the bottom of the pocket for his pencil.
Art looked irritated. 'You think I could have handled it differently, Tolliver, you say so.'
Tolliver looked up, apparently surprised. 'No, Art, no problem. You, Harper?'
'I noticed you didn't say Tolliver was your client, too, Art,' I said.
Art did his best to seem surprised; though I thought his only real surprise was that we'd noticed the omission. 'Tolliver 's name hadn't been brought into the mix at that point, I was just trying to keep it that way,' he said. 'You want me to call all the reporters and correct myself?'
'No, Art, that's fine,' I said. 'Just, for future reference, be more thorough and include that little detail.'
'Message received,' Art said brightly. 'It's been a long day for an old man, kids. I'm going to my room, call the office, catch up on my work.'
'Sure, Art,' Tolliver said, his attention on the puzzle open before him. 'If you're not flying back to Atlanta until tomorrow, you'll have to join us for dinner.'
'Thanks, we'll see how much work I have to do tonight. I may just get room service. But give me a call when you're ready to head out.'
'See you later,' I said.
When he was safely gone, I said, 'What do you think he's heard?'
'I was trying to figure it out. Maybe the police think I had Tabithas body all this time and moved it into the cemetery to prove you were a genuine sensitive.'
I gaped at him and then laughed. It was just too ridiculous.
Tolliver put down his pencil and focused on me. 'Yeah, right. I don't know where I'm supposed to have stowed the poor girl's body for eighteen months, or whatever.'
'The trunk,' I said, deadpan, and after a second he smiled at me. It was a real smile, something he didn't give me that often, and I enjoyed seeing it. Tolliver hadn't been struck by lightning, and his mom hadn't tried to sell him to one of her drug buddies for sexual use, it's true, but Tolliver has his own scars, and he's not any more fond of talking about them than I am.
'Tabitha was somewhere for eighteen months,' Tolliver pointed out. 'That is, her body was either in that grave, or in some other hiding place.'
'Was she there all the time?' I asked, but I was just thinking out loud. 'I don't think so. The earth was disturbed. The rest of the ground in the cemetery was smooth, but this ground had an uneven feeling, and there wasn't any grass on the grave.'
'Well, we know she was buried somewhere during the last eighteen months,' Tolliver pointed out reasonably.
'No, she could have been alive for part of that time. Or she could have been dead in a freezer, or a meat locker, or a morgue. Or buried somewhere else, as you say.' I thought about the possibilities I'd raised. 'But I don't think so. I still believe she's been dead since she was abducted, or very nearly the whole time. But she wasn't lying in St. Margaret's all that time. I just don't understand why she was put there, and how it happened that I was the one to find her. It's so strange.'
'In fact, it's almost… unbelievable,' Tolliver said, his voice quiet and thoughtful.
five
THE morning didn't start on any more of a positive note. I turned on CNN while I drank my morning coffee, the complimentary newspaper folded open to the page that featured an old picture of Tabitha, a recent shot of the Morgensterns, and a picture of me taken when I was at a crime scene about two years ago.
The TV coverage was just as hyper as the newspaper article. The FBI had definitely had a presence at the initial crime of Tabitha's kidnapping. Now, they'd put their expertise at the service of the Memphis police, including the resources of their lab.
'We are confident in the ability of the Memphis police to conduct this investigation,' said an agent who looked like he ate nails for breakfast. 'We'll have an agent in place who participated in the investigation of Tabitha's abduction, and he'll make available any service he can offer to local officials. All we want is to get justice for this little girl and her family.'
I wondered if we'd be allowed to leave for our apartment in St. Louis—though it would be better yet if we could slip away to some unexpected destination, so we'd be harder to track. We weren't in residence at our apartment often, true, but it was our address of record, and the news media would definitely find us there.
I didn't remember what the next job on our list was, or even if we had one. Tolliver managed that side of our lives. I was already restless and bored, having finished the one book I'd brought in from our car. Ordinarily, I'd go out for a run.
There was no point whatsoever in trying to run today. Though I still felt a bit shaky from yesterday's discovery, I was definitely in the mood to get in a couple of miles, or more. But if I ran today, I'd be followed, and that was no fun.
Tolliver knocked at the connecting door, and I called to him to come in. He was toweling the wetness out of his hair.
'I went running on the treadmill in the health club,' he said, in answer to my unspoken question. 'It was better than nothing.'
I hate running on treadmills. It just makes me feel stupid. I'm not really going anywhere. But this morning I was willing, since I needed activity in the worst kind of way. While he poured his own cup of coffee, I was on the elevator in my running shoes and my shorts and my T-shirt.
There were several treadmills. One was already occupied by a man who was probably in his forties, dark hair just beginning to turn silvery at the edges. He was pounding along, his face set and remote. He gave me an absent nod, which I barely returned.
