"No."
"Why would a spotter be carrying handhelds?"
"Backup for main radio breakdown, why do you think?"
"I wouldn't know, that's why I'm asking," Liam said. "How much do these radios sell for?"
"Six hundred apiece minimum for the good ones. What else?"
"Uh-huh," Liam said, dutifully scribbling this down. "Is there some way you can tell if you sold these particular radios, sir?"
"Gimme the serial numbers."
Liam did so.
"Gimme your phone number."
Liam complied.
"I'll get back to you."
Click.
For the third time Liam set the receiver down in its cradle. He looked down at the yellow legal pad. Six hundred apiece. Not chump change. And probably the one bolted to the dash, being bigger and fancier, would be even more pricey.
The yellow pad was the same one he'd written the Cub's inventory down on the day before, and he flipped idly back through the pages and read over the list, comparing it with the items on the desk.
He sat suddenly upright in his chair, went to the top of the list, and ticked off the items one by one, beginning to end, comparing the list with what was spread across his desk. He did it twice, because he didn't believe his eyes the first time.
When he was done he sat back in disbelief and gathering rage. "Son of a bitch," he said. "Son of a bitch."
SEVEN
It was almost one o'clock, and Bill's was riding out the lull between the draft beer crowd that came in for lunch and the evening party-hearty bunch. One man was asleep, head down in a front booth. Another man held a cold bottle of Rainier to the side of his face. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be praying. Four older women played Snerts at a corner table, slapping down cards and knocking back Coors Lights with equal enthusiasm.
Bill herself was taking the break as an opportunity for a little self-enrichment. "Did you know that the Ursuline Convent in New Orleans is the oldest building in North America?" she said to Liam.
"Uh, no, I didn't," Liam said.
"Of course, once the nuns built it up and made it nice the priests moved in and booted the nuns out," Bill said.
"Of course," Liam said obediently. The air was redolent of wonderful things deep-fried, and his stomach growled. Bill cocked an eyebrow. "Cheeseburger and fries do you?" She laughed at Liam's expression. "Pull up a stool," she said hospitably. She closed her book and went into the kitchen, and fifteen minutes later Liam was attacking a heaping plate. "Like to see a man enjoying his food," Bill said, gratified. Like any good hostess, she knew enough not to bother a hungry customer with conversation, and so retreated behind her book once more.
Liam mopped up the last of the salt on the plate with his last fry and let out a long, satisfied sigh. Taking this as a signal to resume their conversation where it had left off, Bill lowered her book and said, "Not bad, huh? Bet it's a while since you had a burger that dripped that much juice down your chin."
"You'd lose that bet," Liam said, swallowing. "I had one just as good yesterday." Bill bristled, and Liam held up one hand, palm out. "From here, Bill, takeout."
Still suspicious, Bill said, "Takeout? I don't do takeout."
"You don't?" Wy had told him she'd gotten the burgers at Bill's.
"Hell no. Too much trouble, and I hate those plastic containers-they take a million years to decompose, and we've fucked up the environment enough for one lifetime as it is. 'Course," she added, "you bring your own bag, I'll wrap your order up in tinfoil." She rubbed her chin and added meditatively, "Although I've been thinking about charging a fee for the tinfoil." She fixed him with a severe look. "Tinfoil ain't cheap."
Liam remembered the greasy brown paper shopping bag Wy had produced, and breathed again. If Wy was buying burgers at Bill's, she wasn't anywhere around when Bob DeCreft walked into the prop of the Cub. He wanted Wy's alibi to be ironclad, impenetrable, intact. More than that, he didn't want to think that she'd lied to him within minutes of seeing him for the first time in over two years.
Although everybody lied, he knew that. It was the first rule any cop learned on the job. And it would have been easy enough for Wy to cut the p-lead and leave Bob DeCreft to his fate. It was what someone had done, after all. Yes, Wy had had all the opportunity in the world, and since she did most of her own mechanical work, the means as well. And motive? No. He didn't, wouldn't, couldn't believe it. He said, "Bill, do you know Wy Chouinard?"
"Of course. Pilot. Nice gal. She's Moses'-" She paused. "She's one of Moses' students."
Liam wondered what she had been going to say. "Did she order a couple of burgers yesterday?"
She eyed him. "What is this, an interrogation? Yeah, she was in, ordered two cheeseburgers, two fries, two Cokes; she brought an NC shopping bag with her. We visited some over the bar while she waited. She told me there was still a chance Fish and Game was going to declare an opener so they were going back up, and I told her all about the Mystic Crewe of Barkis." She cocked an expectant eyebrow, but he didn't bite, and she sighed. "Anyway, that New Orleans sure is one hell of a party town. Christmas, Mardi Gras, Strawberry Festival, Jazz Fest. The Neville Brothers come from New Orleans, did you know that?"
"All I know about New Orleans is that in 1814 we took a little trip."
Bill wrinkled her nose. "Johnny Horton-good God. He ain't the Neville Brothers, I'll tell you that for nothing."
"Really?"
Bill's blue eyes narrowed. "You ever hear of the Neville Brothers?"
"No," Liam admitted.
Bill muttered something uncomplimentary under her breath and marched over to the jukebox, the very set of her shoulders indicating she was on a mission from Jelly Roll Morton his own self. A coin rolled into a slot and the sweet, sad strains of "Bird on a Wire" rolled out.
"Nice," Liam commented when the song was done.
Bill rolled her eyes and heaved an impatient sigh at his lack of enthusiasm. "Nice, the man says. Nice."
Liam liked classical music, its intricate melodies and rhythms, its careful crafting, its honest passion. Jenny had called him a throwback, displacing Beethoven for the B-52's on their stereo whenever he turned his back, and Wy-he pulled himself together. He hadn't come to Bill's for a walk down memory lane or a lesson in contemporary pop rock. He'd come for lunch and for information, in that order.
Short of a parish priest, who was bound to an inconvenient confidentiality by oath, a local bartender was more privy to more information on the native population than anyone else. Liam had cultivated bartenders in other towns, and had found them to be a source that never failed, and a much quicker route to the information he needed than going through more conventional channels. Not to mention the added advantage of Bill's position as magistrate. She'd know all the repeat offenders, would be able to fill him in where Corcoran hadn't. "Bill," he said, "what can you tell me about Bob DeCreft?"
"Bob DeCreft," she said. She sighed. "Poor old Bob." She gave Liam a sharp glance. Save for the man with his head pillowed in his arms in the front booth, the man with the Rainier bottle still pressed to his face, and the dulcet tones of Aaron Neville, they were alone in the bar. "You here to pump me for information, is that it, Liam?"
Liam smiled at her. "As much as I can get," he agreed. "That, and food-that's all I want you for."
She laughed, throwing her head back and displaying a set of teeth that were just saved from being perfect by overlapping incisors that made her look faintly vampirish.