"You know, I think I'm done here," Gage said.
"It just seems odd to us," Pantelli continued. "If you felt Zoe's life was in danger, why wait?"
"I really can't think of anything else I can tell you right now that will help your investigation," Gage said.
Pantelli bull-dozed forward as if he hadn't spoken. "Have you considered the possibility that Anthony Bruzzi might be the one who killed Angela Wellman?"
"What, to frame me?" Gage said. "If so, he did a piss-poor job of it."
"Perhaps he did it not to frame you, but to punish you," Pantelli said. "Perhaps Angela Wellman means a lot more to you than you're letting on."
"And he raped her too? Bruzzi is many things, but he's never been stupid. He's got to know you've got his DNA on file." Gage shook his head. "I really don't think you're stupid enough to believe this either. I think you're just trying to badger me, hoping I'll get rattled enough to reveal something. But I got news for you. There's nothing to reveal—and I don't appreciate what you're trying to do here."
Wilde snorted. "We don't appreciate how difficult you're trying to make our investigation. We know your reputation, Gage, but you've been out of this game a long time. If you know something, tell us, then you can go back to feeding the seagulls."
"Witty," Gage said. "But my time waster of choice is crossword puzzles, thank you very much."
"We'd also promise to put a covert security detail on your daughter," Pantelli said. "To protect her from Bruzzi."
Gage studied her. Pantelli was a ballsy woman, he had to give her that. Drop dead gorgeous, too. It was a devastating combination. He wondered how many men had wilted under that unwavering stare of hers.
"Yeah?" he said. "How long would you do that?"
"As long it takes."
"Right."
"I'm serious. I have the authorization to do it. So if you don't trust the local police to do the job —"
"You're assuming I trust the FBI more?" Gage said, with a derisive laugh.
Pantelli didn't blink. Nothing appeared to rattle her. "We're just trying to get your full cooperation."
"Like I said, I have nothing more to tell you."
There was an electricity in the air between them, something almost sexual, an awareness of each other's bodies; it was unmistakable feeling. It elicited a strong enough reaction from him that he felt a mild sense of guilt, even if he had done nothing wrong. It was male-female chemistry, nothing more. He wasn't going to act on the impulse, for God's sake.
Hurriedly, as if embarrassed, she pulled a business card out of her coat pocket and handed it to Gage.
"If you change your mind—" she began.
"I won't," Gage said.
"—call my cell. Day or night. Doesn't matter. Anything you can do to help us would be appreciated."
"I told you, I've done all I can."
She nodded, then stepped hurriedly around him and left. What exactly had happened? One moment she was this fearless beast, a man killer who could wipe out half the species merely with a sweeping gaze, the next she was too embarrassed to meet his eyes? Wilde left with a grunt. Gage watched them until they got in their Lincoln.
"You always have such a way with people," Alex said. "You should teach a class on etiquette."
Gage studied the card. Karen Pantelli, Special Agent. "You know anything about her?"
"I'm retired, Garrison, remember? I stopped going to the Christmas parties years ago."
"I just thought maybe you'd heard something."
"Why? You want to ask her out?"
"Jesus, I was just curious."
"I seem to remember you having a pretty gorgeous girlfriend already."
With an exasperated sigh, Gage shoved the card into his pocket. "Forget I asked. I just wondered what I was up against, that's all."
"Uh huh. Well, like I said, I don't know more than you. I guess I could ask all my FBI buddies if she likes you, then you two can go to the prom together."
"Are you finished?"
Smirking, Alex removed his glasses and rubbed them on his shirt. "That depends," he said. "What kind of book did you bring me there in that bag?"
Chapter 15
It wouldn't be that hard to dust for prints, Alex told him, but it would take a while to see if there was a match. He had to send a scan of the print to an old friend who worked in one of the crime labs, and even though this guy owed Alex a few favors, it was doubtful he would be able to get to it right away. Even if he could, running a query in the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or IAFIS for short, was a slow and methodical process; there were over fifty million files to search.
