anyone can.”
“Myron is Myron. He…well, he looks at everything logically. And then he moves on. Britta? I’m not sure she’ll ever move on, really.”
“She has the Cape Cod place in the backyard. Doesn’t like the contemporary stuff.”
“I think she spends a lot of time there. Thinking about things.”
Pine nodded.
“So, your mother?”
“I’ll be candid with you. She’s had a lot of challenges.”
“What sort of challenges?”
“I’d prefer not to go into that.”
He cocked his head. “So, is she in a hospital or something?”
“Or something,” Pine said vaguely.
“What’s her prognosis?”
“I’m not sure there is one, at least that I know of.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
She shrugged. “That’s life. You take the good with the bad. Do you remember anyone else other than the Pringles that I could talk to?”
“No, that’s it.”
“Okay. Then I guess we’re done here.” She reached for her wallet.
“No, I’ve got it. I invited you.”
“I’ll feel better paying my way,” said Pine. She handed him a twenty.
A minute later the three of them went back out to the Porsche and got in, and Jerry drove off.
“Next time you see your mother can you tell her I said hello?” asked Lineberry.
“I will.” If I ever see her again, thought Pine.
They dropped her off back at the Cottage.
“If you think of anything else, give me a call,” said Pine.
“I will,” promised Lineberry.
As they drove off Pine thought, Why do I doubt that?
Chapter 21
UNDERSTAND I CAN’T BE a hundred percent sure, but I’ve marked the men who were at the Clink that night to the best of my recollection,” said Blum, handing the notebook over to Pine.
Pine set it down on the bed in her room and flipped through it. “Looks to be about twenty men who weren’t there, though half of them look too old and frail to have even picked up the woman, much less carried her any distance.”
“Agnes Ridley and Cy were there, too. So I had them go through the photos as well, to check my memory. We came up with basically the same list.”
“But no Myron Pringle and no Jack Lineberry.”
“I asked around town. Neither frequent the Clink.”
“I would suppose not. They don’t live that close. Lineberry probably has his own chef, and Pringle would be afraid someone might try to put an ingestible spy chip in his mashed potatoes.”
“How did it go on your end?”
Pine told her about finding zip at the crime scene and her unusual lunch with Lineberry. “It was funny he was asking about my mom like that.”
“They were friends.”
“It was a long time ago. And he kept in touch with my dad, but not my mom?”
“Well, he said he didn’t know where she was. So what will you do with my list?”
“Pass it along to Wallis. It might generate a lead.”
“The trouble is our killer might have been a tourist and has already left the area.”
“There was nothing we could do about that. We couldn’t very well shut the whole town down. I wouldn’t imagine there are many surveillance cameras around here.”
“I doubt there are any in the relevant area, or else you’d think the police or Wallis would have mentioned something like that.”
Pine took photos of the men who weren’t at the restaurant and emailed them to Wallis. “Let’s see what he can run down on that.”
“Next steps?” asked Blum.
Pine’s phone buzzed. It was Wallis acknowledging receipt of the photos and adding something else.
Pine listened and then clicked off. “He’s found out Hanna Rebane’s last known address. He’s heading over here to pick us up.”
* * *
“Fort Benning land,” said Wallis as he drove Pine and Blum in his dusty and rusty Crown Vic. The interior was littered with fast-food containers, dented soda cans, plastic coffee cups, and the comingled smells of degrading French fries and cigarette smoke.
“Columbus, Georgia,” said Pine. “On the border with Alabama.”
“Right. You been there?”
“Once, when I was conducting a joint investigation with Army CID.”
“I’ve done some stuff with CID. Who’d you work with?”
“CID Special Agent named John Puller.”
Wallis said, “Puller? Wasn’t his daddy a war hero or something?”
“Still is. And so is John. Good guy. Taught me a lot about the military. It’s a whole other world.”
“I damn sure know that from my abbreviated tour of duty,” agreed Wallis heartily.
“So what’s the scoop on Hanna Rebane?” asked Blum.
“She shared an apartment with another gal.”
“Is the roommate Eastern European too?”
“No, her name’s Beth Clemmons. That’s her real name, not her professional one.”
“Professional one?” asked Pine.
“She’s a porn actress. Goes by Raven McCoy in the, um, films.”
“Was