Night Moves

Chapter 21

True to her word, just after two p.m., Felice phoned Milo’s office and left the details of Chet’s cellphone and his credit card accounts. I was there and he put her on speaker.

“Thanks, Ms. Corvin.”

“Whatever helps, Lieutenant.”

“How’re the kids?”

“Brett’s taking it really hard. I haven’t seen him cry since he was in diapers — he and Chet had this macho thing going. He stopped but now he wants to be by himself and I respect that. I did manage to get some food in him. I’m telling myself it’s probably a healthy reaction. Getting in touch with his feelings — we’ll work it out. Hope the information will be useful.”

“Me, too, ma’am. How’s Chelsea?”

“Chelsea’s being Chelsea. The sad truth is, she and Chet were never close. Not that he — he was fine with her, he accepted her. She actually seems okay. At least as far as I can tell, she’s okay, thanks for asking.”

Milo clicked off. “Checked with Petra before we set out. Nothing from the canvass, Chet doesn’t seem to have bought the wine near the motel. Raul did find an image of a Range Rover heading east on Franklin a few minutes before Chet checked into the Sahara. No view of the tags, too dark to see who was inside, it tells us what we already know but no harm having a time line. In terms of the woman with him, still nothing.”

He looked at the credit info Felice had provided. “Already have one of these cards, Amex Platinum issued by Connecticut Surety for the business expenses of their West Coast regional manager. Got it from his secretary. She was appropriately shocked by the news, had no idea who the boss partied with or if he had a special place he bought wine. What else... no luck with GPS on the Rover. It’s equipped with a system but it’s non-operative. Corrosion, our car guys say it happens.”

I said, “A guy who travels all the time with no electronic guide because he failed to fix it. Maybe he sticks to the familiar. Like a woman he saw regularly whose address he didn’t want on record.”

“Good point. Okay, let’s learn more about our new victim.”

He phoned in subpoena requests, got eventual cooperation from the credit companies, resistance from the phone provider demanding a written application on “proprietary” forms supplied by its own legal department.

A patient tone of voice as he kept requesting supervisors didn’t help, nor did enough pleases and thank-yous to appease the Sycophant Gods. No hint he’d been giving the one-finger salute throughout most of the conversation.

He hung up, said, “Bastards. If Nguyen can’t facilitate, I’ll go over in person and fill out their damn forms. Enough info on Chet, something’s gotta break — hey, aren’t you proud of me? Still believing in happy endings?”

I said, “That’s just realism.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your solve rate. A whole lot more success than failure.”

He put his hands over his ears. “Positive thinking? Irish heresy!”

Worming up from his desk chair, he put on his jacket, knotted his tie. “Time for nutrition, let’s go dig poday-does out of the cold, hard sod.”

“No corned beef sandwich?”

“Hmm,” he said. “Triple decker, extra mayo, three greasy sides, and a nice frosty lager? You’re right, much better: something to feel seriously guilty about.”