Shoot / Don't Shoot

Butch handed over the tape. “Here you go. Sure I can’t talk you into having another?”

Joanna shook her head. “No, thanks, but I’ll be back.”

“Sure you will,” Butch Dixon said, looking dis­appointed. “You and Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Once in the Blazer, Joanna couldn’t decide what to do. For one thing, even though she had learned something important, it was all purely circumstantial. And although she might not be entirely clear on what it all meant, she recognized that the connections she had made were a good starting place.

She knew Larry Dysart’s name, the color of his eyes, and where he lived—the location at least, if not the exact address. She had established a definite link between the guy who had almost knocked Leann Jessup down at the candlelight vigil and Se­rena Grijalva. She had also learned that there was a link between Dysart and Dave Thompson—a man who might possibly turn out to be as much victim as he was perpetrator.

Even though Joanna’s quick trip to the Roundhouse had garnered a good deal of information, she had failed to accomplish her original purpose—to establish a link between the Roundhouse and the Nortons. Had she been able to find a connection from them to the Roundhouse, she would have automatically ended up with a connection to Dysart as well. Unfortunately, after watching the video, neither Butch Dixon nor his grizzled, permanent-f­ixture customer had been able to verify such a link with either Rhonda or her husband.

So there are a few holes in my thinking, Joanna thought, leaning forward to turn the key in the ig­nition. But that’s why there were real homicide cops in the world; why there were detectives like Carol Strong who would know exactly what to do with the vague patchwork quilt of information Joanna had managed to assemble. And as soon as it was humanly possible, she would hand what she had over to Carol and let the detective go after it.

At one-thirty, however, it was still too early for that. Four o’clock would be plenty of time to talk to her.

In the meantime, Joanna returned to the hotel to wait and think and to relieve Jim Bob Brady of his baby-sitting responsibilities. She stopped by the pool and was happy to find that the girls were fi­nally out of the water. If they were spending the afternoon up in the room watching videos, it would give Ceci’s waterlogged braids time enough to dry out before she had to go back home to Wittmann.

But when Joanna stopped outside the door to room 810, there was no sound at all coming from inside. And when she opened the door, the room wasn’t exactly as she’d left it. There were two wet towels on the bathroom floor in place of the girls’ clothing, which was gone. Obviously, Jenny and Ceci had come back to the room long enough to change, but where were they now?

Joanna picked up the phone intending to dial the Bradys’ room, but the staccato sound of the dial tone told her she had voice-mail messages—three ­in all.

The first was from Jim Bob Brady.

“I don’t know where you two girls have gone off to,” he said. “I thought I told you to stay put. Maybe you’re in the bathroom with the shower on or a hair dryer goin’. Anyway, Grandma and I are gonna run across the street to Wal-Mart and do a little Christmas shopping. You girls stick around the room until your mom gets back, Jenny. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her today, so I don’t know what the plan is for dinner.”

A half-formed knot of worry began to grow in the pit of Joanna’s stomach. She replayed the mes­sage and listened again to Jim Bob saying, “You girls stay around the room ...” No, there was no mistake. Jim Bob had left the girls in the room and expected them to stay there. So where were they?

The second and third messages were from Carol Strong. Both of those had come in within the last ten minutes and both said Carol would call back later.

Once again, Joanna searched the bathroom, pull­ing the shower curtain all the way aside. She ex­pected to find two wringing-wet