Speaking in Tongues (26 page)

He said, “I’m afraid we don’t have many leads. But from what you were telling me you think there’s a chance she was kidnapped?”

“First I just thought she ran off. But there’s apparently a tape that shows somebody switching her car with this gray Mercedes around the time she vanished. And maybe hustling the girl into the trunk, unconscious.”

“I see,” said Aaron Matthews, who felt fire burn right through him. His battleship gray 560 sat in the parking lot, fifty feet from them. Resplendent with its stolen license plates.

A tape? Who’d taken it? He was furious for a moment but anger was a luxury he had no time for.

“You’ve got this tape?”

“Vanished into thin air. Long story.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t envy you that job,” the detective said. “Looking for missing kids all day long. Must be hard.”
Revealing a sentimental side Matthews wouldn’t have guessed he had.

Matthews said in a soft voice, “It’s where I feel I can make the most difference.” Their drinks came. They clinked glasses. Matthews spilled some beer on the table. Wiped it up sloppily with a cocktail napkin.

“Detective—”

“Call me ‘Konnie.’ Everybody else does.”

“Okay, Konnie. I hate to ask but I don’t know this Collier and the question’s come up. Do you think there was anything between him and the girl?”

“Naw. Not Tate. If anything, just the opposite.”

“How’s that?”

“Hell, I didn’t even know he
had
a daughter until we’d been working together awhile. It’s not that. I do think somebody ’napped her. No motive yet, though might be a case Tate’s working on. He’s decided this local real estate guy didn’t do it. But I’m not so sure. I also have some thoughts about the girl’s aunt—apparently she’s pretty jealous of her sister having a child.”

Bett’s sister . . . How did Konnie know about
her?

“I ’statted some tire treads and got a list of a hundred and a half people bought that brand of tire in the past year. Could I give you the receipts”—he patted the briefcase—“have your people check ’em out?”

“Be happy to. Have you done anything with them yet?”

“Just run ’em through the outstanding warrants and arrests. Nothing showed up.”

Planning for the kidnapping, Matthews had bought new tires for the car two months ago; he couldn’t afford
to be slowed up by a flat. At least when he’d taken the car into General Tire he’d given a fake name and paid cash.

“But then I got to thinking,” Konnie continued, “on the way over here, what I shoulda done—I shoulda looked at the receipts and found out who paid cash. Anybody who did, I figure it’d be a fake name. I mean, those tires cost big money. Nobody pays cash for something like that. So what your folks could do is check the tags and see if the name matches—on all the cash receipts. If they don’t then that’s our prime suspect.”

Jesus in heaven. Matthews hadn’t swapped plates when he’d taken the car in to have the new tires mounted. The tag would reveal his real name and the address of his rental house in Prince William County. Which didn’t match the fake information he’d given the clerk at the tire store.

“That’s a good idea,” Matthews said. “A proactive idea.” He sounded casual but he wanted to scream. A dark mood hovered over him.

The food came and Konnie ate hungrily, hunched over his meal.

Matthews picked at his. He’d have to act soon. He flagged the waitress down and ordered another beer.

“You want to give me those receipts?” Matthews nodded at the briefcase.

“Sure, but let’s go back to headquarters after. It’s right up the street here. You can fax ’em to your office.”

“Okay.”

The second beer came. Konnie glanced at it for a second, returned to his food.

“This Tate Collier,” Matthews said slowly, savoring his microbrew. “Sounds like a good man.”

“None better. Best fucking lawyer in the commonwealth. I get sick of these shits getting off on technicalities. When Collier was arguing the case they went to jail and stayed there.”

Matthews held up the beer. “To your theory of tires.”

The detective hesitated then they tapped glasses. Matthews drank half the beer, exhaled with satisfaction and set it down. “Hot for April, don’t you think?”

“Is,” the detective grunted.

Matthews asked, “You on duty now?”

“Naw, I been off for three hours.”

“Then hell, chug down that milk and let me buy you a real drink.” He tapped the beer.

“No thanks.”

“Come on, nothing like a nice beer on a hot day.”

“Fact is, I gave up drinking a few years back.”

Matthews looked mortified. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Not at all.”

“I wasn’t thinking. A man drinking milk. Shouldn’t have ordered this. I
am
sorry.”

