Myron shrugged a what-can-you-do. 'So who is she?'
'Kiana works as a maid at the Court Manor Inn.'
Myron looked at her. She was still out of earshot.
'How old is she?'
Myron shrugged. 'Just asking. She looks young.'
'She's sixteen. And guess what, Myron? She's not an unwed mother, she's not on welfare, and she's not a junkie.'
'I never said she was.'
'Uh-huh. Guess none of that racist shit ever seeps into your color-blind cranium.'
'Hey, Carl, do me a favor. Save the racial-sensitivity seminar for a less active day. What does she know?'
Carl beckoned her forward with a tight nod. Kiana approached, all long limbs and big eyes. 'I showed her this photo' he handed Myron a snapshot of Jack Coldren 'and she remembered seeing him at the Court Manor.'
Myron glanced at the photograph, and then at Kiana.
'You saw this man at the motel?'
'Yes.' Her voice was firm and strong and belied her years. Sixteen. She was the same age as Chad. Hard to imagine.
'Do you remember when?'
'Last week. I saw him there twice.'
'Twice?'
'Yes.'
'Would that have been Thursday or Friday?'
'No.' Kiana kept up with the poise. No ringing hands or happy feet or darting eyes. 'It was Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday at the latest.'
Myron tried to process this tidbit. Jack had been at the Court Manor twice before his son. Why? The reason was fairly obvious: If the marriage was dead for Linda, it was probably dead for Jack. He, too, would be engaging in extramarital liaisons. Maybe that was what Matthew Squires witnessed. Maybe Jack had pulled in for his own affair and spotted his son's car. It kinda made sense ....
But it was also a hell of a coincidence. Father and son end up at the same hot sheets at the same time? Stranger things have happened, but what were the odds?
Myron gestured to Jack's photograph. 'Was he alone?'
Kiana smiled. 'The Court Manor doesn't rent out a lot of single rooms.'
'Did you see who was with him?'
'Very briefly. The guy in the photograph checked them in. His partner stayed in the car.'
'But you saw her? Briefly anyway.'
Kiana glanced at Carl, then back at Myron. 'It wasn't a her.'
++ 'Excuse me?' 'The guy in the photograph,' she said. 'He wasn't there with a woman.'
A large boulder fell from the sky and landed on Myron's head. It was his turn now to glance at Carl. Carl nodded. Another click. A big click. The loveless marriage.
He had known why Linda Coldren stayed in it she was afraid of losing custody of her son. But what about Jack? Why hadn't he left? The answer was suddenly transparent: Being married to a beautiful, constantly traveling woman was the perfect cover. He remembered Diane Hoffman's reaction when he asked her if she'd been sleeping with Jack the way she laughed and said, 'Not likely with ol' Jack.'
Because ol' Jack was gay.
Myron turned his focus back to Kiana. 'Could you describe the man he was with?'
'Older maybe fifty or sixty. White. He had this long dark hair and a bushy beard. That's about all I can tell you.'
But Myron did not need more.
It was starting to come together now. It wasn't there.
Not yet anyway. But he was suddenly a quantum leap closer.
Chapter 38
As Carl drove out, Esperanza drove in.
'Find anything?' Myron asked her.
Esperanza handed him a photocopy of an old newspaper clipping. 'Read this.'
The headline read: CRASH FATALITY
Economy of words. He read on:
Mr. Lloyd Rennart of 27 Darby Place crashed his automobile into a parked car on South Dean Street near the intersection of Coddington Terrace.
Mr. Rennart was taken into police custody under suspicion of driving while intoxicated. The injured were rushed to St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, where Lucille Rennart, Mr. Lloyd Rennart's wife, was pronounced dead. Funeral services are to be arranged.
Myron reread the paragraph twice. ' 'The injured were rushed,' ' he read out loud. 'As in more than one.' '
Esperanza nodded.
'So who else was hurt?'
'I don't know. There was no follow up article.'
' 'Nothing on the arrest or the arraignment or the court case?'
'Nothing. At least, nothing I could find. There was no further mention of any Rennarts. I also tried to get something from St. Elizabeth's, but they wouldn't help. Hospital patient confidentiality, they claimed. I doubt their computers go back to the seventies anyway.'
Myron shook his head. 'This is too weird,' he said.
'I saw Carl heading out,' Esperanza said. 'What did he want'?'
'He came by with a maid from the Court Manor.
Guess who Jack Coldren was linking up with for a little aftemoon delight?'
'Tonya Harding'?'
'Close. Norm Zuckerman.'
Esperanza tilted her head back and forth, as though sizing up an abstract work at the Met. 'I'm not surprised.
About Norm anyway. Think about it. Never married. No family. In public, he always surrounds himself with young, beautiful women.'
'For show,' Myron said.
'Right. They're beards. Camouflage. Norm is the front man for a major sports fashion business. Being a known gay could destroy him.'
'So,' Myron said, 'if it got out that he was gay . . .'
'lt would hurt a lot,' Esperanza said.
'Is that a motive for murder?'
'Sure,' she said. 'It's millions of dollars and a man's reputation. People kill for a lot less.'
Myron thought about it. 'But how did it happen?
Let's say Chad and Jack meet up at the Court Manor by accident. Suppose Chad figures out what Daddy and Norm are up to. Maybe he mentions it to Esme, who works for Norm. Maybe she and Norm . . .'
'They what?' Esperanza finished. 'They kidnap the kid. cut off his finger, and then let him go?'
'Yeah, it doesn't mesh,' Myron agreed. 'Not yet ' anyway. But we're getting close.'
'Oh sure, we're really narrowing down the field. Let's see. It could be Esme Fong. It could be Norm Zuckerman.
It could be Tad Crispin. It could be a still-alive Lloyd Rennart. It could be his wife or his kid. It could be Matthew Squires or his father or both. Or it could be a combination plan of any of the above- the Rennart family perhaps, or Norm and Esme. And it could be Linda Coldren. How does she explain the gun from her house being the murder weapon? Or the envelopes and the pen she bought?'
'I don't know,' Myron said slowly. Then: 'But you may be on to something here.'
