by Brad Smith
“But I love that scene.”
“If you love something, let it go.”
“You really aren’t adding a whole lot to the conversation here,” Sam told him. “Am I all alone in this?”
Marchand was moving away from Nikki now, heading toward her car.
“You are for now,” Levi said, and he went out the door.
He caught up with Claire as she was opening the car door. “Hold on,” he said.
She turned and watched him approach. “What can I do for you?”
“Do we have a problem?” Levi asked.
“Who do you mean when you say ‘we’?”
“Why are you asking my crew questions?”
“Because I’m investigating two mysterious deaths,” Claire said. “And that’s how it works. I ask questions in an effort to gain information. Have you ever watched a cop show on TV?”
“There’s a line between asking questions and harassing people,” Levi said. “We’re running a multimillion-dollar production here. Nikki doesn’t know anything about anything. So stop bothering her.”
“First of all, I couldn’t care less about your million-dollar production,” Claire said. “And secondly, I don’t think I was bothering her. But it sounds as if I’m bothering you.”
“You’re harassing my crew.”
“I’m doing my job. You want to talk shit about harassment, I’ll give you my captain’s name and number and you can give him a call. Otherwise, stay out of my way. Go brush your hair or something.”
“I’m watching you,” Levi said lamely.
“Let me know if I do anything interesting,” Claire said and got into the car.
• • •
Virgil spotted Claire in an unmarked cruiser when he and Tommy Alamosa returned to the set from Fort Howard. She was sitting behind the wheel writing something in her notebook as they pulled into the lot and parked by Virgil’s truck and horse trailer. Virgil gave her a wave and then went about loading Bob and Nelly for the drive home. When he left the location, Claire was out of the car, talking to Tommy by the trailers.
She couldn’t have talked to Tommy for very long. By the time Virgil arrived back at the farm, unloaded the two horses into the pasture, filled the water trough, threw some grain to his calves, and headed back for the house, Claire was sitting on the side porch. She’d even stopped and picked up a large pizza on her way.
“You realize I raise beef cattle,” Virgil said when he saw the box.
“I do.”
“I have steaks here.”
“I felt like pizza,” Claire said. “You want to cook a steak, go ahead.”
They ate the pizza on the picnic table as the dusk came on. Virgil opened a bottle of white wine he’d had in the fridge for a while. He couldn’t remember where it came from, but in all likelihood, Claire had brought it. She rarely showed up empty-handed.
“So you talked to Nikki and Tommy?”
She nodded, chewing. “And Levi Brown.”
“Why him?”
“It wasn’t my idea. He accused me of harassing people and hindering his production. He doesn’t like me very much. I’m beginning to think that I won’t be invited to the premiere.”
“You can take my place.”
“Keep in mind he doesn’t like you very much either.” Claire poured more wine for them both. “Nikki is one hundred percent certain she saw Olivia Burns walking down by the creek that night. And just as certain that she was talking on a cell phone. I need to find that phone. I had the boys drag the creek again but they didn’t come up with anything other than some fishing lures and old car parts.”
“If the killer was smart, he would have taken the phone,” Virgil said.
“I’ve considered that.”
“Then again, it might have been nothing,” Virgil said. “She might have been talking to her mother.”
“Maybe she was,” Claire said. “But it’s going to nag at me until I know for sure. And I realize I might never know for sure.”
“So let’s say she was talking to Red Hawk,” Virgil said. “That doesn’t prove he killed her.”
“No, but it would prove that he lied to me. He said he never talked to her again after leaving her outside her room at around ten thirty. If he called her a couple hours later, why wouldn’t he tell me that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I,” Claire said. “The thing is—I need one more piece of the puzzle to really go after him. And this could be the piece.”
“If it was him.”
“If it was him. If it wasn’t, the fact still remains that I need to know who she was talking to that night. If it turns out to be unrelated, then so be it. I can cross it off my list. But I don’t believe for one second it was unrelated.” She shrugged, as if dismissing the subject for the time being, and took a bite of pizza. “You taking the Clydesdale twins back to the location tomorrow?”
“Percherons. And no, the women are fighting Indians tomorrow.”
“Really? That’s not in the book.”
“It’s going to be in the movie. You see—we’re not filming the book, we’re filming an interpretation of the book.”
“You’re beginning to scare me.”
After finishing most of the pizza and all of the wine, they talked a little more, then sat together in comfortable silence. The next thing Virgil knew, Claire was waking him up. It was a little after ten o’clock when they went inside and got in bed.
Virgil woke at dawn. He got up and dressed quietly, careful not to wake Claire. Downstairs he made a pot of coffee and carried a cup with him out to the barn. The morning air was cool and sharp, although it wouldn’t last, he knew, once the humidity hit again. He ran the water for the horses in the front field and then walked back to look at his young calves at pasture behind the barn. The pond there was getting low; if it didn’t rain soon, he’d have to haul a trough back there, run some plastic pipe, and pump water from the well.
He took a stroll back to the other pasture in front of the bush lot at the back of the farm, where he grazed his yearling steers. The pond there was spring fed, and Virgil had never known it to run dry. He did a head count on the cattle, out of habit more than anything; he’d never lost an animal or heard of anyone who had.
