Danbury snapped the airphone back in the holder. “I can’t figure out where Borg is. This is the first time in two years I haven’t been able to track him down.”
“What do you need him for?”
“He could videotape us coming off the plane, walking through the terminal. If this project comes together, it’ll be a nice shot: intrepid PSIT hotshot Carson Ryder returns to Mobile with fresh evidence, assisted by his trusted sidekick, la femme Danielle.”
“Two minutes after the chief saw that, I’d be washing cruisers.”
“Not if the story has a happy ending, pogie. Hey, can I call you Carson now and then? I remember calling it out a time or two last night.” She smiled. “You didn’t seem to mind.”
I tried to smile back, but it curdled and I looked away. Her fingers touched my arm, slid to my hand.
I eased it away. “I’ve got to call Harry.”
She studied my eyes, then sat back as I made the call, hearing otherworldly sounds as the signal bounced off satellites or the moon or whatever. “Hey, bro,” I said above the twitters and boinks. “It’s your long-lost partner. The Orange Lady, Nancy, what’d you find out?”
“Nancy Chastain. She was with them, Cars. Hexcamp’s crew. Didn’t draw any incarceration, probably because she was such a sad case, and never directly participated in the killings. Later she became more disassociative. But a gentle kind of crazy; lived in the home, fed the neighborhood cats, made her citrus runs. Harmless.”
“And she’s killed Monday, one to two days after Marie Gilbeaux. Was there any art in Nancy’s life?”
“None found; we’re still looking. Anything else?”
“Lots to tell, Harry, but nothing pressing. You gonna pick us up at the airport?”
“Lawdy yessir, massa Ryder. I’se living for it.” He paused. “Cars?”
“You and Danbury work out fine together?”
I started to answer, but something jammed in my throat. “I can’t hear you, Harry,” I rasped. “We’re going through sunspots or something.” I jammed the device back in the holder.
The attendant wheeled the cart down the aisle. I got a ginger ale, Danbury a coffee. She blew across its surface, turned to me.
“Are you OK about last night, Carson? You seem different this morning. Like you’ve got a touch of the regrets.” She paused. “Oh my gosh…are you seeing someone? Is that it? Jeez, we should have talked about that beforehand, not that there was much time. Are you involved?”
I looked out the window. The clouds were bursts of white above a sea like blue mercury. “No. That is, I was. I don’t know.”
“A relationship in transition.”
“That’s a good way to put it.”
“Transition up or down?” She did the Roman emperor thumb, skyward, floorward.
“I don’t have a clue.”
“Which way do you want it to go?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Where does she want it to go?”
“How about this one, Carson: Do you know her name?”
I couldn’t help it; I laughed, full and open. The sound rushed through me, like the first breath after a long underwater swim. It occurred to me that last night had felt pretty much the same.
Her finger touched my chin, angled my face to hers. “We made love, Carson. In the City of Light. I think if you get a chance to have an intimate experience with a person you trust, go for it. That kind of trust is rare, at least in my experience, and to be savored. I thought last night was beautiful all the way through morning.” She thought a moment. “And comfortable, too. Like we were still dancing.”
I glanced around; all of our neighbors were either sleeping or watching a movie which, without sound, seemed a series of car chases interrupted by shootings. “Last night was very…I thought it was…I mean…” I stopped babbling, looked at my hands. “I’m not thinking very well here.”
“Things sometimes need time to sort themselves out,” she said.
I nodded. “I guess so.”
“One final question, Carson, then I’ll clam up.” She leaned close. Perfume flooded my senses, her breath hot against my ear. “I’m going down memory lane here; last night, après la danse. Our moments of trust. Do you think that sort of thing should happen again?”
“It’s nice to finally have a question I can answer,” I said.
We landed in Atlanta and waited for a Mobile flight, arriving in late evening. I should have been ass-weary, but felt a strange buoyancy. “Looky ahead,” Danbury said, pointing. “It’s Harry Nautilus. He’s been lonely without me, I’ll bet.”
Harry leaned against a column beside Baggage Claim, resplendent in a teal suit, yellow shirt, red tie. Last time I’d seen that ensemble was at a funeral. Danbury shot off for the restroom and I walked to Harry.
“We found the background for my likeness in the Wicky piece, a small park beside the academy Hexcamp attended. Still no idea who made it or why.”
“Hexcamp turn out like Danbury’s research predicted?”
We walked toward the luggage carousel. “Egomaniacal in galactic portions. And a masochist, hard core. Calypso used it to own him. She scoped him out, smelled his darkness, and provided what he wanted. A lot of it.”
“Strip me, whip me, beat me ‘til I come?”
“She sounded scary before, now she sounds pure freak. It’s why he emerged from his socalled ‘creative sessions’ so drained. She probably took him to the edge for days at a time.”
Harry wrinkled his nose. “I’ll never understand this stuff. Which ain’t too bad because I don’t want to.” He shifted gears. “Orange Lady, the case Roy Trent can’t dent, his backshot victim. After I told Roy about the connection, we went to the group home where she lived. No art in her room. Her mail comes through the front desk, goes to the director of the home, gets disbursed to the residents. Only eight folks live at the home, so it’s not a huge volume. All Nancy Chastain - Orange Lady - received in the previous week were a couple occupant-type fliers. She didn’t get a lot of mail.”
“You tossed her room?” It was a rhetorical question.
“Vents. Fixtures. Everything. We also tore apart every other room in case she’d had someone hide it for her. Nothing. The director said there’d been no change in Chastain’s personality or actions before her death. She wandered in her happy fog, got her daily oranges, sang her songs, helped around the house.”
I watched baggage climb from the bowels of the terminal, tumble onto the track. Harry said, “I’ve been giving it some thought, laying out a timeline: Heidi Wicky, Marie Gilbeaux, Nancy Chastain…The whole weirdness side of this, with the candles, the flowers, started at the Cozy Cabins with Marie G. The art started there, too, even if it was sent to the convent.”
I said, “But the weirdness seems spur of the moment. If we go by your take, the perp drove by a candle sale, thought they’d be a nice touch, picked up some rings, stopped at the cemetery for flowers…”
Danbury reappeared, her brown bag swinging over her shoulder. “How about we head to my place? I want to check Carla.”
Harry said, “I checked before coming here: she was washing clothes and getting ready for bed.”
She narrowed an eye. “How about my feeders?”
“You were out of cracked corn. You owe me eight bucks.”
Danbury took Harry’s arm, leaned her head against his shoulder. “He fills my feeders, buys treats for my birdies. What a guy.”
“Ease up, Danbury,” Harry rumbled. “I had to go to the pet shop anyway.”
“When’d you get a pet?” I asked.
Danbury said, “Let’s grab the bags and git. We’ve got to tell Harry about the big chess game. The elevator operator. And waltzing the night away.”
She saw her bag circling and ran for it. Harry nudged me with an elbow.
“Waltzing the night away? Ooo-la-la, Monsieur Carson.”