The Remake (28 page)

“Yeah. Well—Maybe we both need a life.”

“Uh-huh.” And there was something hanging there in the air between them. R.J. couldn’t tell what it was, but for a second it felt like the distance between them was shrinking and they were sort of sliding together without moving; then her telephone chirped and the thing between them, whatever it was, was gone.

Casey jerked up the phone. “I said no calls, Bryan.”

R.J. could hear Bryan belting out some sad song through his nose. The kid’s voice came through the receiver and through the wall at the same time, and he was obviously pretty worked up about something.

“Oh,” Casey said. She sighed, raised an eyebrow at R.J., and shrugged. “All right. Patch him through.”

She covered the phone with her hand. “I really am sorry, R.J. But I have to take this call.”

He stood up. “Henry Portillo will have a couple of guys around. They won’t be too obvious. But if they tell you to duck or run for it, do what they tell you.”

“I will,” she said.

He took a deep breath, looking at her sitting there. She was so beautiful, so composed. “And Casey—” he said.

But she was already gone. “Hello, Marvin,” she was saying into the phone, diving back into her crisis.

He couldn’t even remember what it was he had meant to say. He looked at her for a few more seconds. Then he turned and walked out.

CHAPTER 34

He was on a plane again. It made him feel like he was stuck in some kind of weird dream where you try to fit things together and make them mean something, but you never quite manage. Besides, R.J. was wide awake. He was sure of that. Could tell by the pain in his back from the airline seat and the greasy rumble in his belly from the awful “snack.” At least they didn’t have the gall to call it a meal.

It seemed to R.J. that he had spent most of the last few years of his life on an airplane, slumping between coasts in increasing misery. And here he was again, headed back for New York, probably on a wild goose chase.

And probably this wild goose really was dead. All the experts agreed. Couldn’t be anything else. Certified, identified and buried. The cops said it was him, the coroner said he was dead, and R.J. had been at his funeral.

So who the hell was he to buck the experts?

He had started this whole mess with one good suspect, and the idea that he would protect Casey and catch the killer. But
he’d been spending all his time keeping the police off his ass and Casey didn’t want his protection.

R.J. ground his teeth. He was beginning to hope it really was a dream. He was running as fast as he could, and still somehow sliding backward. Maybe he would wake up in his own bed, with Casey next to him, and go to work on some nice, simple multiple adultery. Something straightforward, obvious. Something he could take a picture of and then send somebody a bill.

Instead of this mess. Instead of Hollywood, and bad movies, and his parents’ ghosts, and bad cops on both coasts. Instead of losing Casey to the nightmare factory.

Casey. Jesus Christ. Like this whole mess wasn’t bad enough. Why did it always turn out that anything you were sure of bit you on the ass? The simple things always ended up being the most complicated. She was at least speaking to him again, but was that good or bad? What the hell did any of it mean? What the hell did she want from him? For that matter, what the hell did he want from her?

Well, whatever it was it could wait. It would have to wait. Because the killer wouldn’t.

R.J. didn’t manage to fall asleep on this flight. For once there was no kid barfing and squalling next to him, no fat hostile businessman kicking his seat. The plane landed only forty minutes late. Pretty good for the way these things went nowadays.

It was a clear evening in New York. It was still cold enough to make the city seem clean and R.J. caught a cab after only twenty minutes of watching his breath at the curb.

Ilsa pretended she was glad to see him until R.J. got food into her bowl, and then she ignored him completely. For himself R.J. made a frozen dinner that was only a little better than what they’d fed him on the plane. Then he called a rental place and reserved a car for the morning, took a long hot shower, and went to bed.

* * *

There was a state trooper barracks only a few miles outside Torrington. They weren’t exactly happy to see him, but at least they weren’t trying to frame him for murder and throw him in jail.

They made him wait an awfully long time, but R.J. didn’t mind. That was just standard cop behavior. Besides, it gave him time to work through the
Times
crossword puzzle. When he was done with that he whipped through one in the local paper that somebody had left on a scarred end table in the waiting area. Then he read the sports, comics, and obits.

After almost two and a half hours there was a scuffle of feet and R.J. looked up. A big guy with a light-colored crewcut and a scar down one side of his face was looking down at him. His face was closed tight in that permanently neutral look the good cops get.

“Mr. Brooks?” the big guy rumbled.

“That’s me.”

The cop nodded. “Captain Schmidt. Come with me, please?”

R.J. followed Schmidt down a short hall to a small office at the back of the building.

“Have a seat, Mr. Brooks,” the captain said, sliding his own large frame in behind the desk, very gracefully for a guy who had to be at least six-foot-four. “Now, what’s this all about?”

R.J. took his license and a business card from his wallet and set them on the desk. Schmidt glanced at them and then fastened his eyes back on R.J.

“My client is the daughter of William Kelley. He was killed here recently. Car accident.” Schmidt just nodded. “Captain,” R.J. said, playing it the way he had decided might make sense and might even get some cooperation, “she hadn’t seen her old man since she was just a kid. I located him a few days before he died, and he was dead before she could see him.” He shrugged. “That’s hard on a kid.”

“Yes, it must be,” Schmidt said, still neutral and patient. R.J. got the idea that it might take heavy earth-moving equipment to get any expression onto Schmidt’s face.

“Captain, I’m sorry to bother you with this, but I hope you’ll understand. She wants me to check into her father’s death, make sure it really was an accident, and that everything is entirely kosher.” He held up a hand, anticipating a protest from Schmidt that never came. “I’m sure it is—no reflection on anybody over here—she just asked me to look and be sure.”

Schmidt still didn’t say anything. He didn’t even blink. R.J. had been sure he would have something to say, something defensive or derogatory. Cops hate to have anybody check up on them, and if it’s a private investigator that’s only one small step better than having Feds around.

