Kevin Guilfoile - Cast Of Shadows

“And the cave?” Sally asked, opening a thermos and pouring thick, sweet, green liquid into a pair of wine goblets.

“He said our experience is like that of a man in a cave, watching shadows projected on the wall from an unknown source. The shadows we see are only imperfect representations of the real human beings.”

“So the real people? If you can’t see them, where are they?” Barwick asked.

Justin took a goblet from her and leaned forward, their shoulders pressed together, his lips the smallest metric measurement from hers. “Here,” he said. “On this roof. The two of us. At night. In your dreams. This is real.”

He kissed Sally – an endless, heart-skipping, unforgettable first kiss that was still thick on her lips in the morning. It felt real. God, it felt so real.

– 35 -

Jackie hung up the phone with the private detective – Robert something-or-other, he’d said – and walked into the bathroom and shut the door. Tears fell from her cheeks into the bowl of the sink. Her hands trembled. Her eyes were pink with the bad news.

She had sent a man to his death.

Detective Robert had assured her there was no evidence linking Phil Canella’s disappearance to her case, but he never would have been in Nebraska if she hadn’t asked him to go back. Her lungs filled with asthmatic guilt. Exhaling became impossible.

He told her they didn’t have any more information about her case. She told him that was all right, she was so sorry. He didn’t mention the sketch of the man or the photographs of the mysterious child or whether he knew if the boy was her husband’s son. She didn’t ask.

Whenever Jackie took an assessment of herself, she pictured the three Jackies: past, present, and future. Past Jackie, full of energy and potential; present Jackie, always in transition; and future Jackie, contented, relaxed, happy at last. In the mirror tonight, she could see only the first two Jackies. She couldn’t even imagine herself without a husband, without a daughter, without this house. And now this shame on top of it.

Her husband was leaving her. A man was dead.

She could never know how much of it was her fault.

Big Rob checked in to the Brixton Budget Inn around 6 p.m., and after showering off the road grime with hard water and a tiny biscuit of motel soap, he got in his car and drove to Millie’s Tap Room, which was not the only bar in Brixton but the only one in which Big Rob, after three visits to the village, could order a hamburger without trepidation. He made the first two trips in the weeks after Philly disappeared. The local police – a chief and four cops – seemed perturbed by his questions, but eventually they understood the pain and guilt Big Rob carried within his giant frame and began to value the unofficial input of a former Chicago cop to a staff that rarely handled missing persons and had never coped with a murder investigation, if that’s what this turned out to be.

On his first trip he flew a low-fare carrier to Lincoln, with his girth expanding uncomfortably across two expensive seats. This time he drove, piling highway miles on his old Chevy van. “The Stakeout and Make-Out Mobile” he called it, to the appreciative snickers of his new friends on the Brixton PD.

Officer Crippen already had a table saved when Big Rob walked into Millie’s. “Crowded tonight,” Crippen said. “I had to fend off a few unrulies to save your seat.”

“How unruly do they get around here?” Big Rob asked.

“That’s what we all aim to find out, I guess.” Crippen took a long pull on a bottled Genuine Draft.

Big Rob sat down with an expulsion of air and stress so loud and wheezy it seemed to Crippen less like a sigh and more like a breach of the ex-cop’s hull. “So, what do you know?” he asked.

“What do we know?” Crippen shrugged. “Not much since the last time you were here. But there has been one development in the last twenty-four hours.”

“Tell me.”

“We found Philly’s car.”

“Really? Where?” Superstitious, Big Rob knew better than to release the hope locked within him that his friend might still be alive.

“Lawrence, Kansas. A student at KU was keeping it on campus. Got into a little fender bender. No insurance. The other guy’s insurance investigator started poking around, saw the VIN plate had been replaced, found the serial number on the engine block. He’s the one who eventually traced it back to Canella’s rental company.”

“Where did the student buy it?”

“A used-car lot in Topeka. The papers were pretty badly forged, but he says he bought it at auction, and the dealer he bought it from says he got it in a trade-in. That owner said he answered an ad and paid cash for it to a guy in North Platte. A fellow named Herman Tweedy. We haven’t talked to him yet.”

“Promising?”

“I’d say so. Herman Tweedy went to high school here in Brixton.”

“You’re kidding! Friend of Ricky’s?”

Ricky Weiss had been the Brixton PD’s only suspect from the day Big Rob had first called to report Philly missing. Interrogated half a dozen times by Crippen, once with Big Rob listening in, Weiss first denied knowing the man, then admitted Canella had come to see him, but claimed he left after asking a few questions. Without a body, there was nothing more they could do except put Weiss under very sporadic surveillance. Brixton cops had few resources they could devote to a case with no body and no motive.

In his days on the job, Big Rob had been conditioned not to care about motive. Human beings did horrible things for no discernible reason at all. Motives might matter to the D.A. and they might matter to juries, but good police – even ex-police – don’t expect solutions to come in such square packages.

“The connection to Ricky’s a little tenuous, but we can make it,” Crippen said. “Tweedy’s five years older. He has a short rap sheet. Stupid stuff – pot, vandalism, bush-league grifts – and a reputation a little like Ricky’s. A wannabe hustler, but too lazy to make a living at it. We’re checking the phone records. Asking around.”

“Anything I can do?” Big Rob asked.

“Might be. I hear Ricky’s going fishing in South Dakota tomorrow. Four days in the woods. Lots of beer. No telephone. Crapper on the outside. Maybe this is a good time to approach Peg.”

“The wife?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what she knows, if anything, but Rick keeps her on a tight leash. This might be the best shot we get at her. Has she seen you before?”

Big Rob shook his head. “Any suggestions?”

“She’s a drinker. If I were doing an unofficial interrogation, I might do it at night. With Ricky out of town, she’s sure to hit the bars.”

“I’ll follow her,” Biggie said.

“There you go,” said Crippen. “Buy her a few drinks. Turn on the charm. See what spills out.”

Big Rob snorted and shook his head. “You’re a smart cop, Crip.” The officer blushed. The waitress came and took their orders to the kitchen. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“Huh?”

“What are you, twenty-five? Twenty-six? You want to be chief someday?”

Crippen hitched his shoulders indifferently. “Not especially.”

“What happens if you catch Philly’s killer?” Biggie asked. “You’ll be certified murder police, then. You still gonna be happy when they send you back out to put chalk marks on tires up and down Main Street?”

Crippen peeled a beer label, wet with condensation, away from his bottle. “I don’t know.”

“I’m telling you, you won’t be. You catch a killer, it changes you. Makes you antsy. Makes you wanna catch ’em all.” Big Rob unwrapped the paper napkin from his silverware and clutched the dull knife in a whitened grip. “Thing is, you can’t catch ’em all,” he said. “And the ones you do, you never catch them in time.”