The past few years, the computers had gotten a lot faster, the technology improving by leaps and bounds, but finding a possible match would still take time. How much time? It would depend on how busy his friend happened to be, since much of the work still had to be done by a professional after the computer had narrowed it down. Maybe a couple days, if they were lucky.
This was not what Gage wanted to hear. Getting a match on that print was his best chance of finding Angela's killer. But what to do now? Unfortunately, Alex's research into the private investigator in Boston who'd worked for Loren Sparrow had turned into a dead end. Sparrow had been right about John Ettel's drinking problem. According to Ettel's girlfriend, Ettel died a couple months after working with Loren Sparrow—alcohol poisoning, found in the alley outside his favorite bar. And the girlfriend had tossed all the stuff related to Ettel's work, so there wouldn't be any help there. The only reason she remembered that Sparrow had hired her boyfriend was because Ettel had mentioned to her that he'd always been a big fan of Sparrow's work—even wrote him a fan letter once.
That left Gage with not much to go on for the time being. Making matters worse, when he returned to his house he found not one, but three news vans squeezed into the driveway—CNN, Fox, and KEZI out of Eugene. A light rain pelted their rain slickers and their plastic-encased video cameras. As soon as he stepped out of the Volkswagen, they bombarded him with questions. Standing on his front stoop, he announced that if they weren't off his property in five minutes he would call the police and report them for trespassing.
Even with the press gone, he knew he couldn't stay in the house, especially with Zoe there. Bruzzi, the press, the FBI—they were all circling like sharks. But where could he go? If he stayed with Carmen, it would only raise more questions with the press. Alex might have a spare room at the Turret House, but Gage didn't think that was a good idea either. These were his problems and he needed to deal with them on his own.
He settled on spending a couple days in a nice hotel room. The only question was what Zoe would think about it. It was still raining when he left to pick her up from school, but barely, a vaporous mist that built up on his windshield like a film. He was right about the press, too—all three vans were waiting for him at the gas station at the bottom of his hill, and two of them followed him all the way to the school, much to his annoyance. Since he was heading home, he didn't bother trying to lose them.
"You're sure popular," Zoe said, watching the vans in her side mirror.
It was one of the rare days where she wasn't wearing solid black. Granted, it was just a gray hoodie and blue jeans, which barely counted as color, but she also wasn't wearing layers of black eyeliner either.
"I like how you look today," Gage said.
She rolled her eyes. "So are they going to be parked at our house or what?"
"Not unless they want to get shot. But now that you mention it, I have a proposal for you."
When he told her about staying in a hotel, she wasn't all that thrilled, but he sweetened the deal by promising her that they could stay at the Inn at Sapphire Head, the best hotel in town, and order room service for every meal. Since his own cooking mostly consisted of heating things up, and success counted as not burning the food, he knew this would be an attractive perk. He got his answer when she shrugged and slipped on her ear buds.
&
nbsp; The vans didn't dare follow him up his driveway, but they were there an hour later, at the gas station, when Gage and Zoe came back down again—suitcases now packed and arrangements made with one of the neighbors to take care of the cats. Since Gage had no intention of letting the press know where he was staying, he embarked on an hour-long chase on the windy roads around Big Dipper Lake, careening around the narrow turns fast enough that even Zoe was roused enough from her music reverie to grab the door handle. The thick maze of houses, hills, and pine trees shortened the line of sight to fifty feet or less, allowing him to emerge back on East Lake Road a good deal before his pursuers and duck down another side street. He watched through his rearview mirror as they drove past.
Since Gage didn't want to chance the vans waiting for them where East Lake Road joined back up with Highway 101, he was forced to take the long way around the lake, merging with 101 on the north side. The sky was deepening to black by the time they finally reached the Inn, but at least he was confident he hadn't been followed.
