Harlan Coben - Just One Look

“Did that surprise you?”

“That? No, that ”-big emphasis-“didn’t surprise me.”

“What did?”

He looked off and bit his lower lip. “She wasn’t at the funeral.”

Grace thought that she must have heard wrong. Bobby Dodd nodded as if he could read her thoughts.

“That’s right. His own wife.”

“Were they having marital issues?”

“If they were, Bob never said anything to me.”

“Did they have any children?”

“No.” He adjusted the ascot and glanced away for a moment. “Why are you bringing this all up, Mrs. Lawson?”

“Grace, please.”

He did not reply. He looked at her with eyes that spoke of wisdom and sadness. Maybe the answer to elderly coldness is far simpler: Those eyes had seen bad. They didn’t want to see more.

“My own husband is missing,” Grace said. “I think, I don’t know, I think they’re connected.”

“What’s your husband’s name?”

“Jack Lawson.”

He shook his head. The name meant nothing to him. She asked if he had a phone number or any idea how she could contact Jillian Dodd. He shook his head again. They headed to the elevator. Bobby didn’t know the code, so an orderly escorted them down. They rode from floor three to one in silence.

When they reached the door, Grace thanked him for his time.

“Your husband,” he said. “You love him, don’t you?”

“Very much.”

“Hope you’re stronger than me.” Bobby Dodd walked away then. Grace thought of that silver-framed picture in his room, of his Maudie, and then she showed herself out.

Perlmutter realized that they had no legal right to open Rocky Conwell’s car. He pulled Daley over. “Is DiBartola on duty?”

“No.”

“Call Rocky Conwell’s wife. Ask her if she had a set of keys to the car. Tell her we found it and want her permission to go through it.”

“She’s the ex-wife. Does she have any standing?”

“Enough for our purposes,” Perlmutter said.

“Okay.”

It took Daley no time. The wife cooperated. They stopped by the Maple Garden apartments on Maple Street. Daley ran up and retrieved the keys. Five minutes later they pulled into the Park-n-Ride.

There was no reason to be suspicious of foul play. If anything, finding the car here, at this depot, would lead one to the opposite conclusion. People parked here so that they could go elsewhere. One bus whisked the weary to the heart of midtown Manhattan. Another brought you to the northern tip of the famed isle, near the George Washington Bridge. Other buses took you to the three nearby major airports-JFK, LaGuardia, Newark Liberty-and ultimately anywhere in the world. So no, finding Rocky Conwell’s car did not lead one to suspect foul play.

At least, not at first.

Pepe and Pashaian, the two cops who were watching the car, had not seen it. Perlmutter’s eyes slid toward Daley. Nothing on his face either. They all looked complacent, expecting this would lead to a dead end.

Pepe and Pashaian hoisted their belts and sauntered toward Perlmutter. “Hey, Captain.”

Perlmutter kept his eyes on the car.

“You want us to start questioning the ticket agents?” Pepe asked. “Maybe one of them remembers selling Conwell a ticket.”

“I don’t think so,” Perlmutter said.

The three younger men caught something in their superior’s voice. They looked at each other and shrugged. Perlmutter did not explain.

Conwell’s vehicle was a Toyota Celica. A small car, old model. But the size and age didn’t really matter. Neither did the fact that there was rust along the wheel trims, that two hubcaps were gone, that the other two were so dirty you could not tell where metal ended and rubber began. No, none of that bothered Perlmutter.

He stared at the back of the car and thought about those small-town sheriffs in horror movies, you know the ones, where something is very wrong, where townspeople start acting strangely and the body count keeps rising and the sheriff, that good, smart, loyal, out-of-his-league law enforcement officer, is powerless to do anything about it. That was what Perlmutter felt now because the back of the car, the trunk area, was low.

Much too low.

There was only one explanation. Something heavy was in the trunk.

It could be anything, of course. Rocky Conwell had been a football player. He probably lifted weights. Maybe he was transferring a set of dumbbells. The answer could be as simple as that, good old Rocky moving his weights. Maybe he was bringing them back to the garden apartment on Maple Street, the one where his ex lived. She had worried about him. They were reconciling. Maybe Rocky loaded his car-okay, not his whole car, just his trunk, because Perlmutter could see that there was nothing in the backseat-anyway, maybe he loaded it up to move back in with her.

Perlmutter jangled the keys as he moved closer to the Toyota Celica. Daley, Pepe, and Pashaian hung back. Perlmutter glanced down at the set of keys. Rocky’s wife-he thought that her name was Lorraine but he couldn’t be sure-had a Penn State football helmet key chain. It looked old and scraped up. The Nittany Lion was barely visible. Perlmutter wondered what she thought about when she looked at the key chain, why she still used it.

He stopped at the trunk and sniffed the air. Not a hint. He put the key in the lock and turned. The trunk’s lock popped open, the sound echoing. He began to lift the trunk. The air escaping was almost audible. And now, yes, the smell was unmistakable.

Something large had been squished into the trunk, like an oversize pillow. Without warning it sprang free like a giant jack-in-the-box. Perlmutter jumped back as the head fell out first, smacking the pavement hard.

Didn’t matter, of course. Rocky Conwell was already dead.

Now what?

Grace was starved for one thing. She drove over the George Washington Bridge, took the Jones Road exit, and stopped to grab a bite at a Chinese restaurant called, interestingly enough, Baumgart’s. She ate in silence, feeling as lonely as she had ever felt, and tried to hold herself together. What had happened? The day before yesterday-was it really only then?-she had picked up photographs at Photomat. That was all. Life was good. She had a husband she adored and two wonderful, inquisitive kids. She had time to paint. They all had their health, enough money in the bank. And then she had seen a photograph, an old one, and now…

Grace had almost forgotten about Josh the Fuzz Pellet.

He was the one who developed the roll of film. He was the one who mysteriously left the store not long after she picked up the pictures. He had to be the one, she was sure, who put that damn photograph in the middle of her pack.

She grabbed her cell phone, asked directory assistance for the number of the Photomat in Kasselton, and even paid the extra fee to be directly connected. On the third ring, the phone was picked up.

“Photomat.”

Grace said nothing. No question about it. She would recognize that bored yah-dude slur anywhere. It was Fuzz Pellet Josh. He was back at the store.

She considered just hanging up, but maybe, somehow, that would-she didn’t know-tip him off somehow. Make him run. She changed her voice, added a little extra lilt, and asked what time they closed.

“Like, six,” Fuzz Pellet told her.

She thanked him, but he had hung up. The check was already on the table. She paid and tried not to sprint to her car. Route 4 was wide open. She sped past the plethora of malls and found a parking spot not far from the Photomat. Her cell phone rang.

“Hello?”

“It’s Carl Vespa.”

“Oh, hi.”

“I’m sorry about yesterday. About springing Jimmy X on you like that.”