Billy Straight

74

The owner of the Chinese restaurant had no mem- ory of Balch. Petra and Wil ordered some spring rolls to go, ate them in her car, agreed to drive separately to Venice, meet on Pacific and Rose, walk to Zhukanov's stand together.

She called the desk at Hollywood station.

“Detective Bishop for you half an hour ago,” said the clerk. Had Stu gotten hold of flight information on Balch?

This operator refused to put Petra through. “No calls to surgical patients past nine, ma'am.”

“I'm a police detective returning another detective's call. Stuart Bishop.”

“Is Mr. Bishop the patient?”

“No, his wife is.”

“Then I'm sorry, ma'am, I can't put you through.”

“Let me speak to your supervisor, please.”

“I am the supervisor. The rules are for our patients' welfare and comfort. If you'd like, I can have a message slip sent up to the room telling him you called.”

“Fine, I'll wait.”

“Can't do that, ma'am. It'll take time. We're understaffed, and I need to keep all the lines open. If it's important, I'm sure he'll call back.”

“Sure,” said Petra. “Have a nice night.”

She got back in the car, drove on, hoping it wasn't that important. Even if they found a flight reservation, she had doubts Balch had actually shown up. The call to Westward Charter had to be a fake-out. Balch had been too careful about everything else to slip up like that.

Meaning what?

He was anywhere but Las Vegas. Site of his second wedding. Tomorrow, she'd try to get hold of Amber Leigh. And Helen. Find out why they'd divorced the guy. His kinks, bad habits, what might lead him to murder blondes.

Anywhere but… the cabin in the woods? Homicidal Thoreau? If no leads showed up soon, Schoelkopf would probably go straight to America's Most Wanted. Maybe that was the best way to handle it. Take the heat off her and Wil. Off William Bradley Straight, now motherless, poor, poor kid.

And now the guy who'd probably turned him into an orphan had been butchered like the squalid ton of pork he was.

One less felon heard from. Petra felt grim satisfaction about that.

Not that it would stop her from going after the butcher.