"Not so much, anymore," she says.
Nico swivels back to a sitting position, wrapping the thick collar of the coat around her. My sister could be so beautiful if she just took care of herself-combed her hair, got some sleep every once in a while. She"s like a picture of our mother that someone crumpled up and tried to smooth out again.
"So then it"s midnight, and he"s not back. I called him, no answer."
"So he went to a bar," I offer.
"I called all the bars."
"All of them?"
"Yes, Hen."
There are a lot more bars than there used to be. A year ago you had Penuche"s, the Green Martini, and that was pretty much as far as it went. Now there are lots of places, some licensed, some pirated, some just bas.e.m.e.nt apartments where someone has got a bathtub full of beer, a cash register, and an iPod set on shuffle.
"So he went to a friend"s house."
"I called them. I called everyone. He"s gone."
"He"s not gone," I say, and what I"m not saying is the truth, which is that if Derek really had pulled a runner on her, it would be the best thing to happen to my sister in a long time. They had gotten married on January 8, that first Sunday after the Tolkin interview. That particular Sunday had set the record, apparently, for the most weddings on a single day, a record unlikely ever to be beaten, unless it"s on October 2.
"Are you going to help me or not?"
"I told you, I can"t. Not today. I"m on a case."
"G.o.d, Henry," she says, her studied insouciance abruptly gone, and she"s hopping off the car and jabbing me in the chest with a forefinger. "I quit my job as soon as we knew this s.h.i.t was really happening. I mean, why waste time at work?
"You worked three days a week at a farmers" market. I solve murders."
"Oh, excuse me. I"m sorry. My husband is missing."
"He"s not really your husband."
"Henry."
"He"ll be back, Nico. You know he will."
"Really? What makes you so sure?" She stamps her foot, eyes blazing, not waiting for an answer. "And what are you working on that"s so important?"
I figure, what the heck, and I tell her about the Zell case, explain how I"ve just come from the morgue, that I"m developing leads, trying to impress upon her the seriousness of an ongoing police investigation.
"So wait. A hanger?" she says, sullen, peevish. She"s only twenty-one years old, my sister. She"s just a kid.
"Maybe."
"You just said the guy hung himself at the McDonald"s."
"I said it appeared that way."
"And that"s why you"re too busy to take ten minutes to find my husband? Because some j.e.r.k.-.o.f.f. killed himself at the McDonald"s? In the G.o.dd.a.m.n bathroom?"
"Nico, come on."
"What?"
I hate it when my sister uses foul language. I"m old-fashioned. She"s my sister.
"I"m sorry. But a man has died, and it"s my job to find out how and why."
"Yeah, well, I"m sorry. Because a man is missing, and it"s my man, and I happen to love him, okay?"
There"s a hitch in her voice all of a sudden, and I know that"s it, that"s game over. She"s crying, and I"ll do whatever she wants.
"Oh, come on, Nico. Don"t do that." It"s too late, she"s sobbing, open mouthed, violently pushing tears from her eyes with the back of her hands. "Don"t do that."
"It"s just, all of this." She gestures, a vague and woeful gesture encompa.s.sing all of the sky. "I can"t be alone, Henry. Not now."
A bitter wind courses across the parking lot, flicking drifting snow upward into our eyes.
"I know," I say. "I know."
And then I"m gingerly stepping forward, gathering my little sister in my arms. The family joke was that she got the math genes and I got all the height. My chin is a good six inches up from the top of her head, her sobs burying themselves somewhere in my sternum.
"All right, kid. All right."
She backs out of my awkward embrace, stifles a final moan, and lights herself a fresh American Spirit, shading a gold-plated lighter against the wind as she sucks the thing to life. The lighter, like the coat, like the brand of cigarettes, was my grandfather"s.
"So you"ll find him?" she asks.
"I"ll do my best, Nico. Okay? That"s all I can do." I pluck the cigarette from the corner of her mouth and toss it under the car.
"Good afternoon. I"d like to speak to Sophia Littlejohn, if I could."
I"ve got a nice strong signal, out here in the parking lot.
"She"s with a patient just now. May I ask who"s calling?"
"Uh, sure. No-it"s just-a friend of mine"s wife is a patient of ... gee, what do you even call a midwife? Doctor Littlejohn, is that what I would-?"
"No, sir. Just the name. Ms. Littlejohn."
"Okay, well, my friend"s wife is a patient of ... of Ms. Littlejohn, and I understood that she had gone into labor. Like, early this morning?"
"This morning?"
"Yeah. Late last night, early this morning? My friend left me a message, early this morning, and I could"ve sworn that"s what he said. But it was garbled, his phone was all staticky, and-h.e.l.lo?"
"Yes, I"m here. There may be a mistake. I don"t think Sophia was delivering. You said this morning?"
"I did."
"I"m sorry. What was your name?"
"Never mind. It"s not a big deal. Never mind."
At headquarters I walk briskly past a trio of Brush Cuts in the break room, hanging around in a circle by the c.o.ke machine, laughing like frat boys. I don"t recognize any of them, and they don"t recognize me. No one among them, I warrant, could quote from Farley and Leonard, not to mention the New Hampshire Criminal Code, not to mention the United States Const.i.tution.
In Adult Crimes, I lay out what I"ve got for Detective Culverson: tell him about the house, the Dear Sophia note, Dr. Fenton"s conclusions. He listens patiently, his fingers steepled together, and then he doesn"t say anything for a long time.
"Well, you know, Henry," he begins slowly, and that"s plenty, I don"t want to hear the rest.
"I get what it looks like," I say. "I do."
"Hey. Listen. It"s not my case." Culverson inclines his head slightly backward. "If you feel like you"ve got to solve it, you"ve got to solve it."
"I do, Detective. I really do."
"Okay, then."
