Blunt Darts - Jeremiah Healy by Jeremiah Healy

Author:Jeremiah Healy
Language: eng
Format: epub

We'd come to our parting spot, me for my car and him for his office. He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked me straight in the eye. "She wasn't in that car when it went off the bridge. And Gerry Blakey knew it."

He turned and trotted in the heat back toward his office.

SIXTEENTH

-♦-

I drove back to the apartment house and double-parked out front. I took the steps two at a time, and just caught the tail end of a dial tone noise as I opened my apartment door. Someone's time for a message had just run out. I waited until I heard the machine turn off with a click, then rewound the tape to playback. There were two messages. The first was from Val:

"John, I've arranged to have us meet Kim at two o'clock at the Sturdevants You'll never find it without me, and anyway I don't think Mrs. Sturdevant would talk to you without me there. I don't know how much time I have left—I hate these machines—so pick me up at one-thirty here. I mean here at my house. Remember, 17 Ford . . ."

One admirable thing about the tape. It cuts everyone off equally. The second message, after two hang-ups, was too concise to be affected by the machine's tolerance for talking.

"I regret to report there has been no progress at this end, Mr. Pembroke. You need not contact me."

I thought of Nancy DeMarco and wished that someone would make some progress toward finding Stephen.

Apparently, however, I thought and wished too long. By the time I got back downstairs, an orange parking violation card fluttered between my windshield and wiper. I put it in my pocket, stopped at a steak house on the way to Meade, and picked Valerie up at 1:35.

* * *

The Sturdevants lived on Fife Street, a string of large, split-level homes about half a mile long on one side of the road. On the other side of the road was apparently untouched forest land. Val said that it was "conservation land," which sounds ecologically advanced but which really means that the town fathers and mothers had voted to buy up vacant land to ensure it would not be developed into new homes or businesses. It also meant that the Sturdevants and other home owners could enjoy in perpetuity gas-fired barbecues and sun decks in their backyards and views of the forest primeval from their front yards.

We stopped the car at 9 Fife, distinguishable from the other splits only by its mailbox label and a bright green upper story over a flat white lower story. I'm sure that the Sturdevants thought the color choice enhanced the "country" look of their neighborhood. Personally, I thought their house looked like a giant 7-Up can somebody had tossed out a car window. The flagstone path led in a straight line from the edge of the road slightly upgrade to the front door. The neighborhood was sans sidewalks, another country affectation.

A woman of perhaps forty answered Valerie's ring.

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