“We’ll have to check every name
against the list of car rentals, anyway. They might not have patented it from Cleveland, or in Cleveland, or whatever the hell one does to get Cleveland mentioned.”
“And when we’re done?” Suit said.
“If we get a match we might have their new identity.”
70
Before he went to work, Jesse drove out to the Neck to see Candace and the dog. It was early March and still wintry with the ugly snow compacting where the plows had spilled it. The sky was overcast. As he drove across the causeway, the ocean, off to his right, was a sullen gray, with a few seabirds wheeling above it.
When he got out of his car at the top of Candace’s long curved
driveway he could smell the approaching snow. It hadn’t taken him
long, when he’d come from Los Angeles, to learn the anticipatory
smell of it. There were cars in the driveway when Jesse arrived, so he parked on the street and walked up. A sign hanging from the knob on the front door read OPEN HOUSE, BROKERS ONLY, PLEASE COME IN.
Below the invitation was a small logo with a house in it, and the words “Pell Real Estate.” Jesse went in. A woman sat on a folding
chair at a card table in the hall. She had a pile of brochures on the table in front of her, and a guest book. Jesse could hear voices and movement elsewhere in the house. The sound had the kind of echoed quality that one gets in a house devoid of furniture or rugs.
“Hi,” the woman said, “here for
the open house?”
“I’m here to see Candace
Pennington,” Jesse said.
“You’re not a broker?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry, the Penningtons have
moved.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
“Do you know where they went?”
“I don’t really know,” the woman
said. “I’m just supervising the
open house.”
She was a heavy exuberant woman with short hair colored very blond.
“Who would know?”
“Oh, I’m sure the office has their new address,” the woman said.
“You could check with Henry.”
“Henry?”
“Henry Pell. Are you interested in the house?”
In the rooms that Jesse could see, the furniture was gone.
There
were no rugs or drapes. The house was blank, waiting to be re-created.
“No,” Jesse said, “I’m
not.”
As he walked back down the curving drive toward the street, the
snow had begun, a few flakes drifting down. More would follow, he knew. They were saying three to six inches. Weather Girl Jenn would be breaking into the regular programming with weather updates from Storm Center 3. Maybe standing in the parking lot. With her designer wool watch cap pulled down just right over her ears. And the flakes fluttering past. As Jesse drove back across the causeway, the snow came straight in at the windshield. Small flakes, the kind all the old-time townies said meant a heavy snowfall. He wasn’t long enough out of Southern California to argue
the point, though in the time he’d been here he’d seen no
correlation.
He could call Henry Pell and get Candace’s new address. He
wasn’t sure he would. They’d taken her where they needed to take
her. Where she had no history. Where there were no stories about her. No giggles in the hallways. No covert gestures about sex. No fears that a naked picture of her might surface. What did he have to say to her about that? What did anybody?
The snow had begun to accumulate and the roads were becoming slick as Jesse parked in his spot by the police station, and went in. Bo Marino was mopping the floor in the area of the front desk.
Jesse went past him to his office and stopped in the doorway and looked back.
“Where are the other two?” Jesse said.
“Cleaning the cells,” Molly said.
Jesse nodded and continued to look at Marino. Was it possible that a jerk like this kid could grow into a decent man? Would the rape follow him and the other two, the way it was following Candace? Marino realized Jesse was looking at him.
“What?” he said.
Jesse didn’t answer.
“What are you looking at me for?” Marino said.
Jesse didn’t seem to hear him.
You could protect, Jesse thought, and you could serve. But you couldn’t really save.
Marino looked at Molly.
“How come he’s staring at me like
that?” he said.
“Just get the floor clean,” Molly said.
At least keep the floor clean, Jesse thought. He went into his office and closed the door. Better than nothing.
71
Molly and Suit came into Jesse’s office together.
They looked
pleased with themselves.
“The seven hundred and twenty-eighth name on the patent list is
Arlington Lamont,” Molly said. “The patent was filed from San
Mateo, California, wherever that is.”
“Up by San Francisco,” Jesse said. He sat motionless with the
palms of his hands pressed together in front of him, his chin resting on the fingertips.
“And,” Suit said, “on the day of
the murder, Arlington Lamont
rented a Volvo Cross Country Wagon from Hertz at the airport.”
With the palms still pressed, Jesse lowered his hands and pointed his fingers at Suit and dropped his thumbs like the hammer on a gun.
“Bada bing,” he said.
They were all quiet.
“So maybe Lincoln is the phony ID,” Jesse said. “And Lamont is
the real one.”
“Same initials,” Molly said.
“Anthony Lincoln, Arlington
Lamont.”
Jesse nodded.
“Hertz requires driver’s license and credit card,” Jesse
said.
“Mass driver’s license,” Suit
said. “American Express
card.”
“How long?” Jesse said.
“They rented it to him for a week.”
“Returning it where?”
“Toronto airport,” Suit said.
“You think they’re actually going
to return it?”
“Attract less attention than if they dumped it,” Jesse said.
“They don’t expect us to have their name.”
“The credit card number will help us track them,” Molly said.
“You want me to hop on the phone and see what I can do?”
“No,” Jesse said.
“I’ll let Healy do that. They’ve got more resources and more clout than we have.”
“You think they’re going to settle in Canada?”
“Maybe, or maybe it’s just a big city with a big airport. Molly,
find out how many airlines fly out of Toronto and call all of them and see if any of them have reservations for Mr. and Mrs. Arlington Lamont.”
“Every airline?” Molly said.
“That’s a lot of time to be on
hold.”
“And keep checking with Hertz,” Jesse said. “To see if the car
got returned anywhere.”
“We could ask them to call us when the car showed up.”
Jesse looked at her without speaking.
“Or not,” Molly said.
“Call them every day,” Jesse said.
“Give you something to do
while you’re on hold with the airlines.”
“If I time it right,” Molly said,
“I can be on hold with both at
the same time.”
“Lucky we have two lines,” Jesse said.
“Suit, you call the San
Mateo cops, see if you can find anything at all about Mr. or Mrs.
Arlington Lamont. If they can’t give you anything try San Francisco.”
“While we’re doing all this
phoning,” Suit said, “what are you
going to do?”
“I have several donuts to eat,” Jesse said.
72
“How’s the
drinking?” Dixsaid.
“I haven’t had a drink in three weeks and four days,” Jesse
said.
Dix smiled. “And there are several minutes every day when you
don’t miss it.”
“Not that many,” Jesse said.
“And you recently escaped death,” Dix said.