“Have you cleared that with the missus?”
“How am I going to explain this snafu to Mr. Otterman?”
“Jeez, Neal, I don’t know. But you’ve got, uhhh, ten hours and forty-eight, no forty-nine, minutes to figure that out. Wasn’t the convenient time for him nine o’clock tomorrow morning?”
“Fuck you.”
“See you at the morgue.”
Crawford clicked off, having succeeded in upsetting Neal and hopefully shaking Otterman’s equanimity. But it was a minor triumph that did little to cheer him. Rather than goose Neal into conducting a more aggressive investigation, the detective would more than likely become more stubbornly conservative.
Otterman was probably as solid a citizen as Neal believed him to be. Crawford couldn’t pinpoint why the guy had got under his skin, but his initial response had been dislike and mistrust. His gut instinct about people had been too reliable to start dismissing now. He would continue going with it until it was proven wrong about Otterman.
Before concluding that he was absolutely innocent, as Neal already had, he wanted to gauge Otterman’s reaction when he looked at Rodriguez’s corpse, and wait to see what, if anything, Smitty turned up on him and his unexplained meetings.
He left his drink unfinished. Rather than lifting his spirits, it was only making him more depressed. In contrast to the air-conditioned bar, the atmosphere outside felt particularly sultry. He was clammy with sweat by the time he climbed into his SUV. He blamed the heat index for his lethargy—not the wounded look on Holly’s face when he’d left her with that harsh accusation vibrating between them.
Talking dirty to her one minute, lashing out at her the next. If she hadn’t known it before, she knew it now: Refined, he wasn’t.
Feeling bone-tired and dejected, he let himself into his house through the back door, draped his jacket over a kitchen chair, slid his necktie from around his neck, and, without even bothering to unbutton his shirt, pulled it off over his head as he made his way down the hall toward his bedroom.
As he passed the open door to Georgia’s room, he did a double-take.
Then he stood there, stupefied, his brain trying to register what his eyes were seeing. Blindly he felt for the wall switch and flipped on the light.
The bedroom had been turned inside out, upside down, destroyed. The mirror between the upright spindles of the dresser had been splintered into a million shards, the picture books ripped to shreds, the stuffed animals disemboweled, the princess doll dismembered and decapitated. The bed linens had been sliced to ribbons. Red paint, flung onto the pink walls, looked obscenely like blood spatters.
The violation made him sick. He forced down the gorge that surged into his throat.
He did a quick walk-through of the other rooms, but nothing else had been disturbed, which upset him more than if his entire house had been trashed. The offender knew him well, knew what he valued most, knew how to strike where it would hurt the worst, and scare the shit out of him.
Any attempted contact will be considered a violation, he remembered Holly saying. But he hadn’t been served yet, so with “screw that” haste, he called the Gilroys’ house. Grace answered.
“It’s me,” he said. “Is Georgia okay?”
“Crawford. Uh—”
“Is she okay?”
“Yes, of course. She’s been asleep for hours.”
“Go check on her.”
“Crawford—”
“Just do it.” Reining in his impatience, he added, “Please, Grace.”
Fifteen seconds later, she returned. “She’s in her bed, fast asleep.”
He took his first steady breath since discovering the vandalism. “Is your house alarm set?”
“You know Joe.”
“Keep it set. Even during the day.”
“What’s the matter? Has something happened?”
An explanation would only support their argument that he was dangerous to be around. “A daddy thing,” he said, forcing himself to give a light laugh. “Moment of panic. You know how it is. Sorry I bothered you. Good night.”
He disconnected and, when he did, he became aware of a noise outside. Quickly but quietly, he went down the hall and into the living room. Slipping his pistol from the holster at the small of his back, he peeked through a front window and saw a shadowy form approaching the porch.
Crawford turned on the outside light and simultaneously flung open the door.
The man halted and shielded his eyes against the sudden glare. He blinked Crawford into focus. “Hey, Crawford.”
He was a professional server whom Crawford had used himself.
“I know it’s late, but I came around earlier and you weren’t here.” With apparent reluctance, he withdrew an envelope from the breast pocket of his jacket and extended it to Crawford. As he took it, the server said, “Sorry, man.”
Crawford didn’t thank him, but he shook his head to indicate that it was unnecessary for him to apologize. He was only doing his job.