Rage Against the Dying - By Becky Masterman Page 0,58
the crash—” Max gave a weary crime-fighting sigh. “George Manriquez will try to slip his skin for fingerprints so we can compare against Peasil’s but they’re not even sure they’ll have that. But I have to get back there. I left Clifton to take care of transferring the body to the morgue and getting the van hauled away, just wanted to see if you…” He stopped in midthought. Then his eyes narrowed, his mouth opened as if to say something he did not want to say.
Earlier in the conversation, before he said van, I had said van. I shouldn’t have known the vehicle was a van. I could almost smell him thinking, going back over our conversation, recalling the sequence, trying to remember who said van first. I stared at him as innocently as I knew how, silently hoping that he would get it wrong.
“… if I knew anything?” I said, finishing the sentence he had begun and shaking my head.
His expression adjusted, and when Carlo came back into the room he seemed to give it up. But the fact that he hadn’t come out with what he was thinking was almost worse; it made me feel like a suspect.
“So are you staying around? Want me to fix you a sandwich?” I asked.
“Thanks, I better get back to the office and start my report,” he said.
“Well, if you need me for anything, Max, you know where to find me.” I gave him a cheery grin.
He looked at me speculatively. I looked at him more speculatively. Max left soon after.
“I think I’ll walk down there, see what’s going on,” I said, after a little while, and started out the door.
Carlo looked mildly repulsed but didn’t object. “Don’t forget your stick.” He glanced at the umbrella stand. “Where is it?”
I was sure the question was innocent. It wasn’t like he was thinking of it as a potential murder weapon.
“It broke. That was the best thing you made me, with that X-Acto knife you put in the bottom. I’ll have to get you to make another one.” We stood there looking at each other a moment, both of us thinking, Why hadn’t I told him it was broken before now? “You know, I guess I won’t head down after all, it’s probably all blocked off.”
Murmuring something about poisoning an anthill, Carlo went into the garage. I got the suspicion that he wasn’t believing me much anymore, either, that I was losing my knack. And I was going to have to figure out fast how to spin this whole thing to Max once he had more time to review our conversation. But at least I now had a name, one small lead in finding out who hired Gerald Peasil.
Twenty-three
I had some of my own questions for Floyd Lynch, like had he ever heard the name Gerald Peasil? It would be taking a risk to ask him, but it might also be one step closer to finding out if they were connected to each other or to the Route 66 killer. And if so, how and why.
Maybe Coleman was right, maybe Lynch was finding out that sitting in a cell alone wasn’t as much fun as he thought it would be. Maybe he was ready to talk and could answer these questions. So putting aside my worries about Max, I headed down to the county jail in the afternoon, a little earlier than my appointment with Coleman, to snag a few minutes alone with Lynch.
The jail, a cream-colored boxy structure with burgundy trim, was kind of attractive if you overlooked the coils of razor wire running along the top edge of the building. I left my weapon locked in the car, went through the scanner, signed in, showed my driver’s license, and emptied the pockets of my cargo pants. They told me to take a seat in the waiting room. I waited with the rest of a small group in a plain though not totally depressing lobby, with nothing that could be turned into a weapon, just molded blue plastic chairs that were even a little cleaner than those at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Most of the people joining me were women, with a few men, who were there to visit their spouses, children, felons. We all stared without looking, everyone folded into their personal drama. Most of them got up together and filed through the door to a public visitors’ room while I still waited for Lynch to see me privately.