21

Lou Armada, scribbling notes at his desk, looked up when Mitch walked in.

“You wanted to see me, Lou?” He was the only detective Mitch knew with a neat desk. No crumpled fast-food wrappers, messy case files spilling over, empty coffee cups, or any of the general junk cops have on their desks.

“Yeah, have a seat.”

Mitch dropped into the chair by the desk. His heart banged along in his chest like he’d just run a marathon. Cary. Something turned up. About time. God, how long has it been? The days all blended together and he’d lost track of how many.

Lou leaned back in his chair, giving Mitch the once-over like he was a suspect. What the fuck? She was dead! Murdered. He stiffened, clenched his hands. He couldn’t say he was completely smoked. He’d been preparing himself for this.

“Who do you know in Topeka?” Lou said.

“Topeka?” That threw him for a spin. “Kansas?”

“Only one I’m aware of. Who do you know there?”

“What the hell you talking about?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Not a goddamn soul. Why?”

“We got a tip.”

“About Cary?” Why was Lou being so cagey? What the fuck was going on?

“We found fingerprints in her car.”

“Whose?”

“Yours.” Lou looked at him like this was some big discovery.

“Sure, my prints are there. I own the car, for God’s sake. Anybody else’s?”

“Your wife’s…,” Lou paused.

Well, that was no kick in the nuts.

“Some as yet unidentified.” Another pause, like he was getting ready for a big announcement. “And prints belonging to Arlette Coleridge.”

That was suppose to be a big whoop? Arlette was Cary’s friend. Mitch wasn’t liking where this was going. Hang on, he told himself, wait and see. He’d questioned enough losers to know silence came down hard, but, unlike those cretins, he knew enough to keep his mouth shut. While he waited Lou out, he made a conscious effort to relax his fists. Without taking his eyes off Lou, Mitch loosened each finger and moved his arms until his hands rested lightly on his knees.

“What do you know about the Coleridge woman?” Lou said.

“Not much. Attorney. Friend of Cary’s.”

“Yeah? What about her murder?”

“Beaten to death.” Mitch leaned forward. “What’s going on here, Lou?”

“Your fingerprints were in her apartment.”

Keep it short, Mitch told himself. Respond to the accusation, don’t elaborate. “Like I said, she was Cary’s friend. I was there once or twice.” And he’d told the bitch to stay away from his wife.

“This tip we got came from someone in Topeka, person said to look at you for the murder of Arlette Coleridge.”

“You think I killed the woman? Come on, Lou, that’s crazy. Why would I?”

“I don’t know. Maybe to get information.”

“Information about what?”

Lou opened his notebook and scanned stuff he’d written there. Mitch thought he wasn’t really reading, just making it look like he was searching for something important that would throw a noose around Mitch’s neck.

“You want to know my theory, Mitch? My theory is whoever killed the woman, didn’t go there to kill her, he—I say ‘he’ because it probably was a man, women don’t usually beat somebody to death—wanted information. And this Coleridge broad didn’t want to give it to him. He started pounding on her. And he kept pounding.”

“You think he got what he wanted?”

“Could be. Could be she died without saying a word. Gutsy lady, I’m told. You ever been known to hit a woman, Mitch?”

Mitch pulled in air that tasted like stale beer. “Should I be getting a lawyer here, Lou?”

“You think you need one?”

Mitch could feel the hold on his temper getting slippery. “I need you to stop whatever shit game you’re playing and tell me straight what’s going down.”

Lou tapped a pencil against his neat desktop. “Like I said, we got this tip.”

“Who called it in?”

“Anonymous.”

“Oh, right, anonymous. And on the strength of this tip from somebody who wouldn’t even leave a name, you’re pulling me in like I’m a suspect.”

“Just talking to you.”

“Man or woman?”

“Tipster? Whisperer, like he or she was trying to disguise the voice. The tech guy said a woman.”

Cary! Holy shit! Cary was in Topeka. How big was the place?

“Let’s try that question one more time,” Lou said.

“What question?”

“Who do you know in Topeka?”

“Not a soul. Not a goddamn soul.” Except one. His lawfully wedded wife who had run away from him and was causing all this trouble. He would make her pay. “Keep me in the loop on this one, will you? She was Cary’s friend. I’d just like to know.” Mitch stretched his legs and crossed them at the ankles. “Ask you something?”

“Yeah.”

“What does ‘caw’ mean to you?”

“Caw? You mean a bird sound?”

“Never mind.” Mitch stood up. “Any suspects in the Coleridge homicide?”

Lou rested his elbows on the desk, picked up a pencil, and held it between two upraised forefingers. “Some reason you want to know?”

“Yeah, like I told you. Because I knew the woman.” Not because I iced her.

