'Dr. Nunley. And in Detective Lacey's defense, he did ask me that at the station.'
'Did Nunley say who'd asked him to call? Or did you get the impression it was just his idea?' I went back out into the living room area to get a drink. Tolliver trailed after me, lost in thought.
'I thought someone had drawn you to his attention, because he asked a lot of questions. If he'd been the one who'd originated the invitation, he would have known more about you. That's my opinion.'
'Okay. So we need to talk to him.' I sympathized when Tolliver made a face. 'Yeah, me, too. He's a jerk, all right.' Tolliver pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and checked a number on a folded piece of paper. Tolliver always has bits of paper in his pockets, and if he didn't do his own laundry I'd have to be searching his pants all the time. He finally found the right piece of paper and the right number and punched it in. From his stance, I could see that he was listening to the phone ringing on the other end. Finally, a recorded message came on, and when the beep sounded, Tolliver left a message. 'Dr. Nunley, this is Tolliver Lang,' he said briskly. 'Harper and I need to talk to you. There are some things left unresolved after yesterday's unexpected discoveries. You have my cell number.'
'Now he'll think we want our money.'
Tolliver considered this. 'Yes, and he'll call back about that,' he said finally. 'Come to think of it, if he doesn't pay us, we won't get anything for this. I can't help but be glad we're getting the Morgenstern reward money.'
'I don't really want to have earned it, you know?' He patted me on the shoulder; he knew exactly what I meant. Of course, he also knew that we would take it. We sure deserved it. 'I can't help feeling that we've been yanked into this. I just hope we haven't been shoved right under a ladder or some other bad luck thing. I'm scared we might end up taking someone else's fall for this.'
'Not if I can help it,' Tolliver said. 'I know I've slipped up, but you can be sure I'll do everything in my power from now on out to make sure no one can connect us with the Morgensterns' mess. And it's a simple fact that we didn't take Tabitha, a provable fact. In fact, what date was she taken?' We looked it up on the Internet. Tolliver checked our previous year's schedule. God bless computers. 'We were in Schenectady then,' he said, relief in his voice, and I laughed.
'That's plenty far enough,' I said. 'I'm glad you keep such good records. I guess we've got receipts to back that up?'
'Yes, on file at the apartment,' he said.
'Not just another pretty face,' I said, and cupped his chin in my hand for a second to hold him still while I gave him a kiss on the cheek. But my happy moment didn't last longer than a few seconds. 'Tolliver, who could have done this? Killed the girl, and put her there? Can it possibly be true that it's a massive coincidence?'
He shook his head. 'I don't think that's even remotely likely.'
'You and I both know that massive coincidences usually aren't. But I just can't imagine a conspiracy so elaborate.'
'I can't either,' he said.
Oddly enough, the next person we heard from was Xylda Bernardo.
We'd just finished lunch. It was an uneasy meal. Art had shared it with us, and since he ate a completely different kind of meal from us (he had a major lunch, and we like a light lunch), and he liked to talk business while he ate, I can't say we enjoyed it a whole lot. Art was about to catch a flight back to Atlanta, since he couldn't think of anything else to do in Memphis. The police weren't prepared to charge us with anything that he could discover; and he'd made many, many phone calls to everyone he knew in the justice system in Memphis to try to find out. We'd basically paid a whole hell of a lot for Art to fly over here first class to stay at a great hotel, make a lot of phone calls, and hold one press conference; but we'd known it had been a gamble when we'd called him.
Our lawyer was downing a huge salad, garlic bread, and veal ravioli, while Tolliver and I were having soup and salad on a smaller scale. I was watching Art chew hunks of bread and trying to remember my CPR lessons. Art was explaining what we should expect.
'You'll probably need to produce a record of your travels during the time since you met the Morgensterns,' Art said.
I glanced at Tolliver and he nodded. We were covered on all that. During the years we'd been traveling, Tolliver and I had learned to keep every single receipt, every single credit card slip, every single piece of paper that crossed our paths. This past year, we'd been especially diligent. We had a cheap accordion file that was always on hand in the back seat of the car, and the laptop; we kept good records. We sent off regular packets to our accountant, Sandy Dierdoff, who was based in St. Louis. She was a broadly curvy blonde in her forties. 'Crap,' I said. She'd only raised her eyebrows and given a bark of laughter when we'd explained what we did for a living. She'd seemed to enjoy our unusual lifestyle. In fact, she'd given us more good advice in our meetings with her than Art had ever even thought of sharing. Sandy had already emailed us about making our annual appointment; fall was fast turning into winter.
I was thinking about Sandy, and by extension our apartment in St. Louis, while I said goodbye to Art. We saw him leave with a mutual feeling of relief. Art was kind of proud of having us as clients, as if we were show business people; but at the same time, he wasn't at his easiest or most relaxed when he was alone with us.
After he left, and the staff had removed the lunch things, I asked Tolliver if he thought we could go out for a walk. I still hadn't forgiven Tolliver his huge error in judgment, but I was willing to put it on the back burner until I'd calmed down. A good walk might restore our sense of companionship.
Tolliver was shaking his head before the sentence even got out of my mouth. 'We ran this morning in the gym,' he reminded me. 'I know you don't want to be cooped up in this hotel, but if we go anywhere, someone'll spot us and want a statement.'
I called down to the front desk to ask if there were still reporters waiting outside the hotel. The deskman replied that he couldn't be sure, but that he suspected some of the people loitering in the coffee shop across the street were members of the press. I hung up.
'Listen, put on your dark glasses and a hat and we'll go to the movies,' he said. He found the complimentary Commercial Appeal we'd gotten that morning and looked up movie times. I found myself looking at my own picture on the front page of the Metro section. I'd only looked at the front section this morning, on purpose. There I was: thin, dark-headed, with big deep-set eyes and an erect posture, arms wrapped across each other under my breasts. I thought the picture made me look quite a bit more than twenty-four and that made me a little shivery. Tolliver, right beside me in the photo, was taller, darker, and more solid.
