Gant’s wife squeezed his hand as the recital began. Diane’s students were performing their spring concert, and it was now entirely beyond her control. Gant didn’t mind these functions as much as some of the other teachers’ spouses. It was rare he was able to see his wife in her element, and he enjoyed the respect she commanded from the students, parents, and even fellow instructors.
Since Sprayberry was a performing arts high school, the recitals delivered more than the typical choir-on-risers snooze-fest. This was a multimedia extravaganza, with elaborate costumes, computer graphics on video monitors, and even smoke and lasers. The kids were in the midst of a rendition of the B-52’s “Love Shack,” when Gant felt the vibration in his hip pocket. His pager. He tapped his pocket and shrugged apologetically at his wife. She knew what it meant.
He tried to be inconspicuous as he squirmed down the aisle and made his way to the back of the theater. He found a pay phone in the lobby.
“Gant here.”
“Hi, Gant. It’s Hoover. Sorry to bug you.”
Hoover was a detective who worked the evening watch at the station. Gant didn’t have much history with him, though their paths did cross on a murder investigation a few years before. The case, which resulted in the discovery of an international counterfeit credit card ring, made the national papers and news weeklies. Unfortunately, the FBI took the lion’s share of the credit, and Gant and Hoover, who actually broke the case, barely rated a mention.
“What’s up?” Gant asked.
“I’m on a homicide, this Burton Sabini thing.”
“The embezzler?”
“Right. There may be a connection between this and your Valez case. The captain tipped me off to it. Can you come down here?”
“Now?”
“It might be a good idea. I’m sorry, Gant, but if you—”
“No, no, it’s all right.”
Gant didn’t like to work nights. He thought of the TV cops who seemed to do nothing but work on their cases morning, noon, and night until they had their man. “Horseshit!” he usually yelled at the screen whenever a detective was still on the job for what seemed to be his eighteenth hour in a single day. But occasionally it happened. Occasionally.
“I’ll be right down.”
Ken threw open his office door and flew to the desk, looking for the phone bill he had tossed there the day before. Sabini had made several phone calls in their nights together, and if any of the numbers were outside the immediate access area, they would be listed on the statement.
Ken found the BellSouth bill and scanned it. There, listed several times, was a number called during the hours of Sabini’s training. Each call was never longer than a minute in duration.
Who had Sabini called between midnight and three A.M.?
“Of course I’m here. I live here,” Bill said as he walked with Ken down the main office corridor of the Tillinger Savings and Trust.
That Bill was still toiling in his office at eight P.M. had been a safe bet. These days, Ken had an easier time catching Bill at work than at home.
“I need to sneak a peek at the phone directories,” Ken said. “The ones where you can look them up by number.”
“By number, street address, whatever. We have national listings on CD-ROM, but we also get the Georgia listings in books from the phone company. They cost a fortune, but they’re more current.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“What do you need them for?”
“Deadbeat client. I’m just looking to get paid.” Ken was glad he didn’t have to lie. All he wanted was the five to ten percent finder’s fee that companies usually offered in return for finding missing monies.
“We have them for very much the same reason.” Bill spoke in hushed tones, although the place was deserted. “By the way, Margot told me you asked about a loan a couple of weeks ago.”
The battery-acid taste was coming back. “I got everything squared away.”
“Good. But you could have asked me, you know.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course, the answer would have been the same. We just don’t have anything to spare.” Bill frowned. “I’m disappointed you didn’t feel comfortable talking to me about it. I know you and Margot have all this history, but, Jesus, you and I have known each other twenty years.”
Bill didn’t get it, Ken thought.
It wasn’t a subject they ever talked about, but since Ken had lost Margot, there was a barrier, an invisible wall between him and Bill. They still talked, played football, and ate an occasional meal together, but things were never quite the same. He felt bad about it only when Bill tried to pretend things were the same.
It had been a humid July night—was it really six years before?—when Ken first suspected his wife was sleeping with his oldest friend. They were with a large group to watch the Independence Day fireworks at Lenox Square. There was something about Margot’s and Bill’s body language that night…. Not that they were suddenly too intimate with each other, but just the opposite. They were noticeably awkward and strained. Bill and Margot had always openly joked and engaged in mildly flirtatious behavior, but suddenly that all stopped.
