“Fuck.” That hadn’t occurred to me. The predator hadn’t walked like a creature that could cover a lot of ground, but I wouldn’t have guessed it could move through walls, either.
“Driving around is a waste of time,” I said.
“I agree completely.” Catherine did a U-turn in the middle of the street and headed back toward the shopping center on Littlemont.
The Grable was sealed off with more yellow caution tape. The arch was blackened on one side, and the building was a shell. I didn’t like looking at it.
Catherine parked in front of the bar. “I’m going to socialize,” she said. “You’re designated driver, so you can have Pepsi. After I get inside, count to five hundred and come in. This works better if people think I’m alone.”
She went inside. I sat and counted slowly. There was a Fleetwood parked a couple of dozen yards away. It took a moment for me to remember where I’d seen it before. I got out of the Neon.
I approached from an angle that would keep me out of the side and rearview mirrors, but I didn’t need to bother. The driver was alone and asleep. It was Regina Wilbur.
She was wrapped in an expensive cashmere coat, and she’d managed to clean herself up. Her hair had been washed, at least. She had a duck hunter’s shotgun in her lap.
The button for the door lock was up, so I yanked the door open and snatched the shotgun away from her as quickly as I could. She woke instantly. If I’d been any slower, I’d have been staring down the barrel. I was glad I hadn’t underestimated her.
“Hello, Regina,” I said. “It’s kind of a chilly night to be sleeping in your car, isn’t it?”
“Oh,” she said. “It’s you.” If she had bothered to remember my name, she wasn’t going to say it. “I know why you’re in Washaway. If I get my hands on that shotgun again, I’ll use it to part your miserable skull.”
“You don’t know as much about me as you think,” I said.
That got a rise out of her, as I’d hoped it would. “That little German bastard told me everything I need to know. He says you want to kill Armand.”
“And you believed him? You can’t trust that guy. He murdered a member of your own staff in cold blood.”
“Pfah!” She waved a liver-spotted hand at me. “Why should he lie to me? I’m just a helpless old woman!”
I almost laughed in her face. But that “little German bastard” wouldn’t have been fooled by her any more than I was. “And I’ll bet he offered to capture Armand for you.”
“Not just for me,” she said, sounding as if I’d insulted her intelligence. “He wants to bring in a team to study Armand, and he thinks the home I built for him would be the best place to do it.”
“So he wants to share the sapphire dog with you? Like the poetry professor?”
“Yes!” she drew out the hiss at the end of that word with malicious joy. “He and I will share the same way I shared with the poetry professor, as soon as he catches Armand in one of those big, black Yukons of his.”
I couldn’t resist correcting her. “The Yukons with the red-and-white cards on the dash? Those aren’t his. That’s a different bidder entirely.”
She smiled like a snake, and I realized I’d made a mistake. She started the engine and backed out of her parking slot. I had to jump out of the way of the open door. She gave me one last sneer before she pulled out, leaving me holding her shotgun.
Damn. I had underestimated her after all, but what should I do about it? I could have tried to call the new emergency chief of police, if I had his number, which I didn’t. And if I followed her, I would be separating from Catherine again.
That hadn’t worked well the last time, and I wasn’t going to do it again. I tossed Regina’s shotgun onto the roof of the teriyaki place. Maybe she had another gun, but I think she would have tried to shoot me if she had. And while she could certainly afford a new one, she’d have to wait until the stores opened. I had time. I hoped.
I decided that I’d waited at least a five-hundred count and went inside.
Catherine was sitting at the bar, chatting amiably with the bartender. She had a glass of white wine in front of her. Her body language was different from what I’d seen before—yet another personality. I wonder how she chose them, or if she went by instinct. I took note of where the bathroom was and picked a spot where I’d have to walk by her to get to it.
Two stools over from me was a guy of about twenty-five. He was slumped over a beer, reading the label as if it might make him happy.
In the corner was an older couple sipping from tall drinks with a careful, trembling elegance. They both looked shriveled and wasted on the top half of their bodies and thick with flab on the bottom half. They seemed like people who had once had much better uses for their time but would have been offended at the label “barfly.”
A pair of young guys shot pool in the corner. They didn’t talk, but I couldn’t tell if that was because they didn’t like each other or they were just intent on their game.
The last person in the bar was Pratt. There was an empty bowl and crumpled napkin in front of him—he’d come here for his dinner. I wondered if, like us, he was here to find information or if he was slacking off from his job. Which wasn’t fair, but to hell with him. I didn’t like him.
The bartender tore himself away from Catherine long enough to take my order. He was a middle-aged guy with a slouching belly and no ring on his left hand. His face had started to go pouchy, but his hair was thick and combed straight back as though he was proud of it. I asked for a root beer and a menu. He dropped them off and wandered back to Catherine.
I could overhear a little of their conversation: she was complimenting the town in ways that prompted the bartender to brag a little. He described the Christmas festival that would happen tomorrow, explained the history of it, and flirted with her shamelessly. She didn’t encourage him, but she didn’t back away, either.
Depressed Guy tapped his empty bottle on the bar and the bartender brought him a new one. He took my order, too. I went for the grilled cheese, figuring it was cheap and too easy for him to screw up.