By the time he started back up the lane, the sun was climbing in the sky. The temperature had probably risen ten degrees since he’d walked out of the house forty-five minutes earlier. He had hoped to plow his wheat field today, but now he wondered if the ground would be baked too hard for that. The clay in Ulster County turned rocklike during a drought, and there were times when even iron plowshares couldn’t cut it. Approaching the barn, Virgil began to think about returning to the house, slipping upstairs, and getting back into bed with Claire for an hour or so. As he thought about it, his pace quickened unintentionally, and so he was hugely disappointed when he rounded the corner of the machine shed and saw her striding with purpose toward her car, her coat under her arm and her cell phone tucked to her ear as she fumbled with her keys.
By the time he reached her, she’d shut the phone down and slid it in her jacket pocket and opened the car door to toss the coat inside. She was wearing the same clothes as the night before, her shirt untucked. Her hair wasn’t wet; she hadn’t even taken time to shower.
“I was coming back upstairs,” he said.
“Have fun.”
“It would be more fun if you were still there.”
“Aren’t you sweet?”
“First time I’ve been accused of that,” Virgil said. He nodded toward the pocket where the phone had disappeared. “What’s going on?”
“I had them expedite the toxicology report on Nicole Huntsman,” Claire said. “Turns out it wasn’t an overdose.” She paused. “It was bad heroin.”
Virgil took a moment. “That’s interesting.”
“Isn’t it?”
“So where you off to?”
“My place first,” Claire said. “For a shower and
change of clothes. Then I’m heading for the Running Dog Casino to see what Ronnie Red Hawk has to say about this.”
“Alone?”
“I’ll take someone with me,” she said. “See who’s hanging around the station. Anybody but Joe Brady.”
“You don’t have enough to arrest him,” Virgil said.
“Thanks for your input, Inspector.”
“Well, do you?”
“Probably not,” Claire admitted. “But enough to accuse him. And with a guy like Ronnie, you never know what might happen. He thinks he’s above the law. Shit, he thinks he’s above everything. He might get all caught up in his ego and confess and then tell me to prove it.”
“You be careful,” Virgil said.
“I always am.”
“I mean it.”
She stepped in and kissed him on the mouth, her hand on the back of his neck. She held her lips on his for a long moment.
“I know you do,” she said and got in the car and drove away.
NINETEEN
From the farm Claire drove into Kingston, to her house on Pearl Street. She went upstairs and had a shower, made herself a cup of tea, grabbed an overripe banana from a bowl on the counter, and headed for the station. When she got there, the first person she ran into was Joe Brady, the one person she didn’t want to see. She had no intention of taking Joe with her to talk to Ronnie Red Hawk. Even if Joe had some strong points—and Claire couldn’t name one offhand—interviewing a suspect wasn’t one of them. He would be a distraction and a disruption and a pain in the ass in general. Not only that, but Joe had personal hygiene issues and Claire wasn’t about to spend half a day in a car with him.
“Sal around?” she asked.
“He’s off,” Joe told her. “What’s up?”
“Nothing.”
“You need a wing man?”
“No.”
“Why you looking for Sal?” Joe asked. “What’re you working on?”
Claire looked around the station. A couple of young cops she didn’t know, in uniform, were leaning over a computer on the far side of the room. They could have been working, or they could have been downloading YouTube videos. Claire didn’t want to take a uniform with her anyway. She needed Ronnie Red Hawk to be relaxed and cocky, convinced of his superiority. Given his past record with the cops, the sight of a uniform might throw him off his game. And Claire wanted him on his game.
“I’m working on keeping cool in this heat,” she told Joe and walked out the door.
She signed out an unmarked cruiser and, as she was walking across the parking lot toward the car, she saw Joe come out of the station. Seeing her, he started over. There was something in his pace that convinced Claire that he was determined to tag along for the day. She hurried to the cruiser, got in, and drove off without looking back.
She took the thruway to the Saugerties exit before heading northwest. There was construction on Route 32 and it was slow going for ten miles or so. Claire settled in behind a truck loaded with logs and idled along, her mind drifting. She thought about Virgil’s offer of going back to bed. Maybe she should have accepted. What was an hour going to mean one way or another? Thinking about it, she decided to call him. She’d tell him she wanted a rain check, although she knew he would remind her that it hadn’t rained in months. Looking over at the passenger seat, however, she realized that her phone was in her jacket. And her jacket was in her own car back at the station. She’d left her tea there too, in the cup holder, all in her haste to get away from Joe Brady.
“Shit,” she said.
She considered turning back but decided against it. The traffic going the other way looked just as bad, or worse. Not only that, but she might not be able to dodge Joe again. She was connected to dispatch through the car radio and could get along without her cell for half a day. Your average teenager couldn’t, but Claire could.
The drive was slow and it was eleven o’clock on the nose when she pulled into the parking lot at Running Dog. At roughly three minutes past, Ronnie Red Hawk’s receptionist informed her that he was gone.
“And what does ‘gone’ mean?” Claire asked.
