for emergency calls, Detective Beaumont.
'Couldn't you at least send a deputy by? I asked.
'I've entered your call into the log, and I'll see what I can do, but I'm not making any promises. With that he hung up.
'Do any good? Ames asked.
'Not much, I answered. 'No way could I build a fire under that little jackass on the phone.
'You've done as much as you could, Ames said. 'It'll probably be all right.
But his words offered small comfort. While I had been on the phone, Ralph had turned around in the love seat and was sitting facing out the window, watching the pattern of splashing raindrops on the glass.
'Who all knew about the poem? Ames asked thoughtfully a moment later.
'The one on the computer? Well, there was Doc Baker, George Yamamoto, Big Al-
'No, no, Ames interrupted. 'I don't mean who saw it on the computer this morning. How many people around him were aware that it was Tadeo Kurobashi's favorite poem?
'Probably several. Yamamoto said it was familiar as soon as he saw it, but he couldn't remember where he'd heard it. Kimi knew it well, and I would imagine so would her mother. Why are you asking about the poem?
'Because it sounds to me as though whoever fed the virus into the MicroBridge computers must have known Tadeo Kurobashi very well in order to pick that particular verse, to know unerringly that it was part of his favorite poem.
'So? I asked. 'What are you getting at?
Ames cocked his head to one side. 'Think about it. If you were a young woman struggling to get along on whatever crumbs the university dishes out to instructors and on what you could make shoveling horse manure in someone else's barn, and if you knew your father was busy squandering your entire inheritance, wouldn't you be tempted to do something about it?
'I might, I said, 'but not in this case. Kimiko Kurobashi isn't the type.
Ralph Ames looked at me sadly and shook his head. 'Beau, you of all people should know better than that. It seems to me that we were both suckered very badly once by a lady who didn't look the part at all, remember?
Remember? Of course I remembered, and the memory of Anne Corley caused a burning pain in my chest that didn't seem to lessen with the passage of time. I got up and poured myself another drink. That was easier than talking.
'I'll look into it, I said at last.
Ralph Ames nodded. 'All right. In that case, I'm going to bed, he said.
I followed suit, but once in bed, I didn't go to sleep. For a long time, I lay there, doing all kinds of mental gymnastics in an effort to keep my mind off Anne Corley. By focusing completely on the hows and whys of Tadeo Kurobashi's murder and other more immediate matters I managed to keep her at bay somewhere outside my conscious memory. Eventually my mind wandered away from Tadeo Kurobashi's mystery to one of my own, one much closer to home and very much in need of a solution.
Where was my missing chunk of time? I worried the question like an old dog gnawing a bone. What had happened to the part of my life that contained my agreement to go to the mystery meeting with Ralph Ames and where I had somehow, inexplicably, smashed my fingers badly enough to require the attention of a doctor? How could I possibly have forgotten those things so completely? As if on cue, the constant throbbing reasserted itself, a pulsing reminder.
Try as I might to remember, though, there was nothing there, not a trace. It was as if a heavy black curtain had been pulled over the window of my memory. A blackout curtain.
As soon as the word came into my head, so did a sickening inkling of where that piece of my life had gone. I had forgotten things before on occasion. Everybody does that, but it had never been anything terribly important. I could recall misplacing my car once, finding it late the next day in the parking lot outside the Doghouse. But this time it was blatantly clear to me that, despite my desperately wanting to remember, I was missing pieces of my life that nobody else was. And there was a distinct cause-and-effect relationship that was hard to deny.
I thrashed around in bed and fought with the covers in a vain effort to deny the word's reality, to make the ugly possibility rebury itself somewhere far away, but it didn't. The word blackout was an evil genie let out of its bottle. It was out, and it wouldn't disappear.
And so I waited for sleep and mostly didn't find it until close to daylight. The rain had stopped. The last thing I heard before I fell asleep was the raucous squawk of a marauding sea gull. And that's when the dream came. I know it by heart. I see it over and over, and it's always the same.
Anne Corley, vibrant and alive and wearing the same red dress she wore when I first saw her, stands in a windswept park with the breeze rippling her hair. I call to her and she turns to look at me. She is holding a rose, a single, long-stemmed red rose. I go to her, running at that desperate nightmarish pace that robs you of strength and breath but covers no distance. At last I stop a few feet away from her, and she starts toward me. I reach out to clasp her in my arms, but as I do, the rose in her hands changes to a gun, and I step back screaming, 'No! No! No!
I awoke in a room awash in daylight with streams of sweat pouring off my body. Lying there alone in bed, waiting for the shaking to stop and my heartbeat to steady, I cursed Fate and any other gods who might be listening for making me be one of the few men I know who dreams in living color.
In black and white, it might not hurt as much.
An hour or so later, Ames and I were drinking coffee at the kitchen counter when the phone rang. I more than half expected the call to be from Peters-it was about time for him to check in-but the voice on the other end of the line was that of a total stranger.
'Is this the Seattle Police Department? the gruff male voice asked.
'No it isn't, I answered. 'This is a private residence.
'I'm looking for somebody named Beaumont. Anybody there by that name?
'I'm Detective Beaumont. Who's calling, please?
'Jesus Christ. Did that yo-yo give me your home number? he demanded.
'Evidently.
'Sorry. I waited until I figured you'd be at work before I called.
'It's all right. Who is this, please? I asked again.
'Oh, sorry. The name's Halvorsen. Detective Andrew Halvorsen with the Whitman County Sheriff's Department. I've got a note here saying that you called in last night concerning a couple of women out at Honeydale Farm?
My stomach tightened. So did my grip on the telephone receiver. 'That's correct, I said carefully. 'Is anything wrong?
'Are these women related to you in any way, Detective Beaumont?
'No, they're not. One is the wife and the other the daughter of a man who was murdered here in Seattle day before yesterday. I'm the homicide detective assigned to that case. Why? What's going on?
'The old woman will probably be all right. She's not as badly hurt, although the doctors tell me that at her age any injury can have serious side effects. As for the other one, I understand they're calling for a Medevac helicopter. As soon as they can get her stabilized enough, they'll be flying her either to Spokane or Seattle for surgery.
My throat constricted around the last swallow of coffee. A terrible impotent rage rose through my body.
'That's what I was afraid of, for God's sake. Didn't that worthless son of a bitch do anything?
'Now, now, Detective Beaumont, Halvorsen said soothingly. 'Don't be too hard on Larkin. He did the best he could under the circumstances. This place was a zoo last night, and we were spread way too thin with the kind of problems we were having all over the county. He did enter the call in the log, however, and when I put the two together a few minutes ago, I thought I'd better get in touch with you.
With supreme effort I managed to keep my voice steady enough to speak. 'Tell me what happened.
'We're still not sure. Rita Brice, the owner of Honeydale Farm, evidently got up about six and noticed that the horses still weren't out in the pasture. She went to Kimi's house, thinking she had overslept, and discovered the mother, bound and gagged. Rita untied the mother, left her there in the house, and went to the barn. That's where she found the daughter. Rita did what she could, then ran back to summon help. Luckily, by that time the phones were all working again.
'Is Kimi going to make it? I asked.