The main parking lot was on the east side of the highway, connected to the hotel by a tunnel that ran under the road. While they were rolling their suitcases along the narrow sidewalk that bordered the road, Zoe took out her ear buds.
"So I gotta ask something," she said.
The rumble of their suitcases echoed off the concave concrete walls. Above was the woosh of constant traffic. The lights spaced along the ceiling, protected by tiny iron cages that resembled nests, were so weak that he could barely see her face.
"Go for it," he said.
She swallowed. If he didn't know her better, he might have thought she was nervous. "Are we gonna have to move?" she asked.
"What?"
"I'm just wondering if we're going to have to live here any ore. You know, because of all the stuff that's happening."
"Why would you think that?"
She shrugged. "It's just, I heard about Carmen mentioning you on TV. Some kids were talking about it. And there was stuff in the Oregonian today about the murder and all that God's Wrath craziness. I figure it won't take long for them to figure out how you knew her—you know, way back. I just figured it was going to get real nuts. Like more nuts than now."
"We're just having a fun getaway at the Inn," Gage said. "No one's forcing us. It's just spontaneous fun, that's all."
The tunnel brightened as they neared the lamp lights at the far end, so he had a clear view of her rolling her eyes. "Come on," she said. "We just played Houdini with all those TV people for the past hour. You didn't think that was nuts?"
"I thought it was kind of fun."
"Really. Fun? I don't remember you ever having fun."
"Ouch."
"I'm just saying, you're kind of a serious person. It's okay. I'm kind of a serious person too. We just don't smile and laugh and stuff unless there's a good reason."
"Well," Gage said," maybe we should change that."
"Yeah, okay. Whatever."
"I'm serious. Let's see what comedies they have on Pay-Per-View."
She snorted. Approaching the glass doors, a seagull pecking at the strip of red outdoor carpet in the near-darkness fluttered into the air and disappeared over the roof. He caught a glimpse of the dark strip of ocean beyond the edges of the building. A lanky valet helped an elderly couple load plaid suitcases into the back of their Ford Taurus. Blinking Christmas lights in green garland circled the posts of the covered walkway.
"I'm still waiting for you to answer my question," she said.
"I don't see us moving," Gage said.
"Even if it gets nuts?"
"Even then."
"What if it gets really, really nuts?"
He stopped outside the front doors. Finally, he felt a bit of wind, a jet of cool moist air flitting along the edge of the building and ruffling his hair.
"Is this about Bruzzi?" he asked.
She shrugged.
"Because he won't be bothering you again. He'll never get the chance."
"It's not that. I just don't want to move."
Now it was his turn to roll his eyes, although he knew he didn't do it nearly as well. "Are you kidding?" he said. "You complain about Barnacle Bluffs every chance you get. You always tell me you can't wait to get out of this dumpy town and move to a bigger city. You tell me all the kids at your high school are lame and all the teachers are idiots. You tell me everybody who lives here is a clueless zombie."
"Yeah, so?"
"Yeah, so! Now you're telling me you love the place? I don't get it."
She shook her head and headed for the front doors, which whisked open in front of her. "I never said I love the place," she retorted. "I just said I don't want to move. It's not the same thing at all."
* * * * *
The room lived up to its billing, a spacious eighth floor suite decorated in soft earth tones. There was a separate bedroom with a queen bed, a plush hideabed couch that turned into another queen, and a gas fireplace with a stone facade. The bathroom itself was bigger than most of the motel rooms Gage had stayed in over the years. They couldn't see much from the balcony but a few blinking lights on the ocean, a passing tanker maybe, but he knew from past experience that the view was spectacular. He'd seen it the last time he was at the Inn, when he'd been investigating the Abby Heddle murder.
