figure, and steadied it there. A yellow box popped up alongside the arrow containing the measurement: 172.7 cm.
“Inches?” Walt asked dryly. He already knew the answer—his height when wearing a pair of boots.
Kevin asked the software for the conversion. A new number filled the box: 68 in.
“Five-foot-eight,” Kevin said. “Or more precisely, five-foot-eight on tiptoe—six foot, six-foot-one.”
Walt remembered kissing her. Coming slightly off his heels to reach her lips.
He thanked Kevin and politely asked him to leave, telling him he thought he could get him some compensation as a consultant, and Kevin saying how he didn’t care about getting paid when they both knew otherwise. The kid was carting bags at the Sun Valley Lodge and delivering room service. How long was that going to last?
Walt shut his office door and returned to his chair and stared at the e-mail there waiting to be sent, his request for the fingerprint work. It wasn’t a matter of thinking clearly. He couldn’t think at all. The number, five-foot-eight, stuck in his head like a wedge, like a baseball bat to the top of his skull. Back to Kevin’s perfect storm: a smaller person elevated on a step at just the right distance from Gale; a taller person killing the man easily. But it was the last option that wouldn’t leave his thoughts, the last option that had been building like a tsunami inside him.
He hit Enter and the computer made a swishing sound indicating the e-mail had been sent.
“Some cases don’t get solved,” she’d said to him. “Some cases go cold.”
At the time, he’d thought she’d been protecting Kira.
36
Brandon, his stocking feet up on the trailer’s small coffee table, his hand in a bag of white corn chips, and his eye on the Mariners’ fourth inning at bat, spoke through a full mouth.
“I think you two should talk.”
Gail, paying bills at what passed for the kitchen table, didn’t look up. “We talk.”
“I’m just saying—”
“And I’m telling you we do.”
“Maybe we need to think about getting a bigger place.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s going to happen. I can barely pay the electric.”
“Maybe you need to think about what we talked about.”
Still not looking up, she continued writing out the check. “Maybe you need to get some overtime.”
“There’s a freeze. You know that.”
“Then some security work. You know how many people up here have bodyguards?”
“You want me working eighteen hours a day? Seriously?”
“There’s nothing out there for me. You think I’m going to wait tables or something?” She pushed the pile of checks to the edge of the table. “You need to sign these.”
Brandon’s cell phone rang from the back bedroom. He struggled to standing, spilled the chips, and pushed past her to reach the phone before the call went to voice mail. It was the little nuisances that bothered Tommy Brandon—voice mail catching calls, lawn mowers that wouldn’t start, birth control interrupting the act, the bathroom counter being cluttered with beauty products. He could leave the wars and the economy and illegal immigration to others. Just give him a remote control with a button that worked.
“Yeah?” he barked into a phone that looked toylike in his big hand. “Bonehead? Slow down! That’s better. Now? You’re sure? Yeah, it’s worth something. Don’t do anything. Don’t say anything. Go back to flipping burgers and leave this to me.”
He slapped the phone shut and right back open. Hit a speed dial key. “It’s me, Tommy. Bonehead says our guy is at the Casino right now. A pal of his bartends there, called him. Suspect’s got a burger and beer in front of him—Yeah, five, seven minutes, max . . .” He moved quickly down the trailer’s narrow aisle and found the black windbreaker hanging on a peg by the door—SHERIFF, it read on the back in bold yellow letters. He returned to the small bedroom, his ear pinched to the phone, and wrapped his gun belt around his waist, buckling it. “Okay, I’ll call it in . . . I’ll wait. I promise.”
The phone went into his pocket. He kissed her on the top of her head as he swept past her. His hand was on the door.
“Later.”
“Your vest!” she said.
He kept it behind the front seat of the pickup. He paused there at the front door for a second, thinking that only the ex-wife of a cop would have been able to decipher what was going on based on one end of a phone call.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Be safe. Nothing stupid.”
As he ran to the truck, he was