The cop held up a calm hand. “ ’S no problem at all. I don’t hold with making other folk change their way of life ’cause of me.”

Matthews lifted the glass of beer. “You want me to get rid of it or anything?”

As the cop glanced at the beer his eyes flashed—the same as they had when he’d walked through the bar, looking longingly at the row of bottles lined up like prostitutes on a street corner.

“Nope,” the detective said. “You can’t go hiding from it.” He ate some more mashed potatoes then said, “Where you find most of the runaways go?”

Matthews enjoyed each small sip of the beer. The detective eyed him every third or fourth. The aroma from the liquid he’d spilled—on purpose—filled the booth with a sour malty scent. “Always the big city. What a lure New York is. They think about getting jobs, becoming Madonna or whoever the girls want to become nowadays. The boys think they’ll get laid every night.” Matthews sipped the beer again and looked outside.
“Damn
hot. Imagine that battle.”

“Bull Run?”

“Yep, well, I call it first Manassas but that’s because I’m from Pennsylvania.” Matthews enjoyed another sip. “You married?”

Or did the wife leave the drunk?

“Was. Divorced now.”

“Kids?”

Or did they cut Daddy off cold when they got tired of him passing out during
Jeopardy!
on weeknights and puking to die every Sunday morning?

“Two. Wife’s got ’em. See ’em some holidays.”

Matthews poured down another mouthful. “Must be tough.”

“Can be.” The fat cop took refuge in his potatoes.

After a minute Matthews asked, “So, you a graduate?”

“How’s that?”

“Twelve steps.”

“AA? Sure.” The cop glanced down at his beefy hands. “Been four years, four months.”

“Eight years for me.”

Another flicker in the eyes. The cop glanced at the beer.

Matthews laughed. “You’re where you are, Konnie. And I’m where I am. I was drinking a fifth of fucking bad whiskey every day. Hell, at least that. Sometimes I’d crack the revenue of a second bottle just after dinner.” Konnie didn’t notice how FBI-speak had turned into buddy talk, with syntax and vocabulary very similar to his.

“ ‘Crack the revenue.’ ” Konnie laughed. “My daddy used to say that.”

So had some of Matthews’s patients.

“Bottle and a half? That’s a hell of a lot of drinking.”

“Oh, yes, it was. Yes sir. Knew I was going to die. So I gave it up. How bad was it for you?”

The cop shrugged and shoveled peas and potatoes into his mouth.

“Hurt my marriage bad,” he offered. Reluctantly the cop added, “I guess it
killed
my marriage.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Matthews said, thrilling at the sorrow in the man’s eyes.

“And it was probably gonna kill me someday.”

“What was your drink?” Matthews asked.

“Scotch and beer.”

“Ha! Mine too. Dewar’s and Bud.”

Konnie’s eyes grew troubled. “So you . . . what?” The cop nodded at the tall-neck bottle. “What happened? You fell off, huh?”

Matthews’s face turned reverential. “I’ll tell you the God’s truth, Konnie.” He took a delicious sip of beer. “I believe in meeting your weaknesses head-on. I won’t run from them.”

The cop grunted affirmatively.

“See, it seemed too easy to give up drinking completely. You understand me?”

“Not exactly.”

“It was the coward’s way. A lot of people just stop drinking altogether. But that’s as much a failure to me . . . sorry, don’t take this personal.”

“Not at all, keep going. I’m interested.”

“That’s as much a failure to me as somebody who drinks all the time.”

“Guess that makes some sense,” the cop said slowly.

Matthews swirled the beer seductively in his glass.

“Take a man addicted to sex. You know that can be a problem?”

“I’ve heard. They got a twelve-step for that too, you know?”

“Right. But he can hardly give up sex altogether, right? That’d be unnatural.”

Konnie nodded.

Oh, he’s with me, Matthews thought. Hell,
this
is like sex talking your way into a man’s soul. He felt so high. “So,” he continued, “I just got back to the point where I could control it.”

“And that worked?” Konnie asked. The toady little man seemed awestruck.

“You betcha. I stopped cold for two years. Just like I told myself I’d do. This was all planned out. Sometimes it was tough as hell. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. But God helped me. As soon as I had it under control, two years to the day I stopped, I took my first drink. One shot of Dewar’s. Drank it down like medicine.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. Felt good. Enjoyed it. Didn’t have another. Didn’t have anything for a week. Then I had another shot and a Bud. I let a month go by.”

