‘So what did Don do?’
‘Went to the DA. But the DA said that given Denny’s history and the fact that the only person making these claims was Denny’s father...’
‘Nothing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You think Showalter’s running the same scam here?’
‘Maybe if we can ever find that recorder we’ll know for sure. But my guess would be yes. Dave Fletcher was perfect for him. He wanted somebody to follow, to believe in. Showalter knows how to play the role. But he didn’t bet on Dave making a recording.’
My eyes shifted to Wade across the way. He had been watching us then quickly looked away.
‘Now do I get to know about Grimes?’
I smiled. ‘Yeah, what the hell.’
I spent a few minutes bringing her up to date: how Cindy had called me, how Grimes had scoped me out and how he claimed at first that he’d suffered a head wound for no apparent reason. And then he’d told me more about Dave Fletcher and the recorder.
The food was good and we relaxed enough to talk about our lives. I probably told a few more stories about my daughter Sarah than I needed to and she probably told a few more tales about her twice-married and very glamorous sister, but I liked her and I sensed she liked me. And I was touched by her relationship with her stepfather. Nailing Showalter was a holy quest for her; she managed not to sound deranged about it. The few people I’d known who were shaping their lives around vengeance had sometimes turned out to be as dangerous as the people they were chasing. But it was pretty difficult to argue with her. Not all dirty cops are menaces to the society they pretend to serve. They’re dishonorable, but taking a few bucks here and there is just the kind of capitalism Wall Street practices. Unfortunately Showalter was the worst kind of cop and needed to be brought down.
‘I’d like to talk to Grimes again. Want to come along?’
‘What about my friend Wade over there? He’ll follow me.’
‘Yeah. But I know a way to shake him.’
Leaning on my army days again, I told her how my first boss, a colonel, had outlined a way to lose a tail. You needed yourself and a cohort to do it.
‘Pretty slick, Dev. As long as Wade doesn’t figure it out.’
‘Worth a try.’
‘You know something?’ Karen said. ‘I’ve really enjoyed this, thanks.’
Thirty
The trick was simple enough.
As we were leaving the restaurant, we agreed on a meeting point, a pharmacy in a strip mall near the constituency office. I’d been in there once and knew that there was an alley behind it.
I got there a few minutes before she did and pulled up next to the back door of the place. It didn’t take long. She came hurrying out the door and climbed into the car, leaving Wade sitting across the street from the front of the pharmacy, waiting for her.
Grimes’s house was once again dark.
A full moon outlined it, doing it no favors.
Even bathed in gold the stark shambles were as ugly as ever. Urban gothic. His Ford was not out front.
We agreed that she’d knock on the front door while I walked around back.
The Ford wasn’t parked on the narrow patch of gravel in back, either.
The neighborhood was quiet. No teenagers driving up and down. No music shaking the stars. No shouts from arguing couples. Her knocks were sharp as gunshots.
A tomcat on the grass behind me got all operatic for half a minute and the smell of an overflowing garbage can made me wince.
The back door was unlocked so it was at this point that I brought out my Glock. Grimes’s religion was paranoia. There was no way he would have left the back door unlocked.
I walked to the front door and let Karen in. Even in the shadows I could see that her Glock was also drawn.
I remembered the American flag table lamp on the end table next to the couch.
I called out, ‘Grimes? It’s Dev Conrad.’
I started checking the house out room by room. None of them gave any indication that there had been trouble. No blood. Nothing knocked over or smashed.
Each room was a museum. The huge TV console with the ten-inch screen in the spare room. The record albums in the living room by Stevie Wonder and Derek and the Dominos and Fleetwood Mac. The closet with two tie-dyed shirts and a pair of red-and-blue-whirled bell bottoms.
The basement smelled from age and disrepair. The floor and the walls were wet and moisture had seeped into the stacks of magazines and newspapers that marked him as a hoarder of some kind.
When we got back upstairs the phone shrieked in the silence. I walked over to it and picked up.
‘Who’s this?’
‘Dev Conrad, Cindy.’
‘Oh — oh, God, Dev. I didn’t recognize your voice and it scared me. How come Granddad didn’t answer?’
‘He’s not here.’
She needed to prepare herself for what she said next. ‘He has Dave’s recorder. He told me that tonight on the phone. Dave gave it to him because he was scared to keep it himself. And this is how crazy he is now. He said he’s going to sell it to Showalter. He said it’s his turn to have some money.’ Finally, she was able to say, shakily, ‘I told him not to do it.’
‘Showalter will kill him.’
‘I told him the same thing. But he said he’d made a deal with them. They were going to pay him a hundred thousand dollars for it and once he got the cash he would tell them where to find it. He wouldn’t listen to me. You know how stubborn he is.’
‘I’ll do my best to find him before it’s too late, Cindy. I’ll call you later.’
After I hung up, Karen said, ‘I could hear pretty much everything. I could almost feel sorry for him. But greed’s making him stupid.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘imagine that. Greed making somebody stupid.’
Then we got out of there.
Thirty-One
‘Be weird if somebody killed her tonight.’
I suppose at most other times he would have irritated, if not enraged me. A woman is shot at and you show up to see if maybe tonight the shooter will return and get lucky.
But most people there were thinking that. Most, being decent prairie people, were hoping that wouldn’t be the case. They worried about it.
I couldn’t judge this man’s intentions for saying that. Certainly there were some at the rally who wouldn’t have minded seeing it happen. They’d turned out to boo and ridicule her. They’d come to support Dorsey. Others just wanted some excitement, the kind you could talk about to your grandkids. Oh, yes, kids, I was there the night that congresswoman got killed. Two shots. One in the head and one in the chest. Never forget anything like that no matter how old you get.
So all I said was, ‘Yeah, but the odds are against it.’
Something in my tone must have alerted him to my disapproval of what he’d said.
‘Hey, I don’t want to see it. I’m just saying.’
‘I know, I know.’
He was a young husband — not even thirty, probably. Bears cap and sad start on a goatee, standing next to an even younger wife. Her holding the blue-blanketed infant, a four- or five-year-old girl clinging to him.
I nodded and moved away.
He’d had no idea who I was but we live in the land of paranoia. In the case that Jess actually was assassinated he’d probably feel guilty. And if he didn’t, his wife would remind him of his words and then he’d be obliged to at least fake feeling guilty. When he’d spoken his wife had frowned and hugged her infant even tighter.