They seemed to be making a conscious effort not to hold eye contact for too long. Their verbal exchanges were clipped and stilted. And Bill’s manner toward Ken was not unlike a toady sucking up to the boss—ingratiating, overanxious, just a little too nice. Since Ken was not in a position to give him a raise or promotion, he suspected Bill was angling for something else.
Forgiveness.
Later the same night, when Ken pulled Margot close to him, there was a certain hesitancy, a resistance. He waited a couple of weeks before confronting her with his suspicions. She listened to him, nodded, and admitted everything. He almost wished she had tried to deny it so he could work up more anger. But she looked so pitiful and emotionally overwrought, he felt angry only at himself.
That was probably why he had been able to remain friends with Margot and Bill. There were some tough times—the first time he saw them hold hands, the first time they kissed in front of him. But he survived. They all survived.
And now, years later, Bill still wanted things to be the way they used to be.
Ken finally replied. “You don’t owe me anything, you know.”
“Owe you? Why would I owe you?”
Ken didn’t look at his friend. They walked in silence until Bill realized what he was talking about.
“That’s not what I’m thinking, Kenny. But maybe that’s why you won’t let me help you.”
“That’s not it. I just—I just got something else going right now. Something that might pan out.”
“What?”
“I’ll let you know when it happens.”
Bill led Ken to the library, which was actually a converted office lined with tall metal shelves. Bill yanked three thick, soft-covered volumes from a shelf and tossed them onto a table.
“I’ll be in my office. Come get me when you’re done, okay?”
“You got it.”
Bill left the room and Ken quickly thumbed through the books, looking for the number Sabini had called. Within a minute he discovered that the calls had been placed to Sabini’s home telephone number. To his wife or kid, Ken supposed. But in the middle of the night?
“Just so you know, I’m not going by ‘Sabini’ anymore. I’m using my maiden name, ‘Randolph.’ ”
Ken sat across from Sabini’s widow in the kitchen of her Brookhaven home. It was a pleasant one-story house, decorated with flowered wallpaper and pastel color schemes. The midafternoon sun sliced through open curtains.
Ken slid his briefcase to one side on the table. He had been admitted after he told her he was from Vikkers Industries’ insurance company, tying up loose ends in the embezzling case. Denise Randolph had only rolled her eyes in response, opening the door wider for Ken to enter. She had obviously been through this countless times.
Denise appeared to be in her mid-forties. She was a plain woman, but she carried herself with a vitality that made her more attractive than at first glance. She didn’t appear to be grieving too much over her husband’s death.
“You’ve changed your name from ‘Sabini’?” he asked.
“Yes. My husband’s name has been bandied about quite a bit in the last few months. I don’t want it anymore, and I don’t want my son to have it either.”
Ken felt sorry for Sabini. The man’s only stab at immortality was slipping away.
“Okay, thanks for telling me,” Ken said. He jotted the name ‘Randolph’ in his notebook. “Honestly, do you think your husband took that money?”
Denise smiled and shook her head. “When this first came out, I would have said there was no way on earth he could have done something like that. No way. It just wasn’t him.”
“You weren’t living together when all this came out, were you?”
“No, we weren’t. He had moved out a few weeks before.”
“Did that make you suspicious?”
“No. I asked him to move out. It had been a long time coming, believe me.” She looked toward the head of the table.
Sabini’s place, Ken figured. Even with all the friends and family he had lost over the years, it still amazed him that a person could simply cease to exist. A lifetime of love, knowledge, and experiences erased in an instant.
Poor Sabini.
He deserved better than he got.
Denise looked away. “The only thing he cared about was Jeremy, our son.”
“I’m sure he cared about you.”
“If he did, he forgot how to show it.”
“We know he called you several times in the last couple of weeks of his life. Can you tell me why?”
“He called a couple of times for Jeremy. He never called me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“We know he made several calls to you between midnight and three A.M.”
“Oh, Lord,” she said with a long sigh. “Someone was calling and hanging up. I thought it might be him, but I didn’t know.”
Calling and hanging up. That explained the short duration of the calls. Sabini had just wanted to hear her voice.
For the first time, Denise was showing genuine sadness for her husband’s passing. She cleared her throat.
