It took Linda two days to grow accustomed to his hours. He was at the hospital for surgery by seven and usually walked across the street to the medical building where he had his office at around one. Some time in the late afternoon he would walk back to the hospital and stalk the hallways, talking to patients in their rooms until at least seven, and sometimes nine.
After she became used to his movements and had adjusted her internal clock to his, she had long stretches of time when she could let him out of her sight. The mornings were good, because she knew that he wasn’t going to leave in the middle of an operation. She spent some mornings with realtors. His neighborhood was wrong for her purposes. The houses were all big and expensive, sitting well back on vast lots. The nearest one that was for sale was two long blocks away, and the view of his house was obscured by a row of old maple trees along the sidewalk. The zoning apparently didn’t permit apartment buildings, because there was not one on any of the surrounding streets.
She considered getting a job in the hospital, but only for a moment. Hospitals checked credentials to avoid lawsuits, and she could never create any that would get her a job that placed her in his path frequently enough. At best she would find herself emptying bedpans three floors away from him, with no excuse to leave and follow him.
Linda had an expert eye for bodies and could tell he was in reasonably good condition. He didn’t jog or work out at home, so it was possible that he belonged to some local club. She looked up all of the ones in the telephone book, made some calls, and learned nothing.
His entry in the A.M.A. directory told her he had gone to Cornell and then to the University of Chicago Medical School. She opened an account at the bank listed on his credit report and shopped at the supermarkets closest to his house, but never saw him.
She visited the main library in downtown Buffalo and read old issues of the Cornell alumni magazine until she found the right obituary. A woman named Susan Preston had died six years ago in a plane crash. Susan Preston would have been five years younger than McKinnon, so they weren’t in school together. She had been survived by various Prestons in San Francisco, so it was unlikely that McKinnon had known her family. Linda took the catalog off the shelf and studied the maps and photographs of the Cornell University campus, then memorized the names of professors and courses. If the university was going to be an entree to anything, she might need to be able to talk about it.
Linda called her house and reached Lenny. She told him to punch the name Susan Preston Haynes onto some blank credit cards, make her a California driver’s license, and send them by overnight mail. It was a gamble to use a real name, but it would put her on the right lists, and adding a husband’s surname gave her the option of being Haynes any time Preston seemed too risky.
After six days of stalking Carey McKinnon, Linda found an article in the Buffalo News about a benefit dinner to be held by the auxiliary of Buffalo Memorial Hospital. She called the number in the article and bought a ticket for a hundred dollars. Carey McKinnon seemed to do nothing but work and sleep, but maybe he would consider a benefit for the hospital a part of his work. She had just taken out the good dress she had brought from California in case she needed it in Las Vegas and begun her preparations when the telephone rang.
“Yes?” she said into it.
“It’s me.” Earl sounded angry.
“Hi,” she said. “Have you got anything yet?”
“Zero,” he said. “I’ve watched his goddamn car for a week. If he’s in Billings at all anymore, he doesn’t drive anywhere. He’s also not visible in any hotel, motel, or park bench in the city. If you don’t have anything for me soon, I think we might want to begin considering our alternatives.”
“What alternatives?”
“Make some fake ID with Hatcher’s picture on it that won’t fool even a Montana cop, rent an apartment in that name. We salt the apartment with the ID and the mail we found in Las Vegas, and anything from the car that has Hatcher’s prints on it.”
“Then what?” She knew he wasn’t serious. He was saying it because it sounded desperate and risky, and the thought that he was contemplating such a fraud would affect her.
“Pop some guy Hatcher’s size and shape, put him in the car, and torch it. Once the police run the prints we leave in the apartment and identify the photograph on the fake ID, they won’t have any reason to strain themselves with a lot of tests, and Seaver won’t be able to. If anybody’s real curious they might go to the Denver apartment the car’s registered to and find more of Hatcher’s prints there. We collect the rest of the money from Seaver. End of story.”
“What happens if Pete Hatcher shows up later?” She sounded as worried as she would have been if she believed Earl would give up. Earl didn’t need safety as much as he needed to win.
“Honey, if I can’t find the bastard, you think anybody else is going to?”
“Of course not. Nobody’s better than you, Earl. I’m just talking.”
“If we wait too long, we might have to do it in reverse.”
“What do you mean?” asked Linda.
“Cut and run before Seaver’s bosses send somebody for us. Find a man and woman and make it look like this specialist Hatcher hired set a trap and killed us first.”
“Please don’t do anything yet, Earl,” she said. “I won’t disappoint you, I promise.” Her own voice, sounding breathy and submissive, gave her an erotic shiver. She experimented with making her voice break, not quite a sob. “I’ve been trying really hard.” The effect was good. “I’ll have something for you in a few days.”
“I sure hope so,” he said. “I’ve got nothing. I’ve been running computer checks on the two names he used so far, her name, car rentals, everything. None of it leads anywhere in particular. So I’m beginning to think she picked him up and they were long gone before I got here.”
“I know it’s up to me,” she said. “I won’t forget it for a second.”
Carey McKinnon stood in front of the mirror in the bedroom and studied the man who stared back at him. He had been aware long before tonight that he looked foolish in a tuxedo, but he had consoled himself by renting a tuxedo to look foolish in instead of owning one, and by picking out the plainest model that Benjy’s Midnight Tux had to offer, with black cummerbund and white plastic studs and cuff links. Probably the last time this one had been out of Benjy’s, it had been taken to a prom. The shoes were his, but only because Benjy’s selection of shoes for big feet had the sturdy spit-shined look of military footwear.
With resignation, he brushed his hair into place one last time. The warring cowlicks would reassert themselves in the car. Then he turned off the light, walked downstairs, and stopped. He looked at the telephone before he opened the door. He had been looking at telephones all over the house for two hours, each time remembering that the way they looked had nothing to do with ringing.
It was two hours earlier in Montana, so it was still about five o’clock there. His mind warned him that thinking about time was the first step into treacherous territory. The second was to ask himself what she could possibly be doing that made a telephone call to her husband such a hard thing to accomplish at any hour of the day or night. That brought a hundred contradictory answers into his mind together, elbowing past one another to the front to be acknowledged.
He left the lamp by the door burning and hurried out to his car. As soon as he had started the engine, he noticed the fuel gauge again and cursed himself for forgetting. He hated to stop at the full-serve side of the gas station and wait by the pump helplessly until the attendant happened to glance out the window and notice him, then get so lonely and bored that helping a customer was all he could think of to do. But Carey was determined not to pump gas in a tuxedo. The unwritten laws of physics meant that the pump nozzle would backwash or the hose would leak.