Nightlife: A Novel

12

Catherine Hobbes sat in the homicide office. She had finished a long list of telephone calls that had not made her happy. Tanya Starling was turning out to be difficult to find. There was nothing helpful in her past—no way to find her family or her history. The apartment she had occupied in Chicago seemed to be an insuperable barrier: nothing was visible on the far side of it. A man named Carl Nelson had rented the apartment in his own name nine years ago. Tanya Starling had not been mentioned in the lease. At some point during those years she had moved in, and at some point Nelson had moved out, leaving the place to her. His accountants had continued to pay the rent until April, when she had moved out.

But it was as though she had come into existence in that apartment. Running a criminal records check on her name yielded nothing at all. She’d had an Illinois driver’s license, and it had given the apartment as her address. None of the Starlings that Catherine Hobbes had found listed in Illinois had ever heard of Tanya.

Hobbes looked up and saw Joe Pitt appear in the doorway. She stood up and said, “Come on, Joe. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

“Really?” he said.

“Really.”

“I’m flattered.”

She brushed past him and walked to the break room, then put a dollar in the machine and watched the paper cup rattle into place, and the stream of hot black liquid fill it. She handed it to him, then bought one for herself. She went across the hall to the conference room, looked inside, then held the door open. “Let’s talk.”

He went in after her. “You have something new?”

She sat on the table, sipped her coffee. “Yes. I wanted to tell you alone. It’s been mostly a positive experience having you come up here to cooperate in the investigation. You’ve been very helpful, and I’ve tried to learn what I could from your experience.”

“But?”

“But. It’s time to cut you loose.”

“It is?”

“Yes. You’ve helped me to clarify a whole part of this case in my mind, and saved me quite a bit of time. I’m now convinced that this didn’t have anything to do with Hugo Poole. At the same time, having a person acting as Hugo Poole’s representative in this investigation isn’t going to help us when we have to go into court for a conviction. So you’ve got to go.”

“I understand.”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“I’m not. Does Mike know about this yet?”

“Mike Farber? My captain?”

“Yes.”

“I told him this morning that this was what I was going to do.”

“And he agreed?”

“He agreed that it was my case, and that I had the right to make the decision. I made it, not Mike Farber.”

“Then I guess I’ll try to stop and say good-bye to him before I leave. I wish you the best of luck on the case, and after watching you work, I have confidence that you’ll handle it.” He held out his hand and she shook it. He smiled. “See you,” he said, and he walked out the door and closed it.

Catherine remained perched on the table for a full minute, sipping her coffee and thinking. She knew that this decision had been inevitable and right, and she was relieved that it had gone so smoothly. She was also just a bit regretful, and she wasn’t sure why.

She had to admit that was not exactly true. During the investigation she had begun to forget the imposition that Joe Pitt represented, and become used to having someone she could talk to about the case—not just some other cop who had a dozen cases of his own to think about, or a superior who had administrative details clogging his mind. When she had talked to Pitt she could talk in shorthand, and he knew exactly what she meant. She could test her ideas on him, and expect him to have ideas of his own.

Catherine tried to analyze her feelings. When Mike Farber had first called her in to tell her he had assigned her to work on a murder with Joe Pitt, she had felt insulted. If her captain thought she was so incompetent and inexperienced that she needed help from some out-of-town retiree, then she should get out of homicide. A moment later, when she had heard what a hotshot Joe Pitt was, she had wondered how it could be anything but an insult to her sex. Would Mike Farber have expected one of the men to serve as tour guide to a visiting potentate? No, it had to be the woman, the pretty face to please the visitor, and because the visitor was so great, all the hostess really needed to be was pretty. Joe Pitt would solve the case.

She had tested Joe Pitt—maybe tormented him a bit—and found that he wasn’t so bad. She had come to feel comfortable with him. Why was she putting it like that? She had liked him, felt attracted to him. Maybe that was the worst thing about him. She couldn’t afford to have him around any longer.

She jumped down, took her coffee to the break room, and poured it down the sink, then walked back to her desk in the homicide office.

Catherine’s telephone rang. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was Tanya Starling. “Homicide. Hobbes.”

“Hey, Hobbes. This is Doug Crowley in San Francisco. Has Tanya Starling called in yet?”

“Not yet.” Hobbes had been near her desk almost the whole shift. “Mrs. Halloran said that Tanya promised she would call, but she doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to do it.”

“Well, I have something else that might be useful. The DMV has a hit on the roommate, Rachel Sturbridge.”

“What is it?” asked Hobbes. She sat at the edge of her chair and pulled her yellow pad toward her.

“It’s her car. She’s sold her car.”

“Her too? They both sold their cars? When and where did she sell it?”

“Los Angeles, about two weeks ago. The new owner just got around to registering it with the DMV. It was already registered in California, so she didn’t think there was any hurry—she wouldn’t get pulled over or anything. Her name is Wanda Achison, and she lives in a suburb called Westlake Village.”

“Has anyone talked with her yet?”

“As soon as we got this information I gave her a call. She sounded a little upset, because she was afraid it was stolen and we were going to take it away from her. She calmed down after a minute, though.”

“Did she buy it from Rachel personally? No intermediaries or dealers involved?”

“Yes. Rachel advertised it in a local swap sheet, Miss Achison called the number, and Rachel drove it to her house to let her check it out. Miss Achison said Rachel was in her late twenties, long dark hair, five-five, one fifteen to one twenty. Rachel told her she was selling the car to pay off a credit card debt.”

“That wouldn’t be too unusual among people trying to start a business. Did she still have her address and phone?”

“No, but the paper did. It was a motel, and they don’t have a record of Rachel Sturbridge staying there. I figured Tanya might have been the one who had signed the register, but they didn’t have her down either. There must be a third person.”

“Maybe,” said Catherine. “Can you give me Wanda Achison’s address and phone number, please?”

He read the information, and she copied it. “Thanks, Detective Crowley.”

“No problem.” He sighed. “Are you and Joe going down there to do an interview?”

“Joe isn’t involved in the investigation anymore.”

“He isn’t? May I ask why?”

“Yes. He’s been very cooperative, provided some information that eliminated some dead ends for us. Obviously he doesn’t need a testimonial from me. But I don’t think a civilian belongs in a homicide investigation.”

“I’ve always liked Joe, and I was glad to see him,” he said. “But I don’t either.”

“Thanks for all of your help,” she said.

“Don’t mention it. And let me know if you need anything else from us in San Francisco.”

“I will.”

She hung up the telephone, then picked up the photograph of Tanya Starling that had been made from the surveillance tape. There she was, caught from the side, entering Dennis Poole’s hotel room. Catherine Hobbes stared at the face. Tanya was just a small-boned woman who appeared to be in her late twenties, her expression untroubled. The blond hair that had obscured the features for most of the tape happened to have swung to the other side of the face for this instant, so all of the features were visible. The outlines were just vague enough to frustrate the viewer’s eye as it tried to focus perfectly on an image that could never be any clearer. The bright, shiny hair drew the mind’s attention more than the face did.

Catherine opened the file and scanned the lists of other agencies that had been cooperating in this case. She found the telephone number she wanted, then called the Illinois Department of Motor Vehicles to make her formal request for the driver’s license photograph of Tanya Starling. She had waited long enough for Tanya to turn up or respond to her inquiries. It was time to go after her.

Catherine thought for a moment. Crowley had said that Rachel Sturbridge’s car had been registered in California, so that meant the driver almost certainly was too. She dialed the number of the California DMV and requested the license photograph of Rachel Sturbridge.