“Tom’s worried about the file. He buys it from me, through Dresden Falks, finds out K.B. is having an affair with BF.”
“And he thinks K.B. is Katrina.”
“Right.”
“Jealous rage.”
“Yes.”
“Calls Katrina. Says he needs to pick up a few things.”
“Right.”
“Katrina calls you, invites herself to lunch.”
“At twelve-thirty-six.”
“Twelve-thirty-six? That’s precise.”
“It’s on my caller list.”
“But Tom shows up before she can get out the door.”
“Yes.”
“Big fight. ‘Who is BF?’ ”
“Or he thinks he knows who.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Right.”
“He picks up the nearest deadly weapon. Knife, revolver, candlestick, lead pipe, what have you. No more cheating K.B.”
“Then he cleans it up, grabs some of her clothes, a suitcase maybe, purse, makeup, throws it all—and her—into her car and, I don’t know, pushes it off Lake Loudon pier. No big deal. She’s taken off in the past. They’re breaking up, not unusual for someone to have a freak-out and take off.”
“Then you show up and catch him and his little girlfriend post-coitus.”
“That’s an assumption.”
“Ruzak, the whole goddamned thing is an assumption.”
“Well.”
“ ‘Where’s Katrina?’ our hypothetical gumshoe asks.”
“I’m not hypothetical,” I protested.
“You’re not a gumshoe, either. Tom lays it on thick, throws in the offer of bedding his paramour as a sort of goodwill gesture, so you’ll think what a terrific guy Tom Bates is.”
“It was creepy,” I admitted. “ ‘Prodding.’ The imagery.”
She laughed, for some reason. Felicia, like a lot of women her age, actually looked younger without makeup.
“Later, though, Tom starts to get a little worried. What if this oversized wanna-be starts nosing around his cover? So he dispatches his lackey Dresden Falks to make a little quid pro quo over doughnuts. Sort of like Darth Vader offering the galaxy to Luke in the first movie.”
“That was the second movie.”
“Right, and it wasn’t over doughnuts and Dres didn’t cut off your hand with a light saber, so let’s throw out the whole hypothetical.”
“The facts fit. Mostly.”
“One fact doesn’t. Boba Fett Falks told you where she was. Not that they had no clue where she was. Not that she might be there, but that she was there.”
“And that means … What does that mean?”
“Plus, it isn’t Seattle. Tom told you she’s flown all the way to Rome before, but it’s not Rome, either. Not Rome or Greece or Australia, but Savannah, Georgia. A little town only a few hours’ drive away.”
“Easy to confirm.”
“A terribly stupid lie from a terribly smart man.”
“Therefore it’s not a lie. She really is in Savannah. But I called every hotel and bed-and-breakfast and real estate agency in town and there’s no record of her.”
“So she’s staying with friends. That would be the most logical scenario. She’s going through a really bad time, maybe the worst time in her life, and she’s got to turn to someone for support.”
“I’m wasting my gas.” I didn’t say “time.” These days, gas is more precious.
“Let’s say you’re able to prove the negative. She isn’t in Savannah. That she’s dead doesn’t follow. Maybe she left. Maybe by the time you get there, she will be on a flight to Australia.”
“But I might find her.”
“And then what?”
“And then my bad feeling goes away.”
“It is about you, isn’t it, Ruzak?”
“That’s what this was all about, wasn’t it?” I asked, meaning the hypo walk-through. “Getting me to see that.”
“You already saw it. It’s okay, you know. It might even be good for you to get out of town for a few days, but come back, Ruzak. Knoxville wouldn’t be the same without you.”
She walked me to the door. She didn’t smell sweaty. She smelled like peaches.
“Maybe if I find her, I’ll feel differently about Falks’s offer.”
“Can you see yourself working for a place like Velman? I can’t.”
“There’d be benefits,” I said. “Insurance. Paid vacations. Maybe even a retirement fund.”
“Velman needs the competition. It’s why they broke up the phone company, Ruzak.”
“Thanks,” I told her. “For keeping Archie.”
“My rates are very reasonable.”
She was standing very close to me. I didn’t think it was on purpose—the entryway was tiny. But her face was lifted up toward mine (I was a good foot taller than she was) and without her wearing makeup, I could see the fine hairs in the folds of her philtrum, and her lips were parted slightly and there was the tip of her tongue, pink and glistening, and my heart nearly collapsed under its burden. There is no longing that does not eventually lead to regret; Bob was asleep in the bedroom just down the hall and so what I coveted could be stolen, but I was no Tom Bates. If I closed the gap, if I smashed my mouth into hers, I would tear out the rivets holding the universe together. It was like the monkeys: You can yank them from their habitat, throw a diaper on them, and stick them in a high chair and take them to parks to ride the teeter-totter, but still the day comes when the beast goes for your jugular with his two-inch canines. I wasn’t that monkey in a diaper and I wasn’t Tom Bates and, most important, I wasn’t firefighter Bob. I was Ruzak.
SCENE SIX
Tybee Island, Georgia
The Next Day
I parked in the driveway of the beach cottage on Center Terrace, a few feet behind the silver Mercedes convertible, and dialed Felicia’s cell number.
