"That was very thorough of you."
Mother Katherine nodded, kept her head high. "I assume that you have sources to track down unlisted numbers."
"I do."
"Would you like to see Sister Mary Rose's quarters now?"
"Yes."
The room was pretty much what you'd expect- small, stark, white walls of swirling concrete, one large cross above a single bed, one window. Very dormitory. The room had all the warmth and individuality of a Motel Six. There was almost nothing of a personal nature, nothing that told you anything about the room's inhabitant, almost as if that were Sister Mary Rose's goal.
"The crime-scene technicians will be here in about an hour," Loren said. "They'll need to dust for prints, check for hairs, that kind of thing."
Mother Katherine's hand went slowly to her mouth. "Then you do think Sister Mary Rose was…?"
"Don't read into it, okay?"
Her cell phone trilled. Loren picked it up. It was Eldon Teak.
"Yo, sweetums, you coming by today?" he asked.
"In an hour," she said. "Why, what's up?"
"I found the current owner of our silicone breast manufacturer. SurgiCo is now part of the Lockwood Corporation."
"The huge one in Wilmington?"
"Somewhere in Delaware, yeah."
"Did you give them a call?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"And it did not go well."
"How's that?"
"I told them we had a dead body, a serial number on a breast implant, and that we needed an ID."
"And?"
"They won't release the information."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. They blathered on and on and used the term 'medical privacy' a whole lot."
"That's bullsh-" Mother Katherine's lips pursed. Loren caught herself. "I'll get a court order."
"They're a big company."
"They'll cave on this. They just want legal protection."
"It'll take time."
She thought about that. Eldon had a point. The Lockwood Corporation was out of state. She'd probably need a federal court judge to issue a subpoena.
"Something else," Eldon said.
"What?"
"At first they seemed to have no problem with any of it. I called down, spoke to someone, she was going to look up the serial number for me. I'm not saying it's routine, but it really shouldn't be a big issue."
"But?"
"But then some lawyer with a bigwig-sounding name called back and gave me a very terse no."
Loren thought about it. "Wilmington's only, what, two hours from here?"
"The way you drive, maybe fifteen minutes."
"I'm thinking of testing out that theory. You have the name of Mr. Bigwig Lawyer?"
"I got it here somewhere. Oh, wait, yes, Randal Horne of Horne, Buckman and Pierce."
"Call Mr. Horne. Tell him I'm driving down to serve his ass a subpoena."
"You don't have a subpoena."
"You don't know that."
"Oh, right."
She hung up and placed another call. A woman answered the phone. Loren said, "I need an unlisted number looked up."
"Name and badge number, please."
Loren gave it. Then she read the unlisted phone number Sister Mary Rose had called.
"Please hold," the woman said.
Mother Katherine pretended to be busy. She looked in the air, then across the room. She fiddled with her prayer beads. Through the phone Loren heard fingers clacking a keyboard. Then: "Do you have a pen?"
Loren grabbed a stubby golf pencil from her pocket. She took a gas receipt and flipped it over. "Go ahead."
"The number you requested is listed to a Marsha Hunter at Thirty-eight Darby Terrace, Livingston, New Jersey."
Chapter 14
"MATT?"
He stared at the mug shots of Charles Talley. That same damn knowing smirk, the one he'd seen in that picture on his cell phone. Matt had the falling sensation again, but he held on.
Cingle said, "You know him, don't you?"
"I need you to do me a favor," he said.
"I don't do favors. This is my job. You're being billed for this, you know."
"Even better." He looked up at Cingle. "I want you to find me everything you can on Charles Talley. I mean, everything."
"And what would I be looking for?"
Good question. Matt wondered how to play it.
"Just tell me," Cingle said.
Matt took out his cell phone. He hesitated, but really, what was the point in trying to keep it a secret anymore? He flipped it open, hit the camera function, and pressed the back arrow until the photograph of Charles Talley, the one taken in that hotel room, came up. It was the same man, no question. He stared at it for a moment.
"Matt?"
His words were slow, deliberate. "Yesterday I got a call from Olivia's camera phone." He handed it to her. "This was on it."
Cingle reached for the camera phone. Her eyes found the screen. Matt watched them widen in surprise. Her eyes shifted back and forth between the mug shots and the image on the small display. Finally she looked up at him.
"What the hell is this?"
"Hit the forward button," he said.
"The one on the right here?"
"Yes. It'll take you to the video that came in right after the picture."
Cingle's face was a mask of concentration. When the video finished she said, "If I hit this replay button, will it run again?"
"Yes."
Cingle did. She played the short video two more times. When she was done, Cingle carefully put the camera on the desktop. "You have an explanation for this?" she asked.
"Nope."
Cingle thought about it. "I've only met Olivia once."
"I know."
"I can't tell if that was her or not."
"I think it is."
"Think?"
"It's hard to make out the face."
Cingle gnawed on her lower lip. She reached behind, grabbed her purse, started rummaging through it.
"What?" he asked.
"You're not the only one who's technically savvy," Cingle said.
She pulled out a small handheld computer, not much bigger than Matt's phone.
"A Palm Pilot?"
"A high-end pocket PC," she corrected. Cingle pulled out a cord. She plugged one end into the phone, one end into the pocket PC. "You mind if I download the picture and video?"
"Why?"
"I'll take them back to the office. We have all kinds of software to blow the images up frame by frame, enhance them, make a solid analysis."
"This stays between us."
"Understood." Two minutes later, the pictures were downloaded. Cingle handed the phone back to Matt. "One more thing."
"I'm listening."
"Learning all we can about our friend Charles Talley may not get us what we need." She leaned forward. "We need to start drawing lines. We need to find a connection between Talley and…"
"Olivia," he finished for her.
"Yes."
"You want to investigate my wife."
She sat back, recrossed the legs. "If this was just a run-of-the-mill hot-sheet affair, it would probably be unnecessary. I mean, maybe they just met. Maybe they hooked up at a bar, I don't know. But Talley is tailing you. He's also sending you pictures, throwing it in your face."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning there's something more here," Cingle said. "Let me ask you something and don't take offense, okay?"
"Okay."
She shifted in her chair. Her every move, intentional or not, came across as a double entendre. "What do you really know about Olivia? Her background, I mean."
"I know everything- where she's from, where she went to school-"
"How about family?"
"Her mother ran off when she was a baby. Her father died when she was twenty-one."
"Siblings?"
"None."
"So her father raised her alone?"
"Basically. So?"
Cingle kept going. "Where did she grow up?"
"Northways, Virginia."
Cingle wrote it down. "She went to college there, right?"
Matt nodded. "She went to UVA."
"What else?"
"What do you mean, what else? What else is there? She's worked for DataBetter Associates for eight years. Her favorite color is blue. She has green eyes. She reads more than any human being I know. Her guilty pleasure is corny Hallmark movies. And- at the risk of making you vomit- when I wake up and Olivia is next to me, I know, know, that there is no luckier man on the planet. You writing this down?"