you rescued Howe.”
“No, thanks. I have to get up to New York. Listen, if you want my advice, tell him not to hold a press conference.”
“Why not?”
“We haven’t broken the case yet.”
“But Howe’s okay. The press wants a hero.”
“Or a goat,” said Fisher. “Tell Hunter to hold off.”
“But, Andrew, please.”
He hated it when she said please.
“I’m telling you, Cindy, we haven’t figured it all out yet.” He glanced at his watch. “What are you still doing in the office? It’s after eight. You’re missing your Wheel of Fortune reruns.”
“I had to stay until I got you.”
“Well, now you can go.”
“Please. The press conference is already scheduled. It’ll make Jack very happy. And problems with your expenses are much easier to smooth over when he’s happy,” she said. “Tell you what: You do this, and I’ll get him to sign some blank vouchers right when he’s smiling for pictures. How’s that?”
“I have more important things to do than press conferences,” Fisher told her.
“Like what?”
“Like putting on my pants,” he said, hanging up.
Part Five. Grasping at Straws
Chapter 1
Fisher stood at the window of the Scramdale-on-Hudson train station, gazing out at the parking lot as it filled with morning commuters. There were more luxury SUVs per square inch in Scramdale-on-Hudson than anywhere in the universe. This was no doubt a function of the difficult terrain, where investment bankers and entertainment lawyers daily negotiated such dangers as overfertilized lawns and exotic clematis.
The parade of Mercedes and BMWs up to the station was broken every so often by a Volvo wagon, undoubtedly driven by renegade hippies struggling to get by on trust fund money. It was a good bet their nannies lugged D. H. Lawrence in their diaper bags rather than the de rigueur Shakespeare to read aloud at naptime.
Fisher lit a cigarette as a Crown Vic appeared in the parade. The car was stopped twice by the lot attendants, trying to enforce local regulations against riffraff. Fisher ambled down the steps as the car finally pulled up. He tossed his cigarette to the curb and got in.
“You better pick up the butt or they may give you a ticket for littering,” said Macklin, who was behind the wheel.
“If you drive out to the end of the lot you can cut over the dirt and get onto the highway.”
“That’ll get us going back toward the city,” said Macklin.
“That’s where we want to go.”
“Why?”
“I want to talk to Mrs. DeGarmo again.”
“Faud’s landlady?”
“Yeah. She’s the only woman in Queens who knows how to make a good cup of coffee. The stuff they have at the station is atrocious.”
Mrs. DeGarmo remembered Fisher a little too well.
“It’s about time you come back,” she said, laying on the bad grammar and Italian accent for effect when he and Macklin rang the bell. “The leak, she still leaks.”
“I was afraid of that,” said Fisher. “This is my assistant,” he added, gesturing to Macklin. “He’s an expert in leaks.”
“Where’s your tools?” asked Mrs. DeGarmo.
“We investigate, then we get the proper tools,” said Fisher. “Is that coffee I smell?”
She eyed Macklin suspiciously.
“I brought more doughnuts,” said Fisher, holding up the bag.
“All right, you come in,” she told Fisher. Then she turned back to Macklin. “You, I don’t know about.”
“Mrs. DeGarmo, we’ve met before,” said Macklin. “I’m with Homeland Security. Remember?”
She squinted at the ID card he produced.
“Oh, okay, come in,” she said, waving her hand. “If Andy says.”
“He’s good with a flashlight,” said Fisher, who was already in the hallway.
Fisher went into the bathroom, taking off the top to the toilet tank.
“It’s already been searched, Andy,” said Macklin, coming in. “I keep telling you. Faud Daraghmeh’s probably back in Egypt.”
“He’s from Yemen.”
“Whatever.”
Fisher searched the bathroom carefully, discovering that Mrs. DeGarmo had changed her denture cream. He asked her for the key to Faud Daraghmeh’s apartment, which had not yet been rented out.
“Why search again?” asked Macklin when he came back downstairs. By now Mrs. DeGarmo’s “stories” were on and she was in the front room, watching them.
“Best place to hide something now,” explained Fisher, helping himself to some coffee. “Come back after it’s been searched.”
“No way,” said Macklin.
Fisher sipped the coffee, which was ever more bitter than he remembered. He wondered if maybe he should go into the plumbing business so he’d have a legitimate excuse to visit Mrs. DeGarmo when the case ended.
“You’re grasping at straws, Andy,” added Macklin. “You know this case is closed.”
Fisher said nothing, examining the list of items seized during the earlier search. Faud’s computer had checked out clean; besides his schoolbooks, the only papers he had in his apartment had been junk mail. He had two pairs of “battered dress shoes,” three red button-down shirts, assorted T-shirts, one pair of polyester pants, two pairs of dress pants, and one pair of jeans.
No suitcase? No backpack?
No underwear or socks.
Fisher took a long sip of coffee. The grains from the bottom of the cup settled on his tongue.
Heaven. But he had no time to linger.
“All right,” he told Macklin. “Let’s get going.”
“Where?”
“Library.”
According to the want ads, there had been more than a dozen vacant apartments in the immediate area the week before. Ruling out ones still advertised this week, Fisher found eight possibilities. He also got a list of apartment brokers.
“You have your people go to each one with the description of Faud Daraghmeh,” Fisher told Macklin, giving him the list. “It’s probable that he’d take an apartment within ten or so blocks of the train, something easy to walk.”
“Why don’t you think they already had a place set up somewhere else?” said Macklin.
“I do. But we haven’t found it, and this is the grasping-at-straws phase of the case,” said Fisher. “So we