“Are you at the office?” I asked her.
“Yes.”
I could hear a cartoon show blaring in the background. About a year ago, Felicia had brought in a television to keep Tommy entertained on those days when he had nowhere else to go. It had seemed a good compromise at the time, a way to keep Felicia in the office when the baby-sitting arrangements fell through, which seemed to happen a lot. The difficulty lay with discussing a client’s problem while the Cartoon Network blasted in the next room and the prints rattled on the walls.
“I need you to pull a tag for me,” I said.
“You found her car.”
“Maybe. It’s a Tennessee tag. Foxtrot-Xiphophyllus-Yellow space Lion-David-Yellow.”
“Xiphophyllus?”
“It’s a kind of leaf.”
“You could have said Xerox or xylophone.”
“Xiphophyllus was the first word that came to mind.”
“A leaf?”
“Mom was an avid gardener.”
“So it’s FXY space LDY?”
“Right.”
“Foxy Lady?”
“It’s a vanity plate.”
“Classy. Hang on.”
“Call me back,” I said.
I cut the engine and stepped out into the monochrome atmosphere: The sky was a solid sheet of gray, the rain a foggy, enveloping mist, making me regret leaving my hat and umbrella at home. The Mercedes was parked underneath the cottage, between the pylons upon which the structure rested, raised high in the event of a storm surge. The car doors were locked. The engine was cold. There were stairs leading to the wraparound porch up top. From there you could see the deserted beach with sand the color of piecrust and the Atlantic, its gray only slightly darker than the sky’s, the horizon disconcertingly missing as gray faded into gray. I knocked on the door and waited. On impulse, I hit the speed-dial button for Katrina Bates’s cell phone. The call went straight to her voice mail. I hung up. Two seconds later, my cell rang.
“Bingo,” Felicia said. “Silver 2007 Mercedes SL, registered to Thomas and Katrina
Bates. Where’d you find it?”
“At their beach house.”
“Beach house?”
“I checked with the property-tax office.”
“I’m impressed. Are you on your way home?”
“I’m here. At the house.”
“Let me guess. Nobody’s home.”
“Nobody’s answered the door yet.”
“Can you see inside?”
“No. Blinds are drawn. I’m walking around to the front.”
White rocking chairs faced the sea, the kind with the oversized arms, just right for resting your coffee cup while you contemplated the restless tides, the eternal comings and goings. By this point, my hair was plastered to my head and cold droplets clung to my eyebrows. I shivered. The elements don’t give you a cold; germs do. I told myself that, and then I sneezed.
“Nope,” I said. “Can’t see in here, either. That was a side door. I’ll knock on this one.”
“Just because she isn’t there doesn’t mean she isn’t there,” Felicia said.
“See if you can find a listing for this house,” I said. “Probably under their name, but let me give you the address.” I recited it.
“Hang on.”
“Call me back.”
I sank into one of the rockers and immediately felt water soak into my khakis. This was one of the things that made me such a terrific detective, my keen skills of observation. I was no coastal dweller, but it appeared the tide was out. The surf seemed muted, almost sullen, like the rain. A necklace of raindrops clung to the whitewashed railing, quivering, not quite heavy enough to fall. My cell rang.
“It’s under his name,” she said. “Unlisted. What are you doing, Ruzak?”
“Sitting in a rocking chair in my wet underwear.”
“You went for a dip?”
“It’s raining,” I said. “And I never go in the ocean.”
“Can’t swim?”
“Too many creatures. If she isn’t here, why is her car?”
“She’s taking a walk.”
“Horrible day for that.”
“Some people like to. Maybe she walked to town.”
“Savannah is twenty miles away.”
“Or over to a friend’s house.”
“That’s something I could check out.”
“Can you explain, after he told you where she was and you found her car there, why you actually need to lay your hands on her?”
“I’d settle for just my eyes.” Which I now proceeded to rub. I hadn’t slept much the night before. I never did in hotels. “Any calls?”
“No, but Walter Hinton came by this morning, looking for you. Your great-aunt died, in case he asks.”
“My great-aunt?”
“Her name is Regina. Regina Ruzak.”
“It’s a little obvious,” I said. “Too alliterative.”
“What do you want from me, Ruzak? I had to think fast.”
“Did he say what he wanted?”
“Your files. I told him the usual charge for one file was twenty thousand dollars but that we had a special this week: Buy one, get the second one half price. He said he was coming back with a search warrant.”
“You know something? As crimes go, I had no idea practicing detection without a license was so serious.”
“He’s got a vendetta against you.”
“I don’t think it’s that,” I said. “When you get something caught in your eye, you just want the pain in your eye to stop.”
She said, “Huh?”
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s an eyelash or a grain of sand. It’s hurting your eye. It about your eye.”
“Back when I was a card-carrying member of the mean-girl clique in middle school, we would eyeball people’s heads between our thumbs and index fingers and pretend to squish them. Squish their heads. That’s what I want to do now, Ruzak. Squish your head.”
“You and Walter Hinton.”
“He represents a pressing concern here that you’re being there isn’t going to help. He’s the sty in your eye, Ruzak.”
