there? That question was right up there with
But there were far fewer A-list hotels in midtown Manhattan. And, no matter what time of day she called, there’d be somebody there to answer the phone.
She went back to the Internet cafe and pulled all the midtown four-star hotels from the hotels.com site, then found a quiet bench in Lincoln Park and worked her way down the list from the top.
The people she talked to were remarkably cooperative. Maybe it was the wholly frivolous nature of her request; she had the feeling they’d have made less of an effort if she’d claimed an urgent business reason to establish contact with Graham Weider, but how could they resist something as pointless as a high school reunion?
And perhaps it was their positive attitude that sustained her when the first ten hotels were unable to find Graham Weider in their records.
Her eleventh call was to the Sofitel on West 44th, and this time the lightbulb blazed like the sun.
It took her an hour to pack and check out of her hotel, and most of another hour to get through traffic to O’Hare. She ate a Caesar salad and drank a bottle of iced green tea while she waited for her flight to Seattle, which was just as well, because all they gave her on the plane was a cup of truly bad coffee and a tiny packet of trail mix.
It was early evening when they landed at Sea-Tac. She picked up her suitcase at Baggage Claim and caught a cab to the Heathman Hotel in Kirkland, right across from the library and a block from Peter Kirk Park.
She’d booked a room earlier, and it was ready for her. It was spacious and tastefully appointed, and you could see the park from her window. She’d stayed at the Heathman in Portland once, so she wasn’t surprised at how nice it was, but her enjoyment was tempered somewhat by the knowledge that she couldn’t afford a long stay. Even a single night was a questionable luxury, and you could say the same for the cab ride from the airport. There was almost certainly a bus that would have made the trip for thirty dollars less, not even counting the tip, and it wasn’t as though it hadn’t occurred to her. But she’d been worn out from the travel and keyed up at the prospect of finally finding Graham Weider, and she couldn’t be bothered by the need to watch the pennies.
But she’d have to start doing just that.
She’d had a lot of expenses lately and zero income. She usually paid cash for everything, wanting to avoid a paper trail, and that included airline tickets and hotels. She’d had what seemed like plenty of cash when she left Denver, but it was going fast, and she’d missed an opportunity in Phoenix. Stenchful Steve was the sort of man who’d keep a lot of cash on his person, and she’d never even checked his pants for a wallet. That was a mistake, and so was her failure to clean out the cash register. Between the two, she’d left hundreds of dollars behind, maybe even thousands.
A hell of a price to pay, just because she’d felt in urgent need of a shower.
“Graham Weider, Graham Weider, Graham Weider,” said Bob, the cheerful fellow at Sofitel New York. “Now he was a regular a few years ago, wasn’t he? And then he stopped coming. I hope we didn’t do anything to alienate his affections.”
“I understand he was based in Chicago then,” she ventured.
“Let’s just see. Willoughby & Kessel, State Street, in the heart of the Windy City. So-called not because of the wind from the lake but the legendary verbosity of its politicians. But you’d know that, wouldn’t you? Oak Park High and all that.”
She actually hadn’t known that, nor did she know if there really was an Oak Park High.
“Oh, lookie here! If he got ticked off at us, he must have gotten over it, because here he is just four months ago for three days, and again for three days the following month. But he’s no longer with Willoughby & Kessel.”
“I hope he didn’t do anything to alienate
“If so, the aftershocks sent him clear out of Chicago. His current employer is Barling Industries, whoever they may be, in Kirkland, Washington.”
Barling Industries, whoever they might be, housed their operations in a concrete-block cube set in an industrial park on the eastern edge of Kirkland. And Graham Weider, whoever
She sat in the park with a PennySaver and checked the rental classifieds against a street map. Some of the more promising listings were a ways to the south, near Northwest University, but she found a woman with a room to rent within walking distance of both Barling Industries and Graham Weider’s residence. She called and made an appointment to come see the room, then studied the map and figured out how to get there by bus. It was complicated, but she didn’t feel like springing for another cab.
The house, she discovered, was very much like the one Weider inhabited, a compact ranch with a brick facade and white clapboard siding. Weider’s had black trim and shutters, while this house was trimmed in forest green. And the shrubbery here had had more time to establish itself.
Rita Perrin, whose house it was, appeared at first glance to be as safely suburban as her house. If you looked a second time, something in her eyes suggested there might be a little more to her than that. She was a few years older than her prospective tenant, and a little fuller in the breasts and hips. She was alone now, she explained, and the house was really too big for one person. There were three bedrooms, but she thought two housemates would be too much, and besides she could use the smallest bedroom as a home office, and had in fact set it up that way.
The second bedroom was clean and airy, and looked out on the garden. A month’s rent, with kitchen and living room privileges, would cost her a few dollars less than a two-night stay at the Heathman. “And the garage will hold a second car,” Rita said, “as soon as we move some of my stuff out of the way.”
She explained that she didn’t have a car, and didn’t plan to get one. She’d already established that she was in a doctoral program at the University of Washington, that she’d finished her course work and needed a quiet place to work on her thesis.
“And you didn’t have a car at the U? You’ll probably want one here.”
She’d grown up in New York City, she explained, and had never learned to drive.
“I was going to say you could borrow mine until you get one of your own, but if you never learned—”
It might be handy to borrow Rita’s car. She had a license, but it didn’t match the name she’d already given Rita. Easier to let it go.
“You know what you could do, Kim? There’s a bicycle in the garage. I never use it, I was planning on donating it to the next rummage sale. You’re welcome to the use of it. Uh, I’ve never actually been to New York. Do people there ride bikes?”
Indeed they do, she thought. The wrong way on one-way streets, and on sidewalks, and sailing through red lights. “I can’t remember the last time I was on a bike,” she told Rita. “But I guess it’s not something you forget how to do.”
“Oh, that’s what they say,” Rita assured her. “Like swimming, isn’t that what they say?”
Or drowning, she thought.
A little after five she told Rita she was going for a walk to clear her head. She headed for Graham Weider’s house, and passed a supermarket about halfway to her destination. Good — she would stop on her way home, so that she wouldn’t have to walk a mile every time she wanted something to eat.
She didn’t have any trouble finding her way, and got there by 5:30. If his workday was nine to five, and if he came straight home when he was done at the office, she would probably be on time to see him arrive. Unless he
