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22
Fiona returned from her di
Angel rubbed warmly against her calf. Fiona reached down and cradled her in her lap and wondered if Angel and Beatrice would get along and whether or not it would ever come to that.
The man on the other end of the call spoke in a heavily accented Indian English that she found hard to understand. She repeated herself often, briefly losing track of her purpose, and finally determined that the company distinguished a missing vehicle from a stolen vehicle, and only offered their service for stolen vehicles.
The request to trace a stolen vehicle had to come from a police department. She was advised to report the vehicle as stolen and to tell the police department to make the request with their company as soon as possible. Vehicles reported within the first three hours of theft were statistically proven to suffer the least amount of damage and vandalism.
She hung up. Tried Kira’s cell phone for the umpteenth time in the past two days and listened as it went directly to voice mail, disco
She considered calling Kira’s parents, but knew of the strained relationship there and didn’t want to get the girl in trouble over nothing. But was it nothing? Was it a coincidence that Kira had been missing since Fiona had awakened from her comatose nightmare? Had she not tripped? Had Kira pushed her? Had Kira panicked and fled without calling an ambulance? What kind of argument could have preceded such an act? And why had Katherine said that the apology revealed by her hypnotism had come from a man and not a woman, if Kira had been the one apologizing? And why would Kira possibly have to apologize?
They both avoided driving the Engletons’ vehicles because of insurance coverage. Fiona had a hard time believing Kira would take one of the cars; if she had, then it spoke volumes about Kira’s mindset at the time. Finding the truck was more important than ever.
She felt a twinge of guilt. Why had she intentionally avoided telling Walt the missing vehicle was a pickup truck?
She locked the door to the cottage, grabbed up her camera and reco
Walt had made it clear a pickup truck had left the tire impressions at the crime scene.
The missing pickup truck? she wondered.
She double-clicked the first of the four images and it opened in its own window. She leaned in to take a closer look.
23
“No photo to go with it,” Deputy David Blompier reported from the other side of Walt’s desk. He was balding, with an amiable face and bulging belly. He was under a second caution to begin a workout regimen and Walt feared he’d soon have to be suspended for failing to act upon the warning.
Walt was looking at a printout of Martel Gale’s bank account transaction report, forwarded through by e-mail, from Purchase Bank in Mobile, Louisiana.
“Gale used his ATM card a day after he died,” Walt noted.
“Withdrew the full four-hundred-dollar limit. Then again, the next business day: another four hundred.”
“And no photo.”
“Sawtooth National has stickers on their ATMs saying there are cameras in use, but there aren’t any. Remember? It came up last year in-”
“-that poacher case. Chasing that guy down. Yeah, I remember,” Walt said.
“His killer?” Blompier asked.
“We’re a long way from making that jump,” Walt said. “But it’s certainly possible. It’s good work, David.”
“Thanks. All I did was-”
“Get hold of the bank and find out if there’s a way to real-time monitor their ATM use. You looking for any OT pay?”
“Absolutely.”
“Let me know what the bank says.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And David?” Walt caught him at the door. Blompier turned in profile-a sight to behold.
“Yeah?”
“Hit the gym, and lay off the doughnuts. Last warning. You have to pass the course on the third try or it’s an automatic suspension.”
“Yes, sir.”
“My hands are tied on this.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We need you. You understand?”
“Got it.”
Walt fingered the page, wondering if the body had been found and robbed, or Gale’s wallet had been taken by his killer. His phone rang as if in response. Dr. Royal McClure, an M.D. who served as his medical examiner, informed him the results of the autopsy were in.
Walt called Boldt’s cell and reached him on Main Street, where he’d been window shopping. He picked him up and they drove north together.
“I’m glad you stayed,” Walt said, from behind the wheel of the Jeep.
“My wife gave me a reprieve. I figured I’m already here, why not tack on a long weekend. Don’t get this chance every day. I haven’t been over here in years, probably won’t be back anytime soon.”
Walt knew the truth-Boldt suspected Gale’s death tied into Vetta’s and knew that once he left the area, obtaining information would be increasingly difficult. He’d been anxiously awaiting the results of Gale’s autopsy and blood tox results.
Neither man mentioned or discussed any of this, and Walt wondered why not, but at the same time felt hesitant to broach the subject himself. The events of the past week had made him increasingly aware of, and sensitive to, the existence of secrets big and small and the role they played in his and other people’s lives. In some ways everyone was acting out a role, keeping a face on a much more complicated identity: health issues, relationships, fantasies, fears, phobias-so often held in check just below the surface, and the person living the lie, mole-whacking to keep the truths from surfacing at inopportune moments.
Walt parked in front of the medical building adjacent to the hospital and they entered.
Dr. Royal McClure’s age was deceptive. The white hair and liver spots suggested sixty, but he was fit and bright-eyed. He had an excitable ma
They were spared the body-on-a-gurney routine. McClure only brought out the body if Walt asked-which he rarely did-knowing Walt preferred an office visit to the hospital’s morgue.
“In the preliminary,” McClure began after introductions had been made, “I told you about the blunt trauma to the parietal and occipital plates of the skull.” He reached back and touched the back of his own head. “And my suspicions were borne out: that was indeed the cause of death. The guy was struck hard. It’s a clean blow. Something smooth. No bark or detritus in the hair or scalp. A single blow.
“There’s nothing much more to give you. Clean tox. No drugs or alcohol, tobacco, pot, nothing. Guy was a churchgoer, as far as I can tell. What I do have is speculative, or at least inconclusive, but nonetheless interesting, at least to me, which is why I thought you might want to hear it face-to-face.”
“Absolutely,” Walt said.
He placed down a stack of Fiona’s photographs. “Shots of the head injury and identifiers, including several tattoos. And, from the clothing,” he said, removing a plastic bag from a file box and laying it on his desk, “soil caught in the back pockets of both pant legs and both shoes. And not just soil, but clean soil. Clean soil and peat moss, would be my guess, though you may want the lab to run an analysis to nail that down more accurately. But my point is, it’s not your average dust bowl variety soil we typically see around here. Right? It’s more like garden variety.”