“I didn’t see it!”
“Where did he kill her, Rachel? In the car, on the boat, in the beach house? Where did Katrina Bates die?”
She looked at me for a long, awful moment.
Then she looked away.
“The water.”
“The water?”
“He knocked her out on the boat and then we took the boat out and dumped her into the ocean with these two big concrete blocks tied to her ankles.”
“She was alive when he dumped her over the side?”
“She woke up when she hit the water … and her hands came up, like this, and her eyes were open. …” Rachel Bisset’s short, pudgy fingers clawed at my face on the ends of her outstretched arms.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay.” I lowered myself back onto the sofa, rubbed my face hard. “Okay.”
We didn’t speak for a few minutes. She sat in the chair with my handkerchief over her eyes and I sat on the sofa with the blinders off mine.
“So I was right—and I was wrong,” I said finally. “She really is dead.”
“You knew that already,” she said without lowering the handkerchief. “You just told me they found her on the beach.”
“No,” I said. “Nobody’s found her. I lied.”
Now the handkerchief came down, a snotty little white curtain lowering.
“Why?”
“I was hoping I was wrong.”
SCENE TWELVE
KPD Headquarters
Late That Afternoon
Meredith Black came out of the interrogation room and sat beside me.
“Well?” I asked.
“Oh, she’s in love, she’s in love, and she don’t care who knows it. In the name of love. Blah, blah, blah.”
“That word again,” I said.
“You’re not going all hard and cynical on me, are you, Ruzak?”
“I’ve been struggling lately,” I admitted. “One of my core beliefs has always been in the basic goodness of people.”
“Oh, there’s a few of us out there, Teddy. I’m pretty good. And you’re so good, you make good people look bad.”
“You know who I was sitting here feeling sorry for?”
“Not her, I hope. She had her chance to save Katrina.”
“Alistair Lynch. I’d hate to be the one who has to tell him she’s dead.”
“I’m not looking forward to it.” She sighed. “But he is a greedy SOB; I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
“Katrina went to Dres first,” I said. “That’s how she got the pictures.”
She nodded. “Right. And probably the whole ‘Let’s frame your husband’ thing was his ride. It appealed to her sense of the dramatic, not to mention her vindictive streak, and she climbed aboard.”
“And then he switches cars on her.”
“He knew Tom was worth lots. But the really big bucks were out of reach unless Katrina was. So he played her. Played her dad. Played us. Tried to play you, but you don’t play somebody like Theodore Ruzak. Too much openhearted dogged persistence. What was the tip-off?”
“Nobody could find Katrina. Lynch is arrested; Dres confesses; and still no sign of or word from Katrina. What did it mean? It stuck in my craw.”
“I’m sorry, your … ‘craw’?”
“There were only three possibilities, as I saw it. One: She switched identities once she landed in Vancouver, which would be pretty clever, a double-headed fake in case anyone stumbled across the Regina Giddens moniker.”
“Which somebody did.”
“Two: There was an accomplice waiting in Canada to negate any need of using the phony name. Or three: She was dead. I didn’t want it to be three, didn’t know where to start with one, so I decided to explore two.”
“The accomplice angle.”
“Right. The trouble was, where were they going to find somebody who would be willing to help?”
“Kind of payday we’re talking about, wouldn’t be too hard.”
“Not based on the money, based on trust. Who could Dresden trust? So I started asking around Velman. About the receptionist who he said had a crush on him and the very weird fact that she happened to quit around the time Katrina disappeared. And they told me it wasn’t a stalking situation like he made it out to be. Dres returned her affections. So I tracked down her address, found out she had moved recently from a four-hundred-dollar-a-month studio to one of the priciest condos in Knoxville. That’s it, I’m thinking. I found the accomplice. I hit pay dirt at the car-rental place in Vancouver: Rachel Bisset booked a one-way rental to Knoxville forty-five minutes after Regina Giddens’s flight touched down.”
Meredith Black was smiling at me.
“And how did you get from that to murder one?”
“I couldn’t think of any other explanation except that she was dead. No alternative theory could fit those facts.”
“There’s theory one: They flew up together and Katrina moved on under a different identity.”
“What would be the reason? She needed a baby-sitter? And the salient point is her baby-sitter didn’t stay to sit her. She came straight back to Knoxville.”
“A third person met them.”
“Too complicated. Every time you add a conspirator, it increases the risk of blowing the whole thing. And if a third person was waiting, why would Rachel need to fly up there?”
“You’re short a theory, Teddy. Four: Maybe Rachel flew up to Vancouver a couple days before. To make arrangements prior to Katrina’s arrival. Find her a hideout, buy her a cheap set of wheels, who knows? Katrina flies from Savannah as Regina, and Rachel is free to drive back home. Fits the facts perfectly.”
“That could explain it,” I said. “Which is one of the reasons I didn’t go to you guys straight off with what I knew. There’s a problem with it.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t rule out theory three.”
“No. I guess it doesn’t.”
