“True.”
“The word 'true,' all by itself,” she said, “is absolutely no encouragement at all. Means you're humoring me.”
“True.”
Harry chuckled. “You're right, though, Hester. Odds are way against it.”
Car crashes really are a lot harder to fake. One of the reasons is that there's just such an enormous amount of data regarding wrecks that had been compiled over the last fifty years. That, coupled with the intense interest of insurance companies and courts regarding claimed damages, has produced entire fields of study that are related to car crashes. Every fatality is thoroughly studied, measured, photographed, analyzed, and subjected to reconstructive procedures that virtually ensure any foul play will stand out like a red flag. A good tiaffic investigator can tell you precisely what happened. Precisely. And if there are any inconsistencies, you'll hear about it.
Murder via car wreck is easy to accomplish, don't get me wrong. It's just virtually impossible to make it look accidental. Physics is physics.
“I wonder, though,” I said absently.
“What?” asked Harry, lowering his menu.
“Oh, I dunno. Just thinking. If you wanted to do somebody, it would be a lot easier to make a drowning look like an accident. Just for instance.”
“True.” That was from Hester.
I looked over at her. “You're right. No help at all.”
“Hey. I told you.” She looked out the window, toward the lake. “A little too much to drink, splash, gurgle. Nothing weird, just drowned.”
“Well, yeah. Bad swimmer… better if a nonswimmer. And, most of the time, people are murdered for mundane reasons like rage, for instance, or jealousy. Things like that. By people they know.” I looked expectantly at Hester.
“Jealousy is good,” she said. “Would lead to a more cold-blooded approach than the heat of anger. Just for example, you know? More of the 'gee look at the neat fish… splash… oops' kind of thing.” She pursed her lips. “Jessica ain't gettin' no younger, Pilgrim,” she said, sounding quite remarkably like John Wayne.
“True.”
That earned me a withering glance.
“Really, when you find somebody who seems to be just surrounded by, oh, certain events,” she said, avoiding the word murder in deference to a passing waitress, “there's just every indication that they may have something to do with causing those events. Like, if the drowning victim was messing with our vampire.” She half giggled. “Count boy-toy.”
I didn't say “true.” Harry did.
She drummed her fingers on the table. “Got to stop this speculation, Houseman. It's making it too easy to feel like there's some real evidence, here.”
“Sure makes the time pass, though,” I said.
She pulled her cell phone out and dialed.
“Can you get us copies of the investigations we just talked about? Both the car wreck and the drowning? Great. Great. Oh, and when did that drowning occur? Really? Well, that is interesting. Thanks.”
She disconnected, looking very pleased. “The drowning was in the summer of ninety-seven,” she said. “Hawkins thinks late July or early August.”
The hamburgers were great.
It had been a satisfying day, altogether. And the tour of the interior of the Hunley place was coming up in less than an hour and a half. I was anticipating being impressed.
Hester got another phone call, and handed it to me. “I'm beginning to feel like your answering service, Houseman.”
It was my oiffce. They were down to two full-time deputies, because of that damned flu. Lamar had said that, if at all possible, I was to return to the county immediately. He had also said that with Hester and Harry in Lake Geneva, I should be able to do that. He was, of course, right.
I bid farewell to Hester, Harry, and Lake Geneva at 6:14 P.M., and headed back to Nation County. I hated to leave, but my two cohorts assured me that they would keep me posted on any developments. Damn. I think I was as disappointed to miss the visit to the Hunley estate as I was to miss the interview itself.
I drove right into rain, but it was an uneventful trip, until I was contacted by radio near Dodgeville. Our Mutual Aid frequency was the same as Wisconsin's WISPERN, which stood for Wisconsin Police Emergency Radio Network. They always have had better acronyms. Anyway, I was instructed to go directly to the sheriff's department in Dodgeville. There was a moment's confusion on the radio, because Dodgeville was the county seat of Iowa County, Wisconsin. They were calling me Iowa Car, which was a bit of a kick.
There was a deputy waiting for me. “We have a number for you to call,” she said. “I guess it's pretty urgent.” She ushered me into a private oiffce.
My first thought was that something had happened to either Sue or our daughter, Jane. I needn't have worried. The number she handed me was for Hester's cell phone.
“Gorse,” answered Hester.
“Houseman here. How was the big house?”
“Great, but later, right now you should know that they've located Jessica's silver 2000 Mercedes Benz SUV. It's been abandoned, in a place called Capron, Illinois.” “Where's that from Nation County?” I asked. I'd never heard of the place.
“Well, just a sec,” she said, and I could hear paper rustling. Her map. “Okay, it's southwest of Lake Geneva, and northeast of Rockford. About thirty road miles from here.”
“So, he's not headed toward Nation County?”
“Don't bet on it,” she said. “The car was abandoned at a used car lot, and the owner is checking right now on whether or not he's missing a car. There's also a good chance he's headed home to Moline. Jessica apparently told him we were here, asking questions.”
“Oh.”
“There's absolutely no doubt that he had it. Jessica told us that she'd 'left the keys in the car' and he took it.”
“That's cute,” I said. “Nice dodge.”
“Shit, Houseman, her local attorney was there. She's hell on wheels, and she has just about every base in the world covered. She denies knowing how Peale got to Lake Geneva. We didn't reveal Tatiana to her, just asked how he'd gotten her car, and led into it.” Hester sounded disgusted. “We got to her twice, though. I think she's finally getting really worried. And her aunt seemed to be a bit pissed off at her by the time we were done.”
“Cool.”
“Tell you what we'll do,” she said. “You continue on, and if we get a make on a missing car from that lot in Capron, we'll have them tell you by radio. Just so you know as soon as possible.”
“Right. Hey, Hester?”
“Yes?”
“If you do the brunch again tomorrow, could you bring me a doggy bag?”
I was about twenty miles east of the Mississippi and Nation County when Wisconsin State Radio contacted me again. They gave me a simple message. I was to be looking for a blue '96 Honda four-door. It had no plates, naturally, since it was stolen off a sales lot. The keys, according to the dispatcher, had been under the floor mat. No direction of travel was given, for the obvious reason that nobody knew one. I just had to assume he was headed our way.
I checked in with Dispatch in Nation County at 22:44 hours. The dispatcher, Norma, the new one, said I was to contact Borman via radio immediately. I did, and he asked me to meet him at the foot of the Mansion driveway.
The rain was steady as I got out of the car. Not hard, just one of those long, drawn-out rains that come in October, putting the last nail in summer's ciffin, and giving us our first taste of the cold that was to come in the next few months. It was about forty degrees, or so, but felt much colder. I hurried across the soaked gravel road to Borman's squad car, carrying my green rubber raincoat. It's impossible to put the things on in a car, and by the time
