Yesterday's Shadow by Jon Cleary

Author:Jon Cleary
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AudioGO
Published: 2013-03-13T04:00:00+00:00

6

I

THERE WAS no progress in the Pavane homicide over the next five days. Malone asked Joe Himes to come out to Homicide and there on the Monday morning he told the FBI how much more they had learned about the past life of Mrs. Pavane.

“Who tells the Ambassador when he comes back?” asked Himes.

“He's coming back?”

“So Canberra says.” Himes was still wearing his trenchcoat, as if, having just come in from the rain, he saw another storm rising. “I think we should call our FBI office in Kansas City and let them give him the bad news.”

Malone for a moment was tempted; then saw that Himes, though far from cheerful, was kidding. “Do we tell Roger Bodine?”

Himes considered for quite a long moment; he looked out the window at the rain, then back at Malone. At last he said, “Not yet. Stall him if he asks. I think we should protect the Ambassador as long as we can.”

“Bodine wouldn't talk, would he?”

“Scobie, in any organization secrecy is just molasses in a sieve—sooner or later it seeps through.” He smiled, the first time since arriving. Malone remarked again how boyish the heavy-set man could suddenly look; except for the eyes, which were still cautious. “I made that up when I first went into the Academy. It was one of the first lessons I learned there, though it wasn't in the curriculum. Roger has a secretary, who has a friend or husband, who has . . . You get the drift.”

“I have to tell my boss, but I'm not putting it on paper or the computer. But eventually . . .” He, too, looked out the window as if there might be some message there. But the rain was smearing the window, the view was dim. “Righto, we sit on it as far as Canberra is concerned. But if they find out we've kept it from them, the embassy blokes, I mean, you take the kicks, okay?”

“We've been doing that for years. The only one who ever loved us was J. Edgar. But none of us loved him. I didn't.” He stood up, buttoned up the trenchcoat; he looked as wide as two commissionaires. “Our San Francisco office is trying to find out more about Wilhelmina Page's stay in that city. Or was she Belinda Paterson while she was there?” He put his hands in his pockets, looked dejected. “Why am I afraid they'll find out more than we want to tell the Ambassador?”

“Joe, what if Mrs. Pavane was at the hotel because the bloke had picked it? Say he was blackmailing her—?”

“And she paid him off by going to bed with him?”

“It's happened.”

Himes thought about it for a moment. “Possible. But if he was blackmailing her, was that all she was paying him? Sex?”

“No, he could've been asking for money, too. Can you look into her bank account, see if she'd had any large withdrawals lately?”

“Scobie—” Himes looked disappointed, as if he had credited Malone with more intelligence. “Do you expect

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