I returned to my car and sat for a minute staring at FXY LDY. Developing a rash from the moisture, my butt began to itch. A quick canvass of the neighborhood, then back to the hotel for a warm shower and to check out. The window of opportunity to pack up the files before Hinton returned with his warrant was narrowing. I noticed a sign hanging on a waist-high wooden pole at the end of the driveway. “FOR RENT,” it said, with a phone number beneath the words. I dialed the number.
“Tybee Island Rentals,” a woman answered in a rich Low Country drawl.
I told her I was interested in one of their properties and gave her the address.
“Is it available?” I asked.
“When would you like it?”
“To night.”
“How many days?”
“One. Just one. Just to night.”
“I’m sorry, sir. There’s a one-week minimum for that property.”
“Okay. This week. Beginning to night.”
“Can you hold? I have to check.” After a minute that seemed much longer than a minute, she came back on. “You’re in luck.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I just drove by and there’s a car in the drive.”
“I’ll double-check. … No, it should be empty. Are we talking about the same house? We manage several rentals on Tybee.”
“Pretty sure,” I said. “Huh. Maybe I got it wrong.”
“Would you like to reserve it? I can hold it with a credit card.”
I started the car and backed onto Center Terrace.
“Where’s your office?” I asked. “I’m on my way now.”
SCENE SEVEN
Tybee Island Rentals
Minutes Later
Her name was Melody Moy, and she was the owner of the smoky Low Country drawl. A natural blonde pushing forty, I guessed, who knew her assets and how to leverage them: Her white blouse was just a bit too tight and her skirt just a bit too short, the paint on her nails and the rouge on her cheeks just a bit too red. She had the paperwork on her desk when I walked through the door. The rental agreement was six single-spaced pages long and filled with boilerplate. I felt like I was making a major purchase.
“And how much for the week?” I asked her.
“Two thousand.”
“Whew. I’m going to invest in rental property,” I said. She laughed, like she had never heard that one before. When she laughed, I noted a crinkle developed on the bridge of her nose.
“Are you in town for business or plea sure, Mr. Ruzak?”
“Neither,” I said. “My great-aunt died. Auntie Regina. She retired down here about twenty years ago.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“We weren’t very close, but there’s a will.”
“Oh, and you’re thinking of investing in property.” I could tell she felt bad for having laughed earlier.
“No, I was making a joke,” I said. “The truth is, I planned on staying just a couple of days—the funeral’s tomorrow—but after walking on the beach, I thought I should seize this opportunity to take a break.”
“We all need that,” she said. “I haven’t had a real vacation in five years.”
“I’m a workaholic, too,” I said.
“Oh, I’m not holic in anything,” she said with a laugh. She had a good laugh, not giggly and not originating too deep in her belly. “It’s not a matter of won’t, but can’t. ”
“You own the business?”
“My husband started it. We divorced. I got it.”
“That’s the way it is,” I said. “Not divorce. I meant when you’re running your own shop. Never a day off.”
“Are you speaking from experience, Mr. Ruzak?”
“I’m a consultant.”
“That’s usually code for ‘unemployed.’ ”
“Just the opposite. I need some time off. I’m stretched thin.” Immediately, I regretted the word: It might draw attention to the fact that I wasn’
t. I had my checkbook but gave her the company credit card instead. After the unemployed remark, I was afraid she might refuse to take a check.
“ ‘The RAG’?” she said, looking at the card.
“The Research & Analysis Group. My company.”
“Investment counseling?”
“Um.”
We both held our breath while her device contacted the bank to verify my solvency. She ripped off the register tape, I signed, and she dug into her desk for the key. She sighed, shook her head—a swirl of blondness followed by a whiff of White Diamonds—pushed back from the desk, rose, walked over to the filing cabinet, opened the bottom drawer, and bent from the waist to fish in the contents. The hem of her skirt drew up two inches. Her legs were bare and the same color as the sand on Tybee Island. My stomach growled.
SCENE EIGHT
The Cottage
A Few Hours Later
Night did not so much fall on the island as slam down, from gloomy to utter black in a matter of minutes. Accustomed to streetlamps and the clatter and beep of rail yards and traffic, I found this smack-down of darkness disconcerting, like a man with vertigo standing at the lip of the Grand Canyon. The rain whispered against the windows and the surf crashed beyond in muffled harmony. I turned on every light in the cottage, but nothing illuminating was illuminated: beds made, cupboards bare, closets and trash cans empty—even the refrigerator, and I was hungry. I resisted as long as I could—it felt a bit like checking in with Mommy—but I gave in around nine and called Felicia. She answered on the twelfth ring. Not that I counted.
“You’re home,” she said.
“Well,” I said.
“You’re on your way home.”
“Um.”
“You’re still in Savannah.”
“I’m on Tybee Island. In the Bates’s getaway house.”
“You broke into their house? Christ, Ruzak!”
“No, no. I rented their house.”
I could hear her breathing. It was short, ragged breathing. She must have had to run for the phone. Then I heard a man’s voice murmuring indistinguishably in the background.
The Highly Effective Detective Plays the Fool Page 10
