Henry jerked to a crouch, hands clasped together, staring at Mackey as though he were some kind of evil wizard. “How did you know that?”
Parker said, “I told you, Henry. We know everything.”
Darlene said, “They asked me to cooperate.”
Mackey said, “To sign a complaint that she made false statements on a credit application.”
“Well, they were false,” she said.
Mackey shook his head. “It wasn’t a credit application.”
She started to snap something, angry and impatient, but then stopped herself, as though she hadn’t realized till that second what the law had asked her to do. Maybe she hadn’t. She shook her head, rallied: “They were false statements.”
“Not on a credit application. Not a crime.”
Until now, Darlene and Henry had not looked at each other even once, both being too involved with the three men who’d broken into their room, but now they did turn to gaze at each other, a quick searching look — will you be any help? — and then faced Mackey again. Her voice lower, less pugnacious, she said, “I already said I’d do it.”
Parker said, “What time you supposed to go in there, in the morning?”
“Nine o’clock.”
“So we got three and a half hours,” he told her, “to figure out what you’re gonna to.”
Mackey said, “Brenda’s never been in jail before. She’s never been fingerprinted before, that’s why the cops can’t get a handle on who she really is. You put an innocent woman in the lockup.”
Trying for scorn, not quite making it, Darlene said, “An innocent woman!”
“More innocent than you two,” Mackey told her.
“Give them a few minutes,” Parker said.
Mackey turned to him. “You mean, leave them alone awhile, let them get dressed, talk it over?”
“That’s the best way,” Parker said.
Mackey looked around the room. “But what if they decide to use that phone there?”
Parker said, “Then Muriel’s got a problem she can’t ignore,” and the two on the bed gave each other startled looks.
Mackey said, “Yeah, but what if they aren’t as smart as they look?”
“No problem,” Williams said. He stood, went over to the bed — both people in it flinched, which he didn’t seem to notice — and stooped to unplug the phone. “I’ll take it with me,” he said.
Mackey kept looking around the room. “What if they decide to go out the window?”
Williams, carrying the phone, went to the room’s one window. “It’s locked,” he said. “But it’s just the thing you turn, they could unlock it.”
A dresser stood between the window and the chair Williams had been sitting in. Parker said, “We’ll move the dresser in front of the window. If they move it to get out, we’ll hear them from the hall.”
Mackey said, “Let me see what’s what in the bathroom.”
While Mackey went into the adjoining bathroom, Parker and Williams slid the heavy dresser over in front of the window, where it reached halfway up the lower pane. Then Williams stooped to pick up Henry’s trousers, go through the pockets, remove the wallet and keys. The couple on the bed watched, tense, together but not together.
Mackey came back to the bedroom and said, “It’s okay. No phone in there, and the window’s high and small, looks like it’s painted shut.”
The three moved toward the door, Williams carrying the wallet and the keys and the phone. Parker turned back to say, “You got one chance to get out from under. We’ll open the door in fifteen minutes.”
6
In the darkness of the hall, with only faint distant streetlight illumination to define the space, Williams put the phone on the floor, and they moved down closer to the living room to have a quiet talk. Mackey said, “What do you think?”
“I think she’s smart,” Parker said. “She’ll figure it out.”
“That’s the thing,” Mackey said. “It’s got to come from her.”
Williams said, “I think it will.”
“If we just scare her,” Mackey said, talking out his tension, “and we send her out scared when she talks to the cops, afraid maybe we’re back here roasting Henry for lunch, they’ll smell it on her. They won’t believe the conversation.”
Williams said, “It’ll be a tough sell anyway.”
“She’s tough enough to do it,” Parker said. “He couldn’t do it, but she could.”
Mackey said, “But it has to come from her. Her decision, how to make everything okay again.”
Williams said, “You gonna stay here while she’s doing it?”
Mackey shrugged. “No place else I can think of. And we’ll need to keep track of Henry.”
“This place could be chancy,” Williams said.
Parker said, “I know what you mean. No matter how good she is, they’ll think maybe there’s something wrong. They’ll send somebody here.”
“Not with a warrant,” Mackey said. “No time, and no excuse.”
Parker said, “No, just to eyeball it, while they’ve still got her there.” He nodded toward the front door. “So we’ll have to fix that, make it work again. If the beat cop comes around, looks in the windows, tries the doors, everything’s okay, then that’s it. But if a door’s unlocked, that’s suspicion, that’s probable cause, he’ll come right in.”
Williams said, “I’m gonna leave it all to you guys. You don’t need me any more, and I’m taking Henry’s car.”
Mackey laughed. “A step up from the Honda.”
“This time,” Williams said, “I’m getting out of this state.”
Parker said, “Switch all the cars around. Put ours in the garage, hers outside, then take off with his. That way, in the morning, she drives off, there’s no red Saab sitting there that nobody ever saw before.”
Williams nodded, grinning. “There’s always another detail, huh?”
“Sooner or later,” Parker said, “you get to them all.”
7
“I don’t think I can do it,” she said.
They were in the kitchen now, seated around the Formica table, because lights at the rear of the house wouldn’t draw as much attention. Henry, unshaven, brow creased with worry, wore a pale blue dress shirt, the trousers to a dark blue pinstripe suit, and black oxfords. Darlene was in a high-necked plain white blouse and severe long black skirt; apparently, what she intended to wear to the meeting this morning, a meeting that had now become something else, leaving her uncertain and afraid. She said, “How can I tell them I just changed my mind?”
“People do it all the time,” Mackey assured her.
Parker said, “You were hot, you were angry, but now you’re cooled off, now you don’t want to make trouble for somebody if she really didn’t do anything.”
“Which she didn’t,” Mackey said.
“But they’re going to look at me,” Darlene said. “They’re going to want to know why I changed my mind, and all I’ll be able to think about is you two back here, threatening Henry.”
Mackey turned to Henry. “Do you feel threatened?”
“Yes,” Henry said. He sounded surprised.
Mackey gave him his full attention. “Then let me ask you this,” he said. “What do you want Darlene to do?”
“I don’t want anyone to be hurt,” Henry said. “I don’t want anybody to be... ruined.”
“Henry,” Mackey said, “you’re a braver guy than you know you are. You risk ruin all the time, I know you do, and why? Because you love Darlene. You got your father the jewelry guy to cover for you tonight, because Darlene didn’t want to be alone after what happened to her dance studio. That was tough to ask him that, wasn’t it?”