I squeaked over to the window and caught a fine view of morning rush hour above the trestles of the interstate. 'Is this what you guys do all day? Wait for me to make a fool of myself?'
'Doesn't take all day,' Nick Fox answered.
Rodriguez giggled. 'Hey, Jake, what's the difference between a porcupine and two lawyers in a Porsche?'
I didn't say a word.
'On a porcupine the pricks are on the outside.'
'Ole Jakie doesn't have a Porsche,' Fox said. 'Drives a rusted relic of his youth that-'
'Has six hundred miles more on the odometer today than yesterday,' I said. 'Alex, your pal Tom Carruthers doesn't believe in sleeping bags. Likes to sleep in trees and hump white-tailed deer.'
'Told you he was a hard case,' Rodriguez said.
'He's a bit off center, but I don't think he's a serial killer. The professor is a boozer with a vivid imagination, but I don't see him strangling young women, either.'
Nick Fox's laugh was laced with derision. 'Christ, is that how you investigate? Talk to the suspects, decide if they seem like murderers.'
'Thanks for the critique, but you were supposed to stay out of the Marsha Diamond case,' I said.
'And the Rosedahl case is out of your jurisdiction.'
'But if they're related, we gotta work together, Nick.'
Fox shook his head. 'Jakie, you're jumping to conclusions. You've lost your feel for this side of the tracks, been downtown too long with the fancy divorces-'
'Hey,' Rodriguez interrupted, 'I was downtown getting a warrant from Judge Simons the other day-this is the truth-and I'm waiting for this divorce case to finish. The judge turns to the husband and says, 'I'm giving your wife eight hundred dollars a month in alimony.' So the guy looks up at the judge and says, 'Great, Your Honor, I'll chip in a hundred bucks myself.''
'Shut up, Rod,' Fox commanded. 'Listen, Lassiter, the grand jury doesn't give a shit how you feel about these assholes. How about collecting some evidence?'
'What do you suggest, Nick, planting one of your men in the woods disguised as a tree? We don't have enough to get a search warrant or a wiretap. So far as I can tell, it's no crime to talk sexy to a willing woman. That's all we've got on Daniel Boone and the professor.'
Rodriguez was fondling his. 38, lovingly loading and unloading it. 'What about Harry Hardwick?' he asked.
'Aka Henry Travers. I'm going to see him tonight, after I find out if I still have a job downtown.'
Fox drained his coffee cup, tore his napkin loose, and tossed it on the desk. 'I don't like your approach. You oughta let Rodriguez's boys do the spadework. A couple of experienced cops to Mutt-and-Jeff these guys. If one's a loony, maybe he'll crack. Some of the nut cases love to confess. You don't believe me, hire one of those psychiatric experts to consult with. Shit, the state's got lots of money for shrink time. I can recommend someone who'll-'
'That's okay,' I said. 'I've got someone in mind.'
I used Fox's executive bathroom to shave and wash my face. When I came out, Rodriguez was gone, headed to the firing range, and Fox was dictating the agenda for his staff meeting. I decided the hell with it, just blurt it out. 'Marsha ever ask you about Vietnam?'
'What?'
'Vietnam. Your experiences. The Silver Star, all of that.'
He dropped the Dictaphone and studied me. 'What's that got to do…?' He stopped, not liking where he was going. 'I already told you about 'Nam. That's all I'm going to-'
'But she asked, didn't she? About you and Evan Ferguson.'
He turned in his chair and looked toward the plaques on the wall. But he didn't see them, his eyes blank with the thousand-yard stare of a thousand wars.
'Sure, she asked me some things.'
'Why do you suppose…?'
'You know reporters. A million questions.'
'But why Ferguson?'
'Prissy probably mentioned him. They always talked about me, comparing notes, I suppose. There's a picture of us-Ferguson and me-in the house. Marsha must have asked about it. What's the big deal?'
'I saw the picture.'
He swiveled toward me, glaring. 'You were in my house?'
'Yeah.'
'What the hell for?'
'It's my job. Interview persons who might have evidence.'
'You talked to Prissy?'
'Sure.'
'You think I killed Marsha, you crazy bastard?'
'No. As far as I can tell, you had no motive.'
He nodded. His face softened just a bit.
'Of course Priscilla might have,' I added judiciously.
A fist crashed on the desk, and a file slid to the floor. 'Fuck you! And the horse you rode in on! There's a couple of nuts running around out there and you think my wife killed the babe she fixed me up with.'
'Just raising possibilities,' I countered. 'Charlie Riggs taught me the method.'
'Then you're both getting senile!'
'Two women-your wife and your girlfriend-were fascinated by you,' I said calmly. 'And from what I know, Marsha was preoccupied with Vietnam and Lieutenant Ferguson.'
'How do you know that?'
'Privileged information. Work product. Top secret and for my eyes only. But if you'd open up a little, maybe you could convince me it's a dead end.'
Nick Fox was quiet a moment and then blurted it out. 'He was the best friend I ever had, the finest man I ever knew. He died in my arms.'
I stayed quiet. In the corridor I heard the faint sound of laughter. Nick Fox didn't hear it. He was on another continent in another time.
'It was January 1968, a month before Tet. Like I told you before, my platoon got pinned down in a village, Dak Sut. Evan called it Duck Soup. No air support, so Evan's platoon hauled ass to bail us out. Two men, Gallardi and Boyer, dogwood six, killed in the firefight. Four more dogwood eight, wounded. Evan brought his men in like the U.S. Cavalry and Charley beat it. But they grabbed our translator, a Vietnamese girl named Phuong. We licked our wounds, evacuated the dead and wounded by slick-helicopter-and took off after Chuck and the girl.
'We'd been in the field four days. The men were tired. At least three looked like they had malaria. Two others were popping some pills that had 'em wired. We're tramping through rice paddies, staying on top of the dikes, trying to keep dry and keep moving at a decent pace. Evan's platoon on one dike, ours on another about two thousand meters away, moving parallel to each other, watching the horizon. No sign of Chuck.
'Except for a couple of water buffalo, we're the only things moving. A bunch of boys from the south and Midwest, carrying M-16s, playing soldiers, feet bleeding into their boots, diarrhea staining their pants. Just sticking out against the sky.'
He stopped, his face drained of color. He gave no sign of continuing.
'Sniper?' I asked.
'Creature from the Black Lagoon. Came up out of the mud alongside Evan's platoon. Covered with glop, he goes for the officer first. Suicide mission. Evan takes I don't know how many rounds. He's all chopped up. The medic's right next to him. He gets it in the throat before Evan's men get off a round. The RTO's dead, too. I slide down the dike and wade through the water. It's like slow motion. Running through the muck. I fall flat on my face a couple times. Evan's still alive, still conscious when I get there, but I knew he wouldn't make it. Half a dozen sucking chest wounds. He died in my arms.'
Fox turned back to me. His look said the history lesson was over.
