by Jodi Thomas
“No, this better be face-to-face, Mr. Anderson,” the cop insisted. “I’ll be happy to come out.”
The last thing Mark wanted was some stranger dropping by. No telling how long the man would stay, and cops had a way of making you feel as if they were rifling through your life even when they didn’t touch a thing. Mark had learned a long time ago to hold all meetings on neutral ground. At his office or here, he’d be trapped. The police station would have too many distractions and it might take the man an hour to give out information. “How about we meet at the coffeehouse across from my office in about an hour? I’ve got to pick up some papers, so it’s on my way,” Mark lied again.
The lieutenant agreed. Mark gave him the address and they hung up without either one of them asking what the other looked like.
An hour later, Mark walked into the coffee shop and noticed one man sitting alone by the window watching people pass. His suit was wrinkled and was several wearings past needing to go to the cleaners.
Mark walked over to the table, put his cup down and offered his hand. “Randell?”
The cop smiled and shook Mark’s hand in a strong grip. “Thanks for meeting me. I’ll make this as quick as possible.”
They were about the same age but the lines in Randell’s face settled into a worried expression that in a few years would become permanently imprinted. His hair was thinning, his face too light for the Austin-tanned look, so Mark guessed he worked nights. Extra pounds pushed his belt out two or three notches farther than it should have been, but he didn’t appear out of shape.
Mark sat across from the cop and ordered a doughnut, thinking that another time or place they might have been friends. “You need to ask me something more about my wife’s death?” He got right to the point. “I assure you I would have called if I’d thought of anything new.”
Randell shifted, his chair no longer comfortable. “I wanted to make sure you were the one who ID’d your wife. The report was signed by a fireman, Frank Parker, the clinic’s guard, and you.”
“I saw her.” Mark tried to follow the reasoning. “Why?”
“Nothing probably. I’m just checking facts. The fireman didn’t know your wife, and Frank is no longer here to answer questions.”
Randell’s intelligent stare met Mark’s. The lawyer in him didn’t miss the worried look when Randell added, “You’re sure it was her?”
“Of course. She was burned, but there was one part of her hair that the fire hadn’t touched.” He didn’t want to think about this, but he forced himself to go through the details. “She must have covered her head with her arms.” Mark took a deep breath before continuing. “No one had blond hair just the color of Blaine’s. It had a touch of red in it.” He swallowed the scalding coffee, trying to keep his voice steady as he continued. “Her rings were in her hand. She had a jacket I bought for her birthday a few years back. Her wallet was in the jacket pocket.”
“Are you sure they were her rings?”
Mark stared out the window remembering how they’d spent all day in Santa Fe looking for just the right rings for Blaine. She wanted something unusual, he’d mostly thought of finding something he could afford. In the end, he had been the one who talked her into the more expensive set. She’d jumped into his arms right in the middle of the store, surprising and embarrassing them both.
“They were her rings,” Mark finally answered without emotion. “I could not be wrong about that.”
“Did she know anyone at the clinic? I mean, as far as you know.”
“No. Why?”
“I figured she might have gone to the clinic to see someone, or maybe she was tagging along with a friend who had an appointment. Most of the records were destroyed in the fire after the bomb went off.”
Mark found the idea interesting, but had to answer, “No. Not that I know about.” In truth, he knew Blaine had a few friends she went to lunch with from time to time. A few of the volunteers at the library and a couple of the partners’ wives she sometimes worked on fund-raising with. He had never paid too much attention to any names. But it was a possibility. After all, Miss Lilly said Blaine had taken her to the doctor one day. Maybe Blaine was just along for the ride, but if so, why had she left the note?
Randell checked his notepad, then returned it to his pocket.
The silence was as thick as cold coffee between them. Finally, Mark said, “Why all the questions? Backtracking over the same ground usually means you guys don’t think you got everything straight to start with.”
Randell didn’t look up from his drink. “Just making sure this time. You been around a lot of cops?”
Mark recognized the lie and the attempt to change the subject. He waited.
Finally, the cop added, “Half the coroner’s staff is out this week with the flu. But they are trying to get your wife’s body released for cremation as fast as they can. Problem is, the dental records the dentist sent over didn’t match, and he swears he didn’t make a mistake. We’ve got a nurse from the clinic that everyone reported seeing in the clinic Monday but we can’t find her.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
Randell looked up, his worried gaze fixed on Mark, leaving no games between them. “We’ve sent for the missing nurse’s dental records. It will take twenty-four hours to overnight them. She just moved here six months ago and hadn’t used a local dentist as far as we know. She was the same height as your wife, almost the same build. Her friends said her hair color pretty much changed weekly but it was blond when she went to work Monday morning.” Randell lowered his voice. “Blond with red highlights.”
The hair rose on the back of Mark’s neck. All the pieces weren’t fitting together. “You think the body in the morgue might be the nurse?”
The cop shook his head. “I don’t want to get you upset or anything. But it is something we have to check out.”
“It’s impossible!” Mark forced himself to lower his voice. “If it were her body…”
Randell ended his statement, “…then your wife is the one missing.”
