“When are you getting back?”
“Half hour,” Lucas said.
“Not much time,” Carol said.
“Sandy's gotta hurry,” Lucas said. “I'm in a really big fuckin' hurry. And get that rental check going. Going right now.”
Carol got in the last word: “Lucy Coombs called again.”
“He was a big guy, dark complexion, blue eyes. Asking about a white van.”
“A van? We haven't had a van in years,” Jane Widdler said. “I'm not getting a clear picture of him. You say, a big guy?”
The sales assistant nodded. “He looked… sort of French. Big shoulders, black hair with a little salt and pepper. Good-looking, but tough,” she said. “He had a scar that started up in his hair and came down across his eye. Not an ugly scar, a white line.”
“He wasn't as big as Leslie,” Jane Widdler suggested.
“No… not as tall, and also…” Widdler's sales assistant groped for a word.
“Not so fat,” Jane Widdler said.
“He looked like he was in really good shape,” the sales assistant said, staying away from the topic of Leslie's heft. “He didn't look like an antiques person.”
“I might know who he is,” Jane Widdler said. She smiled, just a little, because of the Botox. “It might be better if you didn't mention him to Leslie. I think this man is… an old friend of mine. There's nothing going on, but I don't want Leslie to get upset.”
The sales assistant nodded. “Okay. I'll let you deal with it.” She definitely didn't like the idea of upsetting Leslie.
“That would be best,” Jane Widdler said.
Jane thought about it for a long time, until a headache began creeping down her neck from the crown of her head. Finally, she got her BlackBerry from her purse, looked up a number, and punched it in.
“Hello, Jane,” Amity Anderson said.
“We've got to get together. Right now. Without Leslie,” Jane said.
“Why?”
“Because,” Jane Widdler said.
“I just want out,” Amity said.
“That's all I want,” Jane Widdler said. “But things may be getting… difficult.”
They hooked up in a coffee shop in the Skyway. Widdler arrived on the street level, before going up to the Skyway, walking right past Jenkins who sat behind a window in Starbucks, but he'd never seen her before. Anderson came down to the second floor to the Skyway, never going to the street, leaving Jenkins sitting in the Starbucks, with, at least metaphorically, his dick in his hand.
The Skyway shop, a Caribou, had a selection of chairs and tables and Widdler and Anderson both got medium light-roasts and chocolate raspberry thumbprint cookies, and hunched over a table in the corner. Widdler said, “This state agent who talked to you, Davenport. He came to the shop and he asked about a white van. He knows.”
“Knows what?” Amity Anderson took a bite of her thumbprint.
“You know,” Widdler said irritably. They'd never talked about it, but Anderson knew.
“The only thing I know is that we went to college together and you recommended that Mrs. Donaldson buy a rare Armstrong quilt, which was later donated to the Milwaukee, and that's all I know,” Anderson said.
She popped the last of the thumbprint in her mouth and made a dusting motion with her hands.
“I really didn't want to be unpleasant about this,” Widdler said, “but I've got no choice. So I will tell you that if they take me off to prison, you will go with me.
I will make a deal to implicate the rest of the gang, in exchange for time off. Meaning you and Marilyn Coombs.”
Anderson's faced tightened like a fist: “You bitch. I did not…”
“You knew. You certainly knew about the quilts, and if you knew about the quilts, then any jury is going to believe you knew about the rest of it,” Widdler said. “You worked for Donaldson, for Christ's sake. You live five minutes from Bucher. Now, if Davenport knows, and he does, he will eventually be able to put together a fairly incriminating case. We dealt with all those people-Donaldson, Bucher, Toms. There are records, somewhere. Old checks.”
“Where's my money? You were going to get me the money.” Anderson hissed. “I'm going to Italy.”
“I'll get you the money and you can go to Italy,” Jane said. “But we've got to get out of this.”
“If you're talking about doing something to Davenport…”
Widdler shook her head. “No, no. Too late for that. Maybe, right back at the beginning…”
She turned away from Anderson, her eyes narrowing, reviewing the missed opportunity.
Then back to Anderson: “The thing is, cops are bureaucrats. My stepfather was a cop, and I know how they work. Davenport's already told somebody what he thinks. If we did something to him, there'd be eight more cops looking at us. They'd never give up.”
“So who…” Anderson had the paper cup at her lips, looking into Widdler's eyes, when the answer came to her. “Leslie?”
Widdler said, “I never signed anything. He endorsed all the checks, wrote the estimates.
He did the scouting while I watched the shop. They could make a better case against him than they could against me.”
“So what are you thinking?”
Widdler glanced around. A dozen other patrons were sitting in chairs or standing at the counter, but none were close enough to hear them over the chatter and dish-and-silverware clank of the shop. Still, she leaned closer to Anderson. “I'm thinking Leslie could become despondent. He could talk to me about it, hint that he'd done some things he shouldn't have. I could get the feeling that he's worried about something.”
“Suicide?”
“I have some small guns… a house gun, and car guns, for self-protection. Leslie showed me how they work,” Widdler said.
“So…”
“I need a ride. I don't just want him to shoot himself, I want him to… do it on a stage, so to speak. I want people looking in a different direction.”
“And you need a ride?” Anderson was astonished. They were talking about a murder, and the killer needed a ride.
“I can't think of any other way to do it-to get him where I need him, to get back home. I need to move quickly to establish an alibi… I need to be home if somebody calls. I can't take a taxi, it's just… it's just all too hard to work out, if you don't help.”
“All I have to do is give you a ride?”
“That's all,” Widdler said. “It's very convenient. Only a few minutes from your house.”
They argued for another five minutes, in hushed tones, and finally Anderson said, “I couldn't stand it in prison. I couldn't stand it.”
“Neither could I,” Widdler said. Anderson was watching her, and her lips trembled as much as they could. She reached out and put her hand on Anderson's. “Can you do this? Just this one thing?”
“Just the ride,” Anderson said.
“That's all-and then… about the money. Leslie keeps all the controversial stuff in a building at our country place.”
“I didn't know you had a country place,” Anderson said.
“Just a shack, and a storage building. I'll give you the key. You can take whatever you want. If you can get it out to the West Coast… just the small things could be worth a half-million dollars. You could get enough to stay in Europe for ten years, if you were careful. You can take whatever you want.”
“Whatever I want?” Eyebrows up.
“Whatever you want,” Widdler said. “The police will find it sooner or later. I'm not going to get a penny of it, no matter what happens. If you can get there first, take what you want.”
Anderson thought it over: Jane's offer seemed uncharacteristically generous. But then, she was in a serious bind. “So I don't have to do anything else: I just give you a ride.”
“That's all,” Jane said.
“When?”
“Right away. I've started talking to Leslie about it, letting him brood. His tendency, anyway…” She shrugged.