked the house to make sure nobody was home, then went in and took a leak, came back out to the garage, and took a deep lung full of gas fumes. Oi veh.
His heavy toolbox was under the bench, coated in oily grime and spider webs. He removed the hammer, drill, files, pliers; it was full of hand tools. His whetstone box was wrapped in an oil-soaked rag. He unwrapped it. The box carried the legend dont let the bastards grind you down in Latin, with the cardboard gone at the end so it read non carborund. He took the silver thing out and slipped it in a Baggie. Four rounds followed. Carefully wiped. The surgical gloves went in one pocket, pick gun in the other.
Back in the plain Jane and moving toward North Buckhead.
Would Bonnie go along with what he wanted? There were a couple of weak holes in his plan. He'd made enough Homicide cases he had some idea of the number of ways he could fuck up right now, and it just didn't matter. He knew what it was now. Very clear. And when Bonnie Johnson had phoned, he had this nudge from the corner of his mind about the lady in the women's group who had told a detective she THOUGHT she might have seen Tina Hoyt leaving the church with a young woman.
So this was how Spoda or Schumway did it. He had a surrogate all along. After twenty years he somehow talked his sexy, live-in secretary girlfriend into setting ‘em up for him. But the thing was, Eichord couldn't make a fucking case without a d.b. If he was willing to put Bonnie Johnson's life in peril, no sweat. Maybe they could stake her out like a fucking goat and let Nicki move in, and ... Shit, it wasn't working for him. Postulates bled like wounds. Fuck the circuit attorney's office with his aloof “iffy DNA shit."
If Eichord was right, Spoda, Schumway, was chair-bound. Without Nicki for legs, he'd have a helluva time doing his thing. He might be able to off somebody, but dispose of the victim? That could be a bit tougher. If Nicki baby was out of the game, Arthur Spoda could still be a player, but it was going to slow him down something fierce.
He stopped and called Dana on a pay phone, and by the time he pulled down the block from Schumway's house the surveillance car was gone. Eichord had roughly a quarter-hour before the surveillance van man rolled by. He'd be a memory by then.
Moving toward the house at a brisk pace. Just short of a jog. The pick gun out. No problem. Easing in nice and quiet. Standing dead-still. Breathing in the sounds of the house. Strange feeling. Nicki. She could be asleep in a bedroom. Or waiting. He stood there for a long two minutes. Slipped his shoes off and moved up the stairs. The elevator was a closed door he wouldn't investigate.
Did the whole house fast, Where the fuck WAS she? Took a couple of things out of his pockets. Put a couple of things back in. Time was ticking. He got paper out of Scumwad's desk and wiped it, even though he was using gloves, then decided that was wrong and opted for the top sheet on a notepad. Then changed his mind back again and took a full-size sheet.
The typewriter was a fancy electric with the guts in one tiny, self-contained compartment. The cartridge would have whatever he typed on it now, but he would gamble on that. He typed the brief note, then some other extraneous information to move the cartridge along. Had an inspiration and typed another. Enough. Every key sounded like a gunshot.
The penetration of the cabinet was a snap. He opened up the clay box and did a nice careful casting of both sides. The latex mold could work wonders, but you had to have a smooth matrix to work from.
He thought about checking for a catalog of mail-drop companies, matching company names with canceled checks, that kind of thing. Looking for the Polaroid collections these jokers sometimes like to keep. The nasty little scrapbooks. If he'd had three more hours instead of three minutes, he might have done that very thing. What he did do was ... he left. Why spoil a good thing? He didn't even check for hidden security systems, although he wanted to know more. Was the joint miked to a sound-activated recorder, for example? Later for you, house, he thought, and he was outta there.
By the time Bonnie was leaving for lunch, and not coming back, so was he. Back in the squad room listening to Tuny's rasp cut through the fog, “You wanna eat Spic?"
“Shit, no,” Tucker told his partner. “I don't wanna eat that shit."
“Why the fuck not?” fat Dana whined. “Get some of that hot babyfinger chile.” Dana claimed he'd once found a tiny fingernail in his favorite Mex-Tex restaurant, hence Babyfinger Chile con Carne.
“Less eat honky. Go over to that shithole on Central and get some nice, rare greaseburgers."
Eichord felt his stomach turning and he had to pee again. He went into the men's room and NIGHT-CRAWLER was waiting for him on the wall above the urinal. He felt alone. It was a feeling like being lost at the heart of a dark and foreboding maze. He zipped his pants, washed his hands, went back into the squad room, and sat down at his desk. He noticed Dana had put the surveillance back on the house like he'd told him to. Eichord felt a surge of affection for his old pal and glanced over at the two massive detectives.