diminish it by telling her any more than that.
We gathered ourselves for the trip to town. I’d be leaving fourteen boxes under Selena Harper’s roof for one more night.
“I don’t think we made much headway,” Amy said.
“We didn’t find Eleanor. Maybe we found you, though.”
She didn’t say anything. She gave me the key and I locked the house. She sank back in the car and closed her eyes, a picture of sudden weariness.
I told her what I had in mind as we drove. “I’m going to call a man who knows all there is to know about this stuff. If I’m right, he’ll want to fly up from Los Angeles and look at it.”
“It’s in your hands. I trust your judgment and I won’t go back on you, whatever you decide to do.”
I pointed out the motel where I’d made the stash. She gave it a polite look and we swung west with the night, into the freeway, into the driving rain.
39
The night was full of surprises. The first came when I called Leith Kenney from Amy’s room at the Hilton. She sat behind me, discreetly nursing her child while I punched in the call.
It rang three times in L.A. and a woman answered.
“Mr. Kenney, please.”
“I’m sorry, he’s not here.”
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“I really can’t say.” There was an awkward pause. “He’s gone in to a meeting tonight and it’ll probably run late. Then he’s going out of town.”
I blinked at the phone but recovered quickly. “I’m calling from Seattle.”
“That’s where he’s going. Is this Mr. Pruitt?”
I felt my heart trip. I looked at Amy in the mirror, but she was busy changing breasts and didn’t notice anything.
“Yes,” I said, thinking on my feet. “Yes, it is.”
“Has there been a change of plan? This is Mrs. Kenney. Lee will be calling me when he gets there. I could give him a message.”
“I don’t know…I might have to change things.”
There was a brief silence. It would really help, I thought, if I had the slightest idea what the hell I was talking about.
“Well,” she said, “would you like to leave a message with me?”
“I’ll catch him here. Is he staying at the same hotel?”
“Yes, the Four Seasons. They should get in early tomorrow morning.”
“Is Scofield coming with him?”
“I don’t think you could keep him away, Mr. Pruitt.”
“I’ll see them then. Thanks.”
I hung up and stared at the floor. Pruitt stared back at me.
Amy was looking at me in the glass.
“Something wrong?”
“No,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”
She went across the room and put her children down. I headed for the door and got the second surprise of the night.
“I remembered something today,” she said. “I thought of the man who came and looked in the attic just after Mamma died. His name popped right into my head. I knew I’d forget it again, so I wrote it down.”
She fished in her jeans and came up with a paper. “His name was Otto.”
Again I walked through that cluttered bookstore. I held a bag of Ayn Rand and wondered why the man wasn’t there. I looked up a dark stairwell leading to…what?
“Otto Murdock.”