Mark stood suddenly and walked over to refill his coffee. Part of him wanted to demand why the detective was putting him through this. But the logical side of his brain had to know the facts, all the facts.
He sat back down. “What else?” he said, knowing there had to be more.
Randell spread his hands on the table. “An alcoholic who works at one of the shelters called in with a story of a woman who came to breakfast the morning after the bombing and maybe one time since. She claims this thin woman was scratched and bleeding from several cuts and acted half-crazy. She even said the lady had the smell of smoke on her before she took a shower. Right now, I’m thinking it could have been the nurse, or your wife.”
“Do you believe this caller?”
Randell stared out the window. “This isn’t the first time she’s turned in what she thought was a clue. She watches far too much TV. Thinks she’s working with us undercover some nights when she’s heavy into the bottle. But from what details we got out of Chipper, this woman fits your wife’s description. Five-seven, slender. She said her hair was pretty dirty, but it looked blond.”
“Impossible. Blaine would have called. I work within walking distance of the bombing. If she’d been simply hurt, she could have been at my office within minutes.”
Randell nodded. “Like I said, all we got is questions right now.” He tossed his empty cup toward the trash. “Also said she thought she heard someone call the woman Mary, so the tip is probably nothing.” The cop shook his head. “Old Chipper got her handle because she joined AA under half a dozen names in as many cities. She carries a pocket full of poker chips, but she can’t manage to stay on the wagon long.”
Mark sighed and stood, wishing he hadn’t wasted his time coming down to meet Randell. If Blaine had been alive she would have called, or gone home, or even rushed to his office. She wouldn’t just wander around alone. And his wife, who always hurried to wash her hands when sh
e touched a public railing, would never eat at a homeless shelter with people who only bathe monthly. He fought the urge to tell the man he was wasting his time. There was just a mix-up with the dental records, nothing more.
The two men walked out together. “Funny thing about this mystery lady.”
Mark fished out his keys. “What?” he asked, just to be polite.
“Chipper said she was frantic to call someone that first morning. She wasn’t close enough to hear what was said, but it appeared whoever she reached hung up on her.”
With a quick goodbye, Randell turned and headed toward his car with a backward wave.
Mark stared down at his keys. The crank call he’d gotten that first morning after Blaine died exploded in his mind.
It couldn’t have been Blaine! He braced himself as the crushing memory of her charred remains filled his thoughts.
The last moment on this earth that he’d ever see her, she’d disappeared under the zipper of a body bag.
It couldn’t have been Blaine who called. It couldn’t.
Fourteen
Blaine slipped back into the gym ten minutes later, looking like someone who had chosen to do her run on the streets and not the indoor track. No one noticed her, or the small bag she carried in her sweat suit.
She washed out her underwear and hung it in an empty locker as she kept an eye on the huge silver clock on the wall of the dressing room. On tiptoe, she spread her towel on top of the last set of lockers. Carefully, soundlessly, she scooted the bench from along the wall in front of the lockers to use as a step stool.
The room was warm and humid as she climbed to her hiding place and lay down on her towel. She smelled the dust around her and heard the clanking of pipes above her, but dust seemed harmless to her now and the pipes only noise, nothing more. Here, in the women’s locker room of a gym for members only, she would be safe from the man in the blue ball cap. Here, she could sleep.
It crossed her mind that Frank Parker must have thought he was safe when he filed his report with the police and headed home. She couldn’t shake the thought that his death had not been an accident.
At 10:15 p.m. the door squeaked open to the ladies’ dressing room. She didn’t move, praying that whoever entered wasn’t any taller than her five foot seven. Otherwise, the intruder might be able to see Blaine stretched out above the lockers. She pushed closer to the wall, melting into the shadows.
“Anyone still here?” a girl yelled. She walked through, banging open the stall doors. “All clear, all gone,” the employee said over the static of a walkie-talkie. “Place looks clean.”
Blaine waited. Five minutes later, the lights went out and she relaxed for the first time since the bombing three days ago. She was safe and warm. Closing her eyes, she slept without moving.
Sometime during the night, the clanking pipes woke her. Carefully, she slipped down from her perch and felt her way through the room lit only by an exit sign over the door. When she reached the hallway, even less light greeted her, but she’d walked this path a hundred times.
Blaine moved toward the front desk. There, the light was better thanks to windows facing the street. She could see the clutter of membership forms and bins of dirty towels scattered along the back counter. A phone sat on one corner. Blaine moved her hand over it, longing to call Mark. Not now, she told herself, maybe in a day or two. If Winslow was close enough to Mark to answer his phone, Mark might not be safe if he knew she was still alive.
On impulse, she started dialing his private office number. Knowing he wouldn’t be there this late. She reconsidered and dialed his public line. The answering machine would pick it up.
Two rings, then three. “I’m not in the office, but I’ll get back to you,” his voice said. He sounded so good. Almost there for a moment. Almost with her.