“Did he have an office here at home?” Ken said, trying to move to a less emotional subject.
She nodded. “I’ll show it to you.”
She led him to a converted bedroom that was completely bare except for an empty desk and a set of empty shelves.
“Police took the rest,” she said. “They stripped the place clean.”
Stripped was right, Ken thought. There was no trace of the man who had worked here.
“Did he have a computer?” he asked.
“Sure. One here and one at work. He hated them though.”
“Why?”
“His work computer crashed a few times, and once he almost lost weeks of work. I guess some people aren’t cut out for the information age.”
“You said at first you thought he couldn’t have taken the money. But what about later?”
Denise looked away and slipped her hands into the pockets of her brown corduroy slacks. “I have to admit that the thought of him doing that was…nice. It was so out of character. Dangerous. Risky. Do you know what I mean?”
Ken nodded.
“This thing has turned my life upside down. The police came in here and took away half the house. The newspapers, TV, and people like you haven’t given us a moment’s peace. But it almost would be worth it if he did take the money. I liked the thought of that.”
“You liked the thought of the money?”
“The money doesn’t matter. What matters is that for once in his life, Burton Sabini may have actually put himself on the line for something.”
Ken walked toward Bobby’s front door. He had come directly from Denise Randolph’s house, and she had given him only one thing remotely resembling a lead. It may have been nothing, but he was interested in the fact that Sabini had so much computer trouble. If someone outside the company had access to his data, maybe the security breach was there. He decided to follow up on it the next morning.
Bobby’s wife opened the door before he could knock. “Guess what?” She spoke quietly as she ushered him inside. “The cash fairy floated by and put five thousand dollars in the mail slot last week.”
“I wish he’d visit me.”
“I think he did.”
Ken looked toward the closed bedroom door. “Is Bobby sleeping?”
“Yes. I’d rather not wake him right now. He doesn’t get much sleep. Please sit down.”
Ken walked to the dinette table and took a seat. He watched Tina as she strode to the freezer and pulled out a small paper bag. She brought it back to the table and sat across from him.
“What’s that?” he asked.
She reached into the bag and produced the roll of bills that had come from Sabini. “Where did you get this?” she asked.
“Business has been good.”
“I see.” Her accent grew stronger, as it often did when she was upset. “This is over one hundred lie detector tests. You once told me that you usually get only two or three examinations a day.”
“It’s not just the quantity. It’s the quality. Some clients pay more than others.”
“I haven’t told Bobby about this.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t think he would like it. He doesn’t like taking your money.”
“That’s why I usually give it to you.”
“I don’t like taking it either. But I know we don’t have any choice. I’ve been keeping a record of all the money you’ve given us, and one day we will pay you back.”
“That’s not necessary.”
She looked at the frosty roll of bills. “This would upset him. He would wonder how you got it. Just as I wonder.”
“I told you—”
“I don’t believe you,” she said sharply.
Ken nodded. He had rarely seen Tina angry. She was usually so patient, so understanding.
“Tell me this,” she said. “Is there any reason we should be ashamed to use this money?”
Ken thought for a moment. “No. No one was hurt, physically or financially. Take it. You need it.”
“Yes, we do. If we didn’t, I would throw it back in your face.”
“Yes, I believe you would.”
Outside Bobby and Tina’s house, a man sat in a white Acura Legend sedan. Waiting. Watching.
Ken finally walked outside, climbed into his MG, and drove away. After the MG turned the corner, the Acura followed.
The driver had done his homework. On the seat next to him was a thin stack of photocopied map pages, each with highlighted routes to Ken’s usual haunts. To his office. To his apartment. To the jogging trail. To Elwood’s Pub. In the unlikely event that the man lost his trail, he could use the maps to guess where Ken was heading.
Now, he supposed, Ken was heading home.
But maybe not. Maybe tonight was the night that Ken Parker would make all this shit worthwhile.
The MG swerved into a side street. The man gunned the engine on his Acura and sped past. Had Parker noticed he was being followed?
The man turned at the next street and cut his lights. After a minute, Ken’s MG flew past on the main road. The man sighed. He’d have to be more careful. Ken had probably spotted him. Probably thought he was being followed by a cop.
The man chuckled. Ken Parker should be so lucky.