Missing (24 page)

***

It took me about twenty minutes to make my way out 71
to King’s Island through a driving rain. I spotted the accident a
mile before I got there—a cluster of flashers blinking on the left
side of the highway, the south lanes going toward Cincinnati. As I
got closer, I could see a white car, a BMW 633, sitting in a grassy
decline on the far shoulder. A telephone pole was bent above its
hood. Two state patrol cars were parked on the embankment, above and
below the Beemer. An ambulance with its flashers going was parked
alongside it, its back doors open. Flares spilling sulfur yellow
sparks at their tips were posted on the highway around the wreck.

I had to drive a few miles north to find a
turnaround. Traffic was backed up above the accident, so it took me
another fifteen minutes to work my way back down to the BMW. When I
got to the first flare, I pulled off on the embankment and parked
behind the state patrol car. A cop in a yellow rain slicker came up
to me before I could open the door, signaling with his hand for me to
roll down the window.

"This isn’t a spot for sight-seers," he
said, giving me a tough look.

"I’m here to identify the body."

Straightening up, he stepped back from the door.
"Watch yourself when you get out."

I opened the door and sidestepped my way up toward
the Beemer. The headlights from the stacked-up traffic flooded the
roadway with white light, diffused by the rain and a thin mist
crawling along the ditch where the front of the car was sitting. As I
neared the BMW, the cop fell in step beside me.

"Is he still in the car?" I asked him.

"No. We got him out and into the ambulance a few
minutes ago."

I glanced at the wreck. There was a star fracture in
the front windshield with a hole in its center the size of a man’s
head. There was some blood on the glass and on the hood.

"His head went right through it and slammed into
the pole," the cop said, following my gaze. "We think he
had a blowout." Turning toward the highway, he pointed to some
heavy skid marks on the pavement. "Anyway, he lost control. He’d
had a bad night, so maybe he wasn’t concentrating a hundred
percent."

"Why do you say that about a bad night?"

"There was a fresh speeding ticket in the front
seat. He got it just outside Columbus, about nine forty-five."

"Was there anything else inside the car? Papers,
briefcase?"

"Whatever we got is in the ambulance, along with
the body."

He cleared his throat uneasily. "You want to
take a look?"

I nodded.

Two paramedics were sitting on the rear bumper of the
ambulance, smoking cigarettes and talking in the rain. They looked up
as we walked over. One of them dropped his cigarette on the wet
pavement, stubbing it with his foot, then climbed up into the
ambulance. He flipped on an interior light, and I saw the gurney with
the body bag sitting on the cobble-metal floor. The one sitting on
the bumper said, "Are you here to identify the body?"

"Yeah."

He stood up. "Watch your head." He opened
the doors fully and backed away, shielding his cigarette with a
cupped hand. I climbed into the ambulance. The first paramedic was
standing at the head of the gurney. Stooping, I went up beside him.

"You’re a friend of his?" he said.

"Harry Stoner."

He picked up a clipboard and wrote my name down, then
reached over and unzipped the top part of the body bag. I took a look
and nodded.

"It’s Ira Sullivan."

The paramedic zipped the bag up over Sullivan’s
battered face.

"Did you find anything in the car?" I asked
him. "Personal belongings?"
"Wallet,
watch."

"No papers?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Casual way he was
dressed, it didn’t look like he was on business. Maybe he was just
visiting a friend."
 

25

I GOT back to the apartment around three-thirty.
Cindy was asleep in the bed. She’d left the radio in the living
room on a talk station—probably to comfort herself with the sound
of a voice. I flipped it off and sat down on the couch for a while,
thinking that in the morning I was going to have to do something I
didn’t really want to do. But with Sullivan gone, I didn’t see
where I had a choice. Too many people had suffered, directly or
indirectly, because of Paul Grandin, Jr.

I flipped off the lamp and stared out at the
streetlights, smeared by the rain. On a normal night, on a case like
this, I would have drunk myself to sleep. That night, I went into the
bedroom and lay down next to Cindy Dorn and held her tight.

I woke up early—startled by a thunderclap. The last
of the night was still there outside, graying and clamorous. I left
Cindy sleeping and walked into the kitchen, making coffee in the sink
with hot water and crystals, then taking a quick shower. Morning
began to break as I toweled off, enough so I could see the wet
streets through the bedroom curtains and the first spate of traffic
starting like a fuse in the half-dark. It was still only a little
past seven. She woke up as I began to dress, propping herself up on
her elbows and smiling at me groggily.

"I took a pill," she said. "I don’t
usually do that. But I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to sleep
otherwise. Last night was pretty spooky."

It explained why she’d slept through my early
morning arrival and the noisy thunderstorm. It occurred to me that it
might also explain something else—where Mason Greenleaf had gotten
the Seconals that killed him. I didn’t say anything about it to
her. If it was true, it was something she didn’t need to know.

"I dreamed about Sully," she said, sinking
back into the pillow. "His friend, Marlene Bateman, called again
after you left. We talked about him for a while. You know, he never
liked to drive at night." Cindy smiled sadly. "He never
liked to do anything that put him out. He must’ve had a good reason
to go riding around in a storm."

"He went to Columbus."

"How do you know that?" she said with
surprise. I told her about the speeding ticket.

"Unless he had a friend or relative up there
that you know about, I’m guessing the trip had something to do with
Paul Grandin."

She shook her head. "Sully’s folks are dead.
Marlene told me that. He really didn’t have anybody, except for her
and Mason."

Cindy put her hands over her eyes.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded. "It’s just that I’d like this
shit to end."

