Reunion at Red Paint Bay - By George Harrar Page 0,64

was. Said she called 911, so it should be in your log.”

“I’ll check that,” the chief said as he turned his coffee mug halfway around. “And you’re saying you don’t know anything yourself about this guy?”

Simon gave a little shake of his head, perhaps a no, perhaps just not answering. “Talk to Amy, Tom. Maybe she can help you.” Garrity stood up, took a couple of dollars from his pocket, and lay them on the counter. “You want me to run that picture for you next edition?” Simon said. “We can blow up his face, put it on page one.”

Garrity hitched up his holster, which had slid below his belly. “I don’t figure that will help right now.”

Why would he say that? Publicity always helped in missing person cases, unless the person wasn’t able to be found. Simon put out his hand. “Never know.”

“That’s true, I guess.” The chief dropped the photo on the counter, face up.

When Simon stepped outside into the parking lot at Red’s, the sun was shining brightly, as the morning weather forecast had promised, but with a few clouds hanging in the eastern sky, drifting inland, an uncommon direction for this time of year. The clouds were light on top and dark across the bottom, giving them the illusion of a solid object. He wondered if it was true what he had read, that a cumulous cloud could weigh as much as one hundred elephants. It was hard to look at clouds the same, knowing that one fact about them.

He flipped open his cell phone and dialed Amy. The call immediately kicked over to her message, as usual. He could count on it, and he often did when he didn’t want to deal with her questions. “Hey Amy, it’s me. Listen, I was just talking to Tom Garrity about the guy missing at the lake. It seems like it might be that client of yours you were telling me about. Tom’s going to get in touch with you, I think, since I hinted that you were seeing the guy. I know you can’t really say anything for privacy reasons, right? I told Tom that. But he’ll probably still try to coax something out of you. He wants to find out where the guy is, and you don’t know that, so you can’t really help anyway. Okay, this is kind of a long message. Call me if we need to talk.”

When he clicked off he wondered if he had been clear enough—don’t tell the police anything.

Joe Armin reported in by phone. “They’re getting divers out to search the bay,” he said. “Apparently they’re checking on a report of someone falling off the dock Monday afternoon.”

Falling off—still the phrasing of an accident. Apparently Lenore was not being believed.

“Yeah,” Joe said in the excited tone of a young reporter on the scene, “a counselor over at the Boy Scout camp spotted him.”

Simon’s hand stiffened on the phone. It amazed him, how hearing something threatening could instantly manifest in a physical reaction, the tightening of muscles. “How could he do that, Joe? You can’t see across the bay.”

“They were doing bird watching over there looking through binoculars, so he had a good view. I think I should go talk to him.”

What were the chances that a Boy Scout counselor, an unimpeachable observer, would be looking out into the bay for birds and see a man fall in the water? What else had he seen through his binoculars? And why hadn’t Garrity mentioned such a credible eyewitness?

“Sure, Joe, go interview him and find out exactly what he saw.”

She said, “Why did you send Tom Garrity to me?”

He was kneeling in the garden, yanking handfuls of weeds from around the spindly tomato plants, barely two feet high in July, and with only a few yellow flowers on them promising fruit. It would be another lousy year for tomatoes. He had thought that leaving work early to do something outside with his hands would help him forget for a while the predicament he was in. But there was Amy standing over him, demanding an answer.

“Hello to you, too,” he said sitting back on his heels. “I suggest next year we just throw some wildflower seeds in the garden and forget trying to grow tomatoes and cucumbers. It’s wasted effort.”

“You do the weeding, so plant what you want.” She moved away a step, letting the late afternoon sun hit his face. “Could you tell me why you sent the police chief to me?”

Simon yanked