But what if that memory also turns out to be false? What if I really didn’t see anyone in the mirror?
Pine was a seasoned detective. But none of her other cases had involved a family member. She felt confused and unorganized, things she could not afford to be if she really was going to get to the truth.
She knew one thing, though: She was going to have to take another crack at Myron Pringle. He had not been entirely truthful with her, and she didn’t know why.
“You look pensive.”
She gazed over at the black Porsche SUV that had slowed down in front of her. The rear window was down, and Jack Lineberry was peering at her.
“Just thinking some things through.”
“Got time for lunch? I know a place over in Americus. I can drop you back at the Cottage.”
Pine really wasn’t hungry for food, but she was for information. “Okay.”
She dashed to the SUV as the rain picked up.
Chapter 20
PINE NOTED THAT JERRY the very nasty security guard was driving, and Tyler was riding shotgun. Jerry gave Pine a once-over glare in the rearview and hit the gas before she could buckle up, throwing her back against the seat with the forward momentum.
Lineberry was dressed in a navy blue blazer and gray woolen slacks and a white open-collared dress shirt, with a pocket square the same color.
“Chilly for this time of year,” he said.
“Rain doesn’t help,” she said back as she snapped her harness, after giving Jerry a WTF look in the rearview.
“I guess you don’t get much rain in Arizona.”
“It’s pretty dry. But when it rains, it pours.”
“I guess Andersonville seems pretty backwoods to you now.”
“We have places like this in Arizona. Folks just digging in and getting by. Nothing wrong with that. The town where I live is pretty much like that. Working-class, Native Americans, immigrants, transients from other states who want warmer weather. No billionaires in sight.” She glanced at him. “No offense.”
“None taken.”
“Nothing wrong with making money.”
He nodded. Then his features turned somber. “I heard about the dead woman they found. Have they identified her yet?”
“They’re working on it,” said Pine noncommittally.
“Are you working on that case, too?”
“Does it matter if I am or not?”
“No, I guess it doesn’t. I was just wondering. I would think the case involving your sister would be a full-time job.”
“It might turn out to be. I saw the Pringles this morning.”
“You saw Myron, in the morning?” He looked surprised.
“So you know of his sleeping habits?”
Lineberry nodded. “An odd bird, but a brilliant one.”
“He showed me his office.”
“That’s odd. He’s so security conscious.”
“All the computer screens went black because we weren’t authorized. And he made us turn off our phones.”
Lineberry smiled. “Of course he did. Were he and Britta helpful?”
“Not particularly. What can you tell me about them? Where did they come back from?”
“I believe they moved to North Carolina not that long after you and your parents left here.”
“Then how did you hook up with him?”
“Like your father, I knew him from the mining days. I could tell the talent he had with computers. He didn’t go to MIT or Stanford or anything, he was just a natural at it. His talents far exceeded the requirements of the job at the bauxite mine. When I was setting up my company, the reality of automated trading was really getting going. I guess I had a notion that it would be important. I felt Myron could be an invaluable asset, and he has been.”
“I’m not sure he was straight with me.”
Lineberry glanced sharply at her. “How so?”
“He wouldn’t tell me where he was on the night my sister disappeared.”
“Well, I can hardly believe Myron had anything to do with that.”
“Then why wasn’t he up front about where he was?”
“Maybe he didn’t remember.”
“I’m not sure the guy forgets much.”
Lineberry was about to say something but then caught himself. “I believe I would agree with that,” he said cautiously. “But still.”
Neither one said anything else for the rest of the drive.
The restaurant in Americus was across the street from the Windsor Hotel, a Queen Anne architectural-style building.
“You ever been here?” asked Lineberry.
“This restaurant or Americus?”
“Both.”
“No on the restaurant. Yes on Americus. They took me to the hospital here when the guy shattered my skull.”
Lineberry looked embarrassed. “I should have remembered that.”
“No reason for you to. I don’t really remember much about it. I was told later.”
They ordered and their meals came a few minutes later.
“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was jailed here in 1961 for protesting segregation in Albany, did you know that?” asked Lineberry.
Pine shook her head. “But I guess that wasn’t unexpected, this being Georgia.”
“On the other side of the coin, Habitat for Humanity has its headquarters here.”
“I read that somewhere.”
He took a sip of his iced tea. “One night I was leaving town after a dinner back in, I think it was 2007. That’s when this massive tornado came through town here. Don’t know how it missed us. It cut a nearly forty-mile-wide path of destruction through Americus, destroying homes, businesses, churches, and it demolished the regional hospital. They finally had to tear it down. I watched it go through. Scariest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Looks like they rebuilt okay.”
He looked at her over his soup bowl. “I bet you’ve seen a lot scarier than that in your line of work.”
She thought about Daniel James Tor. “I’ve seen some scary human beings. I don’t know how they compare to facing a tornado.”
