Twenty minutes later, Ma parked down the street the other way and reported that Sarah was out of her car, hiking into the hills. I waited a few minutes longer, then headed for the road—Parkway, actually—that wound up into the hills toward the gated community.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I WAITED.
Sarah hiked.
Jeri parked down the street from Bye’s office. She had Ma’s Caddy in sight.
This thing we were winding up was beginning to store energy.
At four thirty-five, Sarah told Ma she was in position. She didn’t see any sign of life at the house. She was about to ring the bell, see if anyone answered. Ma reported all that to Jeri and me.
I waited.
Ten minutes later, Sarah reported back. Julia was home and Sarah had gotten a glass of water. Julia was cold, brusque, not happy to see her. She’d gotten Sarah out of the house as soon as possible. Sarah was headed back into the hills to keep an eye on the place, see if anything happened when Jeri started shaking trees.
I waited.
Jeri hit Leland Bye’s place first, which, according to Jeri, went something like this:
Jeri (in front of Bye’s desk having blown by a secretary who’d failed to tackle her): There’s a Mercedes SUV registered in Mary Odermann’s name, Mr. Bye. Your sister Mary, just to be clear.
Bye (startled): Who the hell are you?
Jeri: But Mary is dead, has been for two years, so . . . what’s up with that?
Bye (settling back in his chair with a jittery, calculating look): I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. How’d you get in here, anyway?
Jeri: Just thought you ought to know someone is using your deceased sister’s name. You might want to let the DMV know, see if they’re interested. (Exit stage left)
Jeri reported the contact to Sarah, told her to watch the house. She said Bye had looked squirrelly.
Four minutes later, Julia Reinhart took off in the red Lexus IS Sport. Sarah reported hearing a chirp of tires as she left. She said she was going to jog downhill, that she’d be back at her car in less than thirty minutes in case she could still be useful.
Ma phoned me. “Bye left his office, Mort. I’m following in my car. Jeri is on him in hers. Son of a bitch is driving kinda fast. Keep an eye out for Julia. Sarah says Julia is headed your way in that red Lexus. Oughta be past the guard gate in two or three minutes.”
“On it,” I told Ma. I started the Toyota—an invisible car, but it was going to have to compete with a Lexus. Maybe I should’ve shaken the trees while Jeri watched the gate. Too late now.
But we had two people on the move. I didn’t know about Ma in her Chariot, but I doubted that Bye could lose Jeri. Thing is, she was in a hot Porsche, and Bye might be checking his rearview mirror more than usual. I would give a bundle to know if he and Julia were on phones to each other right then. If so, I’d pay double to listen in.
Ma hooked all four of us up in a conference call, which would wear batteries down faster but looked necessary with everything that was going on.
Julia went down the forty-five-mile-an-hour Parkway at sixty. Side mirror howling, I stayed two hundred yards back hoping she would get the ticket, not me. We crossed South Virginia Street and got on 395, headed north. She picked it up to seventy. I stayed on her tail, a quarter mile back. I had a Bluetooth in my ear for hands-free driving. Safety first.
Looks like we’d stirred up a hornet’s nest. Bye and Julia were acting guilty, all right. Of something, and it was obviously related to Mary Odermann’s SUV, which, adding another layer of sneakiness, had been painted white. I still wanted to see Julia in or around that SUV just to be sure, but for the moment all of us were having a grand old time.
In fact, we didn’t have any proof that Mary Odermann’s SUV was the one that had been spotted in Gerlach, or that the young girl Deputy Roup had seen in the SUV was Allie, but this was all we had, and it was looking better all the time.
Ma’s voice buzzed in my ear. “Bye has slowed down. Maybe tryin’ not to get pulled over. We’re going north on Arlington, crossing Second Street now.”
I told everyone that Julia was still rolling north on 395, so it looked like she and Bye were about to get together.
Leland Bye ended up in the parking garage of the Golden Goose Casino, which I thought was perfect. Odds were that he and Julia were going to meet there, in a room or a restaurant. Jeri had gone past Bye in the garage and parked nearby on the third level. She was on him, following in a shoulder-length big blond wig and black-frame glasses, bright red lipstick, wearing a red cardigan. Bye hurried along a skyway above Sierra Street and into the Goose. In his office Jeri had been in a white shirt, black pants, dark glasses, no lipstick. She trotted to catch up and was ten yards back when he went through a wide lobby toward a bank of elevators. She’d put on a double strand of fake pearls and had a Macy’s bag in one hand that held a ball
