And the callers were angry They wanted their town released from the threat of these modern-day Mongols.
When I got home Kit was on the phone. He held the mouthpiece to his chest, and informed me that Harry had called from Puerto Vallarta.
"What did she say?"
"Buenos dias."
"Did you get a number?"
"She said she was moving around. But she'll call again later in the week."
Then he resumed his conversation, disappearing into his room.
Good going, Harry.
Wasting no time worrying about my sister, I pulled out the print Roy had loaned me and laid it on the table. Then I sorted through Kate's photos for the shots of Bernard "Slick" Silvestre's biker funeral down South. I was particularly interested in the graveside scene Kit and I had studied.
I went through the stack three times and came up empty I checked everything in my briefcase. Then the desk in my bedroom. The papers around my computer. Every folder Kate had given me.
The photos were nowhere to be found.
Puzzled, I stuck my head into Kit's room to ask if he'd borrowed them.
He hadn't.
O.K., Brennan. Play the remembering game. When did you last see them?
Saturday night with Kit?
No.
Sunday morning.
In the hands of Lyle Crease.
The anger hit me like a sucker punch, sending heat up my neck, and curling my fingers into fists.
"Goddammit! Sonovabitch!"
I was furious with Crease and more furious with myself. Living alone, I had gotten into the habit of working investigative material at home, a practice discouraged by the lab. Now I was missing a piece of potential evidence.
Slowly I calmed down. And I recalled something a detective once told me while working a homicide in Charlotte. Media vans surrounded the charred suburban colonial where we were bagging what remained of a family of four.
"Our free press is like a sewer system," he said, "sucking in everyone and grinding them to shit. Especially those who ain't paying attention."
I hadn't paid attention, and now I would have to retrieve those photos.
Chapter 31
To work off my anger at Crease, my disgust with myself, and my fear for LaManche, I pounded out three miles on the treadmill at the gym. Then I lifted for thirty minutes, and sat in the steam room for another ten.
Walking home along Ste-Catherine I felt physically tired, but still mentally anxious. I forced my thoughts to innocuous things.
The weather had turned heavy and humid. Seagulls screamed at the dark clouds that hung low over the city, trapping the smell of the St. Lawrence and bringing on a premature dusk.
I thought about city gulls. Why fight pigeons for urban scraps when a world-class river flows a mile away? Are gulls and pigeons variations of the same bird?
I thought about dinner. I thought about the pain in my left knee. I thought about a tooth in which I suspected a cavity. I thought about ways to conceal my hair.
Mostly I thought about Lyle Crease. And I understood the rage of Islamic fundamentalists and postal workers. I would call him and demand the return of the photos. Then, if the little reptile crossed my path again I would probably get my name in the papers.
As I rounded the corner onto my street I saw a figure moving toward me, a leather-vested white-trash redneck who looked like a hyena pack of one.
Had he come from my building?
Kit!
I felt a constriction in my chest.
I quickened my pace and kept to the center of the sidewalk. The man held his path, banging into me as we passed. His bulk was such that the impact knocked me off balance. Stumbling, I looked up into dark eyes, made darker by the brim of a baseball cap. I stared into them.
Look at me, asshole. Remember my face. I'll remember yours.
He met my gaze, then puckered his lips in an exaggerated kiss.
I offered a digit.
Heart pounding, I raced to the complex and into the vestibule, taking the steps two at a time. With shaking hands I unlocked the front door, hurried down the hail, and inserted the key to my condo.
Kit was in the kitchen adding pasta to boiling water. There was an empty beer bottle by the sink, a half-full one at his elbow.
"Kit."
His hand jumped at the sound of my voice.
"Hey. What's up?"
He poked the noodles with a wooden spoon, and took a swig of beer. Though the greeting was casual, his jerky movements belied tension.
I was silent, waiting for him to go on.
"I found some store-bought sauce. Roasted garlic and black olive. It ain't gourmet, hut I thought you'd like a home-cooked."
He gave a brilliant Kit smile, then tossed back another mouthful of Molson.
"What's going on?"
"NBA play-off game tonight."
"You know what I mean."
"I do?"
"Kit." I did not disguise my annoyance.
"What? Just ask, ma'am."
"Was someone here while I was gone?"
He swirled the linguine, tapped the spoon on the edge of the pot, and looked straight at me. For several moments the steam rose between us. Then the corners of his eyes pinched, and he tapped again.
He dropped his gaze, stirred, flicked back to me.
"What's the deal?"
"I saw someone on the sidewalk and thought he might have been coming from here."
"Can't help you." Another shit-eating grin. "You like your linguine at den te, madam?"
"Kit-"
"You worry too much, Aunt Tempe." It was becoming a familiar refrain.
"Are you still seeing those men from the bike shop?" He extended his hands, wrists pressed together
"O.K. I give up. Arrest me on suspicion of involvement with organized pasta."
"Are you?"
His voice grew stern. "Who hired you to ask these questions, ma'am?"
It was clear he would tell me nothing. I pushed the fear to a corner of my mind, knowing that it wouldn't stay there, and went to my room to change. But I'd made a decision.
Kit was going back to Houston.
After dinner Kit settled in front of the TV and I went to my computes I'd just puiled up the jpg files that contained Kate's photos and the one I'd borrowed from Jacques Roy, when the phone rang.
Kit answered, and I heard laughter and banter through the wall, then the tone changed. Though I could make out no words, it was clear Kit was upset. His voice grew loud and angr~s and at one point I heard something slammed.
In a moment Kit appeared at my door, his agitation apparent.
"I'm going out for a little bit, Auntie T."
"Out?"
"Yep."
"With?"
"Just some guys." Only his mouth smiled.
"That's not good enough, Kit."
"Oh hell, don't you start in.
With that he stormed down the hall.
"Shit!"
I leaped to my feet, but Kit was already out the door when I rounded the corner into the living room.
"Shit!" I repeated for emphasis.
I was about to go after him when the phone rang. Thinking it was Kit's earlier caller, I grabbed the handset.
"Yes!" I seethed.
"Jesus, Tempe. Maybe you need to get into some kind of exercise program. You are becoming consistently rude."
"Where the hell are you, Harry?"
"The great state of Jalisco. Buenos noch-"
"Why didn't you tell me about Kit's trouble in Houston?"
"Trouble?"
"The tiny matter of the drug bust!" I was almost shouting.
"Oh, that,"
"That."
"I really don't believe that was Kit's fault. If it weren't for the pasty-faced little pricks he was hanging out with, he'd never have gotten involved with that stuff."
"But he did, Harry And now he has a police record."