by G. M. Ford
Thirty seconds past the time limit on social hugs, they stepped back from each other and pretended to rearrange their clothes. She cleared her throat. “I’ve gotta pack and get out of here if I’m gonna make my flight.”
He turned toward the window. “See ya,” he said.
“Yeah.”
He stood gazing at the parking lot below and the town beyond until he heard the hiss of the door and silence filled the room. He walked to the bed, picked up his journal and his pen, and began to write.
9
Missed the door entirely. Wasn’t until he heard the scrape of a shoe that Corso looked up. By that time Sheriff Trask was standing in the center of the room, hands on hips, looking at Corso as if she were going to stare a hole in him. Corso clipped his pen over the pages, closed the journal, and slipped it into the outside pocket of his suitcase. He got to his feet.
“Where’s our Texas friends?” he asked.
“Seems they got hungry and went to lunch over at Ruth’s.” She took a quick survey of the room. “Left me a note saying they’d be back to pick you up at one o’clock sharp.”
Corso checked the clock on the wall. Twelve-oh-nine. He was reaching down to retrieve his journal when her voice froze him.
“Guy like you’d probably be able to get quite a ways from here by one o’clock,” she said. “With any luck at all, a guy like you might even be able to stay lost for the next week or so, until that grand jury’s term expires, and then…you know…just maybe put this whole thing behind him.”
Corso took his time drawing himself up to his full height. Her expression said she wasn’t kidding. “I think maybe I missed the beginning of this movie,” he said.
She gestured his way. “What with the short hair and that big old knot across your forehead and that pair of shiners, you don’t look a bit like any of the pictures they’re showing on the TV. You’re a whole different guy.”
Corso didn’t speak. His face tingled from the tension in the room.
“What if I let you walk?” she asked finally. “What if I let you grab your big black bag and walk right out of here?”
“I thought you were worried about your image.”
She made a rude noise with her lips. “That Richardson boy’s already got me bent over a barrel,” she said. “Only way I’m gonna come out of this on top is if I come up with something splashy on this Holmes thing. Something nobody else’s got. Something I can call a news conference about and blow him out of the water.”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Corso said. “Case is cold as hell.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That’s where you come into it, big fella.”
“How’s that?” He checked the clock again. Twelve thirteen.
“You’ve got five days to kill, right? Till that grand jury peters out.” She didn’t wait for an answer. “If I let you walk out of here…you agree to spend those five days finding out whatever you can about Miss Sissy Warwick.” Corso opened his mouth, but she kept talking. “You ask those Melissa-D people of yours to find out where she came from. You—”
“There’s no such thing,” Corso said quickly.
She waved his protest off. “You do whatever it takes to get me something I can use.” She walked over and stood directly in front of him. “You look me in the eye and tell me you’ll give me five days of your best efforts, and I’ll let you walk out of here.”
“Me escaping isn’t going to do a thing for your image.”
“It’s not an escape,” she said. “You’re not under arrest for anything. For all I know you merely tired of our hospitality and decided to seek warmer climes.”
“There’ll still be a lot of heat.”
“I won’t melt,” she said.
“No guarantees.”
She nodded and held out her hand. “We got a deal?”
Corso took it. Her hand was callused and hard. He shook it.
“Deal,” he said. Twelve fourteen.
Corso looked toward the door. Trask read his mind. “Your friend is still in the building. I told her I had something for her to sign before she could leave. You take the rental car. When the shouting dies down, I’ll see to it she gets to the airport and makes a flight back to Seattle.”
By the time she finished talking, Corso had shouldered his way into his overcoat and picked up his suitcase. She motioned for him to follow. She crossed the room to the door. Eased it open and stuck her head out into the hall. She motioned Corso forward and then pointed to the right, down the long hall toward the flickering green EXIT sign at the far end. “You friend Ms. Dougherty is four doors down in four-eleven,” she said. “You say your good-byes and then go down the back stairs there. Take you right out into the parking lot.”