“See, I wasn’t really out to prove any given theory was right. I wanted to prove that one theory wrong. And I knew if you guys contacted Rachel before I did, odds were she’d lawyer up or, faced with the evidence, might hook onto theory four and we’d never know the truth.”
“The truth,” she echoed.
“So I lied,” I said.
“To get the truth.”
“Not the usual door.”
“The back door.”
“Only door left unlocked.”
“Because you wanted her to be alive,” she said.
“I wanted to be wrong.”
“And you really don’t think you are about Lynch?”
“Oh, jeez, Meredith. His only daughter. Years of estrangement, short on cash, he was the linchpin—no pun—he was the key. She was doomed once her dad entered the picture, probably when Dres got the bright idea to kill her so all the money would come to him—it was all flowing to him anyway; he’s already admitted to that.”
“Still, Lynch could be lying. A man like him saying he wasn’t allowed contact with her after the disappearance, that everything had to flow through Dres, it kind of stretches things.”
“Maybe we’re back to this cockamamie core belief of mine.”
“How long could Dres reasonably stretch it out? That’s my point.”
“At least through Tom’s trial. Probably even through the wrongful-death suit. It would compute. Why risk blowing the whole thing by contacting her? Lynch was sold because she was sold, and that’s what gets me, Meredith, what ever your opinion of Katrina Bates; that’s the thing that tears at me. When did it hit her? When did she know she was being played like she played everybody else? On the drive over to Tybee? On the boat, right before the hammer fell? Or—and this is the picture I can’t get out of my head—did she not see it coming at all, and it was only after she hit the water and she reached for him, clawing at his shadow hanging over the surface … is that when it hit her? Is that when she knew?”
She didn’t say anything. She put a hand on my forearm. We
sat there and stared at the opposite wall, which was painted institutional beige. A big clock hung there, the small hand midway between the seven and the eight. It reminded me I hadn’t had dinner.
“Wanna grab a bite to eat?” I asked.
“Give me a rain check,” she said. “I have to take her down for processing.”
“Pity,” I said.
“I’m not blowing you off, promise. It’s not you.”
“Not me,” I echoed. “Pity: It never would have occurred to me to check into the Rachel connection if I hadn’t felt somewhat responsible for her losing her job. I don’t think I even would have remembered the former receptionist he called ‘a reject from the ugly factory.’ But he made this joke, blaming it on me, on the fact that I had a pretty secretary and he didn’t. So I felt sorry for her, this person I had never met, and pity made her plight stick in my craw.”
“ ’Your craw must be pretty sore with so many things stuck in there.” She gave my forearm a final pat and stood up. Her legs were long; the standing up took awhile. She was smiling down at me.
“I’ll tell you what’s the pity,” she said. “I’m married.”
SCENE THIRTEEN
The Sterchi Building
Late That Evening
You lied to me,” Whittaker said.
“I’ve been wondering about this,” I said. “Every time I see you, you’re wearing the same suit or a nearly identical suit. Why is that? Is there a dress code or something? And doesn’t that sort of demote you to a kind of glorified doorman or handyman?”
“Your thirty days have long expired, Mr. Ruzak.”
“I have a proposition for you,” I said. “Wednesday afternoons from five to seven, plus every other weekend. Two weeks during the summer. I’m responsible for a hundred percent of the upkeep, vet bills, medicine, food, toys, and incidentals.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“I’ll throw in alternating holidays.”
“I could report you,” he said. “Neglect. Animal cruelty.”
“You’re a tough negotiator, Whittaker. You take the nine-to-five shift, but I get him at night.”
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Why don’t you just give him to me?”
“Is that an offer?”
“I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, Ruzak. Maybe you’re having trouble finding him a good home.”
“Which raises the question: Is yours?”
“You’re considering it.”
“Whittaker, I’m going to be honest with you.”
“It’s about time.”
“This dog and I have had some bonding issues, some difficulties getting over the hump of establishing trust and intimacy. Sort of like an arranged marriage or taking in a foster child. In the ten months that we’ve known each other, that dog has yet to offer me the smallest smidgen of affection. Mostly, he stares. Sits across the room and stares at me like I have two heads. I’ve tried everything. I can’t bribe it, trick it, or coerce it into loving me. But like any adoptive parent, I made a commitment to be in it for the long haul, and love is not an instantaneous big bang, but a tender seedling to be gently nurtured. Do you know, do you have any clue what it’s like to bring a companion into your home, an animal not only renowned the world over for its unconditional acceptance and love but actually genetically engineered to that purpose over thousands of years, and have that animal reject you? It shakes you to your very core. It’s worse than adopting a monkey; monkeys are wild animals with no history of domestication. It makes you question fundamental principles, long-held, psychologically stabilizing beliefs. It pulls up your anchor and sets you adrift in a sea of malaise. This animal, born and bred to love, loves everyone he meets—except me. Get it? It isn’t the dog, Whittaker. It’s me. If I give him up now, if I give up on him now, what does that say about me? That I’m unlovable even unto dogs? You see the dilemma.”
“Maybe you haven’t met the right dog.” It was the best he could offer.
“Here’s what you don’t understand about me,” I began.
“I don’t want to understand you,” he said.
