Twenty-Seven Bones

3

Some wit had once described Washington, DC, as a city of northern charm and southern efficiency. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, thought Pender, this was largely true of Miami as well.

The taxi dropped him off at a whitewashed bungalow in a neighborhood that looked as if it had seen better days. As have I, Pender mused as he shambled up the walkway in his garish Hawaiian shirt and gaudy white Panama-as have I.

The woman who answered the door looked to be in her mid-sixties, but lean and tan, dried as jerky. The vee of skin at her neck was creped, but her face was eerily unlined and immobile. Botox, thought Pender, and plenty of it.

“Yes?”

“Mrs. Wanger?”

“Yes?”

“My name is Ed Pender, I’m with the FBI, I need to ask you a few questions about the missing persons report you filed recently with the Miami PD. May I come in?”

She looked up-and up; she was a tiny thing. “Do you have some identification?”

Pender still carried his old Department of Justice shield in his wallet, next to his driver’s license. Couldn’t hurt, he figured, and it might even save him a speeding ticket someday. He tinned her; she stepped aside and ushered him into a tiny, foyerless, and blessedly air-conditioned living room.

“Can I offer you something to drink?” she asked him. “How about a nice cold glass of lemonade?”

“Sounds great.”

Alone in the living room, Pender took the opportunity to look around. Spotless white carpet, two small sofas facing each other across a driftwood coffee table. The armchair at the head of the grouping almost certainly belonged to the master of the house, whose picture-broad-faced man in a white cowboy hat-was featured prominently on the mantel and the coffee table.

When Mrs. Wanger returned, Pender was still standing. “After you,” he said, as if he were the type of gentleman who could never sit in the presence of a standing lady. Not true-he just needed to see where she was going to light first, so he could set up his interview space accordingly. As he could have predicted, she sat on one of the sofas; he took the armchair so as to be at the optimum interviewing angle of forty-five degrees.

Pender balanced his hat on the arm of the chair and took a sip of his lemonade, which looked delicious-tall, frosty glass, sprig of mint-but tasted like heavily sweetened fusel oil. Some powdered mix: no doubt the only lemon involved in the manufacture of this beverage was the painted one on the label. He smacked his lips and forced a smile. “Just like Grandma used to make,” he said.

“How very awful for Grandpa,” she replied drily.

Sharper than she looks, thought Pender. “I guess my first question is, do you have any idea where your husband might have gone?”

“As I told the officer who took the missing persons report, treasure hunting is Tex’s hobby. Since he retired, it’s become more like an obsession. This trip was different, though. He was very secretive about the destination-said he was sworn to secrecy. Wouldn’t even give me a hint-just said he’d be back in three weeks at the latest.”

“This was when?”

He started to put his glass down on the coffee table; she quickly slid a coaster under it. “Six weeks ago-middle of August.”

“Did he tell you anything at all about the expedition-whom he was meeting, how they contacted him or vice versa?”

“I told you, he said he was sworn to secrecy. I think he enjoyed that part of it-Tex is such a romantic.”

“Take a guess for me, then: how would you say your husband might have hooked up with whoever it was he was going to be treasure hunting with?”

She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Probably one of his Soldier of Fortune magazines.”

“Do you have any of them around?”

“All of them-Tex never let me throw a magazine away.”

“Could you get them for me?”

“Of course.” But she didn’t move.

“Mrs. Wanger…?”

She looked up from the coffee table; their eyes met for the first time since she’d asked to see his ID. “Agent Pender, this isn’t really about the missing persons report I filed, is it?”

Gently, Pender told himself. Easy does it. “No,” he said. “No, it’s not.”

“Is Tex in some sort of trouble?”

“You might say that.” It sounded coy even to Pender. Jesus, he thought, I am so fucking out of practice.

“How bad?”

He set his glass down. “The worst.”

“What does that mean?”

“His body was identified through a fingerprint match last night.”

No reply. Thanks to the Botox, her face remained a mask, but Pender could sense something crumpling behind that rigid armature. “Mrs. Wanger, your husband has been murdered,” he continued urgently, hoping to forestall the inevitable meltdown. “That’s why it’s so important that we learn everything we can about his trip-so we can catch whoever did it.”

“You’re sure?”

Pender nodded. “I’m so sorry.”

After a long silence, marred only by the hum of the air-conditioning and the distant roar of a leaf blower, the new widow pushed herself up from the sofa. “I’ll get you those magazines you wanted,” she said dully.

“Appreciate it,” said Pender.