Sam was telling me something. Given the hour, I had to believe it was something important. Maybe because of how close I’d been to REM time when he phoned, I wasn’t getting it. Not quite.
“Yeah? How’s South Bend?”
“I’m not a big Notre Dame fan. I liked Indianapolis, though. I didn’t expect to, but I did.”
“I’m not a Notre Dame fan, either. It’s like the Yankees, I think. You either love the Irish or you hate ’em.” I was still drawing a blank. I wished I weren’t so tired. God, I was tired.
Sam said, “There’s a woman here that Carmen thinks we should go see.”
Carmen?Sam called her Carmen. That’s when I got it.
Carmen Reynoso knew what I knew about South Bend. My next line in the script? “I guess I’m wondering how Carmen heard about the woman in South Bend.”
“Tip from Crime Stoppers. A guy.”
“Anonymous?”
“You know how people are; they don’t like to get involved. Listen, I don’t need any details or anything, but-you know me-I’m curious whether you’ve had any conversations at work lately about any women in South Bend.”
“Turns out I have, Sam. Just yesterday, as a matter of fact, I had a conversation about a young woman who lives in South Bend. Can’t say any more, because of how I heard it, but yeah.”
“Any reason to believe she might be in some danger?” Sam asked.
“The woman in South Bend or the woman who told me about the woman in South Bend?”
Damn!I’d just exceeded the parameters of the game I was playing. I’d told Sam that I’d heard about South Bend from a woman. He could have guessed it on his own. He probably had, of course. That would have been okay. What wasn’t okay was that I’d told him.
“Either. Both,” he said. “Listen, you ever heard of a guy named Brian Miles?”
“Don’t think so. Why?”
“He’s some old friend of Sterling Storey’s. And it turns out his background is in microelectronics. Given your conundrum, that might be important.”
Yeah, it might be.“An awful lot depends on what really happened in that river in Georgia, doesn’t it?”
“The Ochlockonee,” Sam said. “Funny, but it’s gotten to the point where I like saying it. Och-lock-onee. Ochlockonee. You know it’s yellow? The river?”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“It is. Anyway, I figure it about the same way you do. It’s all going to come down to Sterling and the Ochlockonee.” He paused. “How’s Lauren feeling? Any change?”
“Her leg’s a little better. The medicine’s making her nuts, though. Thanks for asking.”
“Tell her I’m thinking about her.”
“I will. Sam, it was Crime Stoppers, huh? That’s how you knew about South Bend?”
“Yeah.”
“Hard to trace, those Crime Stoppers calls?”
“We don’t trace them. Did I say it was a guy who called?”
“Yeah, you did. And you said that this Brian Miles guy is in microelectronics. I’m grateful.”
“Well, I hope it helps you with your puzzle.”
“The fact that it’s a guy cuts the number of suspects in half, roughly.”
“There you go. Process of elimination. Just like a real cop.”
Did I fall back to sleep right away? Hardly. I was consumed with thoughts of Gibbs and Sterling and St. Tropez and a balcony on Wilshire Boulevard and women in Augusta and Indianapolis and Laguna Beach and West Point and a guy named Brian Miles in microelectronics and mostly-mostly-Sterling saying “catch me.”
“Sex. It’s not just for procreation anymore.”
Maybe Sam would catch him after all.
Maybe in South Bend.
Maybe.
I listened to the mutedthwop-crackof the pool balls for a while and toyed with counting sheep.
Instead, recalling Diane’s admonishment, I conjured images of me jumping hurdles, and I numbered each one as it passed beneath my feet.
FIFTY
Carmen Reynoso had an address for Holly Malone and a little map to the Malone house that she’d printed off the Internet. Although we didn’t get into South Bend until after eleven, we decided to drive by Holly’s residence just to make ourselves familiar with the area. We found the bungalow on a corner in a neighborhood more upscale than I thought that a university sports information officer could afford.
Carmen said, “Craftsman style. Nice.”
I think I surprised her by saying, “This is the territory for it. Stickley worked around here someplace, didn’t he?” The truth was that I knew damn well that Gustav Stickley’s furniture company had been just up the road in Grand Rapids, but I didn’t want to come across as a smart-ass. I figured Reynoso took me for a fat, dumb cop-most people did. Partly I cultivate that impression for strategic purposes: I like the advantage that comes with being underestimated. But partly I do it because I’m most comfortable hanging with people that fat, dumb cops get to hang with. Talking Stickley and Frank Lloyd Wright and Elbert Hubbard doesn’t go over too well in most areas of my life.
That’s okay with me. The point of knowing stuff isn’t so you can let other people know you know it. Occasionally feigning ignorance is a small sacrifice for the companionship of good people. And in my life I got to hang with more than my share of good people.
Carmen smiled at me after my comment about Stickley’s furniture company. She didn’t just smile; she smiled at me. Her lips stayed smoothly together, though, so I still didn’t get a chance to see her teeth. But I wondered if the quick smile was her way of telling me that she cultivated the angry Hispanic persona the way I cultivated the fat doofus persona. We would see.
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.”