But Captain Schmidt didn’t look like he hated anything. Didn’t look like he could. Just sat and stared at R.J. for a full two minutes while R.J. tried not to squirm, feeling like a kid sent to the principal’s office for spitballing the teacher.

But R.J. managed to sit and not break into nervous giggles while Schmidt looked at him. Finally, just when R.J. was sure he had to say something, anything, to break that awful silence, Schmidt spoke.

“Bullshit,” he said. His expression didn’t change a bit.

“Excuse me, Captain?”

“I said ‘bullshit,’ Mr. Brooks.”

“Oh,” R.J. said, trying to recover, and finally giving up. “Why did you say ‘bullshit,’ Captain?”

“Because that’s what you’re feeding me,” he said, and he went back to staring without moving.

R.J. took a deep breath, let it out, took another. “Captain—”

But Schmidt shook his head again. R.J. closed his mouth, shrugged, and thought,
Oh, what the hell…
“All right, hell,” he said, “I think the guy might be alive. I’m sorry. I feel stupid about it. I know it’s not possible. I know your men wouldn’t have ID’d the body as Kelley unless they were sure it was him. But a whole lot of things I can’t explain would start to make sense if he was alive somehow.”

Captain Schmidt leaned back in his chair. His face still hadn’t moved, but he looked a little more human. “Let’s hear it,” he said.

R.J. filled him in, giving him both barrels for fifteen minutes. When he was done, he thought it sounded pretty lame. But Schmidt’s expression didn’t change and R.J. couldn’t make out what he might have thought of the whole thing.

Schmidt stared at him for another twenty seconds. Then he leaned forward and picked up the phone on his desk. “We had an automobile fatality last month. Last name Kelley, first name William. Bring me the file,” he said, and hung up.

CHAPTER 35

The Farmington River ran close to Torrington, close enough that William Kelley could burn up beside it without violating his parole.

Close to where R.J. stood, the river was relatively deep and wide. It bent through a stretch of countryside and a grassy bank came up to meet the road. There was no guard rail. Really didn’t seem much need for one, with that slow, gentle slope down to the water from the road.

R.J. walked down from the road to a small stand of oaks and squinted back up. A young trooper named Bentt leaned against the car, his campaign hat tilted to keep the sun from his eyes. Schmidt had sent him with R.J. on the theory that, if anything came up, Schmidt wanted to hear it firsthand, fast.

R.J. had developed a respect for the captain. He seemed like a pretty good cop. In any case, R.J. wouldn’t make the mistake of trying to con him again.

Bentt didn’t seem too pleased with the whole thing. Kelley’s death had been one of his first fatalities and he hated like
hell the idea that anything might be wrong with his report. He wasn’t actually sullen, but he wasn’t anybody’s idea of Officer Friendly, either.

The wreck had been hauled away already, but it was easy enough to see where it had happened. The tree that Kelley had hit was not going to make any more acorns. It was split and blackened. The grass around it was torn and burned. Other than that, there wasn’t much to see.

R.J. walked back up to the car, where Bentt was trying to pretend he didn’t care.

“Seen enough?” the young officer asked.

“How did it happen?”

Bentt stood straight. “Come here.” He led R.J. over to the edge of the road about twenty yards behind where they had parked. “Here,” he said, pointing down. “You can still see it.”

R.J. looked where the young trooper was pointing. There was a set of skid marks on the pavement. “He lost control here?” R.J. asked.

Bentt looked pleased with himself for the first time. “No. That would be a different pattern, with the weight on the outside of the tire. From fishtailing. This,” he said, squatting and pointing at the rubber marks, “shows the weight at the front. So he was braking.”

“Braking? In the middle of the road, at high speed?”

“That’s right.”

“So something ran in front of the car, like a raccoon.”

Bentt stood. “Something larger than a raccoon, Mr. Brooks.” Bentt stepped out into the road and pointed. “Look at this one.”

R.J. looked for traffic and saw none. He went to Bentt and, looking down, saw another tire track. It was fainter and seemed smaller, but there was no doubt about it. “Son of a bitch. What is it?”

Now Bentt looked positively smug. “Motorcycle. Big one. Probably a Harley, from the tread pattern.” He walked back to the side of the road and R.J. followed. “The way I figure it, Kelley swerved to miss the bike, lost control, and hit the
tree.”

“You guys are pretty good,” R.J. admitted. Bentt shrugged, but he was pretty happy with himself. “What was the bike doing at the time?”

Bentt smiled. “Fishtailing.”

“Because the weight is on the outside of the skid mark.”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t suppose you had any luck finding the biker?”

Bentt looked scornful. “These guys ride the big ones around, they don’t give a shit. Maybe he knows Kelley went off the road and died behind him, maybe he doesn’t know. But he doesn’t care, I guarantee you that. And he’ll never tell us anything. Anyway, the most we could charge him with would be a traffic violation, which wouldn’t stick.”

“So you didn’t look for him?”

Bentt stood almost at attention. He quivered a little, like he was fighting down the urge to take a swing. “Mr. Brooks. This was not one of your big-ticket homicides. It was a traffic accident.”

Which meant that, as long as everything fit a certain pattern, and no powerfully connected citizens were expressing outrage over the death, there just wasn’t enough manpower and overtime pay available to investigate this thoroughly.

R.J. nodded. It was the same everywhere. Cops see the same two or three crimes over and over, and they see a lot of them. So if one particular death looks like all the others, they’re not going to bust their humps trying to prove it’s something else. A case solved means there’s time to solve another one.

And this one really seemed to fit the pattern. Kelley hits a tree, the car blows up and burns, he’s dead. All one hundred percent normal. Except—

“How did you ID the body?”