Nine

Alex ignored almost all of this, a variation on an old theme, and later decided only a lack of sleep had made him say, “You think I’m here because John had some influence on my being hired or promoted?”

He saw the flash of anger, her impulse to make the accusation openly. But she regained control of herself and said, “Don’t you think you had certain advantages, growing up with a deputy in the house?”

He thought for a moment and said quietly, “I suppose so. But not in the way you seem to be suggesting.”

She backpedaled. “Look, I don’t think you got any promotion you didn’t earn. If I implied that-I’m sorry, I guess I did imply that, didn’t I? I did. And that was wrong. You work hard, you solve cases-way above the bureau average. All I meant was, you know how to play the game, because you grew up with John.”

“He has helped me to be realistic about department politics,” Alex said. “Which is what I think you mean by ‘the game.’ And, Ciara, for that reason alone, you don’t know how many times I’ve wished to God your uncle, aunt, mother, sister, granddaddy-you name it-had been with the Sheriff’s. As it is, you never seem clear about who your enemies are.”

He had seen her flinch somewhere in that recital and figured she was given this same sort of speech by the guys who called her B.B. Queen. Let it go, he said to himself, and tried to go back to concentrating on a list he had made of climbing gear suppliers. Just let it go.

Typically, she wouldn’t. “It’s my greatest weakness, isn’t it? ‘Does not play well with others.’”

He didn’t answer.

“I know you aren’t the enemy, Alex.”

He looked up at her. “No one else in the department, either, Ciara.”

“Okay, okay. I let one old man get the better of me. I’m sorry.”

“He’s not just one old man. If Shay Wilder told me he wanted to meet the Queen for tea before he’d look at the autopsy reports, I’d put him on a flight to London. As it is, he just wants us to bring an old friend of his along for the ride. It’s easy. John will love the chance to get out of the house.”

He was right-no persuasion was needed to get John to come along.

John knew the way to Wilder’s home, in the hills just inland from Oceanside, near one of the biggest of the old Spanish missions. He greeted his old friend by saying, “Damn, Shay. Guess you didn’t get the comb I sent you last Christmas.”

Wilder, whose dull gray hair rose from his head in disordered tufts, wheezed and coughed a laugh. “Buy me a mirror next time,” he said, then curtly ordered them to come inside. Alex managed to hide his shock at the change in the old man’s appearance. He had not see Wilder in about five years, although he knew John visited him often.

The once bright blue eyes were now watery and surrounded by reddened lids. His prominent brow ridge seemed to have sharpened, or perhaps the too thin face made it seem so. Only the dark, untamed hedges of the brows themselves seemed the same.

Wilder wanted to deal with business before pleasure, so he brought them all to his study, a dark room lined with books and file cabinets-all of it, like the rest of the house, reeking of cigarette smoke.

He was gaunt, his skin wrinkled and yellowish gray, stained between the two fingers of his right hand which were seldom without a cigarette between them. He used the hand in the way a chain-smoker will, moving it palm down over papers, the thumb and last two fingers working together as an especially adroit claw.

Alex felt a sudden and unaccountably painful flare of anger, then knew it for what it was-the banked fire of his grief for J.D., stirred to life by a smoker’s gesture. Alex’s old partner had moved his hand in just the same way. Useless to berate the dead for not having lived the way you wanted them to, or as long as you wanted them to, he thought, and rolled his shoulders, trying to relax.

Wilder looked up sharply at him, reading his thoughts-or so it seemed to Alex. But the old man said nothing. He went back to studying the files.

“What we’re hoping you’ll tell us…” Ciara began.

“If I’m going to tell you anything,” Wilder said, “I need quiet. As for your hopes, they are no concern of mine.”

“Polite as always,” John said.

Shay Wilder grunted a response that sounded far from polite and went on reading.

After a few minutes, Ciara stood up and began pacing, arms crossed over her chest. Wilder looked over at John.

“I need to stretch a little,” John said. “And besides, I don’t think there’s room enough in here for all of us and Shay’s ego, too.”

Alex looked at Wilder to see if he was offended. He was smiling.

“If I make Shay promise not to yap any conclusions to Alex while we’re gone,” John said to Ciara, “would you mind leaving this stink hole to sit outside with me for a little while?”

She hesitated, then agreed. Alex wondered if she was trying to play well with others.

Wilder said nothing to him, asked no questions during those two hours, except once, when, not feeling he was being of much use, Alex stood to go outside. Wilder, without looking up from the papers, said, “Don’t disappoint me. Sit down.”

So Alex sat silently, listening to the ticking at each swing of the pendulum of the mantel clock, the dry-leaf rustle of a page being turned by the old man’s fingers, the snap of the wheel on the flint of his silver cigarette lighter, the clink of the lighter’s lid as he closed it. The wheezing breath, the hacking cough that sounded as if Wilder’s lungs were being turned inside out and shaken.

“Less than six months, they tell me,” he said once, as if Alex had asked aloud the question that came to mind each time he heard the cough. “Unless I let them start carving. I told them they could test the sharpness of their knives on someone else.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. What in the course of nature could frighten me, after years of looking at this sort of thing?”

They were the only comments he made for a long time. At one point, he sat back and closed his eyes. Alex waited, wondering if he had fallen asleep.

Without opening his eyes, Shay asked, “Tell me-who called in about the first body?”

“At first, we were told it was a neighbor, but later we learned it was a call from a pay phone, so we’re not sure now.”

“Near the location?”

“Yes. The caller said he was reporting a neighbor but didn’t want to be identified as the complainer-excuse me, sir, but I have an obligation to bring Ciara back in if we’re going to start discussing the cases.”

He opened his eyes. “Interesting that you put it that way. You may see to your obligation in a moment. And you may certainly tell her anything I say now, if you choose to.”

Alex didn’t reply.

Wilder smiled. “I appreciate your patience. Now, tell me about rock climbing.”

Alex hesitated. “Some people would say that it’s just you and the rock, and you find out what you’ve got. But that’s not all there is to it. As much as I love rock climbing, I’m not sure I can give you an easy answer.”

“Because you love it, you mean. Let me be more specific, then. How did you feel when you realized that a climbing rope had been used to string up Adrianos?”

“The way the Pope might feel if he saw someone spit on a crucifix.”

“Yes, I think the killers knew that you would feel that way.”

“No, that can’t be right. They had no idea I’d be given the case. In fact, I wasn’t the first detective there.”

“But you were called to the scene as soon as the identity of the victim was known. And there was certainly a great deal of publicity about the fact that you and your partner were after Adrianos when your witness and his family were killed, correct?”

“We weren’t the only ones after him.”

“Rock climbing FBI agents showed up, too?”

“What are you saying?”