“You’ve been creating sophisticated software on
“No, on
“Well, you should. What have you got on Hanover?”
“I concentrated on the gap between when he was born and when he was rewarded with the cushy job for bringing the investment broker’s drunken daughter home. But Trevor Hanover-the one born in Tennessee-never lived in New York City or worked as a bartender. He and his folks died in an apartment house fire in Chicago when Trevor was thirteen.”
“The old stolen-identity trick. Our Trevor was in his twenties when he surfaced as a lucky bartender. Back then you could still easily get away with that kind of scam. Any details on the fire or the parents?”
“Typical tenement fire. Too many people, too many appliances, bad wiring. The father worked as a security guard. Mother described as a housewife. Trevor was in eighth grade. There’s not much information.”
“In short, they weren’t anybody, so no one cared.” Sad, bad truism of our society: we can cry over a movie star’s marital crisis, but we give scant attention when an ordinary family is wiped out in an accident that could have been prevented. “Anything else?” I asked Mick.
“I’m going to run a nationwide search on Hanover’s personal life as soon as Kelley here will return my laptop to me.” He paused, and then I heard him saying, “Kelley, please. Please, please,
Next I called Adah back. Only the voice mail at any of her numbers. I hoped her message meant she was seriously considering my proposition.
I decided to call Ma next, reserving Hy-the best-for last. The business calls could wait till tomorrow, after I’d taken Amy to Bridgeport to talk with Lark.
Thursday
Lark was in her office when I called to say I’d located Amy and was bringing her in.
“I thought you’d be supervising the search in Toiyabe,” I added.
“Nope. That’s in good hands.”
“Anything yet?”
“No. So what’s the Perez girl’s story?”
“I’ll let her tell you in person.”
I left the sheriff’s department after delivering Amy into Lark’s hands, and started back toward Vernon. Halfway there my cell rang. Lark.
“We’ve located Bud Smith’s body,” she said. “Few hundred yards from his vehicle, in a ravine. Told you it’d be that close.”
“Cause of death?”
“Shot in the back. Same as Tom Mathers.”
“Estimated time of death?”
“A week at least, probably longer, the ME says. Body was badly decomposed. We tentatively ID’d it from a backpack that was lying next to it. Thing is, Smith’s wallet and a bottle of water were inside, but not his car keys or any of the other stuff you’d take along if you were hiking in such an isolated area.”
“I’d say whoever killed him wanted him identified and tried to make it look like an accident. He may have been shot elsewhere, then driven to Toiyabe and dumped.”
“How’d the killer get back to wherever he came from?” Lark asked. “It’s a long way out of there on foot.”
“An accomplice, maybe?”
“Maybe.”
Lark switched tacks. “The Perez girl was forthcoming about what happened to her. My guess is that Sheppard waited around till after dark, then broke in thinking she wasn’t there.”
“And tossed the cabin after she got away?”
“Probably. Before he came on to Amy in his truck, he was asking her about something Hayley might’ve given her for safekeeping. He didn’t know what it might be, but insisted it had to do with her sister asking him to clear out of the trailer that night.”
“She have any idea what it was?”
“She said no. That’s the only point where I felt she wasn’t being candid with me.”
“So now what?”
“I’m driving down to Inyo tomorrow morning, and taking my best interrogator along.”
“Good-cop bad-cop, huh?”
“Yep. And that interrogator is you.”
“Then you’re flying down.”
“McCone, I hate small planes!”
“As I recall, you appeared at the crime scene in the lava fields in a chopper.”
“I keep my eyes closed when I’m in one of those things. Really, we can drive-”
“You want to get this job done soon, or what?”
“All right, I’ll keep my eyes closed… again.”
When I got back to Vernon, I drove to Willow Grove Lodge and sat down at the end of the dock to think.
Remembered a night years ago when Hy and I had drifted there in a rowboat, sipping beer while I confessed to things I’d never told another living soul.
Our relationship, then so new and fragile, had saved me from those dark feelings. And given rise to the dedicated resolve to quell any and all such inhuman urges. To maintain control. To let go of the idea I could right every wrong and instead settle for righting only a few. So far I’d been able to keep my promises.
But at this moment there were a large number of wrongs that needed righting.
Hayley, all dressed up, offering a martini to her visitor and being shot in return.
Amy, brutally attacked.
Tom Mathers, left dead in the desert.
Miri, a suicide, as the inquest in Sacramento had determined, but equally a victim of the person who had killed her firstborn.
Bud Smith, decomposing in a ravine in a national forest.
Yes, quite a few wrongs.
Time to go see T.C. Mathers, a woman who had free access to guns.
The parking lot of the wilderness supply looked the same as when I’d first visited it. I was about to take the driveway to the Mathers’ residence when I saw that the OPEN sign in the window of the store was lighted. I parked and went inside.
T.C. sat on a stool behind the counter, going over some pages in a thick binder. Her face was haggard, her eyes bloodshot-but she appeared to be sober.
“McCone-just who I’ve been wanting to see,” she said, but without rancor.
“How you doing?” I asked.
“Terrible. I think I know what the d.t.’s feel like.”
“And what’re you doing?” I motioned at the binder.
“I thought maybe Tom had something on one of his clients that he was using for blackmail. He kept a log on each trip he guided. But there’s nothing here.”
“Well, he wouldn’t necessarily have written it down if he planned to cash in on it.”