Lineberry nodded and looked down.
Jerry had stayed outside in the Porsche, while Tyler had taken a table near them and was sipping on a cup of coffee. Pine eyed Jerry through the restaurant’s broad front window.
“How long has Jerry been with you?” asked Pine as she sipped her iced tea.
“About five years. He’s former Secret Service.”
“Is that right?”
“Does that surprise you?”
“That you would hire former Secret Service as security? No. They’re some of the best in the world.”
“What then?”
“He escalated a situation with me back at your house that he didn’t need to. I know a lot of Secret Service, both active and retired. They don’t do that. They’re calm, respectful, and professional. They defuse until that doesn’t work anymore. Escalation is never their first move unless someone has a weapon out.”
Lineberry glanced toward the street where the Porsche was parked. “Well, he’s done a good job for me.”
“What about the other guy?”
“Tyler Straub came from a private security firm. A good man.”
“Why so much security, Mr. Lineberry?”
“Please, it’s Jack. Not to toot my own horn, but I do have great wealth, and unfortunately with that, one becomes a target.”
“Any threats?”
“There have been, yes. Some are generic, you know, I’m a capitalistic bastard draining the lifeblood from the world. Others have come from former employees and even one ex-client who went a bit mad and thought we had ripped him off.”
“And you didn’t?”
Lineberry smiled. “If I made a habit of ripping off clients, I would not be in business long.”
“Bernie Madoff did okay for a long time.”
“We’re independently audited every year and the investments we hold for our cli
ents are in real companies and other securities. We’re totally transparent. Their reports come directly from those companies and concerns they’ve invested in. We do not make up our own statements, other than to show overall investments and performance by our firm, which we are legally required to do.”
“So what was this guy’s beef?”
“That instead of making him a hundred million dollars in profit in five years, we only managed to make him fifty million. That still represented a doubling of his initial investment, a pretty damn good return over that time frame, when most everyone else was getting half that return.”
“And he really had a beef with that?”
“He sued me, then he threatened me. Then he came to my office with what he said was a bomb.”
“What happened?”
“He’s currently in a secure psychiatric hospital. I think all that money addled him.”
“So I guess money really can’t buy you happiness.”
“No, but it can buy you freedom and convenience.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but why the sudden lunch invitation?”
“I was in Andersonville and was coming here anyway. Then I spotted you.”
She shook her head. “It’s in my DNA to be skeptical. So I’m thinking for a busy man like yourself there has to be another reason.”
Lineberry wiped his mouth and laid down his spoon. “Okay, maybe there is.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’ll be blunt. What happened to Julia?”
It suddenly hit Pine that she should have been expecting this query. “Why?”
“She was a friend, a good friend. I know what happened to your poor father. I’d just like to know that she’s okay now.”
Pine eyed him appraisingly. “I guess it depends on how you define okay.”
He grimaced. “That sounds rather ominous.”
“It’s been a long time and you’ve had a whole other life since then. I know you were friends, but…”
“We were all young, though I was the oldest in the group. And the friends you’re around when you’re sort of starting out in life are important ones. And I never had any family of my own, so I guess I sort of adopted everyone else’s kids as my own. It tore me to pieces when Britta and Myron lost both of theirs.”
“An accident and an overdose.”
“Yes.”
“What sort of accident?”
“Is that important?”
Though Pine really couldn’t remember them she said, “We were kids here. We played together. You don’t have a monopoly on that sentiment.”
Lineberry looked thoroughly admonished. “Yes, yes, of course. Well, Joe was cleaning his shotgun and it discharged.”
“He was cleaning a loaded weapon?”
“I believe he’d been drinking.”
“Where did this happen?”
“In North Carolina. He was living there then.”
“And Mary? Britta said it was an overdose?”
“Heroin, I think.”
“She was a longtime user?”
“No, I don’t think so. I believe it was her first time.”
“And her last.”
“Yes. Mary died first, and Joe about a month later. It really tore them up.”
“But they seem to have recovered, to the extent anyone can.”
“Myron is Myron. He…well, he looks at everything logically. And then he moves on. Britta? I’m not sure she’ll ever move on, really.”
“She has the Cape Cod place in the backyard. Doesn’t like the contemporary stuff.”
“I think she spends a lot of time there. Thinking about things.”
Pine nodded.
“So, your mother?”
“I’ll be candid with you. She’s had a lot of challenges.”
“What sort of challenges?”
“I’d prefer not to go into that.”
He cocked his head. “So, is she in a hospital or something?”
“Or something,” Pine said vaguely.
“What’s her prognosis?”
“I’m not sure there is one, at least that I know of.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
She shrugged. “That’s life. You take the good with the bad. Do you remember anyone else other than the Pringles that I could talk to?”
“No, that’s it.”
“Okay. Then I guess we’re done here.” She reached for her wallet.
