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"Lester's?" she asked.
"Les doesn't know where she got it. Come on into my office. I'll let you in on any details you haven't already found on Marya
"Thanks," A
Ruick muttered something that sounded like "skin of a rhinoceros," but, accustomed to the idiosyncrasies of the brass, she politely pretended not to notice.
As it happened, there was no more to tell than she'd discovered through her snooping. No leads on to whom the jacket belonged or why Carolyn was wearing it. Les told Harry that his wife had a habit of appropriating anything belonging to nearby males for her own use and thinking nothing of it. Had she been cold when she'd left that night, she might have snagged some camper's coat off a tree or rock.
"Les was careful to point out that his wife would never steal," Harry said. "That she just 'borrowed without permission.' "
"If the jacket's owner hiked on, we'll never know whose it was. Shoot, he might not even be a hundred percent sure where he lost it," A
"Follow it up," Ruick ordered.
"Sure." Mentally A
Army jacket dispensed with, she settled into the task of telling Ruick of her interview with Rory concerning the spousal abuse. She'd not taped it because she'd been afraid of inhibiting the boy's narrative on such a sensitive issue. She taped her recounting of it now while it was fresh in her mind.
When she'd finished, Ruick didn't say anything. Rocking himself absently in his chair he stared into the parking lot. Lunch was over. Cars were coming in. Even in a national park on a beautiful summer's day most folks drove the half-mile to work. No wonder America was the fattest nation on earth.
"The marks on his arms and legs. Bruises, cuts in various stages of healing. I'd have spotted it on a kid in a second," he said finally.
A
"I've heard of course of wives beating their husbands,"
Ruick said. "I've just never come across it before." Neither had A
"It doesn't make sense," Ruick said. "Les is no Tarzan. I mean he is- was-what? Eighteen years older than his wife?"
"Eighteen," A
"And in bad shape. Still he outweighed her by a good thirty pounds and is six or eight inches taller. What did he have to be afraid of if he fought back?"
"Being abandoned," A
"Give me abandonment any day of the week," Harry said.
A
"Are you married?" she asked apropos of nothing but her thoughts.
"Twenty-seven years. I played it safe. Eilene is a little bit of a thing who wouldn't hurt a fly. What do you say you and me go have another chat with Lester?"
Chapter 13
Lester was doing what depressed and grieving people traditionally do: everything wrong. The curtains of his second-floor motel room were drawn. The room was overwarm and stuffy. He'd not showered or shaved or dressed. In a plaid fla
When he opened the door to Harry Ruick's knock A
Eyes watering at the sudden exposure to light-or reality-he said absurdly, "May I help you?"
"We'd like to talk with you for aminute," Harry said. He pulled off his straw summer Stetson and held it in front of him like a steering wheel. A
She left it on. Beneath its polyester squeeze her hair probably looked as bad as Lester's.
Mr. Van Slyke was baffled for a moment. Then his face cleared somewhat and he said, "Of course. Won't you please come in? Please excuse the mess. I…"
The brittle safety of polite platitudes fell away and his words dried up. Sidling by ahead of Harry, A
Even without Carolyn's ghost, the room would have been enough to depress A
Out of deference to rank, A
A
"Mr. Van Slyke-" Harry began.
"Lester, Les," the old man begged, and the humility on his face made A
"Les," Harry amended. "We-or rather A
Lester tweaked at his bathrobe, arranging it demurely over his knees. As soon as he let go it fell away again. He left it alone. After enough time had passed that A