I sit there for a second, and then I go back to my desk and pick up the landline and initiate my search for stupid Derek Skeve. First I repeat the calls that Nico has already made: the bars and the hospitals. I reach the men"s prison and the new, auxiliary men"s prison, I reach the Merrimack County sheriff"s office, I reach admitting departments at Concord Hospital and New Hampshire Hospital and every other hospital I know of in three counties. But no one"s got him, no one matching that description.
Outside, there"s a thick clutch of G.o.d people cl.u.s.tered in the plaza, thrusting their pamphlets at pa.s.sersby, hollering in gospel cadences about how prayer is all we"ve got left, prayer is our only salvation. I nod noncommittally and I keep on moving.
And now I"m lying in my bed and I"m not sleeping because it"s Wednesday night, and it was Tuesday morning that I first looked into the dead eyes of Peter Zell, which means he was killed sometime on Monday night, and so maybe it"s almost forty-eight hours since he got killed, or maybe the forty-eight hours have already pa.s.sed. Either way, my window is sliding closed and I am nowhere near identifying and apprehending his murderer.
So I"m lying in my bed and I"m staring at the ceiling with my fists clenching and unclenching at my sides, and then I get up and open the blinds, and I look out the window, into the cloud-fogged blackness, past the handful of visible stars.
"You know what you can do?" I say softly, raising one finger and pointing it at the sky. "You can go f.u.c.k yourself."
"Wake up, sweetheart. Wakey-wakey-wakey."
"h.e.l.lo?"
Last night, before going to bed, I unplugged the phone from the wall but left my cell phone on and set to vibrate, so tonight"s pleasant dream of Alison Koechner has been interrupted not by the alarm-bell clamor of the landline, Maia shrieking into the windows and setting the world on fire, but by a gentle shivering rattle on the night table, a sensation that has inserted itself into my dream as the purr of a cat at ease in Alison"s gentle lap.
And now Victor France is cooing at me. "Open your eyes, sweetheart. Crack open those big moody peepers, Mustache McGee."
I crack open my big moody peepers. Outside is darkness. France"s voice is whispery and grotesque and insistent. I blink awake and catch one final sidewise glimpse of Alison, radiant in the auburn front room of our wooden house on Cas...o...b..y.
"I"m so sorry to wake you, Palace. Oh, wait, I"m not sorry at all." France"s voice dissolves into a queer little giggle. He"s high on something, that"s for sure; maybe marijuana, maybe something else. High as a satellite, my father used to say. "No, definitely not sorry."
I yawn again, crack my neck, and check the clock: 3:47 a.m.
"I don"t know how you"ve been sleeping, Detective, but I have not been sleeping too well, me, personally. Every time I"m about to crash out I think to myself, now, Vic, baby, that"s just dead hours. That"s just golden hours right down the tubes." I"m sitting upright, feeling around on my night table for the light switch, grabbing my blue book and my pen, thinking, he"s got something for me. He wouldn"t be calling except that he"s got something for me. "I"m keeping track, at my house, can you believe that? I"ve got this big poster with every day that"s left, and every day I check one off."
Behind France"s ragged monologue is the rapid-fire thump and robotic piano of electronic music, a large crowd hooting and chanting. Victor is partying in a warehouse somewhere, probably out on Sheep Davis Road, way east of the city proper.
"It"s like an Advent calendar, you know what I mean, my man?" He slips into a horror-movie narrator"s ba.s.so profondo. "An Advent calendar ... of doom."
He cackles, coughs, cackles again. It"s definitely not marijuana. Ecstasy is what I"m now thinking, though I shudder to think how France would have funded a purchase of Ecstasy, the prices for synthetics being as high as they are.
"Do you have information for me, Victor?"
"Ha! Palace!" Cackle, cough. "That"s one of the things I like about you. You do not mess around."
"So do you have something for me?"
"Oh, my goodness gracious." He laughs, pauses, and I can picture him, twitching, skinny arms tensing, the teasing grin. In the silence the ba.s.s-and-drum behind him pipes through, tinny and distant. "Yeah," he says finally. "I do. I found it, about your pickup truck. I actually got it yesterday, but I waited. I waited until I was sure it would wake you up, and do you know why?"
"Because you hate me."
"Yes!" he hollers and cackles. "I hate you! You got a pen, beautiful?"
The red pickup truck with the flag on the side was converted to a waste-oil engine, according to Victor France, by a Croatian mechanic named Djemic, who runs a small shop near the burned-out Nissan dealership on Manchester Street. I don"t know the place he"s talking about, but it will be easy to find.
"Thank you, sir." I"m wide awake now, writing quickly, this is great, holy moly, and I"m feeling a surge of excitement and a wild rush of kindness toward Victor France. "Thanks, man," I say. "This is great. Thank you so much. Go back to your party."
"Wait, wait, wait. Now, you listen to me."
"Yes?" My heart is shivering in my chest; I can see the outlines of the next phase of my investigation, each piece of information properly following forward from the last. "What?"
"I just wanna say ... I wanna say something." Victor"s voice has lost its ragged overlay of addled giddiness, he"s drawn down very quiet. I can see him, clear as though he"s standing before me, hunched forward over the warehouse pay phone, jabbing a finger in the air. "I just wanna say, this is it, man."
"Okay," I say. "This is it." I mean it, too. He"s given me what I asked for, and more, and I"m ready to cut him loose. Let him dance in his warehouse till the world burns down.
"Do you-" His voice catches, thick with suppressed tears, and now the tough guy is gone, he"s a little boy pleading his way out of punishment. "Do you promise?"
"I do, Victor," I say. "I promise."
"Okay," he says. " "Cause also, I know whose truck it is."
I know what the dream is about, by the way. I"m not an idiot. There is little novelty in the detective who cannot solve himself.