Garden Court. Heads turned. Fortunately, only Boldt saw this.
The two women who sat with him did not see. Their eyes were filled with tears.
8
October second came and nearly went without Ben’s taking any notice of it. Had it not been for Emily, he might have failed to remember its significance. But when he arrived at Emily’s late on the afternoon of the third, she sent him by bus all the way up to Steven’s Broadway News on the corner of Olive and Broadway, where he used the money she gave him to buy copies of the
Back at her purple house, the two of them read headlines and lead paragraphs, back and forth, until Ben asked, “What exactly are we doing?”
“The military man,” she said. “Do you remember him? May thirteenth, 1968.”
“Who?”
“The bad hand.”
Ben remembered the hand.
She said, “He came back for his reading about a week later. You must have been in school. I told him that the stars looked good for a business deal on October second. He was real nervous about it, and I got the feeling his business wasn’t exactly legitimate.”
“So we’re looking for something he might have did.”
“Might have
“And you think we may find something in the papers, something about what he did?”
“If it was criminal, we might.”
“You think he’s a criminal!” Ben felt a pang of excitement in his chest. He didn’t know any criminals.
Turning a page she said, “He had something going on the second. I tested if it had anything to do with love and got nothing back from him. I tested money and got a definite reaction-lots of body language, discomfort. He’s selling something or buying something, and it wasn’t anything he wanted to talk about. If I identify it, and he walks back in here and I can tell him about it, I’ll have a customer for life. That’s the way it works, you know, Ben. You give people what they want, and they’re yours forever. He wants me to be able to see his past
Ben read more carefully. Each article that dealt with any kind of crime he read aloud. Together, they cut the articles out of the paper with scissors and put them in a pile. The papers were full of various crimes. Ben said, “Nothing much good.”
“No. Nothing very good.” She pushed the papers aside and looked at Ben and said, “Tell me what you remember about him, Ben.”
This was a test. She did this every now and then-made him exercise his memory skills. She claimed it would make him smarter. He reeled off all that he could recall about the beat-up pickup truck, the camper shell, the contents of the front seat. He told her how he had been tempted to get a look inside the camper through the skylight. He gave her a detailed description of what he had seen through the peephole: buzz-cut hair, pinpoint eyes, the fingers on his right hand.
“How old did he look?” she asked.
Ben knew exactly how to answer this. It took him a moment to subtract the numbers. “Twenty-eight,” he answered, using the birth date she had already supplied.
She reached over and rubbed the top of his head, messing his hair, which was Emily’s way of saying how much she cared about him.
She said, “He wore black military boots. He had a faint red stamp on the back of his left hand that read COPY-probably from a bar or nightclub. When he paid me, he pulled out his wallet. He carried a pass to the PX, a discount shopping center on the base, which means he’s either active or works there. His driver’s license was from Kansas; I couldn’t make out the town or city. He had a ticket to the Seahawks in with his money.”
“He wore a big silver buckle,” Ben remembered. “Like a rodeo guy.”
“Very good!” she exclaimed. “Yes. That caught my eye as well. And did you catch it when he turned to leave?”
“Something on his back? I don’t remember,” he answered.
“His belt,” she said. “It had a first name stamped into the leather. Nick.”
“The guy’s name is Nick?”
“Yes. He’s twenty-eight, a long way from home, working on one of the bases, a football fan, hits the bars at night, rode a horse at some point in his life, or had a relative who did. He’s got business dealings that worry him to the point he’s having his chart read. The deal is worth a lot more than sixty bucks, or he wouldn’t be willing to shell out that kind of money.”
“We know a lot about him,” Ben said, impressed.
“Yes, we do,” she answered. “But not what he’s up to.” She went through the small pile of articles they had clipped. “And I have a feeling that’s his biggest secret of all.”
9
When Liz voluntarily took the kids with her to the cabin for the weekend, Boldt knew he had trouble. Typically, she found the cabin too remote, too far from a doctor should the kids need one, and was bothered by being too far from the city and all its weekend treasures. Her more common complaint about the cabin was how cold it was, and in early October it was likely to deliver on that front. She had not called him at work, but instead had left him a note he couldn’t possibly receive until she and the kids were well on their way, the decision beyond discussion. That struck him as odd, completely unlike her-until he reached the part in the note where she suggested he “come up if you can get free.” Then he realized it was a test, a conspiracy, and it made all the sense in the world. He had a choice: his family or his job.
Liz knew that when he sank his teeth into something like this arson case there was no letting go. These cases only came around once every two years or so, but she resented them more than when he had six domestic battery investigations running simultaneously, taking him away from home fifteen hours a day. It was almost as if she were jealous of these larger investigations, as if it stole something personal from her when he dove in like this.
What really hurt was that he was going to fail the test. There was no way he could get up to the cabin for the weekend. Sunday night was going to be pins and needles on the home front. She would be angry, but with a smile pasted onto her face. He would feel guilty, but act casual and confident. He couldn’t wait.
On the plus side, he had the house to himself. It didn’t happen that often, and when it did he felt as if she had handed him the greatest gift of all. The thought bubbled up then that perhaps she had gone to the cabin in sacrifice, knowing perfectly well how he valued quiet time during a difficult investigation. This made him feel all the worse because his first thoughts had been so negative. He reread her note one more time, hoping to find clarity there, but to no avail. Marriage was many things; easy was not one of them.
He switched off the front porch light and put on an Oscar Peterson album. He sat down at the piano and played for the first time in several months, wondering why the great things in life were always the first to be sacrificed. He played roughly through the opening, reset the tone arm, and tried again.
After twenty minutes with Oscar, Boldt went through his investigation notes, reading every line carefully.
Boldt had good ears. A car pulled past his drive, slowed, and stopped. He went to the curtain and peered out: Daphne’s red sports car. She climbed out carrying her briefcase, not a good sign.
