I put my jeans back on, but my socks and sweatshirt were wet and stank of rotted vegetation. The silk blouse I’d worn to see Julius Arnoff was in my trunk. I didn’t want to wear it for strenuous work, but one thing the suburbs have in abundance is all-night shopping. The motel itself was across the street from a twenty-four-hour behemoth. I put on my blouse and suit jacket and stuck the pocket organizer into my day pack before crossing the highway-I didn’t want to leave my precious booty alone for a minute.
Before falling into the bed, I’d tried to pry the organizer open, but dirt and wet weeds clogged it shut. I didn’t force it-if this was Marc Whitby’s, I didn’t want to destroy any notes or documents zipped inside. I’d get it to the forensic lab I use for this kind of problem.
The ring I rinsed off under the bathroom tap. A jeweler would have to clean it up properly, but as I’d thought, it was an expensive, garish piece of jewelry. A kind of beehive of stones was built up from a gold band-diamond and emerald chips banked around four good-sized rocks. A couple of the small chips were missing, but what remained could probably pay Mr. Contreras’s and my taxes for a couple of years.
Had it been Geraldine Graham’s? Her mother’s? I pictured a teenage Darraugh throwing his grandmother’s ring in the pond after they’d fought about his father-the father for whom he defiantly named his own son. Or perhaps Geraldine herself had thrown it away, out of disgust with her marriage. Or perhaps I was being melodramatic-maybe she or her mother, or even some guest, had lost it during one of those al fresco dinners Renee Bayard mentioned-the owner would be thrilled to see it again.
My fingers were swollen from the cold water, but at their normal shape the ring would have slid down over the knuckle. I held out my hand to study the ring in the bathroom mirror. Wedged against my knuckle, with my fingers showing a spider network of cuts, the piece looked even more grotesque. Definitely the possession of someone with more money than taste-although I guess a claim to superior taste is the weak comfort of the poor. I stuffed the ring into my jeans and went out to buy skulking clothes.
In the superstore across the road, I found aspirin, orange juice, socks, fresh batteries for the work lamp, work gloves with rubber palms and a hooded navy sweatshirt-all for twentythree dollars. I had an uneasy feeling that slaves in China or Burma had made these items. They never say that on the label: made for Megatherium Superstores by slave labor so you can have it cheap, but a sweatshirt, gloves and so on for twentythree dollars ought to tip you off. Ought to tip me off. I could have driven all the way home for gloves, sweatshirt, and so on, not to mention my gun, but I was an American-fast, cheap and easy, was my motto.
Back in the motel, I drank half the orange juice with two aspirins: that would do me as much good as another six hours in bed. The rest I put in
my day pack along with the small knife and the headlamp. I left a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door in case I wanted to use the room again, but I put all my stuff in the car: if my luck-and stamina-held, I wanted to drive straight home when I finished.
I was in one of the peaks of alertness that you sometimes reach when you’re basically exhausted. At the entrance to Coverdale Lane, I pulled the Mustang behind a bush. I wanted to approach Larchmont on foot-1 didn’t want the noise of my car to alert anyone who might be hanging around.
Five nights ago the trip had spooked me; the road had seemed endless, the night animals major menaces. Now I knew the area well enough that I jogged along. I was wearing my diver’s headlamp, but the moon outlined the road in enough ghostly light that I didn’t have to switch it on.
Movement loosened my muscles, helping the aspirin kick in. I stretched my arms. Some muscle between my shoulder blades gave me a stab of pain sharp enough that I winced. I hoped it was a muscle I wasn’t going to want again tonight.
Twice, cars went past and I ducked into the shrubbery. I thought about cutting across the fields, but I’d make less noise on the tarmac. I was betting Renee Bayard would wait until morning to call the sheriff, but I couldn’t be sure of it-the Wabash Cannonball moved fast, and if she thought her granddaughter was sheltering a murderer, she’d act at once. I was also betting Catherine wouldn’t try to slide out past her grandmother again tonight, but I couldn’t be sure of that, either.
When I turned up the Larchmont carriageway, I slowed down, stopping periodically to listen to the night sounds. Jogging had warmed me up; now I could feel the late-winter air against my back. A wind had come up, rustling the leaves and dead grasses, making me stop more often-in my nervous state, every noise sounded like someone moving through the underbrush.
When I reached the house, I first made a tour of the outbuildings, looking for any signs of other people. I had uneasy visions of Renee Bayard or the DuPage sheriff leaping out at me, but I didn’t see anyone. A loud crashing near the pond sent me to the ground, my heart hammering, but it was only a couple of white-tailed deer, startled into flight by my approach.