The tip of Halvorsen's cigar glowed dull red in the instrument lit darkness. 'She probably could, he said. 'That's why I'm going to pick her up.
We lapsed into silence. I was too ripped to talk and too busy hanging on. It was 12:45 when we pulled into the parking lot at the University Inn in Moscow, Idaho. It doesn't take a mathematical genius to know that seventy- five miles in sixty minutes is too damn fast!
It was time for last call for drinks. I sure as hell needed one. Instead of stopping to register, I followed Halvorsen into Chasers, where a few late-night revelers, closing-crowd lounge lizards, were still hanging on. The cocktail waitress was a blonde with an electric tan and a long slit up the side of her skimpy skirt. She was true cocktail-waitress material-lots of leg, lots of cleavage, too much makeup, and not enough brain.
'See you made it back, she remarked coolly to Andy as she took a quick swipe across our table with a damp cloth.
If this was Halvorsen's Monica, she was giving him a less than ecstatic greeting. He deserved better-both of us did, considering the way he had driven to get us there. Sure enough, when she came around to my side of the table, I could see her name tag pinned to the collar of the low-cut blouse. And the name tag wasn't all I could see. Halvorsen introduced us.
'What'll you have? Monica asked, giving me an appraising glance. The way she asked the question, it didn't sound as though she just meant drinks, and the way she looked me up and down while she was doing it was deliberately inviting. Monica Halvorsen may have been married, but that didn't mean she had quit shopping around.
I glanced in Andy's direction. The nervous tic I had noticed earlier in the day reappeared on his jawline.
The term pussy whipped has fallen into disuse in recent years, but call it what you will, Andrew Halvorsen was suffering from a hell of a case of it. Monica couldn't have been much more than twenty-five or — six-barely half his age-and Halvorsen's ego wasn't wired for that kind of voltage. I could smell the smoke from blown fuses as he watched her watch me. And here I was stuck working with the poor bastard. No wonder he had been so damned eager to get home.
Monica Halvorsen walked away from the table, stopping by another one along the way to drop off an order of drinks. She stood with her hip slung to one side, the cocktail tray resting casually on her arm while she threw her head back and laughed at some wry comment from a rowdy table of late-night customers. Young late-night customers.
Andy Halvorsen never once took his eyes off her. That kind of jealous obsession is painful to see, especially when it isn't reciprocated.
'What about tomorrow morning? I asked, dragging his attention away from his wife and back to the case.
'What? Oh, I'll be in the office by eight. I'll check and see if anything's come of the APB, then I can call you here and let you know what's going on.
'All right. You don't think I'll have a problem getting a room?
'The vacancy sign was still lit when we drove up.
Monica returned with our drinks. Halvorsen hadn't ordered anything, but from the looks of the glass Monica brought him, he was probably drinking straight Seven-Up or tonic. It was just as well. He was still driving a Whitman County car.
'How much? I asked, as she set my drink on the table.
'Five-fifty for both, she said.
'Wait a minute. You don't have to… Halvorsen began, reaching for his wallet, but I already had the money out and on the table. I didn't want anything left open to the slightest misinterpretation. I included a tip, one small enough to keep Halvorsen from getting the wrong impression.
The MacNaughton's, when I tasted it, was particularly welcome. It had been a long, long day.
Monica collected glasses from two recently vacated tables, and took them back to the bar, where she stood leaning against the counter chatting easily with the bartender.
'What do you think? Halvorsen asked.
At first I thought he was asking about the case, but then when I saw his eyes were once more glued to Monica's behind, I knew the Kurobashis were the furthest thing from his mind.
'She's very pretty, I said.
'I think so too, he said.
'How long have you two been married? I asked.
'There months last week, he answered. 'We had to wait until my divorce was final.
Electric tan, too much makeup, and a home-wrecker besides. My already low initial opinion of Monica Halvorsen dipped a few more points.
'I wish she could get a job somewhere else, but this is all she's ever done, and we need the money. Child support and alimony. Barbara seems to think she's got a God-given right to stay home with the kids and sit on her butt.
That was as much as I wanted to hear. My months of helping care for the children of Ron Peters, an ailing fellow police officer, had taught me that there's a whole lot more to taking care of kids than sitting on your tail, but I didn't have guts enough to tell him so.
I polished off my drink in one long gulp and set the glass on the table. 'I'm going to go see about a room, I told him.
As I walked away, I couldn't help thinking that Andrew and Monica Halvorsen may have made their three- month anniversary, but I was willing to bet money they wouldn't make six.
CHAPTER 11
I took a decrepit cab, possibly Moscow, Idaho's only cab, from the University Inn to Colfax and was sitting in Andy Halvorsen's courthouse office at 8:15 the next morning when he called Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane for a status report. Kimi Kurobashi was still in Intensive Care, and the doctors said it would probably be several days before we could talk to her.
Rita Brice, bleary-eyed from too little sleep and looking as though she had spent the night in her clothes, showed up in the office doorway a few minutes later to tell us that she was on her way to Colfax Community Hospital, where Machiko Kurobashi was about to be released. Because she had nowhere else to go, Machiko would stay with Rita at Honeydale Farm.
Rita said that her ex-husband had called to offer the use of two of his ranch hands during the crisis, both to help out with the work and to keep an eye on things. For an ex-husband, he sounded like an all right kind of guy.
The short night's stay in Pullman with Monica seemed to have done wonders for Andrew Halvorsen's state of well-being. He was back on top of things. The nervous tic was gone from his face. He was bright, with a quick grasp of what was going on and what needed to be done, and it was a pleasure to observe him working with his head screwed on straight.
Shortly after Rita left, Halvorsen turned to me. 'What about you? he asked.
I shrugged. 'There's not much sense in me hanging around on this side of the mountains. Kimi's in good hands at the moment, and, thanks to the Brices, so is her mother. I think I'd better get back to Seattle and see what's going on there.
Halvorsen nodded. 'Sounds like a plan.
With a freshly lit cigar in hand, he drove me back to the Pullman-Moscow Airport, where I caught the next plane out, riding home on what was probably the same frayed Metro-Liner I had ridden in on the day before. Scrunched into the too-small seat, I had nothing to do on the way back to Seattle but think.
I kept rehashing what Halvorsen had said the day before, about Kimi and Machiko's attackers being name- brand muscle with Cosa Nostra connections. Everything we had learned since then seemed to lend credence to that theory. The creep from Chicago who had tried to pick up Pamela Kinder hadn't been wearing gloves because his hands were deformed. He was a man with something to hide, a scumbag who probably knew his fingerprints were
