“Yes,” I said, “earlier in the week.”
She spread her hands before her, palms out, and studied her nails. She looked up from them and said, “I don’t have much to do with my dad or my brother now. I like it that way. They have their problems, I have mine.”
I excused myself to use her bathroom, which was as plain and unadorned as the rest of the place. When I came back out, I was surprised to hear her laughing. I realized that it was the first time I had ever heard the sound of her laughter. It was an uninhibited, childish giggle. She was holding a folded piece of paper in her hand, extending it back to Frank with a smile.
Frank glanced back at me with a look that had guilt written all over it. He took the paper back from her and handed it to me.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I let her read your article about Parrish.”
“Not at all,” I said, but Gillian’s smile had already faded.
We left not long after that. In the car, Frank said, “I’m sorry, I should have asked you first.”
“Are you kidding? You’re brilliant! I’ve never heard that kid laugh. I’m really glad you let her see what I wrote — maybe it helped relieve some of that burden she carries around — at least for a few minutes, anyway. She’s usually so serious and remote.”
“And here I thought the low-affect routine was just for me.”
“It wasn’t you,” I said. “She’s always like that around me, too. That’s why hearing her laugh was so great — usually, nothing seems to get through to her. Jason says she’s cold. I think it’s her way of coping with everything that’s happened. She just withdraws. And she’s had plenty to deal with lately — after all this time, her mother has been found, but it’s not exactly a happy ending.”
“I don’t underestimate what she’s been through, but” — he gave a mock shiver — “I’m with Jason.”
“I don’t think you can go much by this act she puts on.”
“I guess not. But you have to admit she’s a little weird.”
The whole family is strange, I thought. “You know, I’ve been thinking about Giles. I wonder if he was having an affair with his secretary before Julia was abducted. When Gillian first came to me, I focused all my attention on whether or not Julia was having an affair.”
“Most likely, Bob Thompson took a look at him. A wife disappears, we usually look to see if the husband wanted her gone.”
“Would it be hard to find out?”
“I think Reed Collins picked up the Sayre case — one they gave him after Bob died. He closed it out when the ID came in on her body. He probably has the file. They’re using it for the task force on Parrish, and it still has to be prosecuted, of course. Reed will let me take a look at it.”
“Giles seemed so upset when I first met him. Now, he’s totally caught up in himself. The more I think about what his kids have said, the more I wonder if that initial grief was all an act.”
“But connecting him to a guy like Parrish—”
“Parrish was his neighbor for a while.”
“That doesn’t mean he knew what Parrish was up to. Parrish isn’t a hit man; he kills for his own pleasure.”
“Maybe he’s done both. I’m going to talk to Phil Newly,” I said. “Maybe he’ll know if Parrish was in touch with anyone else, thought of anyone as a friend.”
“Phil may have helped me to find you,” he said, “but good luck getting him to take attorney-client privilege that lightly.”
I called Phil Newly’s number several times on Sunday afternoon and evening. No answer. I figured he might be away for the weekend.
That was one of my worries over the next few days — Phil Newly’s phone ringing unanswered. I should have been more worried than I was.
48
MONDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 18
Las Piernas
On Monday morning, while Jack was my sitter, we were able to pick up the van from the impound yard. I washed it more thoroughly than I have ever washed any vehicle. We took the Jeep back to Ben, who was able to use it in time to get to his first class. He seemed amazed that it came back to him in one piece.
I called Jo Robinson to complain about the hours she had arranged, and she told me that she had not expected that Wrigley would come up with this schedule. She was angry about it, but her calls to the Express apparently made no difference.
I kept calling Newly.
Travis called. He had been good about keeping in touch, although he was clearly having the time of his life with Stinger Dalton and as far as I could tell, was in no hurry to come back to Las Piernas. He had already soloed in small helicopters, and ecstatically related to me that Stinger was now teaching him to fly the big Sikorsky.
“So, are you still off work?” he asked me.
“No, in fact, I’m working tomorrow night.” I told him about my unique working hours.
“That really sucks,” he said, making me think he had spent a little too much time with Stinger.
“It’s only temporary,” I said.
“Maybe I’ll come and visit you soon. I miss the dogs.”
“Thanks.” I laughed.
“That’s not what I meant!”
“I know, I know. We all look forward to seeing you whenever you get a chance to come by.”
I was approaching the first night shift with some trepidation. Normally, I wouldn’t mind driving alone on deserted streets after midnight or working alone in an office on a graveyard shift, but nothing in my life was normal then. I had no doubt that Parrish would be stalking me on those streets, that Parrish would come to hunt me down in those empty hallways.
He’ll hunt you wherever you are, I told myself. I couldn’t hole up in the house forever. A life spent cowering was no life at all.
I was in that frame of mind when Frank told me he wanted to make sure that I was never unaccompanied at the newspaper on night shifts. I flatly refused to take a sitter into work with me. That argument livened things up for a few hours. He drove off, came back an hour later and handed me a cell phone.
“What’s this?”
“My peace of mind.”
“You expect me to carry this around with me—”
“And to have it on. Yes.”
“Can we afford this?”
“It’s cheaper than a funeral.”
“Frank!”
“Okay, okay. Just carry it around for my peace of mind, please?”
I gave in.
I didn’t do much of anything in connection with the Sayre case for the next week; I was too busy adjusting my sleep schedule and catching up with the paperwork that had piled up on my desk at the Express. Those first nights, the paper had already been put to bed by the time I arrived. I talked to the printers down in the basement, and to Jerry and Livy, the computer maintenance staff.
Frank tested me a few times, making sure I had the cell phone turned on, until I finally told him that if he didn’t quit making me jump out of my skin by making the damned phone chirp, I was going to roll the thing between a couple of presses. That took care of that.
I tried calling Newly at eleven-thirty. No answer.
The newsroom was empty and quiet.
I was well on my way to being unnerved by that quiet when my cousin Travis called at 11:55 P.M.
“Go up onto the roof,” he said.
“What?”
“We’re coming to see you!” he said over loud noise in the background.
“Who is coming to see me?”
“Stinger and I.”
“Great. When?”
“Right now.”
“Now? Is this some practical joke, Travis?”
“Go up onto the roof of the Express. We’ll be near there in about ten minutes.”
“Are you nuts?”
“No, I told Stinger that you were going to have to work late at the paper and that you didn’t sound too happy about being there by yourself at night. So we decided it would be fun to surprise you there. Stinger says there’s a landing pad on top of your building.”