At First Sight

Chapter 19

IN EARLY OCTOBER, PAIGE GOT BACK TO THE PORTRAIT of Chandler. She was working with more emotional distance now. She found solace in trying to capture the strong, flat planes of his face. She finally liked the way it was turning out.

Given the circumstances, she was surviving pretty well. She had lost five pounds, along with her appetite, and was beginning to look gaunt, so she had been working half-heartedly at putting the weight back on.

In the afternoons, when it was cooler, she ran down by the river. She found herself stretching the distances out, keeping her pace brisk and taking pleasure in the fact that as her endurance grew, she didn't tire. The daily run and the dojo workouts exhausted her and she slept soundly, descending into a muscle-tired REM, where the painful dreams of Chandler didn't follow.

But the rage always lay just below the surface. She had a stress fracture in her left wrist from blocking her karate instructor's side kick, known as a yoko-geri. She also had one on her right forearm from a missed tettsui-uke, a bottom fist-block. Her sensei had wanted her to take a month off and let them heal, but she'd ignored the advice and stayed in class; both injuries got worse until finally an orthopedist ordered her to give it up for six months. So she concentrated on her running and pushed her distance up to ten miles a day.

Bob Butler still phoned her each Wednesday to set a visit. He would bring her up to date over coffee or Cokes, but his attitude was starting to suggest failure.

"I'm beginning to think maybe I ain't gonna get this guy after all," Bob sadly admitted one afternoon. "Just finished goin' back again, recheckin' everything, recontacting rental car companies, asking them to check fender damage again.

"Same answer: no blue Tauruses with busted fenders at none a them big car agencies, so that means most likely, it ain't a rental. Now I'm checkin' paint stores and tire stores in the Tri-State Area."

They were sitting on a wrought-iron bench near the aqueduct, watching two tugs work a huge oil tanker as it slid up the river. One was in front, the other trailing, each nosing the tanker occasionally, then running along beside it bumping and herding the mammoth ship like busy sheepdogs.

"Tire stores?" She was puzzled.

"Well, it's a long shot, but if he's smart, this perp could know we can do a pretty good job at matching treads we recover off'a bodies, or from tracks on the pavement. If our driver knew that, maybe the perp coulda went and changed tires."

"Isn't that going to make him harder to catch?" she asked.

"Maybe could be yes, maybe could be no." He then turned and looked directly at her, finding her gaze with friendly gray eyes. "Here's what I'm hopin'. If this doer changed the tires, that means he talked to somebody, and maybe that somebody will remember. Since the perp just ran Chandler down, could be that he or she was real stressed, acting strange. The tire store might help me get a sketch. I'll show it to you and we'll see if you can make the identification. If you can't and it turns out to be a stranger, at least we got something to show around."

She nodded and swung her eyes back to the huge ship that was now sliding by directly in front of them, its massive hull taking away the view. "How many hundreds of tire stores are there?" she asked, not really expecting an exact answer.

He pulled out several computer sheets. "Here's all the names off the Corporation Commission's computer. That's just the ones that contain the words "tire" or "tread" in the corporate filing." He handed it to her. She was surprised by the number of listings.

"Counting the chains and the independents, there's five hundred in the state of North Carolina alone," he said. "'Bout the same in South Carolina and Virginia. After I run through all'a them, I'll punch out the auto parts stores that sell tires, and last, the gas stations. But that's gonna be a pile a places, so I'm hopin' I score with the list you're holding first."

"Lotta tire centers," she said bleakly.

"Yep," he nodded. "Gonna take a heap a doin, but since the rental car thing was a bust, I have to go after this angle. Gonna check paint and body shops, too. Got a similar list a'them. Figure the front end a'that car musta got pretty damaged. Since the TV people put it on the news that Chandler was run down by a blue Taurus, the perp hadda know we made the car. So he puts the car in his garage for a month or two, doesn't drive it, then when the heat has died down, he takes it out, gets the front end fixed, probably sells it after that."

"It's a lot of work, Bob."

"Nah," he grinned. "I live for this stuff." But he was blushing again, his ears turning pink.

She reached out and took his hand. "Bob, you can't possibly know how grateful I… "

But he cut her off. "Don't say nothin, Mrs. Ellis. It's just my job."

Of course, she knew Bob had been ordered to put the case aside. He had a folder full of fresh crimes that his homicide supervisor had directed him to focus on. Nobody on the Charlotte PD thought there was much chance of ever solving Chandler's hit-and-run. While it stayed active, Bob could only put a minimal amount of time in on it each week. But that didn't stop him. He had given her his promise, so he was working it on his off-hours, on weekends and holidays. Working it for her and for his dead wife, Althea.

"You need to take some time off. Take a vacation," she told him. "Now you're the one looking tired."

"What'm I gonna do, Mrs. Ellis?" he said, sadly. "Where you think I should go? Maybe to some Caribbean hotel all by myself, sit in a room and just look at the TV?"

"Don't you ever think about getting married again?" she asked him.

"No, ma'am," he replied. He reached for his Bible and started thumbing through it. "Bible says I gotta play it this way. Lotta people think I'm nuts, but that don't matter t'me 'tall." He found the verse he wanted. "Mark 11 says, 'Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another, committeth adultery.'" He closed the Bible and looked up at her. "Can't go against the scriptures."

"I think that means while she's still alive, Bob," Paige smiled.

"Yep. Ya might be right, but y'see, in my mind Althea is alive. She'll never die. Think about Althea ever day… think about her, talk to her… So it's not like I'm alone. But I can't take her on a vacation either. Can't walk on the beach with her, hold her hand, or go swim-min. So I figure I just might as well stick around here and catch this guy who hit Chandler."

She watched him as he stood and picked up his Bible.

"Best be gettin' started. Workin' only weekends is gonna take me a mess a'time t'get through all these."

"Thank you, Bob," she said. "I can't tell you how much it means… "

"You're welcome, Mrs. Ellis," he said, blushing again. Then he turned and walked back to his car-a rumpled man clutching a Bible who had the softest gray eyes she had ever seen.