an unusual level of caution, though.”
“But not unprecedented?”
“In my experience, ma’am, nothing is unprecedented.”
Jackie said, “So you aren’t certain if they are sleeping together?”
“I’m not trying to give you hope, Mrs. Moore, if that’s what you’re looking for. From where I sit this doesn’t look much different than most of my stakeouts. I happen to know that Joan Burton kept this trip secret from her coworkers, her friends, her parents. The list of things people keep secret from their friends and family – and especially their wives – is short and consistent.”
“She didn’t tell anyone? And you know this how?”
“The Lincoln tickets were bought with cash. As you know, Dr. Moore purchased an additional ticket on his credit card – a ticket that went unused – to Boston, where there is a pediatrics conference this week. That’s someone covering his tracks, I’d say. Deception.”
He took a loud slurp of his beverage and Jackie could hear it go all the way down in an audible gulp. “Your husband and Dr. Burton were up to something, Mrs. Moore. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, something means sex. I don’t know about your particular circumstances, but ordinarily the people who hire me already know their spouses are cheating. They want me to get evidence for a divorce proceeding. They want leverage in a custody battle. They want revenge. If that’s what you want, I’m afraid I haven’t found anything that couldn’t be explained away or refuted by a half-decent divorce attorney.
“If you’re looking for encouraging news, I’d say that East Jesus, Nebraska, is not a popular place for romantic getaways. Dr. Moore may or may not be sleeping with Joan Burton, but regardless, there’s something else going on. I’m sure there was something other than the old-fashioned mess-around that brought them to Brixton. What it is, I don’t know at this point.”
Jackie stood and began pacing the Persian carpet. “Maybe he’s preparing to leave me. Maybe he and Joan really are planning to move to – to East Jesus – because they’ll be too embarrassed to stick around here after everyone finds out what they’ve done to me.”
“I can’t say, Mrs. Moore.”
“There’s something else,” she said. “Something new. I don’t know if it’s related or not.” She told him about the strange sketch of a man she found on Davis’s computer and about the photos of the boy. What could they mean? Is it possible Davis has another child, a boy with another woman? When their daughter was taken from them, could Davis have started an entirely new family without her? In Nebraska?
“If you want me to pursue this further, Mrs. Moore, you can e-mail that stuff to me here at the hotel. I’ll try to check it out.”
“And if I do want to pursue this? What will it cost to find out what Davis was doing in Brixton?”
“I’m in Lincoln now. It’ll mean going back to Brixton. You have my rate. Expenses would be about the same. Figure the same as I quoted you before.” Jackie felt her willingness to pay being sized up over the phone. “Maybe a little more, depending on how easily the information turns up.”
For once, Jackie was grateful Davis had surrendered the household bills – and the joint checking account – to her. She could write a check from their joint account for five, ten, even fifteen thousand and he wouldn’t know.
“Do it,” she said. “Go do it.”
That night, after Davis returned from his trip and offered some sketchy details of the conference in Boston, Jackie did her best to keep contempt on her half of the bed. It had been months – years, to be honest – since Davis had touched her sincerely. They made love on occasion, but only selfishly, when it happened that both of them so needed another’s touch that the sex occurred like a spontaneous chemical reaction, perfunctorily, naturally, not always unpleasantly, but never as an expression of love, either. In the years since they’d been married, Jackie had never thought of sex as a physical need, but since AK had died, she began to see it differently, and their infrequent coupling gave the marriage a license that had allowed it to survive.
If Davis were sleeping with Joan, their fragile understanding would end.
And Jackie had already decided that it would never end with divorce.
– 32 -
Phil Canella knew that most people didn’t listen much or look much, and when they did look and listen, they didn’t pay attention, and even when they did pay attention, when they did see or hear something they shouldn’t, they never gave it a second thought. They never attached any significance to the man in the alley, the woman at the bar, the bump in the attic, the click on the phone, the murmur in the engine, the tap at the window, the car on the street, the sourness in the scotch.
As long as other people were unparanoid, Canella’s job was uncomplicated. He could tail them from a single car length, take their pictures without a telephoto lens, record conversations with conspicuous microphones, get spontaneous answers to pointed questions. On most days Canella could pick up the truth as easily as his childhood hero, Harold Baines, picked up the laces on a slow, hanging curveball.
At the Brixton Diner, Philly’s waitress still maintained the ghost of a pretty smile but her hair and hips and the years since high school had beaten away the beautiful bitch she once was. “Ricky Weiss?” the waitress scoffed. “What do you want with him?”
“What do you care?” Canella asked.
The waitress, whose name was Debbie, laughed. “Whatever.”
“So you know him?”
“I know Ricky,” she said. “It’s a small town. And as far as that jerk goes, I wish it was bigger.”
“No good, huh?”
The waitress shrugged. “He’s all right.” Philly could tell how it would be with this one – she would offer an honest clue and then retreat. Another clue, another retreat. But he had time and money for a nice tip, and the diner was mostly empty.
“Do you know where he lives?”
“In a trailer, ” she scoffed. “Why do you want to know?”
“Maybe he’s won a prize.”
“A cash prize?” The waitress opened her eyes wide, scraping mascara against one lens of her glasses.
“Maybe.”
“How much?”
Philly threw up his hands. The waitress gave him directions.
When lunch arrived a few minutes later, Philly engaged her again. “The other day, was Ricky in here with a couple of strangers?”
“Yeah, he was, actually.” The waitress didn’t ask what this had to do with Ricky’s prize. “A man and a woman. The man was a judge.”
“A judge?”
“Yep. Ricky kept calling him ‘Judge’ something.”
“Do you have any idea what they talked about?”
“No, but they left fifteen dollars for three coffees.”
“Hmm.”
“And whatever they were talking about, it made Ricky real mad. He was yelling something about them not having some money for him that they were supposed to have. He yelled something about a rip-off or something like that.” The waitress looked down at Philly as if she’d suddenly figured something out. “Ohhhh, okay,” she said, and grinned.
Philly smiled and nodded, wondering what sense the waitress was making of it all in her head. Then he asked in a whisper, “Is this the best coffee in town?”
The waitress shook her head. “Mess-o Espresso,” she said in a loud voice.
An hour later, Canella sat on a short wall of cut shale that bordered some young trees and other flowering greens outside the elementary school. Alice Pantini, school receptionist, sat to Philly’s left, her red skirt stretched judiciously around her knees. Between them were two Mess-o Espresso coffees.
