Jeri laughed. “Plenty for what, Mort?”
“Uh . . . pinochle?”
Ma guffawed, then put the Caddy in drive, and pulled away. “For a little nighttime recon, doll,” she said.
“Yup,” I replied. “That or pinochle, either one. There’s a place on Virginia Street that sells cards that glow in the dark.”
“But are they pinochle decks?”
“Well . . . shit.”
The day was still young, however, so we decided on a Denny’s Restaurant for a late lunch and strategy session. We took a booth. I sat across from Jeri and Ma, next to the fresh-faced coed.
“Okay,” Ma said, once we’d ordered and had drinks in front of us. “Two things. We can try to track down Julia and follow her, see where she goes, what she’s doing, or we can try to find that SUV.” She kept her voice low to keep the conversation private.
“The car might be at her house,” I offered. “Two birds with one stone.”
“Hence tonight’s recon, boyo, if it becomes necessary.”
“Why wouldn’t it? Not that I’m into skulking since the last time I did that it almost got me and Jeri killed.”
“If we found that Mercedes somewhere else we wouldn’t have to get into that garage, which is iffy, that’s why. So if we go after that SUV to check its VIN, what’s another way we might find it?”
We thought about that in silence for a while.
Finally, Jeri said, “It’s registered to Mary Odermann, who no longer exists. Bob Odermann does, however, and Mort got a little bite when he mentioned a Mercedes SUV to Bobby. But we’ve also got Leland Bye, Mary’s brother, who happens to be a lawyer, and you can’t trust a lawyer farther than you can lob a politician.”
So we thought about that for a while.
Finally, I said, “I wonder if the fish and chips I ordered was the right choice.”
I got a few hisses from that, so I said, “And I wonder what Bob would do if someone went back to that print shop and asked him point blank about his wife’s SUV.”
We gave that some thought.
Then Sarah said, “I could do that. He’s never seen me. I don’t have to tell him my name. But what would be the point, exactly?”
“Shake things up,” Jeri said. “It’s not the worst idea out there. If Odermann is involved somehow and if he’s trying to keep a low profile, he might do something, make a mistake. If Sarah went in and shook Bob’s tree, it might rattle him enough to make him go somewhere, do something. If so, we could follow him, see where that takes us.”
“Except it’s hard to imagine a print shop guy being involved in the assassination or death of a presidential candidate,” Ma said, so we thought about that for a while. Then she said, “But then there’s Bye. We could do the same thing there. One of us goes in, says something about an SUV registered to his dead sister, then walks out, see if anything falls out of that tree.”
We were thinking about that when the food arrived, so we dug in and thought about Bye and Odermann while we filled up. And I wouldn’t be having fish n’ chips at Denny’s again but that’s another story, nothing to do with mystery SUVs or lawyers.
“Okay,” Ma said. “Suppose we shake a tree and Julia gets a phone call and takes off, or worse, ditches the SUV. Shaking a tree could end up hurting us. We’d better have eyes on her at the time we rattle either Odermann or Bye.”
“Gettin’ complicated,” I said.
“How about this?” Sarah said. “I’m walking in the hills and I get thirsty, so I hop over that little fence we saw and ring the doorbell at Reinhart’s house. If no one answers, then . . . well, then I don’t know. But if Julia is there I can ask for a glass of water then leave, phone it in. I could watch the house from the hillside right as someone asks Bye or Odermann about that SUV. If Julia leaves, I could see which car she’s in. Someone could wait along the road outside that guard gate and follow her if she takes off.”
“Spreads us a little thin,” Ma said, “but it’s doable. It’d take you a while to hike up to the house. It’d take me a month. Oughta have some binoculars with you, too, just in case.”
More silence. Jeri got out her cell phone and got into Google Maps, figured out the closest overland approach to Reinhart’s house, which turned out to be 2.6 miles, a quarter mile or so up Court Shoe Lane in southwest Reno, then a hike southwest through sagebrush into the hills.
“So,” Jeri said. “Who do we shake, Bye or Odermann? And if we’re gonna do it today, we gotta get going. It’ll take Sarah a while to get into position.”
“Most likely snake in the grass is Leland Bye,” I said.
“Weakest link might be Odermann,” Ma said.
“Or,” Sarah suggested, “one person could hit them both, five or ten minutes apart.”
“I like that,” Jeri said. “I’ll do the shaking. But if something does fall out of a tree, we might not know which tree did the trick.”
“Unless,” Ma said, “you hit Bye first, then wait half an hour before hitting Odermann. If something shakes loose, it’ll probably happen pretty quick, won’t take half an hour.”
Sarah stood up. “If we’re gonna do this, I’ve got to get going. Court Shoe Lane. I’ll find it, but I need a ride back to my place, and I’ll need some binoculars.”
“When you’re ready, I’ll shake Bye and Odermann,” Jeri said.
“I’ll wait outside the gate and follow Julia if she bolts,” I said, sliding out of the booth.
“Hit Bye first,” Ma said to Jeri. “I’ll watch his place, follow him if he leaves. Once you talk to Odermann, hang around and keep an eye on him. Everyone know what to do? Everyone’s cell phones charged up? Everyone got everyone’s number?”
We all nodded, I tossed money on the table, and we headed for Ma’s Eldorado. She made a quick trip
