Find Her a Grave (37 page)

Then the screams had begun.

Then the figure engulfed in flames, running blindly in the darkness. Finally falling to his knees.

Dying.

Was his puzzled frown still in place? Yes, incredibly, yes. Permitting him to look from one FBI agent to the other before he said, “I think I’m entitled to know what this is all about.”

“Just answer the question. Do you know Betty Giles?”

“The answer,” Bernhardt said, “is yes, I know Betty Giles. But I’m not going to elaborate until I know where this is going.”

“When we want you to know where it’s going,” Haigh said, “we’ll tell you.”

“Am I being treated as a suspect? Are we on the same side, or what?”

“Do you know Betty Giles’s present whereabouts?” Haigh asked.

Bernhardt sat up straighter in the leather armchair, folded his arms, met Haigh’s gaze squarely—and said nothing.

“Listen, Bernhardt …” Haigh’s voice dropped ominously. His fingers were spread wide on the rosewood conference table, as if he were restraining himself from gouging the wood with his fingernails. The fingernails, Bernhardt noticed, might be manicured.

“You’re a very small cog in this investigation,” Haigh said. “The only reason you’re here is that we’re looking for Betty Giles. So if you feel like cooperating—telling us where to find her—” Haigh’s bureaucratic mask contrived an ingratiating smile as he gestured down the long conference table to the door. “Then you’re free to go—with the Bureau’s thanks.”

“The problem is,” Bernhardt replied, “that I’ve promised not to reveal her current whereabouts.”

Haigh’s response came quickly, smoothly. “Who’d you promise? Betty Giles? Or Raymond DuBois?”

Bernhardt made no reply.

“
Why’d
you promise?” Archer asked. “Was it personal? Or professional?”

“The problem with this discussion,” Bernhardt said, “is that it isn’t a discussion.”

“Oh.” Haigh’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. Repeating: “Oh. You don’t feel we’re being candid. Is that it?”

Eyes level, mouth firm, Bernhardt made no response. For a long, hostile moment the two men eyed each other. Then Haigh spoke softly, in a cold, precise voice: “If you’ve got any smarts at all, you’ve figured out that this”—he tapped the microphone—“could be just a blind. You probably figured there might be a microphone under the desk that’s picking up everything we say. There could even be a hidden camera.”

Bernhardt decided to affect a world-weary smile, followed by a world-weary nod.

“Well,” Haigh said, “to demonstrate that there’s no concealed microphone, I’m going to favor you with a rundown of what I’m thinking about you and your future.” His pale, prissy face registered a wintry pleasure, a latent sadism. “Would you appreciate that?”

“Oh, yes.” In the words, Bernhardt tried to distill the essence of irony.

“First of all,” Haigh said, “you’re a gnat. You’re of no significance whatever. The Bureau chews up people like you every day. Every hour, maybe—that’s how powerful we are. Are you with me so far?”

“Oh, yes. I’m with you.” And, in silent counterpoint, his secret self was kicking in:
I’m with you, you pampered, pompous asshole, you puffed-up, slicked-down jerk.

“We know all about Betty Giles,” Haigh said. “We know she and her boyfriend were blackmailing Raymond Dubois. After the boyfriend was killed in Santa Rosa, probably after you fingered him, we know that Betty Giles tried to hide out down in Borrego Springs, in the desert. You followed her. Then, surprise, a professional hit man showed up. He decided to toss a Molotov cocktail in Betty’s window. He’d burn her out, then kill her—that was obviously the plan. Instead, though, his Molotov cocktail exploded as it went through the window, and the hit man—his name was Willis Dodge—got turned into an instant human torch. Are you with me so far?”

“I’m with you.” Bernhardt was satisfied with his own response. His eyes, he could feel, were clear and alert, revealing no fear.

“When the sheriff arrived on the scene, he found you and Betty Giles. He also found a sawed-off shotgun that had been fired. You admitted that the shotgun was yours. You told the sheriff that you fired in self-defense when you saw the Molotov cocktail coming through the window. Correct?”

“It was a reflex. Someone was outside, cutting the screen in the bathroom window. It was dark. When I saw the bottle framed in the window—the wick, flaming—I pulled the trigger automatically. From fifteen feet the shot pattern was probably twelve inches across. I couldn’t miss.”

“How’d you feel, watching Willis Dodge burn to death?” It was a casual question, a matter of academic interest, nothing more.

“I have nightmares.” As again, his inner voice kicked in:
Not that it’s any concern of yours, you bloated bureaucrat.

“Hmmm—yes.” It was a perfunctory expression of bogus sympathy followed by a short, speculative silence. This, Bernhardt suspected, was the carefully calculated pause that preceded the final thrust.

“So,” Haigh said, speaking with an air of finality, as if he were about to finish the business between them, “what you’ve got here is a pretty clear choice, Mr. Bernhardt. You can either tell us where to find Betty Giles, in which case you’re off the hook, or else you can elect to stonewall us. If you decide to stonewall, in the belief that you’re protecting Betty Giles, then I have no choice but to contact the United States Attorney. I’ll ask him to prepare two charges against you—one for illegal possession of an outlawed firearm, and one for conspiracy to commit murder. The latter charge would include the murder of Nick Ames and the attempted murder of Betty Giles.”

“You’re joking.”

“Oh, no. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that, Mr. Bernhardt. I promise you that you’ll be indicted. Whether or not we have a winnable case, that’s a matter of conjecture. The point is, though, that you’ll go bankrupt long before the trial starts. We took the liberty of running a credit check on you. And it looks like you have a total net worth of about forty thousand dollars. Meaning that, even if the case is thrown out of court, you’ll have long since gone broke.”

“You must want Betty Giles very badly.”

Haigh nodded. “Very.”

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1993 by Collin Wilcox

Cover design by Michel Vrana

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