Split Image

30

THE MARKHAMS LIVED at the head of a circle off a street that ran from downtown Concord out toward Route 2. Sunny parked her car across the street from the circle and maybe fifty yards up the street. It was her second week. Her cell phone rang. It was Jesse.

"Oh, good," Sunny said. "I'm so bored I'm close to fainting."

"What are you doing?" Jesse said.

"Sitting in my car doing surveillance on Mrs. Markham."

"Cheryl DeMarco's mother?"

"Yep."

"Can't let it go, huh?" Jesse said.

"Nope," Sunny said. "I'm worried about the kid."

"Anything so far?"

"Mrs. Markham takes yoga, and she shops for food," Sunny said.

"Of course, she may not know where her daughter is," Jesse said.

"Possible," Sunny said.

"Could Cheryl be in the house?" Jesse said.

"I don't think so," Sunny said. "They're the kind of people would send her somewhere."

"Who would they send her with?"

"When they first hired me they asked if I knew someone who would kidnap her."

"So it is not beyond their thinking," Jesse said.

"No."

"Somebody had to encounter her," Jesse said, "and persuade her to go with them to a place, and the place would need to persuade her to stay there."

"Yes," Sunny said.

"Who would that be?"

"I don't know," Sunny said. "But maybe I can find out."

"You got a plan?"

"Not everyone will coerce a young woman into a place she doesn't want to go," Sunny said. "Even at the behest of her parents."

"True," Jesse said.

"And," Sunny said, "they don't seem like people who'd know someone who would."

"No, they don't."

"Unless it was a lawyer," Sunny said.

"The right kind of lawyer," Jesse said.

"Their lawyer might know the right kind of lawyer."

"Or they might just have a friend who's a lawyer," Jesse said.

"If he went to an Ivy League law school," Sunny said.

"You might try checking that out," Jesse said.

"It's all hypothesis and supposition and guessing," Sunny said.

"That's called detection," Jesse said.

"But will it be as much fun as sitting in my car in Concord," Sunny said, "watching people dressed funny ride their bicycles?"

"Hard to imagine that it could be more fun than that," Jesse said.

"But it seems worth a try," Sunny said. "Did you call just to talk about me and my case?"

"Actually, I called to talk about me and my case," Jesse said. "But I got sidetracked."

"By me and my case," Sunny said.

"Exactly."

"So, how are you," Sunny said. "How's your case."

"The time I told you about, when I went on a bender and Molly and Suit covered for me."

"Yes," Sunny said.

"One of the things that set me off was I met these women married to a couple of mobsters, who seemed perfect wives," Jesse said.

"And you went into a tailspin," Sunny said. "Why them and not me?"

"Yes," Jesse said. "You know about that kind of tailspin?"

"Yes."

"Present company excluded," Jesse said, "these are two of the most compelling women I ever met. They're identical twins. In high school they were known as the Bang Bang Twins."

"They were promiscuous," Sunny said.

"They used to switch off on the same guy, see if he could tell which was which."

"Wow," Sunny said. "They ever have sex in the dressing room of an upscale boutique in Beverly Hills?"

"Maybe at the same time," Jesse said.

"Tell me more," Sunny said.

Jesse did. When he finished, Sunny was silent for a moment. Then she said, "Doesn't mean they haven't matured into lovely women."

"Unless they're still doing the Bang Bang thing."

"Whatever else it is," Sunny said, "it would provide several swell motives for murder."

"It would."

"And they each live with a husband, side by side," Sunny said.

"True."

"Does what you learned about them make you uncomfortable with your appraisal of women."

"And wives," Jesse said.

"Even worse," Sunny said.

"Much," Jesse said.

"Dix have any insights?" Sunny said.

"Haven't seen him yet," Jesse said. "First I need to know what the Bang Bang Twins are like these days."

"But you've talked about your first reaction to them," Sunny said.

"Yes."

"He say anything interesting?"

"No, but he looked interested," Jesse said.

"It's a start," Sunny said.

Again, they were quiet on their respective cell phones.

"You want to have dinner?" Jesse said.

"Tonight?"

"Yes."

"I'll come there," Sunny said.

"Really?" Jesse said. "Long drive home at night."

"Maybe I'll bring a little suitcase," Sunny said.

"What a very good idea," Jesse said.

"Don't get your hopes up," Sunny said.

"My hopes are always up," Jesse said.

"Good to know," Sunny said.

"Either way," Jesse said, "it'll be nice to see you."

"Either way?"

"Either way."

Again, they were quiet.

Then Sunny said, "Gray Gull?"

"Seven o'clock," Jesse said.