“Google it, why don’t you?”
While he waited for his own out-of-date computer to boot up, he decided to try the database he was married to. Jeannie answered on the first ring, and didn’t even need to think when he asked her. “It could be Tommy and Tuppence. They were cutie-poo detectives Agatha Christie wrote about when she wasn’t writing about Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple. If that’s the case, you’ll probably find a restaurant run by a couple of British expats and specializing in things like bubble-and-squeak.”
“Bubble and what?”
“Never mind.”
“It probably means nothing,” he repeated. But maybe it did. You chased this shit to make sure, one way or the other; chasing shit was, apologies to Sherlock Holmes, what most detective work was about.
“I’m curious, though. Tell me when you get home. Oh, and we’re all out of orange juice.”
“I’ll stop by Gerald’s,” he said, and hung up.
He went to Google, typed in TOMMY AND TUPPENCE, then added RESTAURANT. The PD computers were old, but the Wi-Fi was new, and fast. He had what he was looking for in a matter of seconds. The Tommy and Tuppence Pub and Café was on Northwoods Boulevard in Dayton, Ohio.
Dayton. What was it about Dayton? Hadn’t that come up once before in this sorry business? If so, where? He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. Whatever connection he was trying to make courtesy of that yellow bra strap continued to elude him, but this new one he got. Dayton had come up during his last real conversation with Terry Maitland. They’d been talking about the van, and Terry had said he hadn’t been in New York since he honeymooned there with his wife. The only trip Terry had taken recently had been to Ohio. To Dayton, in fact.
The girls’ spring vacation. I wanted to see my dad. And when Ralph had asked if his father lived there, Terry had said, If you can call what he’s doing these days living.
He called Sablo. “Hey, Yune, it’s me.”
“Hey, Ralph, how’s retirement treating you?”
“It’s good. You should see my lawn. I heard you’re getting a commendation for covering that dipshit reporter’s delectable body.”
“So they say. Tell you what, life has been good for this son of a poor Mexican farming family.”
“I thought you told me your father ran the biggest car dealership in Amarillo.”
“I might have said that, I suppose. But when you have to decide between truth and legend, ese, print the legend. The wisdom of John Ford in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. What can I do for you?”
“Did Samuels tell you about the kid who originally stole the van?”
“Yeah. That’s some story. Kid’s name was Merlin, did you know that? And he sure must have been some kind of wizard to get all the way down to south Texas.”
“Can you reach out to El Paso? That’s where his run ended, but I know from Samuels that the kid ditched the van in Ohio. What I want to know is if it was somewhere near a pub and café called Tommy and Tuppence, on Northwoods Boulevard in Dayton.”
“I could take a shot at that, I guess.”
“Samuels told me this Merlin the Magician was on the road a long time. Can you also try to find out when he ditched the van? If maybe it was in April?”
“I can try to do that, too. Do you want to tell me why?”
“Terry Maitland was in Dayton in April. Visiting his father.”
“Really?” Yune sounded totally engaged now. “Alone?”
“With his family,” Ralph admitted, “and they flew both ways.”
“So there goes that.”
“Probably, but it still exercises a certain particular fascination over my consciousness.”
“You’ll have to ’splain that, Detective, for I am just the son of a poor Mexican farmer.”
Ralph sighed.
“Let me see what I can find out.”
“Thanks, Yune.”
Just as he hung up, Chief Geller came in, toting a gym bag and looking freshly showered. Ralph tipped him a wave, and got a scowl in return. “You’re not supposed to be here, Detective.”
Ah, so that answered that question.
“Go home. Mow the lawn, or something.”
“I already did that,” Ralph said, getting up. “Cleaning out the cellar comes next.”
“Fine, better get to it.” Geller paused at his office door. “And Ralph . . . I’m sorry about all this. Sorry as hell.”
People keep saying that, Ralph thought as he went out into the afternoon heat.
9
Yune called at quarter past nine that evening, while Jeannie was in the shower. Ralph wrote everything down. It wasn’t much, but enough to be interesting. He went to bed an hour later, and fell into real sleep for the first time since Terry had been shot at the foot of the courthouse steps. He awoke at four on Friday morning from a dream of the teenage girl sitting on her boyfriend’s shoulders and pumping her fists at the sky. He sat bolt upright in bed, still more asleep than awake, and unaware he was shouting until his frightened wife sat up beside him and grabbed him by the shoulders.
“What? Ralph, what?”
“Not the strap! The color of the strap!”
“What are you talking about?” She shook him. “Was it a dream, honey? A bad dream?”
I believe there’s another dozen thoughts in my head lined up behind each one I’m aware of. That was what she had said. And that was what the dream—already dissolving, as dreams do—had been. One of those thoughts.
“I had it,” he said. “In the dream I had it.”
“Had what, honey? Something about Terry?”
“About the girl. Her bra strap was bright yellow. Only something else was, too. I knew what it was in the dream, but now . . .” He swung his feet out of bed and sat with his hands grasping his knees below the baggy boxers he slept in. “It’s gone.”
“It will come back. Lie down. You scared the hell out of me.”
“I’m sorry.” Ralph lay down again.
“Can you go back to sleep?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did Lieutenant Sablo say when he called?”
“I didn’t tell you?” Knowing he hadn’t.
“No, and I didn’t want to push. You had your think-face on.”
“I’ll tell you in the morning.”
“Since you scared me wide awake, might as well do it now.”
“Not much to tell. Yune tracked the boy down through the officer who arrested him—the cop liked the kid, kind of took an interest, has been keeping track. For the time being, young Mr. Cassidy is in the foster care system down there in El Paso. He’s got to face some kind of hearing in juvenile court for car theft, but nobody knows exactly where that will be yet. Dutchess County in New York seems the most likely, but they’re not exactly champing at the bit to get him, and he’s not champing at the bit to go back. So for the time being, he’s in a kind of legal limbo, and according to Yune, he likes that fine. Stepfather tuned up on him pretty frequently, is the kid’s story. While Mom pretended it wasn’t happening. Pretty standard cycle of abuse.”