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IN THE READY ROOM of the French Landing PD, the phone on the desk rings Bobby Dulac has been old Now he squashes his latest treasure on the sole of his shoe and picks up the phone
"Yell-o, Police Depart, how can I help you?"
"Hey, Bobby It’s Danny Tcheda"
Bobby feels a prink of unease Danny Tcheda ¡ª last na’s fourteen full-time RMP cops He’s currently on duty, and ordinary procedure dictates that duty cops radio in ¡ª that’s what the R in RMP stands for, after all The only exception to the rule has to do with the Fisherman Dale has mandated that patrol officers call in on a landline if they think they have a situation involving the killer TooWendell "Pisshead" Green
"Danny, what’s up?"
"Maybe nothing, ot a bike and a sneaker in the trunk of my car I found ’em over on Queen Street Near Maxton Elder Care?"
Bobby draws a pad toward hi feeling
"Nothing wrong with the bike," Danny continues, "just sitting there on its kickstand, but combined with the sneaker"
"Yeah, yeah, I see your point, Danny, but you never should have fooled hat could be evidence of a crime" Please God don’t let it be evidence of a cri Please God don’t let it be another one
Irma Freneau’s mother has just been in to see Dale, and while there was no screa, she ca like death on the half shell They can’t still be sure the little girl has become the Fisherman’s third victi "I’m ridin’ solo, I didn’t want to put this out on the air, I hadda find a phone If I’d left the bike there, someone else coulda ood bike, Schwinn three-speed Better’n the one ot, tell you that"
"What’s your twenty?"
"7-Eleven, up the hill on 35 What I did was mark the location of the bike and the sneaker with chalk X’s on the sidewalk I handled the" Danny is sounding more and more anxious Bobby kno he must feel, sy solo is a bitch, but French Landing is already supporting as many cops ¡ª full-tiet will bear Unless, of course, this Fisherets totally out of control; in that case, the town fathers will no doubt discover a bit et
Maybe it’s already out of control, Bobby thinks
"Okay, Danny Okay See your point" Whether or not Dale sees it is a whole ’nother thing, Bobby thinks
Danny lowers his voice "No one needs to know I broke the chain of evidence, do they? I "
"I guess that’s up to Dale" Oh God, Bobby thinks A new problem has just occurred to him All calls that come in on this phone are auto machinery is about to have a malfunction, retroactive to about two o’clock in the afternoon
"And you want to know the other thing?" Danny is asking "The big thing? I didn’t want people to see it A bike standing all by itself that way, you don’t have to be Sherlock Fucking Hol close to the panic line, especially after that godda I didn’t want to call froonna put you on hold You better talk to Dale"
In a vastly unhappy voice, Danny says: "Oh boy"
In Dale Gilbertson’s office there is a bulletin board doraphs of Amy St Pierre and Johnny Irkenham A third photo will be added soon, he fears ¡ª that of Irma Freneau Beneath the two current photos, Dale sits at his desk, sot the fan on It will, he hopes, blow the smoke away Sarah would just about kill hiain, but dear Jesus Christ, he needs so
His intervieith Tansy Freneau had been short and nothing short of purgatorial Tansy is a juicer, a regular patron of the Sand Bar, and during their interview the s it al out of her pores (another excuse for the fan) Half drunk, she had been, and Dale was glad It kept her calm, at least It didn’t put any sparkle in her dead eyes, coffee brandy was no good for that, but she had been cal
Tansy’s ex ¡ª Irma’s father ¡ª lives across the state in Green Bay ("Green Bay is the devil’s town," Dale’s father used to say, God knohy), where he works in a garage and, according to Tansy, supports several bars with names like the End Zone and the Fifty-Yard Line Until today, there has been some reason to believe ¡ª at least to hope ¡ª that Richard "Cubby" Freneau snatched his daughter An e-mail from the Green Bay Police Depart with a woman who has two kids of her own, and he was in jail ¡ª D & D ¡ª the day Irma disappeared There is still no body, and Tansy hasn’t received a letter from the Fisherman, but ¡ª
The door opens Bobby Dulac sticks his head in Dale arette out on the inside lip of the wastebasket, burning the back of his hand with sparks in the process
"Gosh ’n’ fishes, Bobby, do you kno to knock?"
