'Aren't you gonna take it?'
'It's just him telling me to contact the IOs at Justice. The minute I do that we're gonna both get turned into info humpers for the FBI. Turn yours off, too. Let's be out of cell range for a while.' She reached into her purse and switched off her cell.
The waiter came over and handed us menus. 'Something for lunch?' he asked.
'Sorry, we're going to have to leave. Something just came up,' I told him.
While we were waiting outside for our cars Jo touched my arm, and I turned to face her.
'I hate to tell you this, Hoss, but you were right. If we hadn't been reworking Smiley's background we would have completely missed this. Feels important, like it might lead somewhere.'
'But let's not get carried away. So far, all we have are questions and we only have a few hours to get the answers before we're yanked in a another direction.'
'Maybe you should learn to take a fucking compliment yourself,' she grinned. Then she did a strange thing-she reached out and took my hand. 'Don't get the wrong idea here, Scully, this is purely professional, but as partners go, you ain't half bad.'
Our cars arrived. She had managed to get the green Suburban back from Vice. She got in and, without looking back, roared off toward Huntington Hospital. A few minutes later I was in the Acura on my way to see what Midge Kimble had to offer.
My nose was definitely twitching. Or, as Jigsaw John might have said, 'We got our first whiff of something good here, boy.'
Chapter 36
Royal oaks manor turned out to be an upscale assisted-living facility. As I pulled up the drive I saw a large expanse of rolling lawns and neo-Spanish Colonial buildings. This wasn't your standard linoleum floor and vinyl couch old folks home. There were attractive, tile-roofed buildings separated by expensive floral landscaping. The residences all had their own two-car garages. There was a large medical facility off to the east side of the property, next to a tennis court and a large common patio. I pulled in and parked between a new red Mercedes and a black Lincoln Town Car, then walked up the manicured path to the main building. Inside the spacious contemporary lobby I found a house phone, dialed zero, and asked for Midge Kimble. A minute later I heard the familiar shouted greeting from her answering machine.
I hung up and went to the front desk. An elderly man working over some papers glanced up at me.
'I'm looking for Midge Kimble,' I told him.
'Today is bridge day,' he said. 'She's out in the Culture Center Annex.'
'Where's that?'
'Through the main lobby, down the corridor. It's the pavillion on the right.'
I thanked him and made the trip. If you were stuck waiting for the Grim Reaper, this was certainly the place to do it. The windows offered views of beautiful trees and flowering bushes. Purple bougainvillea trellised off latticework set up in each of the small, landscaped areas. Outside the main sliding glass doors, Brown Jordan outdoor furniture sat on a large, pebbled, concrete patio, all of it washed clean, sparkling in the afternoon sunshine.
The Culture Center Annex was an art exhibit area off the main building. I walked into a high-ceilinged room filled with older, well-dressed men and women studiously playing bridge. There were at least ten card tables, all fully occupied, everybody bent forward, intent on their cards. For a room full of people, it was strangely quiet. I didn't quite know where to start. This place seemed so upscale, I couldn't just shout out Midge's name. Sensing my dilemma, a woman seated at the table nearest me reached out and touched my arm. I turned toward a pleasant octogenarian in a pink pillbox hat.
'You look lost,' she said sweetly.
'I'm looking for Midge Kimble.'
'In the blue dress over by the window.' She smiled, so I smiled back. 'Nice to have such fine young people come visit,' she said.
Right then I didn't feel very fine or young, but I thanked her and walked over to the table and waited until the foursome finished a hand and started throwing their cards into the center.
'Excuse me, are you Midge Kimble?' I asked the woman in the blue dress.
'I am.' Her voice was strong and didn't even resemble her shouted message on the answering machine. She was close to eighty, but there had been a time when she would have stopped traffic. The remnants of beauty still clung stubbornly to her strong, wrinkled face.
'I hate to interrupt your game, but I have a few questions.'
'In that case, you have excellent timing,' she said a bit too loudly.
'I do?'
'I'm the dummy.'
'I beg your pardon?'
'It's a bridge term,' she said, smiling. 'After the bid on the next hand I lay my cards down. Don't have to do anything after that. It's called being the dummy.'
'Oh-I never played bridge.'
I watched as the cards were dealt and a round of bidding started.
'Three spades,' one of the women said.
'Four hearts,' another answered.
'Four spades,' a third said. It went on like that for a while until finally Midge said:
'Trump.' Then she laid down her hand face up, rose, and accompanied me to an alcove in the adjoining room.
Midge Kimble was spry and athletic. She moved with authority and purpose. We sat down and she fixed a polite smile on her face, waiting for me to begin. She had inbred grace and refined social bearing.
'This is nice out here,' I started, apropos of absolutely nothing. I hate to admit this, but, sometimes when I'm in the presence of money or culture my normal self-confidence can suddenly desert me. Another curse visited on me by my childhood. I had a sudden revealing thought: Did I become a cop so Yd have social authority and could use my badge to gain emotional status, and to build a wall between me and my insecurities?
'My husband was a developer,' she was saying. 'He actually put up two of these buildings when we moved out here. The Kimble Rec Center across from B unit was his. You can see it on the right when you drive out.'
'So the school was just a hobby?' I said, putting the pieces together thinking, her husband had the gelt and she ran the country day school for kicks.
'Not a hobby-a treasured vocation,' she said, fixing me with a stern look.
My smile felt hot on my face. I immediately pulled out my badge and showed it to her.
'Oh my goodness,' she said. 'I knew I shouldn't have borrowed Lillian's jewelry and not returned it.'I'm sorry.''
She smiled. 'I'm just fooling, Sergeant. When you get to my state in life, you need to take your laughs where you can find them.' The same argument the humps in Devonshire had used.
But I liked her. Instantly I felt more at ease.
'This is about a young boy who I believe went to your school, named Vincent Smiley. It was around 'eighty- eight or 'eighty-nine. Do you remember him?'
'Yes.' Her expression softened slightly, or maybe it saddened. 'Vividly,' she added.
'I was wondering if you could tell me a little about him?'
'It was one of the strangest things that ever happened during all the years I ran that school.'
'Start at the beginning,' I said, and whipped out my trusty notebook, clicked down my pen, then poised over a fresh page, all business now. Sergeant Scully on the case.
'The Smiley children first came to school in the sixth grade. Paul and Susan.'
