'He paid cash.'
He shook his head. 'Not when he checked in. He gave them a credit card and they ran a slip. Then
when he checked out he gave them cash. Apparently that's common. The card simplifies checking in, but you've got reasons for settling up in cash. Maybe the card's maxed out, or maybe you don't want the bill showing up at your house because you don't want your wife to know you were over at the Hilton humping your secretary.'
'And when you pay in cash—'
'They tear up the slip they took an imprint on. So nobody ever knows if the card's a phony, because they don't run it by the credit card company until you check out.'
'So we know he had a credit card,' I said, 'whether or not it was a good one. And he had a piece of photo ID in the same name.'
'Did I miss something? How do we know that?'
'He had to show it to get on the plane.'
'If he had the credit card for backup,' he said, 'the other could be any damn thing long as it had his picture on it. One of those pieces of shit they print for you on Forty-second Street, says you're a student at the School of Hard Knox.'
'Like I said,' TJ murmured.
'Tell me about this guy,' Joe said. 'Since you got my attention.
How'd you get on to him?'
'From the airline records.'
'New York to Omaha?'
'Philadelphia to Omaha.'
'Where did Philadelphia come from?'
'I think the Quakers settled it.'
'I mean—'
'It's too complicated to go into,' I said, 'but I was looking for someone who flew Philly to Omaha and back again. He fit the time frame.'
'You mean he went out before Berry got killed and came back afterward.'
'It was a little tighter fit than that.'
'Uh-huh. Who is he, you want to tell me that?'
'Just a name,' I said. 'And a face, if he showed photo ID, but I haven't seen the face.'
'He's just a man in a suit, like the girl at the hotel remembered.'
'Right.'
'Help me out here, Matt. What have you got that I should be passing on to somebody?'
'I haven't got anything.'
'If Will's out there running around, looking for fresh names for his list—'
'Will's retired,' I said.
'Oh, right. We got his word for that, don't we?'
'And nobody's heard a peep out of him since.'
'Which makes the department look pretty stupid, wasting manpower and resources chasing a perpetrator who no longer represents a danger to the community. How's this your business, anyway?
Who's your client?'
'That's confidential.'
'Oh, come on. Don't give me that shit.'
'As a matter of fact, it's privileged. I'm working for an attorney.'
'Jesus, I'm impressed. Wait a minute, it comes back to me. Weren't you working for the last vic?
Whitfield?'
'That's right. I wasn't doing much, I advised him on security and steered him to Wally Donn at Reliable.'
'Which did him a whole lot of good.'
'I think they did what they could.'
'I suppose so.'
'Whitfield hired me as an investigator,' I said. 'Not that there was much for me to investigate.'
'And you're still at it? That's the attorney you're working for?
What are you, billing the estate?'
'He paid me a retainer.'