Corso nodded. She caught his eyes. “We’ve got a deal, right?”
“I’ll do the best I can,” he said.
Her eyes lingered on his for a moment, before she pushed open the door and stepped out into the hall. She held the door open as she surveyed the area. A minute passed. Corso could hear the slide of feet. “Go,” she said finally.
Corso hurried down the deserted hall without looking back, grabbed the door handle on room 411, and without knocking slipped inside. Meg Dougherty had her camera equipment spread out on the bed. She was using a white towel to wipe everything clean. She brought a hand to her throat. Swallowed twice. “Oh. You scared the hell out of me. I thought you were—”
“Yeah, the sheriff…I know,” Corso said quickly. He held out his free hand. “There’s been a change in plans. I need the car.”
She recovered quickly. Reached into the pocket of her jeans, looking for the keys. “What’s the deal? I thought you were—”
“I’m getting out of here,” he said.
“Where?”
“Anyplace but Texas.”
She held the keys out in front of her. Corso hurried over, but at the last second, she folded them into her fist and put it behind her back. Corso slid to a stop on the cold white floor. “No time to screw around here, honey,” he said. “I’ve gotta hurry.”
“I’m coming,” she announced. “And don’t call me honey.” Corso’s turn to do dumbfounded. “What do you mean, you’re coming?”
“Just what I said. I’m coming.”
Twelve seventeen. Corso dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper. As he spoke, he flailed the air with his arm. “Coupla days ago you wanted no part of this thing. You were insulted as hell, big-time bitchy, and wanting to go back to Seattle as quick as possible. Now all of a sudden…”He stopped.
Dougherty wasn’t listening. Instead she was packing her gear. Wincing occasionally as her big red hands packed each camera and lens into its proper bag and case. “That was then…this is now,” she said as she zipped the Qantas flight bag. She grabbed both her bags and turned Corso’s way. “Don’t just stand there with your mouth open, Frank. Get the door for me. I’ll go downstairs and get the car started.”
Corso didn’t move. She shook her head in exasperation. “Don’t try to figure it out, Frank. It’s part of our charm. It’s what makes women a mystery. Now open the damn door.” He grabbed the handle and pulled the door back against his chest. By the time he checked the hall and turned to urge her forward, she’d already shouldered her way by and was striding down the polished floor toward the elevators.
The smell of her lingered in the air above the bed as Corso dropped his bag on the sheet and slid the zipper open. In an inner compartment, he found his cell phone. Instinctively, he checked the room before using his thumb to dial the number.
He was prepared for the unusual number of brittle clicks and electronic exchanges before a human voice split the static. “This is not a secured connection.”
“I know,” he said.
“No further messages will be accepted from this number.”
“I know.”
“The sending unit must be decommissioned.”
“Yes. I know.”
“Please enter your access code.�
�
He did so. “Again,” said the voice. He complied. Three clicks and a new voice. Female this time. “This is an unsecured connection.”
“I know.”
“No new business can be conducted on an unsecured connection.”
“It’s old business,” Corso said.
He heard the clicking of a keyboard. “Abrams, Arnold Jay. Any and all on a locate.” More clicking. “Nothing.”
“Ten months and he has yet to generate a single scrap of paperwork?” Corso said.
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “As that is your only current account, this communication is now—”
“Hey hey hey,” Corso chanted into the mouthpiece.
“—terminated.”
He expected to hear a dial tone. When he heard only silence, he went on. “I know it’s outside the protocol,” he began, “but I’ve got a problem.” From the other end, nothing but silence. “Sissy Warwick. She’d be somewhere in her middle forties about now. Lived in Avalon, Wisconsin, from nineteen seventy-three to nineteen eighty-seven. That’s the last record anybody has of her.”
“This is an unsecured connection. I’ll have to consult with my superior. Would you care to wait?”
“No,” he said. “I’ve got to go.”
Click.
