Джонатан Келлерман: Night Moves

“Yeah, right,” said Brett, letting his mouth drop open and snuffling wetly.

His mother took hold of his arm. “Stop it.”

“What?” he said.

The powder room door opened and Chelsea staggered out, face damp, strands of hair plastered to her cheeks.

“That do the trick for you?” said her father. “We don’t want an accident.”

The girl hung her head.

Silence from her mother.

Chelsea sat back down, rotated her body away from everyone else.

Chet Corvin said, “Can we at least take our cars?”

“They’ve been gone over, so sure, Mr. Corvin.”

“Ooooh, CSI, ” said Brett. “Hey, Dad, are you like a serial killer?” Drawing a finger across his throat and bugging his eyes.

“Son, you might want to cool it.”

“Why?”

“I appreciate the humor, champ, but—”

“It’s gross,” said the boy, jutting his mandible. “You can’t make it not- gross.”

“Son—”

“Stop it!” said Felice. “Everyone just stop it. Here we are gabbing as if nothing happened and all we care about is toothpaste. This is a tragedy. That poor man. ” To Milo: “I do hope you find out who he is. For his family’s sake.”

Paul Weyland nodded.

Felice smiled at him.

Chet Corvin watched the exchange. “Fine, we’ve got a consensus on sympathy. So may we go, now?”

Milo said, “We’d like to talk to each of you individually.”

“Really,” said Chet.

“Not for long, sir, just enough to get some basic statements.”

“How much is ‘not for long,’ Lieutenant?”

“A few minutes each.”

“Well,” said Chet, “I don’t mind personally, not that I have anything to add. But the kids, they need to be accompanied by an adult, right?”

“I’m not a pussy, ” said Brett.

“Bretty,” said Felice.

Out came the lower jaw. “What? I can do it by myself. I wanna do it.”

She looked at her husband. He shrugged.

She said, “I suppose, if it’s brief and you promise to be sensitive, Lieutenant.”

“Scout’s honor,” said Milo.

“You were a scout?” said Chet. “I made Eagle, youngest ever in my troop, record number of badges. All right, go for it, kids. Strong stuff, the Corvins, all the way back to King Richard.”

No one had asked Chelsea how she felt. Milo walked over to her. “Are you okay with talking to us alone?”

His voice was soft, gentle. The girl looked up.

“I don’t need them, ” she said. “I can even go first.”

Chelsea’s offer was challenged by Brett and bickering ensued, the boy mouthing off as he dared to use obscenities, his sister sneering silently.

Felice Corvin said, “Obviously, they’re in no state. I change my mind, Lieutenant.”

Milo said, “Sure.” He assigned the female cop out front to wait with both kids and Felice as we talked to Chet.

The venue was a few steps away, Paul Weyland’s kitchen, a nineties concoction of generic white cabinets and black granite. The counters were cluttered with take-out pizza boxes, KFC buckets, empty soda cans.

Chet Corvin said, “Batching it, Paul?”

Weyland smiled weakly. “Gonna clean up before Donna gets back.”

“Donna get on your case, does she?”

Weyland frowned, pointed to a round kitchen table set up with four chairs. “This work for you, Lieutenant?”

Milo said, “Perfect, we really appreciate it.”

“No prob.” Weyland stifled a yawn. “ ’Scuse me. Anything else I can do? Something to drink?”

Chet Corvin said, “You have Macallan Twenty-Four?”

Weyland smiled weakly. “Above my pay grade, Chet.”

“School board getting miserly—”

Milo said, “No, thanks, Mr. Weyland. Feel free to go anywhere in your house or outside.”

Chet said, “He’s a free agent and we’re... what a system.”

Weyland said, “I’ll go in my office and clear some paper.”

Chet said, “Donna—”

Milo cut him off with a hand slash. “Thanks again, sir.”

Chet Corvin said, “Lucky you, Paul. Your house isn’t a crime scene. ”

Weyland left, lips pursed, exhaling.

Milo took out his pad and pen.

Chet arched an eyebrow. “You guys haven’t advanced to a handheld?”

Milo smiled. “Let’s go over tonight, Mr. Corvin.”

“Nothing to go over. We were out of the house at six fifteen, family dinner, like I told you.”

“You do that regularly.”

“You bet, family that dines together...” Corvin searched for a punch line, failed, frowned. “We try for two Sundays a month, sometimes we miss when I’m traveling but we make the effort.”

“What business are you in?”

“Senior vice president and western regional supervisor at Connecticut Surety, Auto, Home and Transport.”

“Insurance.”

“Reinsurance. Not life, not medical, nothing iffy. I do casualty only, excluding homeowner auto. The big stuff, shipping, rail transport, interstate trucking. I’m in charge of California, Oregon, and Washington, Alaska when our Canadian rep can’t make it. Crazy place, Alaska, transport planes going down in blizzards.”

“Sounds like a lot of travel.”

Chet sat back and crossed his legs, warming to the topic. “Yeah, I’m troubleshooting all over. A little less now, some stuff can be done with face-timing.” Conspiratorial grin. “More time for golf, this year I worked my handicap two points lower. Still, yeah, I’m on the road plenty. In addition to direct business there’s ancillary business — conventions, meetings at the home office in Hartford. I handle a huge catchment area. Trucks alone is three-quarters of a million cumulative miles per year.”

I said, “Lots of responsibilities.”

“You got that, Alan. Big shoulders.”

Milo said, “So you went to family dinner tonight.”

“Like I told you the first time, usually we go somewhere close, the bride likes to eat light, you know women. The kids go for pizza, Italian fits that bill ’cause she can get a salad, lots of Italian places close by. This time I said time for a change, it was going to be meat, prime, no holds barred, the redder the better. I needed fuel, right? Had to be Lawry’s, right? If the bride didn’t like it, she could order a salad. In the end she had the lobster tails and everyone else did the meat thing, iron in the blood.”

He chuckled. “Cholesterol-erama.”

Milo said, “Bit of a drive to La Cienega.”

“You bet,” said Corvin. “Sunday, no telling what you can run into. So we left early. Turned out we had smooth sailing until West Hollywood, then some sort of construction, blocked-off lanes. But we made it right on the dot, my timing was perfect.”

“And you returned...”

“What I told you the first time,” said Corvin.

Milo smiled.

“Fine. What did I say — around nine, right? Still saying that, can’t be more specific than that ’cause I didn’t check, why would I? ETD I can tell you because I established the timetable so obviously I needed to check the old Roller.”

Flashing a steel Rolex, he extended his head forward. His neck was meaty, taurine. “That work for you, Lieutenant? Definite ETD, approximate ETA back to base? Not that I see why any of this is relevant.”

Milo scrawled. “So you got home around nine and went to your den—”

“Pure chance,” said Corvin. “The original plan was catch up on DVR’d TV, one thing the bride and I can agree on is Downtown Abbey, I like the history, she’s into the clothes and whatnot. We had two episodes taped.”

“You went to look for your reading glasses.”