“A month?” Konnie whispered.

“Right. Then I poured a glass of scotch. Let it sit in front of me. Looked at it, smelled it, poured it down the drain. Let another month go by.”

The cop shook his head in wonder. “Sounds like you’re one of them masochists or whatever you call ’em.” But there was a desperation in his laugh.

“Sometimes we have to find the one thing that’s hardest for us and turn around and stare right at it. Go deep. As deep as we can go. That’s what courage is. That’s what makes men out of us.”

“I can respect what you’re saying.”

“I’ve been drinking off and on for the past six years. Never been drunk once.” He leaned forward and rested his hand on the cop’s hammy forearm. “Remember that feeling when you were first drinking?”

“I think—”

“It made you relaxed, peaceful, happy? Brought out your good side? That’s the way it is now.” Matthews leaned back. “I’m proud of myself.”

“To you.” The cop swallowed and tipped his milk against the beer glass. His eyes slid over the golden surface of the brew.

Oh, you poor fool, thought Aaron Matthews. You don’t have a soul in the world to talk to, do you? “Sometimes,” he continued pensively, “when I have a real problem, something eating at me, something making me feel so guilty it’s like a fire inside . . . Well, I’ll have a shot. That numbs it. It helps me get through.”

“No foolin’.” The fork probed the diminished pile of potatoes.

Let’s go deep.

Touch the most painful part . . .

“If I found myself in a situation where there was somebody I loved and she was drifting away because of the way I’d become—well, I’d want to be able to face whatever had driven her away. I could show her I was in control again and—who knows?—maybe I could just get her back.”

The cop’s face was flushed and it seemed that his throat had swollen closed.

Matthews sipped more beer, looked out the window, at the dusk sky. “Yes sir, I hated living alone. Waking up on those Sunday mornings. Those March Sunday mornings, the sky all gray . . . The holidays by myself . . . God, I
hated
that. My wife gone . . . The one person in the world I needed. The one person I was willing to do anything for . . .”

The detective was paralyzed.

Now, Matthews thought. Now!

“Let me show you something.” Matthews leaned forward, winking. “Watch this.” He waved to the waitress. “Shot of Dewar’s.”

“One?” she called.

“Just one, yeah.”

Numb, the cop watched the glass arrive.

Matthews made a show of reaching down and picking up the brimming glass. He leaned forward, smelled the glass, then took the tiniest sip. He set the glass down on the table and lifted his hands, palms up.

“That’s it. The only hard liquor I’ll have for two, three weeks.”

“You can do that?” The cop was dumbfounded.

“Easiest thing in the world. Without a single problem.” He returned to his beer and called the waitress over. “I’m sorry, honey. I’ll pay you for it but I changed my mind. I think I better keep a clear head tonight. You can take it.”

“Sure thing, sir.”

The cop’s hand made it to the glass before hers. She blinked in surprise at the vehemence of the big man’s gesture.

“Oh, you want me to leave that after all?”

The cop looked at Matthews but then turned his dog eyes to the waitress. “Yeah. And bring my friend here another beer.”

A fraction of a pause. Their eyes met. Matthews said, “Make it two.”

“Sure thing, gentlemen. Put it on your tab?”

“Oh, no,” Matthews insisted. “This’s on me.”

•   •   •

Matthews, wearing his surgical gloves, drove Konnie’s car out of the parking lot of the strip mall and toward the interstate. The cop was in the passenger seat, clutching a bottle of scotch between his legs like it was the joystick in a biplane. His head rocked against the Taurus’s window. Spit and liquor ran down his chin.

Matthews parked on a side road, not far from Ernie’s, lifted the bottle away from Konnie and splashed some on the dashboard and seat of the car, handed it back. Konnie didn’t notice. “How you doing?” Matthews asked him.

The big man gazed morosely at the open mouth of the bottle and said nothing.

At the strip mall where they’d bought the scotch Matthews had pitched out a trash bag containing the tire receipts and all the rest of the notes on the Megan McCall investigation. The doctor now climbed out of the car, pulled Konnie into the driver’s seat.

Konnie gulped down two large slugs of liquor. He wiped his sweating, pasty face. “Where’m I going?”