DIANE HILL ARRIVED in an aging Taurus station wagon, bumped up the drive, and got out with a plastic grocery sack. She saw them coming, and waited in the driveway. Lucas identified them, and she said sullenly, "What do you want?"
"When your daughter disappeared, she had to go somewhere. We think she might have gone to Clara Rinker, and we think Clara might be with her now."
A transient look of-What? Pleasure? Lucas thought so-crossed Hill's face and then vanished as quickly as it had come.
"We don't have any idea where Patricia might be. We just hope to God that everything is all right with her, after the hell that her husband put her through."
"She never got in touch, just to tell you that she's all right?"
"Yes, she's called from time to time, and I told the police that. She calls sometimes, and she cries because she can't come home and she can't tell us where she is, because she's afraid that somebody will find out and the police will come get us. She's protecting us by not telling."
Andreno tried: "Mrs. Hill, honest to God, we don't care about Patsy-Patricia-she's somebody else's problem. But Clara is killing people-"
"Mafia hoodlums," Hill snapped.
"She's killed a lot of innocent people," Lucas put in. "She's going to kill more."
"That's not my problem," Hill said, clutching at her groceries. "All I know is, she was kind to my daughter when my daughter needed some kindness, and couldn't come here to get it. And I know what happened to poor Clara when she was just a girl, and it doesn't seem strange to me at all that she's grown up to kill people. Where were the police when her stepdaddy was working his perversions on her, and her not even fourteen? Where were they when Patricia's husband was burning her back with a clothes iron?"
"Mrs. Hill…"
"You tell me where the police were then."
"Mrs. Hill…"
"And if I were you, I wouldn't go talking to Chuck-that's my husband-because he's gonna be a damn sight less cordial than I've been. We don't approve of any kind of criminality, but if the police really took care of crime, there wouldn't be any Clara Rinker and our Patsy would still be with us. Excuse me." She marched up the driveway and into the house, and slammed the door.
After a moment, Andreno said, "I think we handled that pretty well."
"We oughta get a warrant and tear the house down."
"Really?"
Lucas shook his head. "No. Shit."
"Want to try Chuck?"
"I'll drop you off, if you want to."
"No, thanks. Back to St. Louis, then?"
Lucas sighed, looked up at the Hill house. "I guess."
TEN MILES OUT of town he said, "The Hills didn't mention any other children."
Andreno shook his head. "No. I sorta got the impression that Patsy might be the only one."
"Huh. How many long-distance phone calls you think come pouring into the Hills' house?"
"Mmm."
"I bet she calls on Christmas," Lucas said. "Or New Year's, or right around then."
"I bet the feds can get a warrant for their phone records."
"Bet they can, too." He picked up his cell phone.
"Gonna tell them?"
"About the rifles, so they can spread the net around Levy. I want to tell them in person about the Hill idea-I don't want them pissing on it when I can't defend it. They've sat around that conference table and pissed on every idea I've had, even when they paid off."
"They're feds. That's what they do."
13
THERE 'S NO GOOD WAY TO GET FROM St. Louis to Anniston, Alabama, in a hurry, any more than there's a good way to get from Minneapolis to St. Louis. Rinker couldn't hurry anyway, because she couldn't risk a traffic stop. She took I-64 east to I-24, and I-24 down to Nashville, where she picked up I-65, and I-65 all the way to Birmingham, and then I-20 east to Anniston.
She started late in the afternoon and was still driving at dawn. She listened to a St. Louis Cardinals game heading down to Nashville, thinking about those times in the liquor warehouse, about a million years earlier, when the Cards games always ran in the background, and she, no baseball fan, knew every man on the roster.
She lost the Cardinals outside of Nashville, and poked around the radio looking for some decent country, but that was hard to come by. She finally found a local station along the Alabama line, playing a long string of LeAnn Rimes, including "Blue," one of Rinker's favorites. When that station faded, she spent the rest of the night dialing around the radio for more good places to listen.
At 6A. M., a little beat-up, but pleasantly so-she always liked road trips-she checked into a cheap motel called Tapley's, and when asked how many there'd be, she said, "Well, my husband's probably coming over during the day, he's a sergeant in the Army, but I'm not sure if he'll be staying the night."
The lady clerk looked at her with a touch of warmth in her eyes and said, "We'll put you down for one, and if that changes, honey, just let me know."
"I'll do that, and thanks," Rinker said. "I'd give you a credit card, but I don't know if it'd work. He's probably put a bass boat on it. I'll just give you cash, if that's okay."
"That'd be fine."
SHE CALLED WAYNE MCCALLUM at eight o'clock, and got him on the first ring: "Sergeant McCallum, ordnance."
"Wayne George McCallum. How are you?" She used her best whiskey Rinker voice.
There was a pause, then: "Oh, shit."
"I need to talk."
"I wouldn't doubt it, but things are pretty hectic right now." His voice was casual, with an underlying layer of stress.
"Did you take that twelve-step I heard about, or are you still running down to Biloxi on the weekends?"
"I sure as shit ain't took no twelve-step," he said. McCallum had a fondness for craps.
"So come on. I got something you need, and you got something I need."
"I can't talk right now. Could you call me at my other number, in about five minutes?" He gave her a number.
"I'll call," she said. She waited while he ran out to a pay phone, gave him an extra minute, and dialed. He picked up on the first ring. "I can get you two good ones, equipped. Three thousand."
"I don't need them. I need something special."
"Special."
"Real special."
"We better talk. See you at the usual?"
"The usual."
SHE GOT FOUR hours of sleep, and a little after noon, got cleaned up, changed into jeans, running shoes, and a short-sleeved shirt, and clipped one of her pistols into a pull-down fanny pack. Behind the pistol she stuffed a brick of fifty-dollar bills, wrapped with rubber bands.
When she was ready, and feeling a little adrenaline, she headed south to Talladega, then east into the mountains of the Talladega National Forest. She stopped at a wayside park, where a hiking trail started off into the woods. She sat in her car for a moment, watching, then retrieved the fanny pack from under the front seat and strapped it on, with the pack in front. She also dug out one of her cell phones, checked to make sure it was the right one, and carried it with her.
FOR YEARS, Wayne McCallum had been her main source of silenced nine-millimeter pistols, and she'd dealt with him twenty times. They'd once had a long talk about meeting places, places to talk, places to exchange equipment for money. They had agreed that cleverness was its own enemy. If you met in a crowded public place, which was one theory on how you do it-the crowd bought you protection from the person you were meeting-and if somebody was onto you, you'd never see them coming. If you could just see them coming, there was always a chance. A lonely spot, but still technically public, where you wouldn't seem suspicious just for being there, was the best solution.