“I’m tenacious. I don’t give up without a fight.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Going into my apartment to verify compliance is one thing, Whittaker. Going into it over and over and over again to play with my dog is another.”
“You can’t prove that.”
“Maybe I have video. Maybe I installed a nanny cam in his Yosemite Sam plushie.”
“You don’t give a crap about that dog. This is about beating me.”
“That would make it about you. I just said it was about me.”
Upstairs, I threw the dead bolt. From his bed across the room, Archie did not so much as raise his head. I had taken to leaving him out of the crate while I was at work, the guilt of locking him up outweighing the fear of him defecating on my sofa.
“Hey, Arch,” I said. “Wanna go for a walk?” I jingled his leash. Nothing. I fixed his dinner and set it on the floor beside his water bowl. The sad brown eyes flicked back and forth, eyebrows went up and down; otherwise, nothing. I grabbed a Bud Light from the fridge and settled on the sofa. The afternoon sun shone through the open blinds, painting alternating bands of dark and light upon the hardwood.
My cell buzzed in my pocket. I didn’t recognize the number. It wasn’t Knoxville’s area code.
“Ragman,” purred the smoky voice of Melody Moy. “The famous Teddy Ruzak.”
“Melody. Hey.”
“Watcha doin’?”
“Nothing much. Playing with my dog.”
“I didn’t know you had a dog.”
“Yes, you do. I told you.”
“When?”
“At the beach house.”
“You did?”
“And you told me you have a cat.”
“I don’t have a cat.”
“You did but it died. Putin.”
“Puffin.”
“Okay, Putin is that Russian guy.”
“What’s your dog’s name?” she asked.
“Archie.”
“Does he have big soft brown puppy-dog eyes?”
“Oh,” I said. “You bet he does.”
“Guess what? I’m in the paper today.”
“Really? That should help business.”
“ ’Local Woman Key to Uncovering Murder Plot.’ Lead story and a picture. I’m sending a copy to my mother. And my ex—it’s a good picture.”
“Send me one, too,” I said.
“Already in the mail. You think she’ll ever wash up?”
“It could happen,” I said.
“I almost hope it doesn’t.”
“How come?”
“She should rest.” I patted the empty air. “Rest.”
“One thing I should tell you before you read the story. That reporter really played it up about me, like I solved the damned thing. I really didn’t try to take the credit. Just wanted you to know.”
“It doesn’t matter to me.”
“You’re the one who cracked the conspiracy.”
“Those work out so seldom, you wonder why people persist in conspiring.”
“Maybe that should be your specialty. That Kennedy thing still troubles a lot of people.”
“Have you ever been to Dallas? There’s a big white X on the road where he was shot. During breaks in traffic, tourists run over from the grassy knoll and pose on it for a picture.”
“You sound surprised.”
“It’s counterintuitive,” I admitted. “You’d think somebody in my line of work would be more accustomed to the weirdness of people.”
Silence, as if she had run out of things to say. It was the reason for mine anyway.
“Anyway,” she said.
I looked over at Archie. His eyes were closed. I closed mine.
“You going to keep your bargain with me, Ragman?” she asked.
“Bargain?”
“Dinner in exchange for my cracki
ng your case for you.”
“Oh. That bargain.”
“Knoxville, Savannah, or somewhere in between?”
“Well, that wouldn’t be right, you driving all the way to Knoxville so I can treat you to dinner.”
“I know this great little place not far from the beach. You like French food?”
“Love the fries.”
“Their foie gras is to die for.”
“Well. Très magnifique.”
“So how about next week? Friday.”
“Oh. Friday.”
“You’re busy Friday.”
“Don’t know, but I’m sure I am. Fridays are bad in general. So much mopping up from the rest of the week.”
“Saturday.”
“This Saturday?”
“Or next Saturday. Either Saturday.”
“I’d have to find a sitter.”
“You have a kid?”
“I have a dog.”
“That’s right. Artimus.”
“Archie.”
“Artimus sounds more like a detective’s dog.”
“Well, he’s about two, and that would be like renaming your fourteen-year-old. Confusing.”
“Bring him along.”
“The restaurant allows pets?”
“Ruzak, they’re French.”
“Maybe someplace in between would be best,” I said. “Neutral territory.”
“What, we’re signing an armistice? Ruzak, you have no intention of paying me back, have you?”
“I want to pay you back.”
“It’s just dinner, and you won’t be drinking.”
“I won’t?”
“I’ve seen you when you’ve been drinking.”
“Right. Plus, I have to drive back.”
“Pessimist.”
“You’re the one who said ‘just dinner.’ But it’s funny you said that. All my life I’ve thought of myself as the opposite.”
We hung up without resolving anything. I looked at my watch. Five after seven: the Wheel of Fortune hour. Archie’s eyes were still closed. The atmosphere was rich with the odor of his bowels. I had switched dog foods four times, trying to resolve his flatulence problems, all to no avail. Putin always made me think of the fart euphemism, poot. Maybe I should rename him Vladimir, I thought.
The Highly Effective Detective Plays the Fool Page 20