Wilier grunted again. He hadn't liked Broadbent from the beginning and he had a feeling that the guy was holding out on him. It was asking a lot to believe he just happened to be up there when the man was shot. 'Hernandez, I want you to ask around, see if Broadbent's shown any recent interest in that area up there- prospecting, pot hunting, that sort of thing.'
'Yes, sir.'
You consider him a suspect?' asked the D.A. He's what you'd call a 'person of interest.' ' was a guffaw from the D.A. 'Yeah, right.
No wonder they couldn’t convict, anyone ,these days, with guy’s like that in the D.A’S office. He looked around. “Any bright ideas'
Calhoun said, “This is a bit out of my field, but I’m curious - is there any permanent water up in those canyons?
'I don't know. Why?'
'It'd be a great place to grow marijuana”
'Noted. Hernandez?'
'I'll look into it, Lieutenant.'
15
WEED MADDOX WAS just rising from his hiding place in the chamisa when he heard a sound from the house-the shrill of a telephone.
He hastily crouched back down and raised his binoculars. She had gotten up from the table and was walking toward the phone in the living room, disappearing around the corner. He waited. She must have answered the phone and was talking.
At the corner of the house he could see where the phone lines came in. He had rejected the idea of cutting them, because a lot of houses these days had private alarm systems that notified a firm offsite when the phone lines went down. He cursed softly to himself; he couldn't move on her until she was off the phone. He waited, five minutes.. . Ten. The stocking on his head itched, the latex gloves made his hands hot and sticky. She reappeared in the living room, coffee cup in one hand, holding a cordless to her ear with the other, nodding and talking-still on the phone. He felt a rising impatience, which he tried to quell by closing his eyes and reciting his mantra-to no effect. He was already too keyed up.
He clutched the Clock. The unpleasant smell of latex filled his nostrils. He watched her take two turns around the living room, talking away and laughing, her blond hair swinging. She picked up a brush and began brushing out her long hair, head tilted to one side. Now that was a sight to see, the long golden hair sprung out by static, backlit by the sun as she passed a window. She shifted the phone to the other ear, brushed the other side, her hips swinging with the effort. He felt a tingle of anticipation as she went into the kitchen. From his vantage point he could no longer see her, but he hoped she was hanging up the phone. He was right: she reappeared in the living room without the phone, went toward the front hall, and disappeared again-into a bathroom, it looked like.
Now.
He rose, scurried across the lawn to the patio door, flattened himself against the side of the house. He took a long, flexible shim out of his pocket, began working it in between the door and the frame. He couldn't see into the house now, but he would be inside in less than sixty seconds, before she got out of the John. When she emerged, he'd get her.
The shim was through and he now worked it down, encountered the latch, gave it a sharp downward tug. There was a click and he grasped the handle, getting ready to throw it open.
Suddenly he paused. A door had slammed. The kitchen door to the backyard. He heard footsteps crunching on the gravel of the drive, coming around the corner. He ducked down, crouching behind a bush next to the patio door, and through the screen of leaves he saw her striding to the garage, keys jangling from her hand. She disappeared inside. A moment later came the roar of a car engine and the International Scout nosed out, went down the driveway and out the gate in a swirl of dust.
Maddox felt an impotent fury take hold, a mixture of frustration, disappointment, and anger. The bitch didn't know how lucky she was. And now he'd have to search the house without her help.
He waited five minutes for the dust to settle, then he stood up and slid open the patio door, stepped inside, shut it behind him. The house was cool and smelled of roses. He controlled his breathing, calmed himself down, focusing his mind on the search ahead.
He started in the kitchen, working swiftly and methodically. Before he touched anything he noted where it was, then returned it to its original position. If the notebook was not in the house, it would be a mistake to alarm them. But if the notebook was there, he'd find it.
16
DR. IAIN CORVUS strolled to the lone window of his office facing Central Park. He could see the park pond, a bright sheet of metal reflecting the afternoon sunlight. As he watched, a rowboat drifted across the water-a father and his son on an outing together, each manning an oar. Corvus watched the oars slowly dipping as the boat crept across the water. The young son appeared to be struggling with his oar, and finally it hopped out of the oarlock and slipped into the water, floating away. The father rose and gestured in wrath, all of it taking place in silent, distant pantomime.
Father and son. Corvus felt a faint sickness in his gut. The charming little scene reminded him of his own father, late of the BritishMuseum, one the most famous biologists in England. By the time his father was thirty-five, Corvus's present age, he was already a fellow of the Royal Society, winner of the Crippen Medal, and on the Queen's birthday list to receive a K.C.B.E. Corvus felt a shiver of old anger as he recalled his father's mustachioed face, veiny cheeks, and military bearing, his spotted hand perpetually closed around a whiskey-and-soda, his voice offering sarcastic correction. The old bastard had died ten years ago of a stroke, fell over like a dead mackerel, scattering ice cubes on the Aubusson carpet of their town house in Wilton Crescent, London. Sure, Corvus had inherited a bundle, but neither that nor his name had helped him get a job at the BritishMuseum, the only place he'd ever wanted to work.
Now he was thirty-five and still Assistant Curator in the Department of Paleontology, hat in hand, awaiting tenure. Without tenure, he was only half a scientist-half a human being, really. Assistant Curator. He could almost smell the odor of failure clinging to it. Corvus had never fit into the American academic perpetual-motion machine; he wasn't a member in good standing of the
milling gray herd. He knew he was prickly, sarcastic, and impatient. He hadn't joined in their playground games. He had come up for tenure three years before but the decision had been deferred; his paleontological research trips to Tung Nor Valley in Sinkiang had not borne fruit. For the past three years he'd been running around like a blue-arsed fly with precious little to show for it. Until now. He glanced at his watch. Time for the bloody meeting.
THE OFFICE OF Dr. W. Cushman Peale, president of the museum, occupied the southwestern tower of the museum, and it commanded a sweeping view of MuseumPark and the neoclassical facade of the New-York Historical Society. Peak's secretary ushered Corvus in and announced his name in a hushed voice. Why was it, Corvus wondered, as he stood before the august presence with a genial smile sculpted on his face, that one always whispered in the presence of kings
and cretins?
Peale came from behind his desk to greet Corvus, gave him a firm, manly handshake with the second hand grasping his upper arm, salesman-style, then seated him in an antique Shaker chair before a marble fireplace-unlike the one in his own office, this one worked. Only when he was assured Corvus was comfortable did he take his own seat, in a display of old-world courtesy. With his leonine mane of white hair brushed straight back, his charcoal suit, and his slow, old-fashioned way of speaking, Peale looked like he had been born a museum director. It was a show, Corvus knew: underneath the genteel exterior was a man with all the refinement and sensitivity of a ferret.
'Iain, how are you?' Peale settled back into his armchair, making a tent of his fingers.
'Very well, thank you, Cushman,' said Corvus, tugging the crease on his
pants as he crossed his legs.
'Good, good. Can I offer you anything? Water? Coffee? Sherry?'
'No thank you.'
'I myself enjoy a small glass of sherry at five o'clock. It's my one vice.'
Right. Peale had a wife thirty years his junior who was making an ass of him with a young archaeology
