“Yes, I’ll go. Mr. Bolton may know things we need to find out. If, that is, we can ask the right questions.”
Howie said, “What about you, Bill? Want to see this thing through?”
Samuels smiled thinly, shook his head, then stood up. “All this has been interesting, in a mad sort of way, but as far as I’m concerned, the case is closed. I’ll make some calls to the police in Ohio, but that’s where my participation ends. Mrs. Maitland, I’m sorry for your loss.”
“You ought to be,” Marcy said.
He winced at that, but pressed on. “Ms. Gibney, it’s been fascinating. I appreciate your hard work and due diligence. You also make a surprisingly persuasive case for the fantastic, I say that without a trace of irony, but I’m going to go home, grab a beer out of the fridge, and start forgetting this whole thing.”
They watched him gather up his briefcase and leave, the cowlick wagging at them like an admonitory finger as he went out the door.
When he was gone, Howie said he would make their travel arrangements. “I’ll charter the King Air I sometimes use. The pilots will know the closest landing strip. I’ll also arrange for a car. If it’s just the four of us, a sedan or a small SUV should do.”
“Leave a seat for me,” Yune said. “Just in case I can wiggle out of court.”
“Happy to.”
Alec Pelley said, “Someone needs to reach out to Mr. Bolton tonight, and tell him to expect visitors.”
Yune lifted a hand. “That much I can do.”
“Make him understand no one is after him for doing something illegal,” Howie said. “The last thing we want is for him to jackrabbit somewhere.”
“Call me after you talk to him,” Ralph said to Yune. “Even if it’s late. I want to know how he reacts.”
“So do I,” Jeannie said.
“You should tell him something else,” Holly said. “You should tell him to be careful. Because if I’m right about this, he’s the next in line.”
12
Full dark had come when Ralph and the others stepped out of Howie Gold’s building. Howie himself was still upstairs, making arrangements, and his investigator was with him. Ralph wondered what they would talk about with everyone else gone.
“Ms. Gibney, where are you staying?” Jeannie asked.
“The Flint Luxury Motel. I reserved a room.”
“Oh no, you can’t,” Jeannie said. “The only luxury there is on the sign out front. The place is a pit.”
Holly looked disconcerted. “Well, there must be a Holiday Inn—”
“Stay with us,” Ralph said, beating Jeannie to it and hoping it would earn him some points later on. God knew he could use them.
Holly hesitated. She didn’t do well in the houses of other people. She didn’t do well even in the one where she had grown up, when on her quarterly duty visits to her mother. She knew that in the home of these strangers she would lie awake long and wake early, hearing every unfamiliar creak of the walls and the floors, listening to the murmured voices of the Andersons and wondering if they were talking about her . . . which they almost certainly would be. Hoping that if she had to get up in the night to spend a penny, they wouldn’t hear her. She needed her sleep. The meeting had been stressful enough, and the steady pushback of Detective Anderson’s disbelief had been understandable but exhausting.
But, as Bill Hodges would have said. But.
Anderson’s disbelief was the but. It was the reason she had to accept the invitation, and she did.
“Thank you, that’s very kind, but I have to run an errand first. It won’t take long. Give me your address, and my iPad will take me right to you.”
“Is it anything I can help you with?” Ralph asked. “I’d be happy to—”
“No. Really. I’ll be fine.” She shook hands with Yune. “Come with us if you can, Lieutenant Sablo. I’m sure you want to.”
He smiled. “I do, believe me, but it’s like that poem says—I have promises to keep.”
Marcy Maitland was standing by herself, holding her purse against her stomach and looking shell-shocked. Jeannie went to her without hesitation. Ralph watched with interest as Marcy initially drew back, as if in alarm, then allowed herself to be hugged. After a moment she even put her head on Jeannie Anderson’s shoulder and hugged back. She looked like a tired child. When the two women drew apart, both of them were crying.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Jeannie said.