“Just gone,” the woman said. It was a different receptionist than the one Claire had met the last time she was there. This one was older, with gray-streaked hair that reached halfway down her back, and a jangle of turquoise-and-silver jewelry on her arms and around her neck.
“Does that mean you don’t know where he is, or you won’t tell me where he is?” Claire asked.
The woman replied by ignoring the question. She began to type something into the Mac computer in front of her. Maybe she was doing a Google search for Ronnie Red Hawk, thinking that might turn him up.
“What about Nightingale?” she asked. “He around?”
“Who?”
“You’re really going to play this game?” Claire said. “Whatshisname Nightingale, skinny guy with slicked-back hair. Thinks he can win people over by offering them Faith Hill tickets. That Nightingale.”
“Marvin,” the woman said and reached for the phone.
Marvin Nightingale must have been close by; he stepped off the elevator five minutes after the receptionist made the call, wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt. He’d cut his hair since Claire had seen him last and was now sporting a Marine-style buzz cut.
“Detective,” he said, extending his hand. “Nice to see you again.”
“Where’s your boss?” Claire asked.
“Not here.”
“I didn’t ask if he was here, I asked his whereabouts. There’s a difference.”
“I couldn’t say where he is.”
Claire indicated the receptionist. “You and Chatty Cathy here ought to go on the road with this act. Ronnie’s got his finger on every pulse in this place and you’re trying to tell me you don’t know how to get in touch with him?”
Marvin sighed and shook his head, as if committing himself to an unsavory task. “Let me buy you a coffee.”
Claire didn’t particularly want a coffee but it seemed as if Marvin Nightingale was willing to talk if she accepted, so she did. They went down to the restaurant off the lobby on the main floor. There were two restaurants there and Marvin chose the less fancy of the two, more of a diner than anything. They sat in a corner booth and waited until a waitress brought coffee for them both.
“What’s this about?” Marvin asked, spooning a large quantity of sugar into his cup.
“It’s about a woman dying in your hotel,” Claire said.
“The overdose.”
“Yeah. Except it wasn’t an overdose. The heroin was bad.”
Marvin frowned. “That’s unfortunate. What does it have to do with Ronnie?”
“That’s what I’d love to ask him, Marvin. Since I can’t do that, then I’m going to have to let my imagination run wild here. For instance, I could imagine that Ronnie had a huge crush on Kari Karson, and I could imagine that Ronnie considered Nicole Huntsman’s presence to be a determent in his courtship of Ms. Karson. Then I could further imagine that Ronnie found a way to remove Nicole from the equation.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? There are people in the Watertown area who tell me Ronnie’s pulled this before. It was poison meth last time.”
“Ronnie had nothing to do with this,” Marvin said. “I’ll admit there’s a drug problem here. We struggle to stay on top of it but we fail more than we succeed. It comes with the territory. That woman could have bought the dope anywhere. For instance, we have busloads of Chinese tourists coming here every day.”
“Ah, the Chinese,” Claire said, smiling. “Well, if it’s true that some outside influence has been peddling bad heroin on the premises, why is it that only one dead body has turned up? Not only that, but this drug problem must be brand spanking new, Marvin, because when I spoke to you a few days ago you assured me there were no drugs here. Which is it, Marvin?”
Marvin sighed. “That was public relations.”
“Sa
ve the PR bullshit for Entertainment Tonight,” Claire told him. “When you’re talking to a cop, tell the truth. Now, where’s Red Hawk?”
Marvin took a moment to put more sugar in his coffee, although Claire suspected it was already as thick as molasses. He took a sip, watching her over the brim of the cup, then set it aside.
“She broke his heart.”
“What?”
“Kari Karson broke Ronnie’s heart,” Marvin said. “I know it sounds ludicrous but it’s absolutely true. He really thought the woman was going to fall for him.”
“You’re right,” Claire said. “That is ludicrous.”
“I know. But it’s also true. You have to realize that Ronnie is . . . well, he considers himself above the crowd. Trust me, there are a lot of women who would love to be with him. He’s rich, he has power. But those women don’t appeal to Ronnie. He needs a woman who he feels is on his level.”
“Someone like a starlet with a criminal record?”
“He doesn’t see that. He sees someone like him—someone who’s misunderstood. And he thought he found her. He got her the role in the movie, for Chrissakes. I’d call that a full-court press. And then she brushed him off like he was a bug. And she was callous about it. She’s trash, you know.”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Claire said. “All I know is that there are two dead women, and Ronnie was in very close proximity to both of them when they died. And by that I don’t just mean physically close, I mean close in terms of motive. So I need to talk to him. Where is he?”
“You won’t find him.”
“Why not?”
“He’s gone on retreat. I told you the last time you were here. He does that—like the great chiefs of old. He fasts and seeks a vision for his future.”
“I could lock you up for obstruction,” Claire suggested.
“Go ahead. I can’t help you because I don’t know where he is.”
“Maybe a few days in county jail would help jog your memory.”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” Marvin said.
“You know where he is,” Claire began and then she hesitated as she realized that she knew it as well. The property near Watertown. What had Bill Sully called it—Ronnie’s retreat?
