stand-up alibi; she would lie for him just as readily as she drank and slept with him. But I’d have a talk with him just the same. Maybe, if I handled him right, I could rattle his cage enough to make him incriminate himself.
I called Dependable Glass Service. Doyle was out on a job, due back this time before noon and not scheduled to go out again until after the lunch hour. Okay. It was a little after ten now. That gave me time to swing by the agency.
Tamara was busy when I got there, simultaneously talking on the phone and thumping on her computer keyboard. I waited until she finished with the call before I went into her office.
“Got something for you to do when you have time,” I said.
She said, “Doesn’t everybody,” but she didn’t sound grouchy today. Tired and a little distracted but in a reasonably good mood.
“Run a check for me. Whitney Middle School’s enrollment. See if you can find out who belongs to the initials Z.U. ”
“What case is that for?”
“No case. Personal.”
She made a note of what I’d asked for. Then, “Whitney Middle School? Isn’t that the one Emily goes to?”
“Yes.”
“Something to do with her?”
“I’d rather not discuss it right now. Any more than you want to discuss what’s been bothering you lately.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “How important?”
“Pretty important. But you don’t have to drop everything else to do it. Sometime today.”
“No problem. If I come up with a name for Z.U., you want a full package on whoever it is?”
“As much as you can get. Address, parentage, school record, ever in trouble of any kind.”
She nodded and went back to tapping on the keyboard. The printer on her workstation thumped and began to ratchet a printout.
Dismissed.
Charley Doyle was not happy to see me. He was sitting in his pickup in Dependable’s side yard, eating a sandwich that had both mayonnaise and mustard in it; I knew that because of the yellow-white smear on one side of his mouth. He scowled at me through the open driver’s window.
“You again,” he said.
“Me again.”
“Now what you want? I told you last time-”
“There was another incident at your aunt’s last night.”
“Incident? What the hell you mean, incident?”
“Another home invasion. Intruder at three a.m. dressed up in a sheet and making noises like a ghost.”
“… You kidding me?”
“Do I sound like I’m kidding?”
“She okay? Auntie?”
“Fine. She scared him off.”
“Scared him? How?”
“She’s a tough old lady. She doesn’t really believe in ghosts.” Doyle grunted, looked at his sandwich, took another bite out of it; the bite and the way he chewed indicated he was angry, whether at me, his aunt, or the home invasion I couldn’t tell.
“Where were you last night, Mr. Doyle?”
“Me? Christ, you think I’m the guy? Bust into my aunt’s place dressed up in a fuckin’ sheet?”
“I asked you a question, that’s all.”
“Yeah, sure. Well, it wasn’t me. I was with my woman all night, at her place.”
“Melanie.”
“Yeah, Melanie. All night. Ask her, you don’t believe me.”
“Maybe I’ll do that.”
“Goddamn snoop,” he said. “Coming around where I work, accusing me. If you wasn’t an old man, I’d push your face in.”
“Welcome to try anyway. Assault is a bigger crime than malicious mischief.”
“Fuck your mischief,” he said cleverly. He dumped the rest of his sandwich into a paper sack on the seat beside him. “Now I lost my appetite.”
“That’s too bad. I’ll bet your aunt lost hers, too.”
Doyle opened the truck’s door and climbed out. I backed up a step to give him room-just the one step, so he wouldn’t get the idea I was retreating from him. But he had no intention of following up on his threat to push my face in. He stood flat-footed, glaring at me out of his little piggish eyes.
“Listen,” he said. “I told you before, I didn’t have nothing to do with what’s been going on at her place, that ghost crap and the rest.”
“That’s right,” I said. “You did mention ghosts the other day, didn’t you.”
“Huh?”
“ ‘Her dead-husband’s friggin’ ghost,’ I think you said. How’d you know?”
“Huh?”
“That your aunt had a fanciful notion about Carl visiting her from the Other Side.”
“… What the hell you talkin’ about?”
“The notion only came to her three days ago. You said you hadn’t seen or talked to her for some time before that. So how’d you know about it?”
“I, uh…” Doyle’s blocky face had developed a burgundy flush. “Wasn’t just two days ago she started in about ghosts. She said it to me the last time I seen her.”
“Did she? I’ll ask her about that.”
“You don’t ask her nothing. Stay away from her.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I don’t have to tell you nothing, you hear? I don’t have to talk to you no more at all.”
“Not to me, maybe. How about the police?”
The piggish eyes narrowed. He made a fist and waved it in my direction, not too close. I knew what was coming next. When guys like him are stuck for answers or caught out on something or other, they quit what passes for thinking and go straight to belligerent anger.
“I had enough of your bullshit,” he said. “You leave me alone from now on, man. Don’t come around bugging me no more. You do and I’ll bust you up good, old bastard or not.”
I showed him my wolf’s smile, to see if it would have any effect on him. The madder they get, the more likely they are to let something slip. Not Doyle, though. He fixed me with a black look and then stalked past me, not quite touching me on the way, and disappeared inside Dependable Glass’s warehouse.
I went and sat in my car, with my hands resting on the wheel. And then I just sat, staring, while things happened inside my head-plunk, plunk, plunk, like pinballs dropping into holes and slots.
Well, hell, I thought.
Getting old, all right. And real slow on the uptake.
14
TAMARA
She’d been in better spirits come morning. The feelings of loneliness and isolation were night creatures that crawled away in the daylight and left her focused again on Lucas and Alisha.
The first thing she’d done was drive over to the Western Addition. Scouting mission this time. Figure Lucas
