“I’m sure of it,” he answered, opening a nylon fanny-pack that was strapped around his waist.
“As soon as I saw these, I was pretty sure that’s who it was.”
He removed something from the bag, dunked it in the water, and then dried it with a towel. “Look at this,” he said.
Joanna held out her hand, and Ernie dropped something into it. At first she thought it was the beaded brass pull chain from some old light fixture. Despite the rinsing it was still green and crusted over with muck. Eventually, she realized it was actually two chains, a larger one and a smaller, with the small one strung through the larger. Each chain held a single rectangular piece of metal. A sharp notch had been cut in the long side of one of the pieces.
“What is it?” Joanna asked.
“Look closer,” Ernie said.
Holding the tarnished metal up to her eyes, Joanna was barely able to make out the faint letters that had been etched into the metaclass="underline" THORNTON WILLIAM KIMBALL, along with a series of numbers. “His World War II military dog tags?” Joanna asked.
She looked down at the muddy pieces of metal in her hand. Sadly, she rubbed one finger along the sharp notch that, in wartime, would have been jammed between a dead soldier’s lower front teeth to serve as identification. Just as Linda Kimball feared, this was the pitiful ending of Burton Kimballs long-cherished dream of one day being reunited with his runaway father.
“What are you going to do about it?” she asked.
Ernie rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Conceivably, somebody else could have been wearing Thornton Kimball’s dog tags, but I doubt it. And with those dental records, it’ll be a piece of cake to confirm.” He glanced back toward the glory hole where his assistants were beginning to dismantle the winch and lights. “I’m about done here,” Ernie continued. “After I clean myself up, do you want me to notify Burton Kimball about what’s going on, or would you rather do it?”
Joanna’s energies were stretched thin. Too much had happened in too short a time. “No,” she said, “you do it.” Feeling suddenly tired, she started back toward the Blazer.
“By the way,” Ernie called after her. “I did what you suggested. I tried running Yuri Malakov past the Multi-Jurisdiction guys and INS with their fancy-schmancy computer.”
“Did they have any information?”
“Yes, evidently, but it’s off-limits. I found that very interesting.”
“What do you mean, ‘interesting?”
“It means Yuri Malakov is in their goddamned database for some reason or another, but nobody’s allowed to ask about him. Or, if they do, they’re not to be given a straight answer.”
Joanna frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. Aren’t we all working the same side of the fence?”
Ernie Carpenter looked down on her and shook his head sadly, as if surprised by her naiVete’.
“No ma’am,” he said. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. As a matter of fact, I’d say we haven’t even gotten around to agreeing on a survey for the fence line, to say nothing of building the damn thing and settling which side everybody’s on.”
Joanna wasn’t sure if Ernie’s round-about answer was simply patronizing or if it was meant to make fun of her. Either choice made her hackles rise.
“Get to the point,” she snapped irritably.
“The point is,” Ernie answered, “if Yuri Malakov’s name is punched into that computer but no body’s willing to talk about him or say why he’s in there, then I sure as hell wouldn’t want my daughter to marry the sonofabitch, and I’ll bet money Harold Patterson didn’t want Ivy to tie the knot with him, either.”
Burton Kimball sat brooding in his darkened and deserted office. Everyone else had gone home, Even the ever-loyal, ever-vigilant Maxine had readily abandoned ship at six o’clock. Linda had called twice to check on him and to ask when he was coming home. He kept telling her soon now, that he was working on an important project that had to be finished before court the next day.
That was an outright lie. The surface of his desk was empty except for a sheen of blank despair.
Burton felt as though his life was whirling out of control. As the gold hands on his watch edged closer to seven, his depression deepened. He had deliberately stayed around the office all afternoon, hoping Ivy would call, hoping she would relent and invite him to the wedding. But she hadn’t and it was too late now.
In a few minutes Ivy Patterson would marry that Russian nobody, and Burton Kimball wouldn’t even be there to see it.
How do you go about losing your best friend? he wondered. Things had changed once he and Linda had married and come back to Bisbee to live and establish his practice. Aunt Emily was already a total invalid by then, and Ivy had been charged with her mother’s day-to-day care. He and Linda had tried to help out, but there wasn’t that much they could do. The old, loving Aunt Emily had been replaced by a stranger, an irascible tyrant who yelled orders from her hospital bed.
She hurled insults as well as physical objects; vases; books; glasses-at anyone foolish enough to venture near her.
Ivy had carried that whole burden and it had worn her down, changed her, aged her. And today Burton was feeling the weight of his own responsibility in that regard. He should have done more to help; should have paid more attention.
Burton had grieved over Aunt Emily during her illness and rejoiced at her death, when she was finally released from her dreadful physical and mental incapacities. And he had thought some how, that after it was all over, he and Ivy would go back to being best friends, the way they had been before. That hadn’t happened. They had drifted along for years, still all right, not quarreling, but not as close as they had once been, either. All that had changed once Holly Patterson had reappeared on the scene.
Somehow, logically or not, Ivy seemed to hold Burton responsible for her sister’s sudden return. At first, Ivy and Burton had been united once again, going nose-to-nose with Harold over how best to handle the complexities of the Holly situation. Ivy had seemed satisfied with Burton’s strategy until two days earlier when the whole thing had blown up in his face and Harold had gone off to make his fateful offer. Burton now felt that Ivy was holding him entirely responsible. For everything.
A discreet knock on Burton’s outside window made him jump. Looking through the darkened glass, he saw Ernie Carpenter standing there, motioning to be let into the building.
“What’s going on?” Burton asked, as he opened the entryway door.
“I just talked to your wife,” Ernie explained, “She said you were working late. I hope you don’t mind the interruption.”
Burton led Ernie back to his private office. Switching on the light revealed his damningly empty desktop. It was clear Burton wasn’t really working and that he hadn’t been.
“I was actually just finishing up and about to go home,” he said lamely, going over to his door and making a show of taking his jacket off the hanger. He draped his tie around the back of his neck. “I have a few minutes. What can I do for you?”
“Sheriff Brady told me you were out at the Rocking P earlier today,” Ernie said.
Burton nodded. “That’s right. Why?”
“You already know about the other body in the glory hole?”
“Yes. Unfortunately, I do. I think the shock of finding out about that pretty much unhinged Ivy. It’s probably some poor old wetback who fell into the hole before Uncle Harold got around to fencing it up.”
“I doubt it’s a wetback,” Ernie Carpenter said firmly. “In fact, I expect to have a positive I.D. within days.”
Burton Kimball’s eyes blinked in surprise. “No kidding. Good work. Anyone I might know?”
Refusing to accept Burton’s hints about leaving, Ernie Carpenter settled into a chair. “How old were you when your father left home?” he asked.