The Malone bungalow was an Arts and Crafts classic. It had a shingled roof, a wide front porch supported by small clusters of efficient pillars, elegantly grouped windows, and a solitary second-story dormer that faced the street. The lights were all off downstairs, but the flickering glow of a TV screen was playing shadow games on the curtains in the dormer.
I circled the block once, hoping Sterling was stupid enough to be waiting in a car parked on the street watching Holly through binoculars. No such luck. I ended up parking on the corner opposite the house beneath a big tree that was totally naked of its leaves. After a second or two I killed the headlights and the engine on the Cherokee. The valves clattered loudly as they tried to find someplace comfortable to rest. I shifted my ass and did the same.
“She’s still up,” Carmen said. I could see Carmen’s breath in the dark car. South Bend was colder than Indianapolis. I inhaled a little more deeply than usual to try to taste Carmen’s scent. Failed.
“Watching Leno,” I said.
“Letterman,” she corrected.
I smiled, turning my head and parting my lips, letting Carmen see my teeth. It was an effort at modeling. “Yeah, you’re right, probably Letterman. He’s from Indiana, too, right? What do you think, should we go over, pound on her door, tell her about Sterling, ruin her evening?”
“She’s not going to be happy to see us, Sam.”
“Nope,” I said. “I don’t know about you, but I find most people aren’t happy to see me at times like this.”
“It is pretty late.”
“Murderers work all kinds of hours.”
“You really think he’s going to kill her tonight?” she asked.
“ ’Course not. But are you a hundred percent sure he isn’t? This could be one of those times when being a little wrong has serious consequences.”
Carmen yawned. “Why do I get the impression that you go through partners the way I go through panty hose?”
“Lucy’s been my partner as long as I can remember.”
“Is she a saint?”
“No. Lucy has issues, too, just like me. The rocks in her head fit the holes in mine almost perfectly.”
Across the street Holly Malone killed the TV, and the light in the dormer died along with it.
Carmen noticed the change in scenery the same second I did. She said, “I guess we have a decision to make.”
“Coming here was your idea, Carmen. It was a good idea, or I wouldn’t be here with you. I think whether we ruin Holly’s holiday tonight or tomorrow morning is up to you. I’ll back you up either way you want to go.”
She gave the puzzle fifteen, twenty seconds of thought. “We passed a motel a few blocks back. I vote that you and I go get some sleep, and we talk to her tomorrow morning when she’s chopping celery and onions to stuff into her turkey.”
“Okay, that’s what we’ll do.” I started the car. “Tell me something, Carmen. Are you a Raiders fan?”
“What?”
I pulled a U-turn in the intersection before I switched on the headlights.
“Football? You a Raiders fan?”
“As I matter of fact, I am. How did you know?”
“Intuition. Did you have tickets when you lived up north?” What was I guessing? I was guessing that she had season tickets and that she owned a good-sized wardrobe of Silver and Black.
“Yes, I did.”
“Thought you might.”
“What else do you know about me?”
You like disco and the Oakland Raiders. That’s about it. Don’t necessarily like what I know, but I don’t know as much as I’d like.That’s what I was thinking.
I decided to circle Holly Malone’s block one more time, slowly, searching for any sign of Sterling Storey. Why? Criminals almost always end up proving themselves to be a lot smarter or a lot dumber than people give them credit for. I was still hoping that Sterling was a lot dumber. That was why.
Halfway around the block I finally responded to Carmen’s question. “Nothing,” I said. “I don’t know anything else about you. You have kids?”
“One. She’s a freshman at UC Santa Cruz. She’s spending Thanksgiving with her boyfriend’s family.”
I did the math, figured Carmen was maybe a little older than me. “I have one, too. He’s a sophomore in grammar school. He’s spending Thanksgiving with his grandparents.”
She laughed before she said, “I know.”
She knew.
“You married?” I asked. I didn’t think about asking, I just asked. I don’t like it when my mouth gets ahead of my brain. It doesn’t happen often. Usually my mouth is pretty slow, my brain a little faster.
“No,” she said, without explanation.
She didn’t ask me if I was married.
She knew.
Or did she?
I sucked in my gut, knowing damn well the act did nothing to disguise my man-boobs.
What did I spend the next few blocks wondering? I spent the next few blocks wondering what it would be like to get one room at the Days Inn instead of two.
FIFTY-ONE
We got two.
I hoped I hadn’t been obvious when the woman at the desk had asked, “One room or two?” I’d hesitated a beat too long-I knew I had. I was waiting for Carmen to say “two,” but she didn’t. Or hoping she’d say “one” or something. It might have been my imagination, but I thought she was waiting to hear what I was going to say.
After that beat-too-long passed, we both blurted, “Two.”
My room had littleNO SMOKINGsigns just about everywhere I looked, but it had recently been occupied by a smoker, no doubt about it. The fetid air caught in the back of my throat with each slow breath I took.
I took a minute to call Alan on my cell to let him know that Carmen, and therefore the Boulder Police Department, knew about the woman in South Bend and that they seemed to have a conduit that ran straight into his office by way of the Crime Stoppers program.
He sounded dismayed at the news. I felt bad for him. The guy’s plate was pretty full.
Carmen and I had been assigned rooms right next to each other; they even had a pair of those odd connecting doors between them, as though the desk clerk thought it might be fun to tempt me with trespassing all night long.
She sang soulful songs as she prepared to sleep. Except for my shoes I was still fully dressed, and I lay on the bed as motionless as I could so that the bed wouldn’t squeal and I wouldn’t miss a muted note. I was almost certain that I’d never heard any of the songs she was singing before in my life.
That, I thought, was fitting. It seemed that all the melodies I’d heard since she sat down opposite me in the Marriott were composed of fresh notes.
Except for the disco.
She sang three songs, paused, I guessed, to brush her teeth, and then sang one more tune, something so full of lament that it brought tears to my eyes about Simon and Sherry and the holidays and my heart. I thought of Lauren and the fears that enveloped her, and even of Gibbs and what her life was going to be like when the dust settled, and I shed a tear for her as well.
I fell asleep right like that with my clothes on and woke at one-thirty, stripped in the dark, brushed my teeth, and fell back into bed. I listened for a while to the silence, pretended I could hear the soft percussion of Carmen’s breathing through the walls, and replayed the songs I’d heard only once a short while before, and they worked for me once again like lullabies. I was back to sleep before two and stayed that way until she pounded on my door at a quarter to eight.
When Carmen busted me awake, she’d torn me from a dream about the Wolf sisters and their mostly cooked turducken. The details of the dream evaporated instantly, but I woke thinking that if I inhaled deeply enough, I would be able to smell the intertwined birds roasting in an Ochlockonee, Georgia, oven. A deep breath and a quick look around the room brought me back to the reality that all I was smelling was the stale smoke of some inconsiderate fool’s Marlboros.