hung up. 'Damn it,' he said. 'I'm getting the runaround from Bascott. Naomi, arrange for the county plane to fly me up to Daisyland at eight o'clock day after tomorrow.'
'Done.'
At six o'clock that night, Stenner appeared, as he always did, at Vail's office door.
'Ready to wrap it up?'
'Yeah,' Vail said wearily. But before he could get up, the phone rang. It was Paul Rainey.
'I can't put my finger on Jim Darby,' he said.
'What do you mean, you can't put your finger on him?'
'I was tied up in court all afternoon on a sentencing. Didn't have time to call until an hour or so ago. He's probably out with his pals. Give me until tomorrow morning, I'll have him there.'
Vail hesitated for a few moments.
'I'm sure I can locate him, Marty, I've just been snowed under.'
'Okay, Paul. Nine A.M. If he's not here by then, I'll have the sheriff issue a fugitive warrant on him.'
'That's not necessary.'
'Paul, I'm trying to be fair. He could be on his way to Rio for all I know.'
'Hell, he doesn't know there's a warrant out on him. He's out raising hell somewhere. I'll have him there in the morning.'
'You accepted service, he's your responsibility. Have you thought any more about our conversation at lunch?'
'I haven't even talked to him yet,' Rainey said, but there was a note of urgency in his voice.
'See you in the morning,' Vail said before he cradled the phone. He looked up at Stenner. 'We have a murder-one warrant out against James Darby and Rainey sounds a little panicky. If he doesn't deliver Darby by nine A.M., I want you to take two of your best men and a man from the sheriff's department, find Darby, and bring him in.' Stenner nodded, but he looked pensive. 'What's bothering you?' Vail asked.
'Poppy Palmer,' Stenner said. 'What about her?'
'I was just thinking, maybe she panicked. Maybe…' He let the sentence hang ominously in the air. 'You have a morbid imagination, Abel.'
'I've been a cop for almost twenty-five years,' Stenner said. 'It comes with the territory.'
'What do you want to do?'
'Go out there and put some heat on, see if we can get a line on her. Darby's facing murder one and she's a key witness.'
'How about your depositions tomorrow?'
'I'll work around them.'
Vail thought for a moment and nodded. 'Okay,' he said. 'She's all yours. Go find them both.'
The St Louis Homicide Division was almost devoid of people when Flaherty arrived at the downtown office, a stuffy room jammed with desks, telephones, file cabinets, and computers. Only two detectives were in the room: Oscar Gilanti, captain of the division, who was heading the investigation, and Sgt. Ed Nicholson, an old-timer who had the dignified demeanour and conservative look of an FBI agent.
The two detectives were more pleasant than Flaherty had expected. The captain was a short box of a man, bald except for a fringe of jet-black hair that curled around his ears. He had deep circles under his eyes, his cheeks were dark with the shadows of a two-day beard, and his suit looked like he had slept in it, which he probably had. His deep voice was raspy from lack of sleep.
'I gotta get back out to the scene,' he growled to Flaherty. I'm giving you Sergeant Nicholson here fer the day. Knows as much as anybody else about this mess. What was yer name again?'
'Dermott Flaherty.'
'Okay, Dermott, you wanna go anywhere, see anything, Nick'll drive yuh. I pulled a package for yuh - pictures, preliminary reports, all that shit. Autopsy won't be up probably till tomorra. We can fax it to yuh, yuh need it.'
'I can't thank you enough, Captain.'
'Hell, you know anything, we'd appreciate it. We can use all the help we can get on this one. Fuckin' nightmare.'
'I can imagine.'
'I'll be out at the scene, Nick. If Dermott here wants to come out, bring him along.'