"I’m going to see to it," I said, putting
my shirt on and slipping into my trousers. "Today."

While Cindy took a shower, I went into the living
room and dialed Paul Grandin, Sr., at home. Grandin himself answered,
sounding as if he was still half-asleep.

"Yeah? What?"

"Mr. Grandin, this is Harry Stoner. I talked to
you the other day about your son."

"Paul?" he said.

"You were playing tennis with your daughter."

"I remember you," he said, suddenly pissed
off

"I don’t know whether you know this, but your
son is in trouble with the cops again. He was arrested several weeks
ago for solicitation in a Mount Adams bar. From what I’ve been able
to find out, he’s been having a tough time of it since then."

"I can’t hear this," the man said with
pain in his voice. "I can’t look after him anymore. He’s got
to take the reins of reponsibility in his own hands."

It was probably a lecture that Paul Grandin, Jr., had
heard every day of his life—and ignored. The pathetic part was, it
still sounded like the man was trying to convince himself—as if he
had never quite given up on reforming his son, in spite of the public
notice and the public humiliations. I knew his vanity was something I
could use against him.

"I need to talk to him, Mr. Grandin. Several
people are dead. If I don’t talk to him, I’m going to have to go
to the police."

"Dead," the man said with horror. "Dead
because of Paul?"

"I think so."

"That cocksucker Greenleaf, for chrissake! Who
the hell cares if he’d dead, after the shame he brought on us?"

It was hardly that simple, as the man well knew. But
there was no point in going into it with him. I had to play to my
strength—which was to make him fear for his wayward son and his own
reputation.

"It’s not just Greenleaf, Mr. Grandin. Another
man, a lawyer named Ira Sullivan, is dead, too. And Paul was the last
person he was seen with. Right now, all that’s hanging over Paul’s
head is a solicitation charge. If I go to the police, it could be
much worse."

"I don’t believe this," the man
said—sounding like he believed every word of it. "Even Paul
isn’t this stupid and irresponsible."

"I want to talk to you—and your daughter."

"Nancy? Why Nancy‘?"

"Because she knows where Paul is staying, Mr.
Grandin."

The man exploded with rage. "You stay away from
my daughter with your filthy lies. You stay away from her, or I swear
I will kill you myself. She’s not involved with any of Paul’s
problems."

"Ask her yourself, Mr. Grandin."

He slammed the receiver down. But I knew I’d made
my point. I knew he’d ask her.

As I hung up the phone, I saw Cindy standing in the
hall. I didn’t have to ask how much of the conversation she’d
heard.

"It’s the only way, Cindy," I said,
flushing. "I’ve got to get that girl to tell me where he is—or
lead me to him. Otherwise, this thing will never come clear."

She nodded. "You had to." But she was no
more happy about it than I was.

We didn’t say a lot to each other for the next half
hour. Cindy puttered in the kitchen fixing breakfast. And I went
through the rest of Greenleaf’s mail. Bills and junk mail, mostly.
But one of them turned out to be interesting.

"Who does Mason know in Indianapolis and
Lexington?" I called out.

"He’s got friends all over the place. Why?"

"His MasterCard statement. He booked a motel
room in those cities on Friday the eleventh and Saturday the twelfth.
On Sunday the thirteenth, he stayed in Columbus."

"You’re kidding." She came out of the
kitchen nook with a skillet in her hand.

"We know where he was, now, over that weekend.
Traveling around."

The fact was, I could now account for all of` his
time from the Thursday meeting with Mulhane and Del Cavanaugh to the
Monday rendezvous at Stacie’s bar.

Cindy stared at me in bewilderment. "Why was he
doing that?"

"Maybe he was looking for Grandin."

"But I thought you said Paul was in Cincinnati
that weekend, staying with various friends."

"Perhaps Mason didn’t know that."

She shook her head. "If Mason had wanted to find
Paul, he could have. I mean, he did, didn’t he? On Monday night?"

"Then I don’t understand this. I mean, did he
have special friends in these places? Friends he might have wanted to
say good-bye to?"

She turned away, going back inside the kitchen. I’d
upset her by implying that Greenleaf might have been planning to kill
himself for days. After a moment I heard her say, "No. He didn’t
know anyone that well in any of those places."

I stared at the MasterCard charge slips.
Indianapolis, Lexington, Columbus. The only things they had in common
were that they were within a few hours’ driving distance of each
other, and they were major cities. He’d spent a day in each one.
And whether or not he’d been looking for Grandin, he’d been
looking for something he couldn’t find in 
Cincinnati—something he couldn’t confide to Cindy or Sullivan or
any of his friends.

I didn’t bring the subject up again. The way things
had gone that morning, I didn’t want to upset her any further. We
had breakfast at the trestle table. It was the first time I had
breakfast there since I’d moved in. I think it was odder for me
than it was for her.

"You’ll have to get used to it," she
said, smiling, "if you plan for me to keep coming over."
"I’ll make the adjustment?"

"I don’t want to make you change too fast,
Harry. You can take a few days off. Think about it. Get used to
waking up to somebody in your bed."

"You know, when I got in last night," I
said, "it was goddamn wonderful to find you in my bed."

She looked pleased. "Yeah?"

"I never liked being alone all that much, Cindy.
The kind of work I do, the hours I keep—I got used to it. Of
course, there’s a lot of company in a fifth of Scotch."

She lowered her eyes. "I don’t care if you
drink."

"You might if you saw me drunk. I’ve been
drinking pretty steadily since I got back from Viet Nam."

She didn’t say anything.

"There are things you see, things you do , . ."