the night from the hospital in Pine City. It had been a long day; I was tired and disappointed. I wanted to keep working the case, but I couldn’t think of anything to be done until the morning, and maybe nothing until the reports came in. We needed more information.
I guessed Max must have been considering what I’d told him, because for a few moments he said nothing. Then he said, “We both want Jacob to wake up. Maybe you just saw what you wanted to see, Clara. We do that sometimes. When you thought you saw Naomi talking to him, you assumed that your wish had come true.”
“I don’t…” I started, but then I didn’t go any further. Max had to be right. Naomi had no reason to hide anything from me. Why would she? “Well, maybe. I guess that could be. I don’t read lips or anything. It was just what I thought I saw.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Max said. “I don’t know of any reason Naomi wouldn’t tell you the truth. Maybe what’s going on here is that you’re being influenced by your trust issues with your family, your strained relationships with your mothers?”
That hit a nerve. Maybe Max was right. Rather than answer, I changed the subject and asked, “Anything interesting pop up on NCIC?”
“Just a couple of things,” Max said. “There’s a little more info on Carl’s stint in prison. Pretty much like he described it, a barroom altercation. But he really went off on the guy, nearly killed him. They supposedly put him through anger management group sessions in prison, but you know what those are like.”
“In Texas prisons, it was a group of inmates sitting around complaining about how they got a raw deal,” I said. “I’m assuming the same here?”
“Pretty much,” he said. “It’s one of those things you hope works but doesn’t seem to very often.”
“What about your contact in Mexico?”
“I sent the email but haven’t heard back yet,” he answered. “Probably won’t until the morning. I don’t have a working phone number for the guy. If he doesn’t get in touch, I’ll reach out to the local cops down there and ask them for any information they can rustle up.”
“What about Myles, his past?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he answered. “The guy’s invisible. No arrests, no problems. The only thing I noticed was that he hasn’t renewed his registration for the pickup and it expires in a few days.”
“That’s odd.”
“What is?” Max asked.
“Well, admittedly we just peeked in the windows, but it looked like Myles has his cabin and the barn organized, so well that the entire place could be a model home,” I said. “He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d wait until the last minute to get his registration renewed.”
“Hmm.” Max got quiet. Thinking, I guessed. “Well, no, he doesn’t.”
“I’m going to drive out to Myles’s place, check in with Conroy,” I said. “I want to take another look around.”
“I’ll get Alice here for Brooke and meet you there,” Max offered.
“Not necessary. Stay home and enjoy your evening with her,” I said.
Then I brought up something that had occurred to me as we talked. “Max, I’ve been assuming that Jeremy wasn’t murdered like the rest of the family because he was too young to be a threat to the killer, unable to tell what happened,” I said. “But what if the killer didn’t know Jeremy was there? What if he knows now, and the baby is in danger?”
Max thought about that for a moment. “I guess it’s possible,” Max said. “Tell you what, just to be careful, I’ll make a few calls, find out who has the baby, and we’ll put surveillance on the house, keep watch.”
“No, I’ll put one of my men on that, too. This is our case, remember,” I said. “How worried do you think we have to be?”
“Not sure,” Max said. “We still have no idea why the others were murdered.”
Eighteen
Against the night sky, the mountains looked like deep waves of shadow. It was going on eight thirty as I approached Myles Thompkins’ place, and I started thinking that Conroy had put in a long, hard day. Maybe I was asking too much of the kid. I called dispatch. “Conroy’s still out at the Thompkins place, right?”
“Yup,” the night dispatcher said. “You want me to bump him on the radio for you?”
“No, that’s okay,” I said. “You have someone relieving him soon?”