After a meaningful pause, Caligula said, “Let’s start with the last line.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You say that the only cheese in the town is American singles?”
“Yes,” Ali said.
“Are you sure?”
“Pardon me?”
“I mean, did you go to the supermarket?”
“No.” Ali started gnawing on a fingernail. “It’s not a statement of fact. I’m trying to give you a feel for the town.”
“By writing untruths?”
Ali knew where this was going. She waited. Caligula did not disappoint.
“How do you know, Ali, they don’t have some other kind of cheese in this town? Did you check all the supermarket shelves? And even if you did, did you consider the fact that maybe someone shops in a neighboring town and brings other cheese into Pahrump? Or that maybe they order by mail service? Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Ali closed her eyes.
“We print that, about the American singles being the only cheese in town, and suddenly we get a call from the mayor and he says, ‘Hey, that’s not true. We have tons of varieties here. We have Gouda and Swiss and cheddar and provolone—’ ”
“I get the point, Craig.”
“ ‘And Roquefort and blue and mozzarella—’ ”
“Craig…”
“—and heck, what about cream?”
“Cream?”
“Cream cheese, for crying out loud. That’s a kind of cheese, right? Cream cheese. Even a hickville place would have cream cheese. You see?”
“Right, uh-huh.” More gnawing on the nail. “I see.”
“So that line has to go.” She could hear his pen go through it. “Now let’s talk about the line before that, the one about trailer parks and beef jerky.”
Caligula was short. Ali hated short editors. She used to joke about it with Kevin. Kevin had always been her first reader. His job was to tell her that whatever she had scribbled out was brilliant. Ali, like most writers, was insecure. She needed to hear his praise. Any criticism while she wrote paralyzed her. Kevin understood. So he would rave. And when she battled with her editors, especially those short of sight and stature like Caligula, Kevin always took her side.
She wondered if Myron would like her writing.
He had asked to see some of her pieces, but she’d been putting it off. The man had dated Jessica Culver, one of the top novelists in the country. Jessica Culver had been reviewed on the front page of The New York Times Book Review. Her books had been short-listed for every major literary award. And as if that weren’t enough, as if Jessica Culver didn’t have it all over Ali Wilder professionally, the woman was ridiculously gorgeous.
How could Ali possibly stack up against that?
The doorbell rang. She checked her watch. Too early for Myron.
“Craig, can I call you back?
Caligula sighed. “Fine, okay. In the meantime I’ll just tweak this a bit.”
She winced when he said that. There was an old joke about being left on a deserted island with an editor. You are starving. All you have left is a glass of orange juice. Days pass. You are near death. You are about to drink the juice when the editor grabs the glass from your hand and pees into it. You look at him, stunned. “There,” the editor says, handing you the glass. “It just needed a little tweaking.”
The bell rang again. Erin galloped down the stairs and yelled, “I’ll get it.”
Ali hung up. Erin opened the door. Ali saw her go rigid. She hurried her step.
There were two men at the door. They both held police badges.
“May I help you?” Ali said.
“Are you Ali and Erin Wilder?”
Ali’s legs went rubbery. No, this wasn’t a flashback of how she learned about Kevin. But there was still some sort of déjà vu here. She turned to her daughter. Erin’s face was white.
“I’m Livingston police detective Lance Banner. This is Kasselton detective John Greenhall.”
“What’s this about?”
“We’d like to ask you both a few questions, if we might.”
“What about?”
“Can we come in?”
“I’d like to know why you’re here first.”
Banner said. “We’d like to ask a few questions about Myron Bolitar.”
Ali nodded, trying to figure this through. She turned to her daughter. “Erin, head upstairs for a little while and let me talk to the officers, okay?”
“Actually, uh, ma’am?”
It was Banner.
“Yes?”
“The questions we want to ask,” he said, stepping through the door and motioning with his head toward Erin. “They’re for your daughter, not you.”
Myron stood in Aimee’s bedroom.
The Biel house was walking distance from his. Claire and Erik had driven ahead of him. Myron talked to Win a few minutes, asked him if he could help track down whatever the police had on both Katie Rochester and Aimee. Then he followed on foot.
When Myron entered the house, Erik was already gone.
“He’s driving around,” Claire said, leading him down the corridor. “Erik thinks if he goes to where she hangs out, he can find her.”
They stopped in front of Aimee’s door. Claire opened it.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“Damned if I know,” Myron said. “Did Aimee know a girl named Katie Rochester?”
“That’s the other missing girl, right?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think so. In fact, I asked her about it, you know, when she was on the news?”
“Right.”
“Aimee said she’d seen her around but she didn’t know her. Katie went to middle school at Mount Pleasant. Aimee went to Heritage. You remember how it is.”
He did. By the time they both got to high school, their cliques were solidified.
“Do you want me to call around and ask her friends?”
“That might be helpful.”
Neither of them moved for a moment.
Claire asked, “Should I leave you alone in here?”
“For now, yeah.”
She did. She closed the door behind her. Myron looked around. He had told the truth — he didn’t have a clue what he was looking for here — but he figured that it would be a good first step. This was a teenage girl. She had to keep secrets in her room, right?
It also felt right, being here. From the moment he’d made the promise to Claire, his entire perspective began to shift. His senses felt strangely attuned. It had been a while since he’d done this — investigate — but the memory muscle jumped in and took effect. Being in the girl’s room brought it all back to him. In basketball, you need to get into the zone to do your best. Doing this kind of thing, there was a similar feel. Being here, in the victim’s room, did that. Put him in the zone.
There were two guitars in the room. Myron didn’t know anything about instruments, but one was clearly electric, the other acoustic. There was a poster of Jimi Hendrix on the wall. Guitar picks were encased in Lucite blocks. Myron read through them. They were collector’s picks. One belonged to Keith Richards — others to Nils Lofgren, Eric Clapton, Buck Dharma.
Myron almost smiled. The girl had good taste.
The computer was already on, a screen saver of a fish tank rolling by. Myron wasn’t a computer expert, but he knew enough to get started. Claire had given him Aimee’s password and told him about Erik going through the e-mail. He checked it anyway. He brought up AOL and signed on.
Yep, all the e-mail had been deleted.