The Debt Collector (13 page)

The words were just out of his mouth when a man in chinos, white shirt, and houndstooth sport jacket laid both his palms on the countertop and crowded Sonora closer in to Sam. “Excuse me, is there anywhere I can get a caffe latte?”

“Vincent's,” Sonora said. “Right down the road. Best coffee in town.”

The girl behind the desk gave her a puzzled look.

“How far?” The man was persistent.

“You can walk it,” Sonora told him.

“Thanks!” He slapped the desk once and headed out the front doors.

Sonora looked at Kreski, Jim MGR. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

Kreski did his peculiar sideways slide, a crab on ice, and came from behind the front desk, leading them to one of the larger rectangular tables at the far end of the lobby. He waved them into chairs. “Coffee? Either of you?”

Sonora shook her head, sitting with her back to the TV.

“No thanks,” Sam said. “Mr. Kreski, we're here about an employee of yours, one of your night auditors. Barton Kinkle.”

“Barty?” Kreski's eyes were on the big screen behind them.

Sonora leaned forward. “Mr. Kreski, would you switch chairs with me?”

“Oh. Sure.”

Sonora glanced at Sam as she moved across the table, saw he was trying not to smile. Sonora settled back comfortably in Kreski's chair and rested her elbows on the table. “That's better.”

“Is there something wrong?” Kreski asked.

“You tell us,” Sam said.

“Look, you're the police.”

“We know.” Sonora leaned back and crossed her legs. “Mr. Kreski, when did you last see Barty?”

“He worked Sunday. Monday was his day off. He was supposed to work last night, but he never showed.”

Sam's look was mild, almost uninterested. “He call in sick or something?”

Kreski shook his head. “Never called, never came in. I've just about had it with this guy, I'm telling you.”

“Why's that?” Sonora said. “He pull the no-show thing quite a lot?”

“No, this is the first time he hasn't called first. But he does get sick a lot, he has asthma and allergies.” Kreski assumed the air of a man who thinks allergies are a myth perpetuated by lazy employees. “Up till now, he's always called and given plenty of notice. He's usually very good about that. Give Kinkle a rule and Kinkle follows it. That's half his problem.”

“How so?” This from Sam.

“He offends the guests. He's not very smooth. He makes things harder than they should be. For instance.” Kinkle leaned toward Sam. “Say you want a hair dryer and call down and ask for one to be sent up. That's not a problem, we're happy to do it, though technically the guest is supposed to sign for it at the front desk. Kinkle won't take it up or have it taken up. He's going to insist the guest come right then and there in their bathrobe or whatever and sign at the desk. Dumb stuff. Makes people mad. But that's Kinkle. Give him a rule, you know? Don't know when to bend, don't know when to break.”

“Does he kind of get off on that? Giving people a hard time?”

“No, ma'am, he doesn't mean to. He just can't handle people. He gets intimidated, so he just sort of shuts down and sticks to the straight and narrow because he is so afraid of screwing up. Which makes him screw up even more. I mean, if somebody even looks at him sideways, his hands go shaky. He puts people's backs up. Plus, and I know this sounds picky, but he gives terrible directions—same thing, I think, just gets nervous and doesn't think about what he's doing. Hands out our preprinted maps and highlights routes with no real idea what he's talking about. In his behalf, I will say I don't think he does it on purpose.”

“That makes it all better,” Sonora said.

“And twice this month I've caught him sleeping on the job.”

Sam waved a hand. “I thought that was tradition for night auditors.”

“Not here it isn't. I know he's got a day job, and I'm sorry for him, but he gets paid to be awake. Consciousness. It's one of our major qualifications.”

“You know what the day job is?” Sam said.

Kreski opened his arms. “Some kind of collections, can you believe it? Guy couldn't intimidate a flea. But you know.” Kreski scratched his chin. “He'd actually be pretty good door to door. He's kind of weird when he goes all shaky. I'd pay, just to get him off my porch.”

“Collections these days is pretty strictly phone work,” Sonora said.

Kreski nodded. “I hear they'll hire just about anybody. But I bet you got to be conscious.”

