The Pink still smelled strongly of Windex when he stepped in that morning, though garbage bags and paper towels were nowhere in sight. Eleanor was where she should have been, at her front desk, but not so the two hens and the advertising salesman. They were gone.
Aria Gamble was supremely visible through the sparkling glass. So, too, was Benten’s poster of the woods. It had to be just as coated with nicotine film as had been the glass wall, but she’d not removed it. She had respect, and that was good.
Aria had company. Sheriff Lehman and Medical Examiner McGarry sat with their backs to the glass, facing her across the desk. Lehman was upright, wisely balanced at the front edge of his shampoo chair. Not so McGarry. He’d made the mistake of sitting too far back, setting his tired chair into the beginnings of a slow recline. The veins on the backs of his hands bulged. He was struggling to pull himself more upright without being noticed.
‘Join us,’ Aria said, when Rigg came to her doorway.
‘That won’t be necessary, Miss Gamble,’ Lehman said, standing up.
‘It’s Mrs,’ she corrected.
‘I apologize; I didn’t know you were married.’
‘I’m not,’ she said.
Her gamesmanship stopped Lehman. ‘We only need to speak with Rigg,’ he managed, but it was after a pause.
‘My digs, my Rigg,’ she said, smiling at the rhyme.
Rigg’s mind flashed back to Judith’s ‘too tight for light’ rhyme about their landlord. He pushed the comparison away.
Sweat had broken out on McGarry’s brow. He’d reclined past the point of no return. Without help, the only way out now was to roll on his side and get up as one would from a bed.
Rigg stepped over and extended his hand to pull the man forward. ‘All first-time visitors have the same problem.’
McGarry stood up and gave Rigg a grateful smile.
‘We’d really prefer to talk to Rigg alone,’ Lehman said.
‘Then arrest him,’ Aria said. ‘Haul him downtown for questioning. I’d actually prefer that, because it would give us a hell of a lead – the arrest of a reporter for unspecified charges, perhaps in response to doing his job. That would kick our scheduled front-page bowling championship story out on its ass.’
Rigg laughed. No one else did.
Lehman turned to Rigg. ‘We understand you paid a visit to the Graves family.’
‘Actually, I visited one of your officers, about an hour ago. He just happened to be standing outside the Graves house.’
‘Don’t get cute. You harassed a member of the Graves family.’
‘The young woman? She came out, we exchanged pleasantries and she went back inside. Nice young woman.’
‘You asked her about crossed toes, freckles and ankle scars.’
‘She didn’t answer.’
‘Why did you ask her that?’
‘Do crossed toes, freckles and ankle scars mean something to you?’
Lehman began to shake his head.
‘We could run the question on our front page,’ Aria said.
‘In your supplement?’ Lehman asked, not quite disguising his contempt.
‘The Bastion’s front page,’ she said, smiling.
Lehman sighed. ‘Off the record?’
Rigg nodded. Lehman looked to Aria. She shrugged and nodded, too.
‘We’re holding it back,’ Lehman said, ‘but Beatrice’s second and third toes on her right foot were crossed, second on top of the third. She was self-conscious about it, as you can imagine. Only her family knew.’
‘And her killer,’ Rigg said.
‘That’s why we’re holding it back.’
‘How about the other marks – freckles and an ankle scar?’
Lehman turned to McGarry.
‘I’m not an M.D.,’ McGarry said. ‘The three doctors did the autopsy.’
‘And Corky?’ Rigg asked. ‘Was he there?’
‘He’s not a doctor, either. I don’t recall any mention of odd freckles or an ankle scar, but I can double-check,’ McGarry said.
‘How did you find out about the crossed toes, Rigg?’ Lehman said.
‘An anonymous tip, with no mention of how they related to anything,’ Rigg said. ‘What about Klaus Lanz?’
‘Anonymous, how?’ Lehman said, not to be deterred. ‘Did you get a phone call, or was it a letter?’
‘A phone call,’ Rigg lied. He wasn’t ready to turn over the envelope and index card. ‘Lanz?’
‘Admittedly, a cheap shot, but Lanz was willing to go along for a few nights’ free lodging and three meals a day,’ Lehman said. ‘I was hoping the real killer would stick his nose out by now, wanting recognition, but, so far, nothing’s happened. We’ll have to let Lanz go.’ He stepped an inch closer to Rigg. ‘Who tipped you about the toes?’
‘And the freckles and the ankle scar?’ Rigg added, taunting just a little.
Lehman again looked to McGarry.
‘Like I said, I’ll check it out,’ McGarry said.
Rigg turned back to Lehman. ‘You have no good suspect?’
‘No.’
‘You’re sure? No other suspects?’
Lehman stared at Rigg but said nothing.
‘I got a tip about that, too,’ Rigg said.
‘Richie Fernandez,’ McGarry blurted. ‘You asked Corky about Richie Fernandez, but we don’t know anything about that.’ The sweat had returned to the medical examiner’s brow.
‘I don’t remember a Richie Fernandez, but he could have been a catch-and-release; I’ve been bracing plenty of people to get the girls’ killings solved.’ Lehman grabbed McGarry’s elbow and steered him toward the door. ‘And keep that damned crossed-toes business to yourselves,’ he called back as they went down the stairs.
‘What the hell?’ Aria asked.
Rigg put his index finger to his mouth. The door hadn’t quite closed and the sound of angry voices drifted up as their footsteps pounded down the stairs. Rigg grabbed his coat and hustled out on to the landing, but by then the hallway below had gone silent.
He hurried down to the outside door, peeked out and saw them walking quickly away. Lehman was still angry, jabbing his forefinger into McGarry’s upper arm.
They stopped at a white Cadillac Escalade. McGarry got in behind the wheel, Lehman climbed in the passenger’s side. It was odd that they were not using Lehman’s official car and driver. Lehman hunted for stature wherever he could find it, and nothing screamed stature like an official car and driver.
Rigg ran for his Taurus. With luck, driving McGarry’s car meant that they were intent on some sort of anonymity.
McGarry headed west, the opposite direction to either of their offices. Rigg was no expert at tailing a car, but there was enough traffic for him to stay four cars back and still keep McGarry’s white Escalade comfortably in view. Three miles up, McGarry entered the east–west tollway.
They sped west. Ten miles passed, then twenty, and then the Escalade exited on to a two-lane blacktop, running through farmland. There was no traffic there and Rigg stayed a mile back to avoid being seen.
Two miles later, McGarry swung into the parking lot of a local bar that sat by itself at an otherwise barren intersection. There was nothing but flat farmland around, covered with snow. Rigg’s only option was to pull off alongside the road.
It could have been that Lehman and McGarry had stopped simply because they were hungry and wanted an early lunch. More likely, Lehman, an old-line cop, had kept an eye on the rear-view and spotted a car tailing them out into the county, and that car had pulled in, stark against the landscape, once they’d stopped, becoming even more conspicuous.
Rigg’s phone rang.
‘They found another girl,’ Aria Gamble said. ‘Montrose Harbor. The Bastion wants you on it, since you’re the paper’s only crime reporter now.’
‘I’m tailing Lehman and McGarry,’ he said, which was a laugh.
‘Back to their offices downtown?’
‘Out in the boonies, the two of them together, arguing.’
‘Montrose Harbor,’ she said. ‘Go there, and God help us all.’