Something in the woman's injured tone suggested a switch in tactics from investigator to sympathizer, from potential enemy to ally. 'What kind of matters, ma'am?' Farrell asked innocently.
'He stole my money, for one thing,' she answered with ill-concealed fury, 'my money and my bankbooks. Then, when he saw I was leaving, he was so angry that I think he would have killed me if he could have gotten close enough, but I fooled him. I drove away all by myself. I drove all the way here. Can you believe it? Andrew never thought I would, and neither did I. After all, I'm sixty-five years old and had never driven a car before in my life, but I did. So help me I did. I wouldn't have done it, either, if he hadn't treated me so badly.'
Maybe you ought to tell me about it, ma'am,' Geet Farrell said. 'This could be important.'
Davy was surprised when he saw the bald-headed man standing outside the glass patio door. The man was wearing funny brown-colored clothes, the kind with plants painted on them, that soldiers sometimes wore in the movies.
'Nana Dahd,' he called. 'Someone's here.'
Davy expected the man would wait outside until Rita came to the door to talk to him. Instead, he shoved the door open and stepped inside.
'Who are you?' Davy demanded. 'What do you want?'
'You,' the man answered. 'You're what I want.The man lunged for him.
Davy tried to dart out of the way, but the man was too quick. He caught Davy by one arm, spinning him around. He swung the child up in the air and held him two feet off the ground.
'You were talking to somebody, kid. Who was it? Where are they?'
'I'm right here,' a woman's voice said behind him.
'Don't hurt him.'
'Nana Dahd,' the boy complained. 'He just came right in the house. He didn't even knock.'
Suddenly, the man's arm clamped tight around Davy's throat, choking off his air. He kicked and fought, but he couldn't get away. The last thing he heard before he blacked out was the man saying, 'I don't have to knock, because as long as I have you, I own the place. Isn't that right, old woman?'
Davy didn't see Rita's answering nod. It was true. As long as he had Davy, Andrew Carlisle could have anything else he wanted.
Around the Pinal County Sheriff's Department, Detective Geet Farrell had a considerable reputation as a ladies' man. With men he could be tough and hard-nosed as hell, but with women he gentled them along until even the bad ones offered to give him the shirts off their backs.
Slowly but urgently, Geet Farrell worked Myrna Louise Spaulding. He didn't rush her, but he didn't allow any unnecessary delays, either.
Within minutes, he had talked her into showing him the contents of the battered Valiant's packed trunk. He recognized Johnny Rivkin's name as soon as he saw the tag on the luggage, but he didn't let anything betray his exultation. Because it was too soon. He needed to know more.
So he led the garrulous old lady through her entire day, encouraging her to remember everything from the moment she woke up until he himself had arrived on her doorstep.
Myrna Louise loved having an appreciative audience.
She warmed to the telling and was totally engrossed by the time she got to the part about going into the office in Tucson to pick up those mysterious papers with those two women's names on it. Only then, as she was telling the detective about the papers, did she fully allow herself to know what those two names meant, what Andrew Was really going to do.
It hit Detective Farrell at the same time, like a fierce, double-fisted blow to the gut.
'Where is he now?' he demanded savagely. All gentleness disappeared from the man, transformed instantly into a single-minded intensity that was frightening to see.
'I don't know,' Myrna Louise whimpered. 'I don't have any idea.'
'We've got to find him. Where was he when you left him?'
'I already told You. At the storage unit. In Tucson.'
'Can I use your phone?' he asked.
'Yes,' she whispered, barely containing the despairing sob that rose in her throat. 'Go ahead. Help yourself.'
Chapter Eighteen
R. JOHNSTON, THE vet, was guardedly optimistic about the dog's chances for survival as he sifted a pinch of yellow powder into Bone's eyes.
'This is apomorphine,' he explained, 'an emetic. It gets into the bloodstream through the conjunctival sacs. It'll make him barf his guts out within minutes. He's certainly exhibiting all the classic symptoms of slug-bait poisoning. Where'd he pick it up?'
'I don't know,' Diana said. 'He was fine just twenty minutes or so earlier when we put him outside. He came back in acting drunk. He could barely walk.'
The vet shook his head. 'You've got a neighbor who hates dogs.'
'I don't have any neighbors,' Diana started to say, and then stopped.
A chill ran down her spine. Perhaps this was it, she thought, the beginning of what Rita called the wind coming to the windmill, the reason she was wearing a gun.
,,You'd better go on out now, Diana,' Dr. Johnston warned. 'Bone is going to be one miserable dog here for a while, but if we caught it as soon as you say, he should pull through. I'd like to keep him overnight, though, if you don't mind.'
