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“Then, if they don’t just drop this, I’ll recommend a lawyer who deals with criminal matters.”
Danny starts to say thank you again, and maybe ask Ball if he could give him a ride to the police station, but Ball has hung up.
It isn’t much, but it’s something. He calls Becky.
“Hey, Beck,” he says when she answers. “I’ve got a little problem here, and I wondered—”
“I know about your little problem,” Becky says, “and it doesn’t sound so little to me. I just got off the phone with Cynthia Babson.”
Of course you did, Danny thinks.
“She says the cops think you killed that girl they found up north.”
She stops there, waiting for him to say he didn’t do it, that it’s ridiculous, but he shouldn’t have to do that. She’s known him for three years, they have sex once a week, sometimes twice, he’s picked her daughter up from school, and he shouldn’t have to do that, end of story.
He says, “I’m supposed to talk to them tomorrow, these two investigators from KBI, and I wondered if I could borrow your car. They took my truck to Great Bend and I’m not sure when I’ll get it back.”
There’s a long pause, then Becky says, “I was going to take DJ to the High Banks Hall of Fame tomorrow. You know she loves those funny cars.”
Danny knows the place, although he’s never been there. He also knows Darla Jean has never expressed the slightest interest in seeing a bunch of midget racing cars, at least not to him. If it was a doll museum, that would be different.
“All right. No problem.”
“You didn’t have anything to do with that girl, did you, Danny?”
He sighs. “No, Beck. I knew where she was, is all.”
“How? How did you know that?”
“I had a dream.”
She kindles. “Like Letitia in Inside View?”
“Yes. Just like her. I have to go, Becky.”
“You take care of yourself, Danny.”
“You too, Beck.”
At least she believed me about the dream, he thinks. On the other hand, Becky seems to believe everything she reads in her favorite supermarket tabloid, including how the ghost of Queen Elizabeth is haunting Balmoral Castle and about the intelligent ant-people living deep in the Amazon rainforest.
15
Ella Davis takes her partner to his hotel in Lyons and parks under the canopy. Jalbert grabs his battered old briefcase—companion of twenty-plus years of investigations covering Kansas from side to side and top to bottom—and tells her he’ll be at the Manitou PD by nine tomorrow. No need to pick him up, he’ll drive his personal. They can go over their plan of attack one more time before Coughlin arrives at ten. Davis herself is going on to Great Bend, where she’s staying with her sister. There’s a big birthday party coming up. Ella’s daughter is turning eight.
“Do we have enough to arrest him, Frank?”
“Let’s see what forensics finds in his truck.”
“No doubt in your mind that he did it?”
“None. Drive safe, Ella.”
She heads out. Jalbert gives her a wave and then heads to his room, giving his Chevy Caprice a pat on the way by. Like his briefcase, the Caprice has been with him on many cases from Kansas City on one side of the state to Scott City on the other.
The two-room suite, far from fancy, is what’s known as “Kansas plain.” There’s a smell of disinfectant and a fainter smell of mold. The toilet has a tendency to chuckle after flushing unless you flap the handle a few times. The air conditioner has a slight rattle. He’s been in better places, but he’s been in far worse. Jalbert drops his briefcase on the bed and runs the combination lock. He takes out a file with WICKER written on the tab. He makes sure the curtains are pulled tight. He puts the chain on the door and turns the thumb lock. Then he undresses down to the skin, folding each item of clothing on top of the briefcase as he goes. He sits in the chair by the door.
“One.”
