president of the United States; in the other he stood alongside Dr Martin Luther King. But it was not the photographs at which his wife was staring; beneath each one was a rectangular shape, whiter than the rest of the backing page. 'Two photographs have been taken from here,' she said. 'The corner fixings are still in place, even.'
'Go through it and see if any others have been removed.' She did as he asked, no longer studying the photographs, only flicking from page to page looking for what might not be there.
'No,' she said at last. 'Only those two.'
'Stil, you should check the rest of the book, just in case Leo took those two out, and they're not the ones we're looking for. The photos you remembered could still be there.'
She seemed to nod, then shake her head al in one movement. 'Yes
… no… wait. There was something else.' She turned to look behind her, at a series of shelves, fixed so that they seemed part of the panelling. 'Dad had a football,' she exclaimed. 'It was signed by the president and by al the guys; they gave it to him after the last game he played with them. He kept it on a shelf up there… and now it's gone.'
He sensed her hesitation. 'Bob, I hate to say this… but this has been done by someone with access to all sorts of files and places; someone who knew about the connection in the first place. Are you sure about Joe Doherty? Can you trust him in this?'
Bob drew in a deep breath. 'I hear what you're saying, honey. This could be coming from inside, and Joe is inside, very high up, too.
Except… Joe didn't hold us back on Saturday, when we went to see Jack Wylie. I did. If it hadn't been for me stopping on the boardwalk, we'd both have been on that cruiser when it went up.
'On that basis alone, I can trust him. I trust my own judgement too.
Joe's straight.'
'If you're sure of that, it reassures me. But even at that, where do the two of you go from here?'
'Good question. If we go anywhere, we go very carefully, however important Joe might be. But we do have a couple of leads; for a start there's the mysterious hunting trip.'
'What?'
'Exactly. Your father and Jackson Wylie took themselves off on a trip to the Appalachians last January, ostensibly to shoot deer.'
'Dad? Never!'
'Maybe not, but the two of them did go off somewhere and that was the cover story. I'd like to know where they stayed and who else was there… although I can make a pretty shrewd guess. Then there are the laptops,' he added.
'What?'
'Computers. Wilkins, Garrett and Wylie all had portable computers; the first two were stolen from the crime scenes in Montana and Las Vegas. We think that Wylie's went up with the boat. Do you know if your father had a computer, apart from that thing over there?' He pointed to the Compaq on a table beside the television set.
'If he had, I've never heard of it. But…'
The ringing of the phone on the computer table interrupted her. Bob walked across and picked it up. Lieutenant Dave Schultz was on the other end. 'No gun in the car, sir,' he said. 'I've just searched it, as thoroughly as I've ever searched a vehicle without cutting open the panels. There is no firearm there. Also I've rechecked the crime scene inventory, and there is definitely nothing of that nature listed. Do you want me to check with AT and F?'
'I've done that,' the Scot answered, 'or at least Mr Doherty has. Mr Grace bought two matching Glock 19s a couple of months back. He kept one in his Jaguar; my bet is that the other was for the house, and that he'd have taken it to the cabin.'
'You want me to run another search?'
'No, it would have been found by now if it was stil there.' As he spoke to the detective, the cathedral tones of the doorbell boomed out in the hall above: Sarah ran upstairs to answer its summons. He thanked Schultz and hung up, then fol owed her out of the den.
He had assumed that the cleaning service had arrived, finally, and so he was slightly surprised to see a youngish man in the doorway, fol owing his wife into the house. Taken off guard. Skinner gave him the classic enquiring look of policemen everywhere.
'Bob,' said Sarah, with the faintest hint of sharpness, 'this is lan Walker, our Lutheran minister. I've told you about him. As well as being our pastor, he's an old friend. Ian and I were at high school at the same time, then later at college.'
'Yes,' the newcomer concurred, 'for a while. I graduated two years before your wife.' He was a medium- sized man, with dark, crinkly hair, and round, piercing eyes, informal y dressed in a sports shirt and slacks… sure confirmation in the circumstances, Bob thought, that they were old friends. Indeed, there was something in the way they looked at each other that made him wonder, for a moment, just how friendly they had been. 'The mortician told me you were due in town this morning, Sarah,' the clergyman continued. 'I had to come right away, to express my condolences and to pay my respects.'
'Thank you, lan; that's much appreciated. We'd have cal ed you later today, in any case; we need to discuss the arrangements for the funeral service. Come through to the drawing room. Will you have coffee?' She realised that she had brought her Budweiser upstairs with her. 'Or a beer?'
Walker smiled. 'Coffee will be fine. You know how it is with us guys; we can't be breathing fumes over the faithful… not even us Lutherans.'
'I'll make it,' Bob volunteered. 'You go on through.' He headed for the kitchen, as his wife ushered the minister through to the reception room.
'I can't tell you how appal ed I am by what's happened,' he said, as the door closed on them. 'Babs is distraught too.'
'How is she?' asked Sarah. 'How are the kids?'
'She's very well; she still looks like a teenager, just like you knew her in school. And Matthew and Daniel are growing by the day. And yours?'
'Mark, our adopted son, is turning out to be a mathematical whiz; the other two, James Andrew and Seonaid, are just ordinary, peaceable children; even if Jazz is built like an outhouse, and eats more than his brother, who's twice his age. I'm happy to hear that Babs is just the same; I couldn't imagine her any other way than just as she is. I must see her. Can you get a sitter, tomorrow or Wednesday maybe, and come to us for dinner?'
'No,' said lan, 'we've thought of that. Much better if we do it the other way round. We thought that you might like to come to us on Wednesday, a couple of nights before the funeral service, to talk about the running order, as wel as to catch up.'
She yielded to his logic. 'Okay, that's a date.'
'Good; I have to tell you that we're getting in first. If you see all the people who've asked me to pass on condolences, and ask if they can cal on you, then you'l have little or no time to yourself. I have a list of all their names.'
'Thanks.' She smiled at him, but as she did, she read something in his eye.
'There is one in particular, though. When you and the baby were back home a couple of years back, that time that you and Bob had troubles in your marriage; remember you came to see me, and we had a heart-to heart about a guy you were dating? The guy you were with when we went out on that foursome?'
She smiled at him. 'Heart-to-heart, indeed; that's a sweet way of putting it. Truth was, I used you like a confessor; I told you that I had had sex with him.'
'Sure, and I didn't have any problems with that. I'm one of your newfangled clerics, Sarah; you know that as well as anyone. But the thing is, you'l find the name Terry Carter on that list. He cal ed me last week and said that because he knew that I was your friend as well as your family minister, he'd like to ask me a favour. He said that he'd like to meet you when you got here, to express his condolences in person.'
'Damn,' she whispered. 'Is he in Buffalo?'
'No, he told me that he works in New York, and he gave me a cellphone number for you to cal, should you decide to.'
