Nightlife: A Novel

29

Catherine Hobbes waited until Officer Gutierrez had pulled into the long-term parking lot at the airport and come to a complete stop. “This is probably about as close as we ought to get,” he said.

They both got out of the patrol car and Catherine walked toward Mary Tilson’s small gray Honda. She could see uniformed officers outside the perimeter of yellow tape that had been set up around the car. They were stringing more tape to force cars coming into the lot to go up another aisle, one that led away from the technicians who were working around the Honda.

Catherine reached the tape, and a police officer in a pair of suit pants and a white shirt with a lieutenant’s badge clipped on the pocket stepped up to meet her.

When he talked she could see him making decisions. Even though he must have seen her get out of Gutierrez’s patrol car, he had to verify that she was Hobbes. “Hello. Are you Sergeant Hobbes?”

“Yes,” she said.

Next he had to tell her that he was in charge. “I’m Lieutenant Hartnell.”

She held out her hand so he could shake it. “Pleased to meet you.”

She saw him decide that he wanted to have her think he was informal and spontaneous, not the sort of man who made decisions every time he spoke, so he said, “Steve Hartnell” as he shook her hand.

“My name is Catherine.” She had her small notebook in her hand, and she compared the California license number on the plate of the Honda with the number in her notebook, then put the notebook away.

Hartnell said, “We’ve got it roped off so we can screen the area around the car for footprints, dropped items, and so on. The flatbed will be here in a few minutes to bring it in so we can have the trace evidence people give it a closer look.”

“Do you know the time when it was left here?”

“The ticket is on the floor on the passenger side, as though she tossed it there after she took it and the automatic stile went up. It says three forty-eight A.M., two nights ago. In a way, it’s a relief. It means she went to the terminal and took a taxi right to the Sky Inn. She didn’t have time to stop off and kill a family of six.”

Catherine ignored the last sentence because she was thinking about Tanya. “She must have been exhausted.”

Hartnell looked at her as though he wondered about her sanity.

Catherine saw his expression. “She killed a woman in Los Angeles early in the evening, cleaned her whole apartment, packed up, and drove off in the victim’s car. She must have stopped somewhere for a day and traveled after dark, but it took her until three A.M. on the second night to get here. I think she must have been worn out.”

“I’m not exactly moved to sympathy,” said Hartnell.

“I’m just ruling a few things out in my own mind,” Catherine said. “I don’t think she had somebody here that she was trying to reach—somebody who would take her in or help her get away. At four A.M. the person would almost certainly have been home, and she would have gone there. Instead, she ditched the car here and went to the Sky Inn. I think she probably stopped here because she was falling asleep at the wheel.”

“But somebody picked her up within a minute after she called the hotel from the bus station the next day,” said Hartnell. “She could have made an arrangement for that during the daytime. Maybe the accomplice worked nights or wasn’t home until then.”

“I don’t think so,” said Catherine. “She seems to be an expert at getting people to help her, to take an interest in her. Usually it’s a man, but it doesn’t have to be. I think that’s what got Mary Tilson killed. She befriended the young woman who lived across the hall in her apartment building. She had invited her into her kitchen and started to get her something to eat or drink when she got stabbed.”

“Do you have any way to use that?” asked Hartnell.

“I think we’ve got to concentrate on the person who picked Tanya up. If he drove her someplace, we need to know where he let her off. If he’s still with her, we need to persuade him to turn her in.”

Hartnell seemed to be making one of his decisions. He said carefully, “I’ll talk to the chief about having a press conference.”

“Great,” said Catherine. “I also think we ought to check with your missing persons section to find out if there’s anybody with a car who hasn’t been seen in the past two days.”

“Good idea,” he said. “See you later.” As he walked to his unmarked car, Catherine knew that she had gone too far, trying to tell a lieutenant in another state how he ought to organize his investigation. She had alienated him. She watched him start his car and drive out of the parking lot.

She turned to look at the car again, and thought about Tanya. She had been stuck in Los Angeles, on the verge of being discovered because of the photograph on the front page of the Daily News. She must have reacted desperately to get herself out—gone across the hall and stabbed her sixty-year-old neighbor to death just to steal her car. She had driven the car just about as long as she could without getting spotted: she had probably known that she had to get rid of it before daylight. When she had run out of time, she had ditched the car here. She had picked a place where she could leave it with a collection of other cars, and not have anyone wonder about it for a few days. She had been trying to buy time. She was pressed. She was running hard, and she was feeling vulnerable and scared.

Officer Gutierrez appeared at Catherine’s shoulder. “Looks as though she didn’t leave any footprints or anything. The tow truck is here.”

“We may as well go,” Catherine said. “Can you drop me at the station?”

“Sure.”

Gutierrez drove her to the station and let her out at the front entrance. “What are you going to do now?” he asked.

“I’m going to try to persuade Lieutenant Hartnell to get me a chance to talk to Tanya.”