She grabbed her purse and started tearing through it looking for Latovsky’s card. She knew she had it; she’d used it last night to call from the service station and leave a message on his machine. But then she’d just dropped it back into the purse instead of putting it into the zipper compartment and now she couldn’t find it.
She upended the purse and everything—her wallet and keys, her change purse, and the little pink-and-blue box of the pregnancy test kit she’d bought, then didn’t have the nerve to use—fell out on the table. The card floated free and she grabbed it.
Latovskv was at a truck-stop counter when his beeper went off. A couple of truckers along the counter glanced at him, then went back to their food. He turned off the beeper, left half his sausage grinder, and went to find the phone.
The trip had been a bust so far. Fuller was not home, the Everetts had two daughters, no son. The Rices had a son, but he was stationed in Germany with NATO. He was coming home next month, his mother had said exultantly in the tiny living room with flowered carpeting and a huge TV, and Latovsky had thought, World War Two was finally over.
The Lyons had a son too, and he was in Anchorage with the Alaska State Hospital Administration. The Dryers, next on the list, probably also had a son and he’d be at a weather station in Antarctica.
It’d be funny if it weren’t so pitiful.
He’d check on the Rice and Everett sons, but knew they were where their parents had said and neither had flown six thousand miles to murder Abigail Reese on Friday.
The phone was in an alcove with the restrooms and he called the squad and got Barber.
“Lucci was beeping you,” Barber said, “but he just ran outta here like a rabbit with his ass in flames. Broad called a little while ago for you. I took it and she said a Dr. Bunner had been or was about to be shot in the professional building on Old School Road. Had been or uus about to be—nuts, right? But it spooked the shit out of Lucci and he—”
Latovsky slammed the phone down. He threw money on the counter for the grinder and ran out into the lot. It was clear and almost hot; not a breeze stirred. The land was still flat here, only the faintest hint of hills on the horizon.
He jumped into the car, stuck the bubble light on the roof, and hit the siren and gas. The Olds bore down to the gravel surface, the wheels spun, then caught, and the Olds careened out of the lot in a burst of brute eighties Detroit horsepower.
Troopers stood guard at the sawhorses set up to keep the crowd back; more troopers blocked the entrance to the building. Their faces were grim under their wide-brimmed hats, and Latovsky couldn’t raise the breath, spit, or gumption to ask what had happened.
He flashed his badge, passed the troopers on the front door, and went into the lobby. The elevator would take too long, and he wrenched open the stairwell door, raced up four flights, then had to lean against the wall, gasping for breath, before he could go on.
He straightened up, opened the hall door and saw Lucci waiting for him in front of Bunner’s office. The tire door slammed and Lucci looked up at him and shook his head.
Latovsky shoved past him, yanked the door open, and started across the outer office.
“No, Dave!” Lucci grabbed his arm, but he pulled free and kept going. Lucci grabbed him again and Latovsky turned on him and raised his fist like a club.
Lucci backed away and Latovsky turned to the door. Behind the ridged glass inset, wavy shapes of men moved around the room where Bunny had listened with unfailing attention, patience, kindness to people’s darkest secrets. Latovsky grabbed the knob, but the door opened before he could turn it and Lem Meers barged into him. Meers kept coming, Latovsky fell back, and Meers slammed the door, but not before Latovsky got a glimpse of a red-smeared window letting in pink sun that glittered on the fingerprint dust in the air.
“No, Dave,” Meers said quietly. “You don’t want to see. They shot him in the face.”
Latovsky staggered.
Shot in the face.
His legs gave way; he just made it to the couch before he collapsed, with the vinyl cushions sighing under him.
Shot in the face.
The room reeled, and he jammed his head down between his legs until his forehead touched the cool vinyl. Now kiss your ass good-bye, he thought, and the world became a soft, gray, cool fog of sweet oblivion for a few seconds. Then he felt the vinyl sticking damply to his forehead and raised his head slowly.
Meers had half his butt propped against the edge of Mrs. Meeker’s desk with one foot planted on the floor, the other, in a high-laced old man’s black oxford, swinging free at the end of a long skinny leg.
Lem Meers had graduated from Williams (on scholarship), gotten an M.A. from John Jay and special training at Quantico; he had been to cop conferences in London, Paris, Tokyo; had hobnobbed with the brass in Albany, had dinner twice with the governor, and still dressed like a mountain man on his way to church.
He was taller than Latovsky and fifty pounds lighter; his face was long and gaunt, with deep-set dark eyes and straight black-and-gray hair combed straight back. He was ugly until you got to know him, then he was almost handsome.
“You want water or something?” he asked Latovsky gently.
Latovsky shook his head, the room started to spin again, and he stopped moving.
“I know he was your friend, Dave. I’m sorry.”
Meers meant it; he never said anything he didn’t mean.
Lucci was in Mrs. Meeker’s typing chair. He rode it over until he was close to Latovsky, then said, “The call came in at one, Dave. Barber took it, but it was your private line, so he couldn’t get the incoming number.
“The caller was female, did not ID herself. Don’t know if she even gave Barber a chance to ask. She just said that Bunner had been or would be shot in his office, then hung up. Barber thought it was one of the cranks we’ve been getting since the killing Friday and he made a joke of it, called her one more dumb bimbo with too much time on her hands and her thumb up her—” He glanced at Meers. “Her you-know-what. But something about it hit me wrong. After all, Bunner was your friend.”
Was.
“So I called his house, sure he’d be there. Then you and he’d have a laugh about it when you got back from wherever. But Bunner wasn’t home. His kid answered. He’d only gotten back a few minutes ago and he said his mother said Bunner had to go to the office to see some hairpin.
“Hairpin. Kids really come up with ’em, don’t they? Anyway, I didn’t talk to her. Figured I’d just spook her over nothing. But I couldn’t let it alone and after a couple of minutes I beeped you, then came here. I knew I was being a prime asshole. Knew I’d get here and find Bunner gentling down the hairpin or fucking his secretary.” Lucci ran his hand down his face, dragging flesh with it.
“He was still warm, Dave. Blood was still liquid. If I hadn’t stalled by calling his house and beeping you... if Barber wasn’t so fuckin’ cop-casual about everything...”
“Stop that what-if shit,” Meers said sharply, then he looked at Latovsky. “Rule was here, got here before I did. He said clotting time suggests Bunner was shot between twelve thirty and one. He was probably dead by the time the woman called. I sent Dillworthy and Frawley to tell Mrs. Bunner. Then Frawley’s going to pick up the secretary. Mrs....” Meers flipped open his notebook.
“Mrs. Meeker,” Latovsky said, “Della Meeker. She doesn’t have to see this.”