“I’ve been thinking about that. Actually, there is someone. A lawyer, John Combes. Everybody calls him Jack. He and Barth had a regular weekly handball game over at the RecWell. Their relationship was . . . not exactly a friendship. They never socialized other than on the court and once a year at the Combeses’ Christmas party. Jack always struck me as a bit sleazy—a criminal law attorney and not wildly successful. He does come from a prominent family. Perhaps their relationship went back to childhood, to school, I don’t know. I do know that he’s an excellent handball player.”
That was all they got from Quill. If her husband had been using cocaine, she never saw any signs of euphoria or withdrawal. “Barth was incredibly even-tempered. With his job, I’m sure he must have felt stress, disappointment, anger, but he never showed it.”
As they were leaving, Virgil asked Quill, “Did your husband like cowboy music?”
“What?”
“You know, cowboy music.”
“I doubt that he ever listened to a cowboy song in his entire life. He liked Bartók.”
“Jimmy Ray Bartók?”
“No, Béla . . . Oh, you were joking.” She looked disappointed in him.
* * *
—
In the elevators on the way back down, Trane said, “Jack Combes might be something. I know who he is, but he’s a small-timer in the legal world. Never handled a homicide, as far as I know. Or, if he did, not a big one. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he got a lot of work through court appointments for drug defendants. That would be about his speed.”
“You want to do him or do you want me to?”
She thought for a moment, then said, “Why don’t you take him? He sounds like a jock, and you’re obviously a jock. Maybe you’ll bond. I want to ride herd on our pubic hair. It could be critical.”
“You gonna do DNA on all three of them?” Virgil asked.
“Think we should?”
“Yeah. They’re probably all from the same person, but it would be very interesting if they weren’t. If you’ve got a guy who takes a personal interest in women only because he wants the sex, as Nancy Quill says he did, and if he has a logical mind, like most scientists, then . . . why not a hooker? Or two or three? Be a lot cheaper than two-year marriages followed by divorces.”
“As you would know as well as anybody,” Trane said.
“Right. Thanks for mentioning it. Another thing: hotels have eyes for hookers and that might be a reason he’d take one to the library. And where you find hookers, you’re gonna find drugs. And you might even find blackmail. You might find all kinds of things. Like motive.”
“Good point,” Trane said. “We’ll do the DNA on all the hair.”
“I’ll find this Combes guy tomorrow,” Virgil said. He looked down at his shoes for a moment, ruminating.
“What?”
“‘Home on the Range.’ He has ‘Home on the Range’ on his stereo. It sorta convinced me that the guy was deranged.”
“That’s almost a pun.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Virgil said.
* * *
—
Outside, Trane looked at her watch. “I’m going home. You’ll find Combes tomorrow morning?”
“Yeah. I’d like to solve this by tomorrow night. You know, so I wouldn’t have to spend Sunday worrying about it.”
“I’m all for that,” Trane said. She offered him a tiny smile, the first he’d seen from her. “But it won’t happen. I have to say, though, that you did good stuff today, Virgil. I didn’t have anything to work on. Now I do.”
“I’ll call you after I talk to Combes.”
“And talk to Davenport about leaking to the TV people.”
On his way back to the hotel, Virgil called Davenport, who agreed to leak a progress report. And Davenport also knew Combes. “Combes is smart enough, but lazy. He is a jock—golf, tennis, basketball. Handball doesn’t surprise me. I’ve played some basketball with him and he can shoot. But, you know, he comes from one of those old, rich mill families, and I don’t think he ever needed to work,” Davenport said. “Loafed his way through law school, managed to pass the bar exam, worked for the public defender for a couple of years, does some pro bono now. And, yeah, I think he could probably hook you up with a dealer.”
* * *
—
At the hotel, Virgil got a steak, then wandered over to the beer joint for a brew. The place was busy, but he grabbed the last stool at the bar, next to an older, white-haired, red-faced man in a blue linen sport coat and white shirt; he smelled like a cheeseburger, but not offensively so.
The Latina-looking barmaid came along, and Virgil asked if they had Bud Light. She winced, said, “Um, no.”
“Then give me whatever is most like Bud Light,” Virgil said.
The white-haired man laughed, and said, “The boy’s determined to drink cow piss, Alice. I wouldn’t stand in his way. He could be armed and dangerous.”
He turned and looked at Virgil, checked the shirt, and said, “You’re in a band?”
“No . . . But I like band shirts.”
“So do I, but they look stupid on you when you’re as old and fat as I am. You got the hair and stomach for it.”
“Thank you.”
The barmaid came back with a glass of beer, pushed it across the bar to Virgil, and said, “Best we could do.” She was a pretty woman, round-faced, brown-skinned, dark-eyed, with a flashing smile.
Virgil took a sip, and said, “Okay. PBR? Miller Lite?”
“Got it in two,” she said. “Miller.”
“Well, you got what you wanted, what was most like that other shit,” the white-haired man said. And, “My name’s Harry.”
“I’m Virgil.”
“Let me guess . . .” He gave Virgil a look, with Alice, the barmaid, getting interested, her arms on the bar, looking back and forth between them, and then Harry said, “You’re reppin’ for somebody. Something technical, a computer company maybe . . .” He stopped, examined Virgil even more closely, and then said, “No. Bless my soul, you’re a cop. Some kind of cop.”
Virgil laughed, shook his head.
Alice asked, “Is he right? Are you a cop?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Virgil said. “No, actually, I’m sure I am.”