“Beaten to death, that’s about all I can tell you. We’re looking into her cases. See if clients felt she didn’t do right by them, handled the case wrong, charged them too much. Hell, you know, whatever it is that gets people mad at their attorneys. ADA told me she was a tough opponent. Fights for her clients.”

“Maybe she got some bastard acquitted and the family, loved ones of the victim, whatever didn’t appreciate it.”

Lou leaned back and looked at him. “I’ve done this sort of thing before, you know.”

“Yeah. I’m just, like I said, wanting to know, because she was Cary’s friend.”

“You talked to her when Cary … disappeared?”

“She was the first one I talked to.” Careful, you’re getting into deep shit here. “I heard she was friends with Kelby Oliver.”

“Who told you that?”

Damn it, just shut up. You’re making Lou suspicious. “Cary.”

Lou cleared his throat. “We’re putting in hours on this. Nothing about her whereabouts yet.”

Mitch snatched a pen from the bunch in the cup and rolled it through his fingers. Lou looked pained, like he wanted to grab the pen and put it back. Most obsessive-compulsive type Mitch ever knew.

“Who’s Kelby Oliver?”

“No idea. Just that Arlette knew a Kelby Oliver. Oliver left town and Arlette is killed.” And my wife is missing. Three people who knew each other, two missing, one murdered.

“Where can I find this Oliver guy?”

“Don’t know.” On his way to his desk, he saw Paula hauling in a burglary suspect. Didn’t he have a drink with her once and she told him she was from Kansas?

“Hey, Paula, got a minute?”

She looked up. “Sure. If you can wait till I take care of this jerk.”

“Yeah.” He poured himself a cup of coffee, sat at his desk and waited.

It was nearly twenty minutes before Paula came in. “What’s up?”

“Aren’t you from Kansas?”

“Yeah,” she said warily. “Why?”

“What does ‘caw’ mean? And I’m not talking about birds.”

“Caw?” She looked puzzled. “I don’t have the slightest idea. Why?”

“Nothing. Forget it.”

She started to leave, then turned back. “Are you talking about the Kaw?”

“What’s that?”

She smiled. “It’s a river. The Kansas actually. Locals call it the Kaw. I have no idea why, they just do.”

“Thanks.”

A small town near the Kaw river. What he needed was a map. On his way home, he stopped at the Triple A office on University Avenue and got a map of Kansas. When he got home, he shoved aside dirty dishes with the remains of fast food and spread the map across the kitchen table. He popped a beer tab and took a swallow. Cary was a wiz with maps. She loved them. Everywhere she went she had to have a map first to see what the place was all about. Then she got books and read about it.

He peered at the goddamn map, looked it up in the little squares with the numbers and letters and still he couldn’t find it. Wait. There it was. Kansas River. Shit! It went for miles. Dozens of towns. How was he going to figure out which one? He leaned back, drained the beer, and opened a second. The anonymous tip came from Topeka, so it made sense that Cary was in some little town near Topeka. He studied the map again. How the hell was he going to find the right place? He couldn’t spend the rest of his life driving from one small town to another along the Kansas River.

The Velma broad. Talk to her again? Get more information? He didn’t think she had any more. When he got up to get another beer, a lightbulb went off in his head. A grin pulled tight across his teeth.

If you want to disappear, you don’t ever go anyplace you went before you dropped off the world. You don’t take anything with you, and whatever you liked to do in your previous life, you never do again. You like the beach? You never again set a foot on the sand. You like horse racing? You don’t go within fifty miles of a track. You like sailing? You never get near the water. All your old footprints have to get washed away like tide swept over the sand.

Tilting his head, he guzzled beer, set down the can and rummaged around in the drawer under the phone for a pad and pencil. He made a list of towns, plunked the phone on the table, and started calling libraries. Cary could no more stay away from libraries than she could stop breathing.

He identified himself as a Berkeley, California, police officer and asked if a Cary Black had a card at that library. When the answer was no, he asked if a Kelby Oliver had a card. He checked off each town on his list. It took forever, and around four o’clock he started getting a recording reciting the hours the place was open. He wondered why they all closed up so early until he remembered the time change. It was two hours later there.

As soon as he got home the next afternoon, he started in. Nobody ever asked why he wanted to know. If anybody had, he’d have just said he was working a case and tracking down a lead. Glancing at his watch, he saw it was five minutes to four. Shit, this was going to take forever. Didn’t matter, he had patience. He told himself one more call, then he’d order Chinese. He dialed Hampstead and went into his song and dance. Bingo! No Cary, but they did have a Kelby Oliver.

After shift the following day, he went in to see the lieutenant and asked for some time off. Request granted without hesitation. He was headed for Hampstead, Kansas, where he would question this Kelby creep and see what he could learn about Cary.