He woke in the dark because, like so many nights, a hand beckoned. But it was not like the cage. This time, there was only one hand. And it was real.
‘Sleeping on the floor excites my thinking,’ she murmured.
‘We’re not on the floor. There’s a mattress. It’s a proper bed.’
‘It’s been a most improper bed for us.’ She laughed low.
‘You can’t sleep?’
‘I keep wondering what Glet knew,’ she said.
‘Something big, he called it,’ Rigg said.
She snuggled closer. ‘You really have no idea?’
‘Not yet,’ he said.
‘But you know who might know?’
He lifted up on one elbow. ‘Someone who was willing to interview Bobby Stemec’s classmates. Someone who was willing to call Sheriff Olsen to request a dig.’
‘Till.’
‘He was amenable. He’d made an odd comment when I said that Glet might have taken Johnny Henderson’s foreign DNA samples, and that Bobby Stemec’s came back negative to Wilcox.’
‘What?’
‘He said that might make sense. He wouldn’t elaborate.’
She snuggled closer, found his knee with a hand. ‘Let’s stop thinking.’
‘I’m fully awake.’
She moved her hand beneath the covers. ‘I’m like Glet,’ she said.
‘How?’
‘I’m working something bigger, too.’
He went to her office doorway as soon as she got in. ‘I meet with Feldott in an hour,’ he said.
She’d gone home to change into gray tweed, and he had the thought that there was no color, no texture in which she looked anything less than stunning. The ever-present pearls helped, too. If ever there was a woman whose beauty and erect, confident bearing justified pearls, it was Aria Gamble.
She set down her purse and a tall Starbucks coffee. ‘What’s shakin’?’
‘I called him first thing, asking for his take on what he saw at McGarry’s estate yesterday.’
‘Surely not first thing?’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘I know what you were doing first thing.’
He supposed he might have blushed. ‘OK – second thing. I called second thing, after the first thing.’
She sat down, smiling, wicked and victorious.
‘He’s holding a news conference at four this afternoon, but he agreed to tip me beforehand. He’s formally launching his own investigation into the murders of the Stemec Henderson boys, the Graves girls, Jennifer Ann Day and Tana Damm. And he’s going to pursue the disappearance of a potentially key witness.’
‘That’s—’
‘That’s exactly what you were trying to goad him into with your piece in the paper,’ he said. ‘Congratulations are in order.’
She took a sip of the Starbucks. ‘You’re saying the lowly editor of the lowly supplement of the third-largest paper in Chicago has the muscle to move the CIB?’
‘Maybe it’s the pearls,’ he said.
‘It’s the obvious, as you well know,’ she said. ‘The CIB dropped Feldott into the M.E.’s office for seasoning. With Lehman’s future cloudy, his most senior deputy and McGarry both dead, it’s time to move Cornelius into the limelight. The question is, when will people start thinking Lehman killed McGarry?’ she asked.
‘And Fernandez, of course?’ he said.
She bowed her head in acquiescence. ‘And Fernandez, of course, but Sheriff Olsen has to find him first.’
‘He’s going to have trouble,’ Rigg said.
‘Why? All he needs is recently broken ground.’
‘It’s just a hunch. Olsen’s press conference is at noon. He’ll announce McGarry’s death, but won’t say a word about Fernandez.’
‘All he needs is recently broken ground,’ she said again, ‘and perhaps Cornelius. He’ll push things into a higher gear.’
‘The sky might be the limit if Feldott pulls all the killings together,’ he said. ‘Sheriff, then governor, then senator, maybe.’
‘We’ll support him,’ she said.
‘If we’re around,’ he said. ‘How’s Donovan’s balloon?’
‘Still set to pop if he doesn’t get new money,’ she said. ‘Work Till, see if you can find out what Glet was up to.’
The Dead House was dead. No press was bustling about.
Feldott welcomed him right in. ‘The Winthrop County medical examiner determined Mr McGarry died of blunt force trauma to the head.’
‘So they said at the site,’ Rigg said. ‘Olsen called me as I was driving here. He’s going to announce it straight: death by shovel blade.’
‘The sheriff gave me the scenario you outlined about what could have triggered Sheriff Lehman to kill Mr McGarry. Will there ever be proof, even when Sheriff Olsen finds your Richie Fernandez?’
‘Even if Olsen finds Fernandez,’ Rigg said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Risky, for Lehman to leave Fernandez on McGarry’s estate.’
‘My God, you think he took him?’
‘Time, and a thaw, will tell,’ Rigg said.
‘What else do you know, Mr Rigg?’
‘Glet was no suicide. His bungalow needs to be thoroughly examined.’
‘You keep saying that.’
‘That scene seems so staged, for one thing.’
‘What else?’ Feldott asked.
‘Maybe the evidence that left there in your pocket.’
‘How do—?’
‘I saw a small evidence bag jammed in your coat.’
Feldott’s face reddened. ‘I didn’t want it to get lost,’ he said, but his lower lip was trembling. He was lying.
‘Why would Lehman’s people lose it?’
‘Not now, Mr Rigg.’
‘What was it?’
Feldott stood up. ‘Cut me some slack, Mr Rigg. I’ll tell you when I’m ready.’
‘Ready about what?’
‘I’ll see you at four o’clock,’ Feldott said.
Rigg called the sheriff’s office before starting the car, doubting that Lehman would talk to him.
He doubted right. Lehman’s secretary, a woman he’d pestered mercilessly during the shamble of the Stemec Henderson investigation, said that the sheriff was in meetings.
‘Don’t you want to know if I’d like to leave a message?’ Rigg asked.
‘Would you like to leave a message?’ the secretary asked, with the warmth of granite.
‘Just a request for comment on a rumor going around, really,’ he said. ‘If you could write it down exactly?’
‘Just go ahead.’
‘Ask Sheriff Lehman when he’s going to confess to killing Charles McGarry and Richie Fernandez.’