“Martha Washington?” Sergeant Kenny asked, smiling. Matt smiled.
“He’s in the shower, Matt. And you, I understand, are in the Deep South?”
“About as deep as you can get,” Matt said. “Standing here with a sergeant who looks like your husband’s twin brother. I really have to talk to him. When should I call back?”
“I’ll just hand him the cellular,” she said. “Hold on.”
“I’m already annoyed with you for not having checked in earlier,” Washington’s voice came over the line. “And I dislike being interrupted when I am in the midst of my ablutions. That said, you may proceed.”
“This is our doer, Jason.”
“You will forgive me for asking, Matthew, but do you believe this because of something more than your intuition? ”
“Sergeant Kenny showed me the knife he had. It’s a twin of the one in the pictures. He had a digital camera-a new one-and a package of plastic ties. He was trying to pry open a window in a young woman’s apartment when the Citizens’ Watch guy caught him.”
“Who is he?”
“His name is Homer C. Daniels. White male, six feet one inch, two hundred pounds, mid-thirties. He’s a dealer in exotic cars, from Las Vegas, and he drives all over the country doing business.”
“On what charges are they-presumably the Daphne police-holding him?”
“Peeping, a misdemeanor, and leaving the scene of an accident, which is a little heavier.”
“Is there a chance, however slight, that he might be allowed to post bail?”
“Not tonight.”
There was a thirty-second pause.
“I will be calling you back shortly, Matthew. May I presume your cell phone battery is fully charged?”
“You may so presume.”
“Splendid,” Washington said, and the line went dead.
Matt hung up the telephone on Sergeant Kenny’s desk. “He’s going to call me back,” Matt said.
“You want to wait here?”
“I think maybe I’d better.”
“We keep a pot of coffee going,” Sergeant Kenny said.
Matt’s cellular buzzed fifteen minutes later.
“I have just spoken with Mrs. Solomon,” Washington said. “Placing what I truly hope is justified confidence in your analysis of the situation, she is dispatching an assistant district attorney-probably, if she decides Peter Wohl will just have to do without his services for a day or two, Steven Cohen, Esq. As we speak, a teletype message is being prepared asking the Daphne authorities to hold Mr. Daniels. Travel arrangements similarly are under way. You will be advised of the details.”
“Yes, sir,” Matt said.
“I devoutly hope this is not premature: Good job, Matt!”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Please share that with Detective Lassiter.”
“Yes, sir.”
EIGHTEEN
We’re going to have to check out of the hotel,” Olivia said, almost as soon as they got into the Mustang. 'We never should have gone in there in the first place.”
“The alternative would seem to be sleeping on the beach,” Matt said.
“The alternative was any of the motels we saw when we turned off the interstate into Daphne.”
“Every time I stay in a motel off an interstate, I am invariably denied sleep by the sounds of unbridled passion, a crying baby, or a barking dog-often all of the above-coming from the next cubicle. What’s wrong with where we are?”
“An assistant D.A. is coming tomorrow,” she said. “I don’t want him going back to Philadelphia and saying, ‘When I got down there, Payne has got his squeeze in a plush hotel.’ ”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” Matt confessed. “And the cold fact seems to be that I do seem to have my squeeze in a plush hotel. You’re right, we better get out of there before our shameful secret becomes public knowledge. But in the morning. Not tonight.”
Matt looked at Olivia, expecting a smile. She was not smiling.
“Is that how you think of me, as your squeeze?”
“That was your term, Mother, not mine.”
Neither said anything else for the next ten minutes, until they were off four-lane U.S. 98 and driving through Fairhope.
“Hey, look at that!” Matt said, cheerfully, pointing. “Trattoria.”
“What?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that was an Italian restaurant, ” he said. “It doesn’t sound Polish. How about it, squeeze? A little linguini, a nice bottle of red, maybe even candles romantically flickering in a bottle covered with dripping wax?”
“Don’t ever call me that again,” she said, coldly.
“Sorry,” Matt said. “I was about to add, ‘Then we can go to the hotel and fool around.’ Does that interest you at all, Detective Lassiter?”
“Just go to the hotel, please.”
“You want to tell me what I’ve done wrong?”
“From your perspective, probably nothing.”
“And from yours?”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“About what?”
“Us.”
“What about ‘us’? This afternoon-Christ, from the time I first laid eyes on you-I thought ‘us’ was nice and dared to think the feeling was reciprocal.”
“It’s happening too fast,” she said. “And you’re dangerous.”
“How the hell am I dangerous?”
“You don’t think, that’s your problem,” she said.
“Give me a for example, Mother.”
“You never should have talked to the doer without permission. ”
“Were you there when I said, ‘I can’t talk to you without your lawyer being present’ or words to that effect?”
When she didn’t reply, he asked,
“Anything else I’ve done dangerously?”
“When you chased the guy in Philadelphia, you were drunk.”
“I wasn’t drunk. And you will recall I caught him.”
“After you fell down twice.”
“I fell over a goddamn wire.”
She snorted.
“And the Highway sergeant gave you mints. He saw you were drunk.”
“Isn’t that what they call the pot calling the kettle black?”
“At least I admit it.”
“Okay. I admit it. I was drunk. Happy?”
“And we never should have gone to the hotel in the first place. You should have thought what it would mean to me if it ever got out.”