Blaine fought the need to whisper his name, but she forced herself to end the connection. She couldn’t put his life in danger. Not tonight, when she knew the bomber was so near.
Pressing the receiver against her cheek, she tried to hold on for a moment to Mark, to her life before Monday morning when her world fell apart.
Moving like a ghost, Blaine carefully opened the low storage cabinets. Without much difficulty she found the first-aid kit and took out one half-used tube of antiseptic cream. Next she rummaged through the lost-and-found box, finding only an old pair of black-framed glasses that could have been a man’s or a woman’s, and a small bottle of conditioner. She thought of also taking an empty cosmetics bag, the kind given away at every sale in the mall, but she didn’t want anyone to notice the box was missing items.
Though she knew it wasn’t enough payment, she left three quarters on the counter and took several power bars and a juice from the display of healthy snacks. On her way out, she grabbed a few extra towels, then made her way back to her hiding place. There, in the darkness, she picnicked on the stolen food while she rubbed the ointment over her cuts. The one on her leg still felt raw, the wound more wide than deep. It would leave a scar.
Finally, she curled up on her towel and went back to sleep, breathing deep in the chlorine-scented air.
The lights flickered on just after 5:00 a.m. Blaine slipped down with the toiletries she’d bought at the all-night pharmacy the night before. With the shower running, she opened the bottle of hair dye and smeared it on her curls. By the time this brown wore off, the blond beneath could be cut off.
By six, the dressing room was a thriving ant bed of activity. Blaine lay on her back and listened to the conversations. She thought she recognized a few voices of women who’d been in her exercise classes. They talked of their aches and pains, as if such little things mattered. Once in a while someone would mention a bit of news they’d caught, making Blaine realize that her world had shrunk to one of survival. She knew nothing of what was happening anywhere but around her.
After half an hour of listening, someone below finally mentioned the bombing. They complained about having to go around the streets that were still barricaded and the traffic. Someone said she heard the police were close to a breakthrough in the case. It was agreed that, since the bomber used dynamite, it had to be a crazy and not some organized effort to bomb clinics. Then the conversation turned to cellulite.
At half-past seven there was a lull, and Blaine managed to slip off the top of the lockers. She retrieved her underwear and took a quick shower, not because she was dirty but simply because she could. Her hair felt so strange, short, curly, but to her surprise when she dried and brushed the mop, it didn’t look so bad. With her face scrubbed clean of makeup and her hair no longer blond, she could almost pass for one of the college kids hanging out at the UT campus.
She packed her bag, afraid to leave anything behind, and slipped on the black-framed glasses. It was no wonder someone left them behind, she could barely tell they were prescription.
Pulling her hood over her hair, she passed the main desk and was back on the streets before eight. She jogged around businessmen and women hurrying to work, managing to reach the shelter just in time to slip inside before Chipper closed the door.
Chipper didn’t even look up as she shuffled back to the kitchen to begin her endless chore of restocking the food line.
Blaine weighed the risk of returning here against her hunger. The bomber could be back and, this time, he would be searching for her while he ate. She told herself she had changed her look so dramatically that he wouldn’t recognize her. Still, she hung back in the doorway for a few minutes and watched the people.
The bomber wasn’t there, and Chipper would be closing the line any minute. Hunger won out over fear.
Blaine grabbed a box of cold cereal, yogurt and an apple. She hated cold cereal, but this morning she felt like she could eat it, box and all. Despite the health bars last night, she was starving.
When she passed Chipper, the woman said only, “Coffee or milk?”
“Can I have both?” Blaine waited for Chipper to recognize her scratchy voice.
Blaine smiled, realizing the woman didn’t recognize her. This was going to work.
She found Miller at his usual back table and sat down across from him. If possible, the man’s hair looked more like a bush than it had yesterday. His clothes were old and well worn but clean.
“’Morning, pest,” he mumbled between bites.
“You recognized me?” Disappointment filled Blaine.
“You got new clothes, cut your hair too, but you’re still dumb enough to sit by me. I figured there couldn’t be two women in this town that stupid.”
Blaine shrugged. “Maybe I like your company. Ever think of that?”
“No,” he replied.
“Thanks for your help yesterday. How’d you stop the man in the hat?” She had no doubt that if Miller hadn’t been there, the bomber would have caught her. With a chill, she realized that even if she had screamed for help, no one would have rushed to her aid. They would have thought it only trouble between the homeless.
Miller wiped his mouth on his napkin before he said, “Grabbed him by his scrawny neck. Told him he reminded me of a brother-in-law I had.” Miller took another bite, using his spoon like a shovel.
“What did he do?”
“Nothing. I shook him a while. Then I turned him loose and he darted away. My guess is he won’t be back here.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’m not.” Miller shrugged. “He’s got coward eyes, though. I’ve seen his kind. Stab you in the back, or shoot from a hiding place, but he’s not the type to face another man directly. He has a smell about him. Reminds me of the year I worked on the big oil rigs over in Odessa. A few of the fellows let sweat and crude oil blend so thick on their skin that ten showers wouldn’t get it off.”