Corso walked into the bathroom, set the cell phone on the toilet lid, and used both hands to remove the white porcelain top to the tank. Old-fashioned ball-and-lever. The inside of the tank stained brown by the minerals in the water. He rested the top in the sink and then picked up his phone. Pushed two buttons. The light came on. He dropped the phone into the tank and watched as it waffled its way to the bottom. Watched until the light went out, then replaced the top and headed for the door.
10
Twelve twenty-one. Corso stood in the window and watched as the gray cloud of exhaust enveloped the back half of the Ford Expedition. The windows were blurred by beads of condensation, making Dougherty nothing more than a rumor of movement in the car’s interior. A flash in his peripheral vision drew his eyes to the left. Two blocks down, Duckett and Caruth were crossing the street, on their way back to the hospital from lunch. Corso smiled. Trask had been right. Although they wore their matching stocking caps pulled down over their ears, each man also carried his cowboy hat. Just in case. You never knew.
Corso smiled as he counted in his head. Gave it another minute and a half and then headed for the door. Down the long hall, a pair of white-clad nurses stood together in the silver glare of the nurses’ station. One gestured with an aluminum clipboard. Pulled a pen from her pocket and wrote something on it. The other nurse seemed to agree. He waited some more.
Twelve twenty-three. The nurses parted company, one disappearing behind the desk, the other squeaking her way down the hall and into a room. Time to go.
Corso’s cowboy boots clicked against the worn linoleum as he hurried toward the stairs. The stairwell smelled of disinfectant, acrid and twitchy to the nose. He stretched his long legs and began to take the stairs two at a time. Down one flight to the landing, using his free hand on the metal handrail to propel himself around the corner and down.
He was halfway to the ground when he heard it. Whistling and the chick-chick of feet on the stairs. He skidded to a halt. Stood still. Swallowed his breath and listened. No doubt about it. Somebody coming up the stairs at a trot. Whistling what? He listened again. The tune was disjointed and ragged, but familiar. A hymn maybe. “Jesus Loves Me.” That’s it. “’Cause the Bible tells me so…. Jesus loves me.”
The tune moved closer now. Corso took a deep breath, put on his most nonchalant and friendly face, and started down. Just another guy carrying his bag down the back stairs. He was four steps above the second landing when the stranger came into view. Richardson. Red ears, funny hat and all. Their gazes met. The tall cop’s jaw worked twice, but nothing came out. His eyes became slits. He smiled as much as the chin strap would allow and then reached for the gun on his hip.
He had the revolver halfway out of the holster when Corso tossed him the bag. Not hard. Just a soft underhand lob. Just as Corso had hoped, Richardson forgot about his weapon and instinctively caught the bag in both hands. Guy thing. Somebody throws you something, you catch it. Period.
Corso launched himself from the step. Landed in Richardson’s arms. Right on top of the bag. Nose-to-nose. The impact sent the cop staggering backward into the wall, driving the breath from his lungs, banging his head off the surface with a sound not unlike that of a ripe melon landing on concrete. Richardson’s eyes rolled back in his head. His body went slack. Only then did Corso hear the sound of the gun clattering down the stairs, end over end. Corso ducked and winced, waiting for the bouncing weapon to discharge. Nothing. For a moment his head swam and he could see the reflection of flames on Sissy Warwick’s ceiling. He gulped air and looked around. Silence.
Gathering his wits, Corso put two fingers on Richardson’s throat. He felt the steady drum of blood. Satisfied, he rolled the unconscious cop over, pulled up the thick winter coat, and removed a pair of handcuffs from their black leather case. Took him a minute, but he eventually got the big man’s hands manacled behind his back, then rolled him over again and removed his tie, which he wound around Richardson’s ankles and then threaded through the handcuffs. Hog-tied. Feet pulled up behind him. Corso felt the man’s throat again. Pulse still strong and steady. His scalp tingled from the adrenaline rush. He grabbed his suitcase and started down the stairs.
