“Is Pinder?”
“She seemed to be. But who knows? She’s not all that bright.”
“But, cupcake. We have a means at our disposal to check.”
“We do?” Ignoring the bakery reference.
Ryan worked a few keys, checked the screen. Worked some more.
“I’ll be damned.” He pointed at a line of white text in a black box. “You’re going to like this.”
The box listed all Cheap Trick appearances, live onstage, on television, and on radio, and provided links to recent and old interviews.
I read the line Ryan was indicating.
It took a moment for the significance to register.
When it did, I took in a breath.
“Cheap Trick appeared on HBO September twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth, in a two-part special featuring seventies and eighties rockers,” Ryan said.
“So Pinder had to be wrong about the date. Cheap Trick wasn’t on television on the twenty-ninth.” I was thinking out loud. “Gunther was in jail on the twenty-eighth. He couldn’t have been watching at her house that night. It had to have been the twenty-seventh, the day
“Does Evans have an alibi for the twenty-seventh?” Ryan asked.
“Holy mother of God.”
I was so excited I had to punch Slidell’s number twice. No matter. My call was rolled to voice mail.
“We’ve got him,” I said. “Klapec was last seen alive on September twenty-seventh, not the twenty-ninth. Check Evans’s whereabouts for that date. Call me.”
I clicked off.
“Good one,” I said, high-fiving Ryan.
He grinned a grin as wide as the Rio Grande.
Seconds dragged by. Hours. Eons.
I chewed at the cuticle on my thumb. Got up and paced. Sat down. Chewed some more.
Still the phone didn’t ring.
“Where the hell is he?”
Ryan shrugged. Ate a handful of popcorn. Continued surfing.
“Don’t drop kernels into my keyboard.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Or drip butter.”
I looked at the clock. It had been twenty minutes since I left my message.
“Maybe I should fax that page to Slidell. Can you print it?”
Pointless. But it was something to do.
Returning to the Cheap Trick Web site, Ryan made hard copy and handed it to me. The page made me think of Rinaldi’s notes. Something else to do.
I pulled the papers from my briefcase. Returned to the study.
“Look at this,” I said. “Now everything makes sense.”
Ryan dropped onto the couch beside me.
“According to Vince Gunther, Jimmy Klapec was last seen alive with Rick Nielsen on September twenty-ninth. Rick Nielsen with pits. Gunther noted the resemblance when he saw Cheap Trick, CTK, on TV. October ninth to eleventh is the time Klapec was found. Rinaldi was meeting Gunther at CFT, Cabo Fish Taco, at ten with five hundred dollars.”
Silently, Ryan and I read Rinaldi’s last lines of code.
RN = BLA = GYE. Greensboro. 10/9. 555-7038. CTK-TV-9/27. VG, solicitation 9/28-9/29.
GYE 9/27?
“Rick Nielsen equals Boyce Lingo’s aide equals Glenn Yardley Evans. Rinaldi called Lingo’s office, and Evans told him that he and his boss were in Greensboro on October ninth, when Klapec’s body was found.”
“Rinaldi must have known something was wrong with the September dates. Cheap Trick appeared on TV September twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth. Vince Gunther was in jail for solicitation on the twenty-eighth, so Rinaldi knew he couldn’t have seen Nielsen, and by extension, Klapec, on that day.”
“So April Pinder got the date wrong. They had their pizza party the day
“A day for which Evans may have no alibi.”
“Jesus, Ryan. Somehow, Rinaldi figured all this out. Evans discovered that he knew.”
My fingers were curled so tightly my nails were digging crescents in my palms.
“Evans killed him.”
The phone shrilled.
I leaped for it.
Slidell sounded as wired as I felt. “Evans was in Charlotte on the twenty-seventh.”
I started to speak. He cut me off.
“He drives a white Chevy Tahoe.”
“Holy shit.”
“Judge finally cut paper. We’re going in.”
“I want to be there.”
“How’d I know you’d say that?”
I waited.
“Just you.”
“When?”
“Now.”
36
“WHERE’S YOUR WHEELS?”
Rubber squealed as we hooked a sharp right from the Sharon Hall drive.
“Ryan took my car to check out of his hotel.”
I expected a wisecrack about my sex life. Slidell didn’t make one.
“Tell him it ain’t personal. The DA wants this handled like the world’s watching.”
Though Ryan’s insight would have been an asset in executing the warrant on Evans’s property, I couldn’t fault that reasoning. Given Lingo’s position, a lot of eyes would be watching. Perhaps courtesy of CNN and FOX.
“Is Evans at home?”
Slidell shook his head. “He rents a coach house apartment on property owned by a woman name of Gracie- Lee Widget. What the hell kinda handle is that?”
I gestured for Slidell to continue.
“Gracie-Lee says Evans works Thursday nights, gets home around nine. She ain’t nuts for the idea, but says if I show a warrant she’ll let us into his crib.”
Evans lived in Plaza-Midwood, a neighborhood of winding streets, large trees, and modest turn-of-the-century bungalows. I’d been there many times. Located midway between uptown and the UNCC campus, the area is popular with underpaid university faculty.
Slidell made a right onto Shamrock, another onto a short dead-ender, and parked in front of a lowcountry house with a down-sloping roof, brown stucco walls, and green plantation shutters. The long front porch held rocking chairs and basket-hanging ferns, all looking well past their shelf life.