"Sorry, Chief" Bobby looks at the s up from the wastebasket with neither surprise nor interest "Danny Tcheda’s on the phone I think you better take it"
"What’s it about?" But he knows Why else would it be the phone?
Bobby only repeats, not without sympathy, "I think you better take it"
The car sent by Rebecca Vilas delivers Henry to Maxton Elder Care at three-thirty, ninety in The idea is for the old folks to work up an appetite on the floor, then troop down to the caff ¡ª suitably decorated for the occasion ¡ª for a glamorously late (seven-thirty is quite late for Maxton’s) dinner With wine, for those who drink it
A resentful Pete Wexler has been drafted by Rebecca Vilas to bring in the deejay’s shit (Pete thinks of Henry as "the blind record-hopper") Said shit consists of two speakers (very large), one turntable (light, but aard as a motherfucker to carry), one prealed up, but that’s the blind record-hopper’s problem), and four boxes of actual records, which went out of style about a hundred years ago Pete guesses that the blind record-hopper never heard a CD in his whole life
The last iteer Pete has peeked in and ascertained that the suit is white
"Hang it in there, please," Henry says, pointing with unerring accuracy toward the supply closet that has been designated his dressing room
"Okay," Pete says "What exactly is it, if you don’t ?"
Henry smiles He knows perfectly well that Pete has already had a peep He heard the plastic bag rattling and the zipper chinking in a duet that only occurs when soer at the neck "Inside that bag,forhi if he has been answered or not All he’s really sure of is that those records were alive the blind record-hopper soreat leap forward
"You asked uest," Pete says
"There appears to have been a police presence at Maxton Elder Care this afternoon," the blind record-hopper says "They’re gone now, but they were here when I arrived What’s that about? There hasn’t been a robbery or an assault aeriatrics, I hope?"
Pete stops in his tracks beneath a large cardboard strawberry, holding the suit bag and looking at the blind record-hopper with an amazement Henry can almost touch "How’d you know the cops were here?"
Henry puts a finger to the side of his nose and tips his head to one side He replies in a hoarse, conspiratorial whisper "S blue"
Pete looks puzzled, debates whether or not to inquire further, and decides not to Resu rooey, but I think they’re looking for another lost kid"
The look of amused curiosity fades from Henry’s face "Good Christ," he says
"They came and went in a hurry No kids here, Mruh, Leyden?"
"Leyden," Henry confirms
"A kid in this place would stand out like a rose in a patch of poison ivy, if you knohat I mean"
Henry doesn’t consider old folks in any way analogous to poison ivy, but he does indeed get Mr Wexler’s drift "What made them think ¡ª ?"
"Someone found sumpin’ on the sidewalk," Pete says He points out the , then realizes the blind guy can’t see hi Duh, as Ebbie would say He lowers his hand "If a kid got snatched, so in a car and snatched hihs at the very idea of a Maxton h to ride a bike The kid would probably break the guy over his knee like a dry stick
"No," Henry says soberly, "that hardly seeot to dot all the t’s and cross all the i’s" He pauses "That’s just a little joke ofthat with soht be an actual i entle shake? Just to banish any incipient wrinkles?"
"Okay Wantforya?"
"Thanks, that won’t be necessary"
Pete goes into the supply closet, hangs up the suit bag, and gives it a little shake Incipient, just what the hell does that mean? There’s a rudiment of a library here at Maxton’s; maybe he’ll look it up in the dictionary It pays to increase your word power, as it says in the Reader’s Digest, although Pete doubts it will pay hioes back out to the common room, the blind record-hopper ¡ª Mr Leyden, Syun unraveling wires and plugging the