Sam stood up. “Thank you, Mr. Kreski. If he calls in, or comes back to work his next shift—”

“Which would be tomorrow,” Kreski said.

Sonora handed him a card. “Just give us a call.” She followed Sam to the front doors, overheard the girl behind the desk recommending Vincent's to a woman in a slim brown skirt and oversize sunglasses.

Kreski ran up behind them. “If I should see Barty, do I mention you came by?”

“Use your own judgment,” Sam said.

“Probably best not.”

Sonora shook his hand, thanked him again, and followed Sam into the parking lot. He slowed to let her catch up. “What say we stop at this Vincent's place? Get a cup of coffee and let me tell you if it really is the best in town.”

“We can't.”

Sam opened the car door. “And why is that?”

“Because I made it up.”

24

“Sam, something's bugging me.”

“Something's bugging me, too, Sonora, which is what did you do with that cherry pie thing?”

“I'm saving it.”

“For what?”

“Sam, you know my brother loved those things.”

“I know Stuart is dead and he can't eat it. I know you owe it to me.”

“How you figure that?”

“Made up that big coffeehouse. Got me all excited. Best coffee in Cincinnati, she says.”

“I can't figure out who hit who in that bathroom. Who lost the tooth? I talked to Mickey and he says there was actually some kind of olive residue—”

“Olive
residue?
”

“A piece of the skin or something—I can't believe this traffic, we've sat through this light twice.”

“So what about the olive residue?”

“It was on that tooth we found in the bathroom.”

“What's so hard about that?” Sam looked over his shoulder, started to pull the Taurus into the left lane, then stopped when a Pontiac LeMans scooted in to take up the inch of space. “Dammit. Look, Sonora, two things. Number one, give me that cherry pie. Number two, if there's olive residue on the tooth, then the tooth belongs to Lanky Aruba. Talk about a forensic gold mind.”

“Gold
mine
. But see, my point is, you don't think there was a third man, Crick doesn't think there was a third man.”

“If you look at the psychology—”

“Yeah, okay, if you look at the psychology, I don't think there was a third man. But Joy Stinnet said there was an angel, Sam.”

“An angel isn't a man.”

“Funny.”

“Give me the damn pie.”

“I told you I'm saving it. I'm stopping by the cemetery on the way home, I haven't been in a while. But what I can't figure out is who punched Aruba in the mouth hard enough for him to lose a tooth. I mean, can you see Barton Kinkle doing that? 'Cause I can't see him doing that.”

“But he must have. Unless it was Carl Stinnet.”

“No, I looked at his hands. A hit like that is going to leave a mark on whoever it was knocked out the tooth. I just can't see Kinkle doing that. Somebody dragged Joy Stinnet under that bed, somebody saved that baby, and somebody decked Aruba—who looks like a damn scary guy if you ask me.”

“Okay, then it's an angel.”

“Sam, I'm serious.”

“Yeah, Sonora, so am I. Hell, if you take pie to your dead brother, why can't you go for an angel? Listen, I'll make you a deal.”

“What?”

“Split it. Half for me, half for Stuart. It's not like he'll care, since he's dead. It's the thought that counts, right? Like flowers, except you take weird stuff. Is it that you can't afford the flowers?”

“No, Sam, it's that I want to take him stuff that he liked.”

“Very Buddhist of you.”

“Okay, we split the pie, but we have to stop by the cemetery now, on our way back to the office.”

“It's a deal only if you promise to be quick, Sonora. Zip in, zip out—no big tears and shit.”

“Sam, you are a sensitive, caring individual.”

“Well, I am. Look at the traffic.”

The black iron gates were wide open in welcome. Sam turned right and followed the narrow asphalt drive that looped and wound around headstones and crypts and dying flower arrangements, driving a little faster than might be considered respectful. In one hand he held a little more than half of a fried cherry pie. Syrupy red filling oozed over his fingers.

“I still don't know why you couldn't give me the little cardboard holder.”

“I'm not going to just leave the pie out there naked on the stupid headstone.”

“Excuse me, I didn't know there were rules.” He parked in their usual place along the right-hand side of the drive, under an ancient elm tree that looked unlikely to survive the next storm. “Want me to go with you?”

