Bill Pronzini - Boobytrap

“Have they finished with the bomb?” she asked.

“Not yet. Anything from Pat?”

“No, not since you left.”

“I’m going to try calling him. Then you and I need to talk.”

I shut myself in the kitchen, punched out the Dixons’ home number. Fifteen rings, no answer. I called the D.A.‘s office and talked briefly to one of the other A.D.A.s; Pat wasn’t there, hadn’t been there all day and hadn’t reported in since he’d put through the request for the Sacramento bomb squad.

Bad, as bad as I’d feared. But not hopeless yet.

What happened next was up to Marian.

I got her alone in the Judsons’ bedroom and laid it out for her. All of it, except for what had happened to Dewers; her defenses were fragile enough without that blow and its implications. At one point she sat heavily on the nearest twin bed, as if her legs had gone shaky on her. Otherwise she took it as well as anybody could. No tears, no emotional reaction of any kind. She just sat there, looking up at me out of wide, pained eyes.

“What are we going to do?” she said.

“Right now, the choice is yours.”

“Mine? I don’t understand.”

“There are two ways we can handle this,” I said. “You’ll have to choose which one, and quickly. Pat’s your husband, Chuck’s your son.”

“Yes,” she said. “All right.”

“The first way, I tell Sheriff Rideout everything I’ve just told you. We put everything in official hands, take ourselves out of it completely.”

“Isn’t that the right thing to do?”

“It’s the approved thing. I haven’t done it yet because it wasn’t my place. I don’t feel I can take the responsibility.”

“Thank you for that. Go on.”

“The authorities have manpower, resources, experience. But it takes time for them to mobilize, interact with one another, and the information that Latimer is at large with your son was given to them only a short while ago. At any time, now that word is out, an officer somewhere could spot Latimer’s car and do what’s necessary to free Chuck. If that happens, it’ll happen no matter what we do. More likely, Latimer will be able to get to where he’s going without interference, if he hasn’t already. In any case, official wheels are turning, and once they turn fast enough, whether or not we tell anybody about Pat, bunches of state cops and FBI agents are going to start showing up with questions and agendas.”

“You mean… here?”

“Here, yes, if this is where you are.”

“Are you telling me we won’t be able to leave?”

“It’s unlikely Rideout would let us go anywhere until the higher-ups arrive. That’s the way it’s done; the feds in particular want the nearest responsible relative in a kidnapping — you — to be close at hand in the event something happens. They’ll let you go home eventually, but not today unless Latimer and Chuck are found. You’ll have to spend the night here or in Quincy or maybe in Sacramento, wherever they decide is best, and you won’t have much privacy.”

“My God,” Marian said, “I don’t want that, I couldn’t stand that. I want to be at home if Pat or Chuck… that’s the only place where I can…” She seemed to realize she was starting to ramble. She bit her lower lip, hard, maybe hard enough to draw blood. Using the pain as a way to calm herself, I thought; it was something I’d done myself once or twice. When she spoke again, the frantic edge was gone from her voice. “What’s the other alternative?”

“We take a partial hands-on position for the time being. Don’t tell the sheriff anything — I go to him and ask permission to drive you back to the city. If nothing has come through on Latimer’s whereabouts, or any official requests to detain either of us, I think he’ll agree to it. As things stand now, he has no real reason to keep us here.”

“Then what? Once we get to the city?”

“We go to your home. And pray Pat’s still there.”

“I don’t…you said he didn’t answer…”

“Not answering the phone doesn’t mean he’s not there. It could be Latimer’s holed up between here and San Francisco and Pat’s gone to meet him. But it could also be that Latimer’s headed for a place in or near the city. Not your house; I doubt he’d risk that. Maybe wherever he lived before he came to Deep Mountain Lake. If that’s the case, he’s barely had enough time to reach the Bay Area. And he’s methodical, a planner — he doesn’t do anything on the spur of the moment unless he has no other option. The odds are that whatever he’s planning, he’ll need time to set it up.” I thought but didn’t add: And with his sadistic streak, he’d get a bang out of letting Pat stew and sweat for a few hours, possibly a lot of hours.

Marian did the lip-biting thing again. “If you’re right… then Pat’s still home?”

“If I’m right.”

“Why wouldn’t he answer the phone?”

“He wouldn’t want to talk to anyone but Latimer, not even you. And it could be Latimer gave him a specific time to expect another call. We can get there by six or six-thirty, if we’re on the road in the next half hour or so. That might be soon enough.”

“You could just call Al Ybarra or Dave Maccerone, couldn’t you? They could go to the house, and if Pat’s there…”

“If he’s there, he’s forted in. He wouldn’t open up for anybody and there’d be no grounds for forcible entry. Even if they did talk to him, Pat wouldn’t be likely to admit what he intends to do.”

“No. No, he wouldn’t. He can be very stubborn when his mind is made up.”

“They could watch the house, follow him when he leaves, but that’s an iffy proposition. And if Pat shows up for his meeting with Latimer dragging a police tail… well, anything might happen.”

There was a little silence before she said, “I don’t think he’d listen to me, either.”

“You’d have a better chance than anyone else — you and me together. You must have some influence over him where Chuck is concerned.”

“Some, yes… Oh God, I don’t know what’s best. I just don’t know!”

“Nobody knows, Marian. It’s all gray area, no matter which way you turn.”

“Would Latimer… do you think he’d… hurt a child?”

“The honest truth? He’s capable of it.”

“Pat must feel the same. He must believe that trying to… trade… is the only way to save Chuck’s life.”

“Probably, but he’s wrong. It’s not the only way. And you can’t barter with a lunatic, no matter how much you want to believe otherwise. If he puts himself in Latimer’s hands—”

“He’ll die and Chuck will die. That’s what you’re saying. Both of them will die.”

“There’s a strong chance of it, yes.”

“You could be wrong…”

“I could be. If Pat does meet Latimer, I hope to God I am. The point I’m trying to make is that it’s a miserable situation any way you look at it and anything can happen, good or bad, no matter what you decide or what anybody does.”

She gave her head a loose, wobbly shake. “If we go to the city… if Pat isn’t home… what then?”

“We notify the authorities. Immediately. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. There are other things we can do even before we get to the city. Monitor the manhunt situation, for one, so we’ll know right away if there are any new developments. That can be done through my assistant, Tamara Corbin.”

“I don’t know,” Marian said again. “I can’t make up my mind, I can’t seem to think straight…”

“I understand. Believe me, I do.” I touched her arm, gently; her muscles seemed to twitch under my fingers. “Suppose I give you a few minutes? I’ll go talk to Sheriff Rideout, see if he’ll even allow us to leave—”