Zoe's only comment on the room was a barely audible "hmm," then she plopped herself down on the couch and grabbed the TV remote off the nightstand. All of the major cable news stations were discussing the God's Wrath cult, and the murder on the Oregon Coast in particular. Without a word, Zoe skipped past these stations. Gage used the phone in the room to inform Alex and Carmen how they could be reached, and also to invite Carmen over to have dinner with them in the hotel restaurant. She begged off, saying she had a couple phone interviews to do with some magazine reporters. She was oddly perfunctory, as if he was just a random person performing a survey and her answers required no emotional investment.
That night, after he enjoyed a particularly tender cut of prime rib at the Inn's restaurant along with a glass of a fairly mediocre Pinot Gris, he spent some time skimming the stack of Loren Sparrow books he'd gotten from Alex. Zoe fell asleep while watching a fairly inane movie starring Jim Carrey. Gage had read some of the books before, but he'd never read The Beautiful Godless Universe, and that was definitely the most provocative of the bunch.
While the other books were interesting in their layman's approach to popular science, and evolution in particular, Godless Universe was a full-throated roar against the evils of organized religion—and specifically against fundamentalist Christianity. Sparrow spared no punches, calling religious leaders "small-minded zealots pushing comforting lies to the mentally castrated." He could clearly see why the God's Wrath cult had singled Sparrow out for special attention. It probably drove them particularly crazy that he quoted the Bible at length, pointing out its apparent contradictions and silliness in the most derisive tone possible.
Saturday morning, after pancakes, coffee, and a rather blustery walk on the beach, Gage realized there was a possibility he'd been going about investigating the murder all wrong. Karen Pantelli might have been onto something. Maybe someone had used the God's Wrath cult as a sort of smokescreen. But who? He decided he'd start with her ex-husband. In his experience, anyone who could be described as an ex-anything—ex-husband, ex-partner—were prime suspects.
While Zoe worked on her American History term paper on her laptop, Gage settled himself on the couch with the room's cordless phone. The ocean filled the sliding glass doors; visibility was low, but the dark blue expanse was still impressive in its immensity. Since Zoe had her earphones on, he didn't think she was paying attention, but she piped up as soon as he started to dial Alex's store number.
"You know," she said, "they sell those for home use, too."
"Do they now?" Gage said.
"Maybe we could even buy one."
"But why, when my telegraph works so well?"
She
shook her head and went back to reading. Alex didn't answer for a dozen rings, and seemed perturbed when he realized it was Gage—apparently there were a bunch of Saturday tourists in the store with money to spend. Gage heard their chatter in the background.
"If this is about the fingerprints," Alex said, "you have another thing coming if you think —"
"No, something else," Gage said. "I was wondering if you could give me a phone number for Angela's ex-husband."
"Pal, I'm working here. I might even sell some John Grisham's. A few Danielle Steele's, if it's a really good day."
"Pretty please?"
His friend replied with a sigh worthy of a Shakespearean actor, then told Gage to hold on for a few minutes. He returned with even more exasperation in his voice than before. The guy's name was Gerald Wellman—an investment banker in Boston. He gave Gage a business number, but it looked like a cell number so maybe he'd answer on a Saturday.
"And that was all from a general Google search," Alex added. "You could have had Zoe do it for you."
"Yeah, but she's working on her homework."
There was a pause, as if Alex was deciding whether to dignify this remark with a response, then he hung up.
As Zoe had turned to watching some PBS videos about the civil rights era, Gage retreated to the bathroom to make his call. He wondered what the kid at Jaybee's would think about Gage's high tech investigation unit. Would he still think being a private investigator was such a glamorous job if he knew Gage was doing interviews in the can?
The wall separating his bathroom from the hotel room behind him was thin enough that he heard the muted sound of a vacuum cleaner. A man answered on the third ring.
"Wellman Investments," he said.
"This Gerald Wellman?" Gage asked.
"Speaking," he said.
"I'm Garrison Gage, Mister Wellman. Calling from Barnacle Bluffs, Oregon. Do you have a moment?"
A Desperate Place for Dying Page 17