“No, be just a minute. There's napkins in the backseat.”

She slammed the car door, crossed the drive, and wove her way through the familiar maze. Hawkins, Baldwin, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore. A soldier's grave with a tiny American flag and a reference to the Tet Offensive. The headstone for a teenager who had died in a car accident in 1987. There were always new balloons and flowers on this one, arriving on the last day of the month.

It came to her again, the dream she'd had the night before she'd been called away to the home invasion of Carl and Joy Stinnet.

It had started with sunlight, so intense she had not been able to open her eyes without squinting. There were people and the scent of flowers, sweet and cool, and the murmur of a crowd at a happy occasion. Her children had been there.

And she had been getting married. There were flowers in her hair, flowers everywhere; she was outdoors, with tables and a white tent over a wood platform floor. There was music.

Somehow the children were behind her, and she was wearing a wedding gown, very ornate, with pearls and lace and covered buttons. And she had looked down and seen blood, bright red, so much blood, soaking the front of her dress. She held the skirt high, feeling the happiness drain away because something bad had arrived, something dark and terrible, and she had been afraid.

And then there was Stuart, standing in front of her, and she looked up at him, to say the ridiculous and the obvious—
What are you doing here? Why aren't you dead?

He had lifted his right hand, palm out, to ward off the terrible thing.

And everyone in the garden, the whole crowd, froze. Only she and Stuart could move and talk, her with tears running down her face, tears of happiness, tears of relief.

And he had smiled at her.
I'm alive if you need me to be alive
.

Sonora checked the row of McDonald's cinnamon rolls, three cardboard boxes side by side. The rolls were gone. They always were. Squirrels? The homeless? She set the portion of pie next to the boxes, adding the leftover french fries that had been in the bottom of the bag.

25

Sonora sat behind her desk, facing Judice Stinnet, wife of Eddie Stinnet, estranged half-brother of Carl Stinnet. She heard Gruber's voice, low and muted, as he talked on the phone at the desk directly behind her own. Sam had disappeared into Crick's office to report in. Sonora envied Sam's uncanny instinct for knowing which interviews to avoid. She'd take Crick over Eddie and Judice Stinnet six times to Sunday.

“That's J-U-D-I-C-E.” Although Eddie was the blood relative, Judice was doing the talking.

“Yes, ma'am, I got that.”

“Most people spell it wrong.”

Sonora was tired, and frankly she did not give a shit. “When was the last time you talked to Carl?” She directed the question to Eddie, in the dim hope that he might be the one who answered.

He did not, she thought, favor his brother, from what she remembered of Carl's pictures tucked into that bedroom mirror. Eddie was short and lean, quite a bit older, with matchstick arms and legs and a tiny bowling-ball stomach. He had a camera slung around his neck like a dedicated tourist. Sonora didn't like him.

“Carl called us three months ago, demanding money, was what it was.” Judice, into the breach. The word
demanding
interested Sonora. It did not fit her picture of Carl Stinnet.

Eddie turned red. Brick red. High blood pressure, Sonora thought.

“That's not the way it was.” His voice had a hard edge, and Judice went suddenly tight-lipped. Eddie could clearly rein her in, which came as a surprise to Sonora. “He just hinted that a loan would come in handy, and he said he'd pay me back.”

The tension between the two of them was surprisingly thick, and Sonora had a flash of pity for Judice, though it was difficult not to find the woman annoying. The large Cheshire cat earrings and tedious long-winded conversation did not help. Judice was a big-boned woman, and she wore a caftan in that annoying color that cannot decide if it is green or brown and flatters no one who does not look good in mud. A silkily fringed shawl was knotted around her shoulders, and she had quite a lot of coarse brown hair, curly-to-frizzy, lifted on both sides with matching turquoise combs that allowed the hair to cascade across the broad, meaty shoulders.

Sonora had shaken the woman's beringed hand twenty minutes ago with a flutter of sympathy in her stomach and pity in her eyes. Both had evaporated at Judice's first question, inquiring about the possibility of life insurance.