I immediately walked to the far side of the lobby and called Twink. “Do you have a two-day rate in case we have to stay over in Homer?” I asked.
“I figured as much,” she said. “Fortunately, I’m not booked for either one. The multiple-day rate is seven-fifty, plus mileage, meals, and hotel.”
“Done,” I said.
“Have you made a room reservation in Homer?” she wanted to know.
“Not yet,” I replied. “Why, do you have any suggestions?”
“I can recommend the Driftwood Inn,” she told me. “The one in town rather than the one out on the Spit. They usually give me a good deal.”
“I’ll look into it.”
That’s what I said, but I didn’t do it right away. I figured there was plenty of time. Back in my room after a quick breakfast, I packed, realizing as I did so that once I got back home, I’d need to air the lingering cigarette smoke out of my luggage as well as my clothing. Then I called the car-rental folks and made arrangements for them to come pick up their vehicle from the hotel garage.
By seven o’clock I had checked out, left the Explorer’s keys at the front desk, and was waiting by the door when Twink showed up. Once my luggage and I were safely stowed, I offered my credit card.
She waved it away with a shake of her head. “Not to worry,” she said. “I figure you’re good for it. ’Sides, if you try to skip out on me, without a car where ya gonna go?”
“Good thinking,” I said.
“Where to first?”
I gave her the address Todd had given me for Roger and Shelley Adams on a street called Diamond Ridge Road in Homer.
“Got it,” Twink said. “That’ll be in the high-rent district out where all the hoity-toities live.”
With that she put the Travelall in gear, and off we went. There was no electronic GPS visible in the vehicle, but obviously the one in Twink’s head was functioning just fine. She pulled in to traffic with the confident air of someone who knew exactly where she was going.
Thanks to Todd, I already had addresses for the three of Chris Danielson’s classmates who still lived in Homer—Alex Walker, Phil Bonham, and Ron Wolf. My plan was to start with Roger Adams and move on to the others later. I had also asked Todd to locate an address for Helen Sinclair, Roger’s longtime secretary and the woman who had reached out to Danitza about her father’s current health issues. Taken together, it was quite a list, and if contacting some of these folks took as long as some of yesterday’s appointments had, it was probably a good thing Twink and I were already planning on an overnight stay.
Once it was actually daylight, the sunglasses came out. Twink seemed content to drive along humming some tuneless melody under her breath and feeling no need to engage in idle conversation. That gave me time to go through the dossiers Todd had provided and to map out a possible game plan.
Sometime well into the trip, Twink was forced to slow the Travelall to a crawl to avoid hitting a solitary moose meandering along in the middle of the highway.
“I guess these guys have the right of way no matter what,” I said. “In town or out of town, they own the roads.”
“That’s right,” Twink said after we finally drove around the beast and got back up to speed. “I hit one once, you know,” she added, “a big sucker. Ran out of the woods right in front of me. There was no way to avoid him. What saved my bacon was the damned snowplow. The angle of it worked like a cow-catcher on a train. It pushed him away from me and off onto the shoulder instead of throwing him up over the hood and into the windshield. I could see the poor thing wasn’t dead, so of course I put him out of his misery and then took the carcass home to butcher and eat. It was more than my freezer would hold, so I shared him with a couple of neighbors.”
“Of course you put him out of his misery,” I agreed. “How’d you do it, with one of the wrenches from your toolbox?”
I was making a joke, or at least trying to. Twink wasn’t buying it.
“With the 350 Magnum I keep under my seat,” she snapped, “and there’s a Colt .45 in the glovebox, in case you’re interested. You don’t think I’m out here on the road all by my lonesome at all hours of the day and night and in all kinds of weather without being armed to the teeth, do you? I’m not exactly stupid, you know!”
I was beginning to learn that it took very little to push Twinkle Winkleman’s buttons. A long period of silence followed that minor skirmish. The Travelall motored along at a sedate sixty miles per hour, which was probably pretty close to its top speed. I took the time to write a long e-mail to Jared Danielson. I didn’t have a lot to say, but I gave him a detailed report of my efforts so far and let him know what the game plan was for today. I wrote that e-mail and one to Mel as well, but due to spotty coverage I wasn’t able to send either one of them.