The gun lay wedged in a corner of the first-floor landing, pointing at the ceiling as if in surrender. Corso picked it up, jammed it in the pocket of his coat, and jerked open the door.
A blast of arctic air raked his face as he crossed the parking lot toward Dougherty and the idling car. He shuddered inside his coat. Looked around. From his hospital room above, it had appeared that the snow, which was piled up on the perimeter of the parking lot, was perhaps waist deep. From ground level, he could see how wrong he’d been. Here in the land where the temperature doesn’t rise above freezing until May, the snowblowers had piled the stuff up fifteen feet in the air, creating the feeling of being inside a massive igloo. He pulled open the car door and threw himself into the seat.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
She sat staring at him.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Just get me out of here.”
She pushed the shift lever into Reverse and backed quickly out into the center of the lot. “Where to?” she asked.
“Anyplace but hell or Texas,” Corso said.
11
The moon’s silver fingers poked and probed until Corso finally cracked an eye. He blinked several times and then squinted up at the night sky. Big old silver moon, hanging low like a dull nickel, standing sentinel above the frozen fields and skeletal trees that lined the narrow two-lane road. He pushed himself upright in the seat. Stretched and groaned. Ran his hands over his face.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” Dougherty said, without taking her eyes from the road. “Somewhere in Iowa. I turned south on Iowa 76 about an hour ago. Last sign I saw said Cedar Rapids was a hundred ten miles.”
Ahead in the distance, a brightly lit sign hovered above the treetops. Diesel. 1.24. Above that in red neon: F O D
“I’ve gotta pee,” Dougherty said.
“Might as well fill ’er up while we’re at it.”
She shook her head. “First the bathroom.”
Frozen gravel popped and snapped beneath the Ford’s tires as she wheeled the car across the lot and parked it between a pair of ancient pickup trucks. Half a dozen 18-wheelers lined the far end of the lot. EARLS the place was called. No apostrophe. Just EARLS. A diner. Thirty-foot Streamliner, built in the late fifties. All stainless steel. No porcelain. Sign on the roof said it all. EAT.
; The yellow light from the diner’s windows cast trapezoidal shadows across the frozen ground. Corso pulled open the door and let Dougherty precede him inside.
Twelve steel-rimmed stools on one side. Mostly full. Six Naugahyde booths on the other. Mostly empty. Pies in a mirrored case behind the counter. Atop the case a grainy black-and-white TV blared out the local news. A pair of ancient waitresses and a guy in a dirty apron behind the counter. Maybe ten customers. Truck drivers mainly. John Deere caps, jeans, and flannel shirts. Guys with that big-gut-and-no-ass look you get from eighteen hours a day behind the wheel. As they stood in the doorway, a guy with no discernible chin came limping past, bussing dishes in a red plastic pan.
“In or out, honey. We ain’t heating the outside,” one of the waitresses called. Corso nudged Dougherty forward. He stepped inside and let the door swing closed behind him. The air reeked of cigarette smoke and primordial grease.
Corso put a hand on Dougherty’s shoulder, guiding her left toward the rest rooms. Halfway down the aisle, Corso slipped into a booth. Back to the door, he watched as Dougherty walked through the archway and turned left. She stood with the open door in her hand. Said something to somebody, hesitated, and then stepped inside.
A waitress appeared at his elbow. She had a face like a satchel and a mouthful of brown teeth, spaced out like pickets on a fence. “What’ll it be?”
Corso ordered two coffees. Above the clink of silverware and the low-octave chatter, the TV speaker spasmed, “…in the valley, clear and cold, highs in the low twenties, lows near zero. The National Weather Service reports…”
Dougherty and the coffee arrived two minutes later. The look in her eyes told Corso something was amiss. “Problem?”
She waited until the waitress was out of range and then leaned across the table. “There’s this woman in there. Absolutely shit-faced. Puking her guts up in the sink.” She waved a hand. “And there’s like no privacy, no nothing. I had to go so bad…and she’s obviously not going anywhere…so I had to drop my drawers right in front of her.”