“No, I’ve got it. I invited you.”
“I’ll feel better paying my way,” said Pine. She handed him a twenty.
A minute later the three of them went back out to the Porsche and got in, and Jerry drove off.
“Next time you see your mother can you tell her I said hello?” asked Lineberry.
“I will.” If I ever see her again, thought Pine.
They dropped her off back at the Cottage.
“If you think of anything else, give me a call,” said Pine.
“I will,” promised Lineberry.
As they drove off Pine thought, Why do I doubt that?
Chapter 21
UNDERSTAND I CAN’T BE a hundred percent sure, but I’ve marked the men who were at the Clink that night to the best of my recollection,” said Blum, handing the notebook over to Pine.
Pine set it down on the bed in her room and flipped through it. “Looks to be about twenty men who weren’t there, though half of them look too old and frail to have even picked up the woman, much less carried her any distance.”
“Agnes Ridley and Cy were there, too. So I had them go through the photos as well, to check my memory. We came up with basically the same list.”
“But no Myron Pringle and no Jack Lineberry.”
“I asked around town. Neither frequent the Clink.”
“I would suppose not. They don’t live that close. Lineberry probably has his own chef, and Pringle would be afraid someone might try to put an ingestible spy chip in his mashed potatoes.”
“How did it go on your end?”
Pine told her about finding zip at the crime scene and her unusual lunch with Lineberry. “It was funny he was asking about my mom like that.”
“They were friends.”
“It was a long time ago. And he kept in touch with my dad, but not my mom?”
“Well, he said he didn’t know where she was. So what will you do with my list?”
“Pass it along to Wallis. It might generate a lead.”
“The trouble is our killer might have been a tourist and has already left the area.”
“There was nothing we could do about that. We couldn’t very well shut the whole town down. I wouldn’t imagine there are many surveillance cameras around here.”
“I doubt there are any in the relevant area, or else you’d think the police or Wallis would have mentioned something like that.”
Pine took photos of the men who weren’t at the restaurant and emailed them to Wallis. “Let’s see what he can run down on that.”
“Next steps?” asked Blum.
Pine’s phone buzzed. It was Wallis acknowledging receipt of the photos and adding something else.
Pine listened and then clicked off. “He’s found out Hanna Rebane’s last known address. He’s heading over here to pick us up.”
* * *
“Fort Benning land,” said Wallis as he drove Pine and Blum in his dusty and rusty Crown Vic. The interior was littered with fast-food containers, dented soda cans, plastic coffee cups, and the comingled smells of degrading French fries and cigarette smoke.
“Columbus, Georgia,” said Pine. “On the border with Alabama.”
“Right. You been there?”
“Once, when I was conducting a joint investigation with Army CID.”
“I’ve done some stuff with CID. Who’d you work with?”
“CID Special Agent named John Puller.”
Wallis said, “Puller? Wasn’t his daddy a war hero or something?”
“Still is. An
d so is John. Good guy. Taught me a lot about the military. It’s a whole other world.”
“I damn sure know that from my abbreviated tour of duty,” agreed Wallis heartily.
“So what’s the scoop on Hanna Rebane?” asked Blum.
“She shared an apartment with another gal.”
“Is the roommate Eastern European too?”
“No, her name’s Beth Clemmons. That’s her real name, not her professional one.”
“Professional one?” asked Pine.
“She’s a porn actress. Goes by Raven McCoy in the, um, films.”
“Was Rebane into porn films as well?” asked Pine. “That would explain some of what we found at her autopsy.”
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
The apartment complex they drove into was within sight of the Chattahoochee River, which formed the boundary line between Georgia and its neighboring state of Alabama.
Pine looked around at the upscale building as they got out of the car.
“It’s nicer than I thought it would be,” she said.
“I guess her work pays well,” noted Blum.
“I phoned ahead; Clemmons is waiting for us,” said Wallis.
They checked in with the building concierge. Pine gazed around at the plush interior of the lobby and thought that it was far nicer than where she lived in Arizona.
They rode up on the elevator to the sixth floor, where Wallis knocked on the door of Number 611. It was instantly opened by a petite, busty woman with dyed blond hair and bloodshot eyes. She had on a halter top and black leggings and was barefoot. A clump of tissues was clutched in one hand.
Beth Clemmons looked devastated.
She stepped back to allow them in after Wallis and Pine badged her.
Clemmons led them into a sun-streamed room with sweeping views of the countryside and the Chattahoochee River beyond. To Pine’s eye the place was professionally decorated, and the furniture and paint choices were informed and imaginative. She had led a Spartan existence, but during her investigations Pine had seen the homes of a great many people with financial means, and thus she knew the difference between good taste and throwing cash at something to see what stuck.
They sat around a large wooden-and-metal coffee table. Clemmons patted her eyes dry and gazed at them.
“Are you sure it’s Hanna?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
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