The room’s utter silence descended like a brick following his outburst. Jimmy looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “Why not go for it?”
“Are you kidding?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “I’m screwed either way. With you out there, I’ve got twice the chance of being found. I’ve known you for years. Him I just met. Do me the favor.”
I sighed, tired of what seemed to have become an endless string of moral decisions, all stemming from a situation I didn’t understand. I twisted around in my chair, offering my handcuffed wrists to Rarig. “All right. Let’s get it done.”
Rarig and I sat uneasily in the car, different allies than we’d been before, bound less by the lies and dubious perceptions that had guided us thus far, and more by an odd sense of survival. Wrapped in a moral white-out, I knew my only chance of staying alive now was to simply keep moving and hope I was headed in the right direction.
“You should’ve told me you had a gun,” I said.
“It wouldn’t have changed anything.” This time, Rarig was behind the wheel, his earlier anxiety replaced by the tactical calm of a veteran. This was certainly more his type of battleground than mine. Still, as he backed the car out into the street, he showed a lack of self-assurance. “What do we do now?”
“Go to Corbin-Teich’s apartment,” I answered without thinking.
“He’s not going to be there.”
“It’s where he left his life behind. There’ll be traces of where he went.”
Rarig looked at me strangely and began driving back toward campus, eventually entering a short, tree-shaded residential street. He pointed out an elaborate Victorian building with a fancy balcony clinging to the second floor.
“That’s it,” he said. “Upstairs.”
“You got a key?”
Rarig patted his pocket and parked the car by the curb. We both got out, looking around cautiously. “What happens when the locals find out their detective’s missing?” he asked, casually walking toward the building’s broad front steps.
“Given the way he approached us, I doubt he called it in,” I answered. “Could be hours. ’Course, if he was due back at the station, they’ll be looking for him soon-or if he’s late for his next appointment.”
Rarig looked surprised, hesitating on the top step. “I thought you were supposed to call in every time you left the vehicle.”
“Patrol officers are. This was more of a thing between friends. The warrant on me isn’t for anything violent, and my bet is there isn’t a cop in the state who doesn’t think Fred Coffin’s full of crap. Jimmy just wanted to find out what was going on.”
Rarig crossed the porch to a side entrance, pulling out his key ring. “Well, let’s keep our fingers crossed.”
He unlocked the door, which opened directly onto a staircase leading up, and proceeded ahead.
“He live here long?” I asked from behind.
“All the years he’s been in Middlebury.”
At the top, there was another door, unlocked, which let us into a large, pleasant, plant- and book-filled living room with broad windows, thick carpets, and comfortable furniture. It smelled faintly of pipe tobacco, old leather, and slightly dusty wool.
Rarig moved immediately to the phone and dialed a number. A moment later, he began speaking, his monotone making it clear he was addressing an answering machine. “This is John Rarig. If you hear this message and are looking for Middlebury police officer Jimmy Zarrillo, he is being confined at the address at the end of this message. It is an upstairs apartment, above a garage, fitted with a special security door, the keys for which have been left on a small ledge underneath the first step of the stairs outside. The magnetic key fits into a knothole near the top hinge, and the door pushes inward. The knob is a decoy.” He then gave the address and hung up, looking over at me. “Satisfied?”
“If you weren’t talking into a dead phone, sure.”
He smiled, but without humor. “I called my private line at the inn. Before too long, I’ll be reported missing and someone else’ll connect the same dots we did. That message guarantees Zarrillo’s survival and it buys us a little time.” He then waved his arm at the apartment around us. “Okay-be my guest. He won’t have left any tracks you wouldn’t normally expect, though. Too many years living in the shadows-the trick to this business is to be who you seem to be.”
“So no records of mortgages, phone bills, rental agreements, or anything connecting him to somewhere else?”
“Right.” Rarig seemed almost pleased by this fact, as if-just temporarily-he was enjoying the pure tradecraft of it all.
But I wasn’t put off. “Good-makes things easier.”
He looked at me quizzically, but made no comment.
I began by making a general survey of the place, slowly walking through the kitchen, bedroom, bath, spare room, and office. I tried to pick up on the patterns of the man-what toothpaste he used, if he flossed or not, did his shampoo reflect a dandruff problem or not, did he like one- or two-ply. I counted mirrors, I looked at clothing, I noticed the degree of shine on his shoes, the type of literature he favored, the food and drink he liked, the artwork he found pleasing. I studied his choices in music and found several similar symphonies done by different orchestras and conductors. I discovered a love of plays-reading, attending, and directing them-from several signed production photos, a thick pile of annotated playbooks, and assorted memorabilia.
After almost two hours of this, Rarig finally showed his impatience. “Haven’t found him yet? I saw you looking at the toilet paper.”
“It’s a character insight,” I said. “I’ll check yours out when we get back to the inn.”
Rarig shifted his attention to the view outside the window. His earlier agitated gloominess had returned. “This is such a waste of time. He’s probably dead by now anyhow.”
“You two keep in touch over the years?”
“Pretty much. We had to be careful. Leave no traces.”
“I bet he was good at that. Careful. Neat. A good planner.”
Rarig glanced at me. “Yeah.”
“A good actor, too,” I added. “Conscious of how he projected himself. Always aware of how the audience was reacting.”
Rarig allowed a half smile. “True.”
“And for all that, a little insecure. Not only a man of habits, but fond of routine and happy to be placed in positions of imposed authority, where his title alone demanded automatic courtesy.”
Rarig laughed softly. “Very good. A regular Sherlock Holmes.”
“We’ll see,” I said with less confidence. “Is there a major theatrical building here?”
“The CFA, sure-the Center for Fine Arts. It’s huge. They built it about four years ago.”
“That’s where I think we’ll find him.”
It was more than I meant to say-more definite-but I was reacting to Rarig’s earlier cockiness. Like two men bobbing in the middle of an ocean, we were keeping alive not by treading water, but by competing on who’d be the last one to sink. It wasn’t the kind of teamwork I was used to, but then not much at the moment was normal.
Predictably, Rarig dug in his heels. “Why?”
I crossed over to the door. “Because when you run, you run to familiar ground-someplace safe, close, and with any luck, dark. If I were a theater nut, I’d head for the theater. For Lew, I’m guessing it’s a home away from home.”
Without comment, Rarig followed me downstairs. We both instinctively paused at the bottom, peering out the door’s glass panel at the street outside.
Everything seemed as calm as we’d left it.
We climbed off the porch, cut across the lawn, and quickly got into the Ford, irrationally appreciating its protection, even while surrounded by clear glass.
But our surprise, when it was sprung, came from closer by.
Willy Kunkle rose from lying behind the backseat, propped his elbow between us, and laughed when we both jumped. “Hi, guys. Miss me?”
Chapter 17
“Jesus Christ ,”Rarig shouted.