Eleventh Hour

Dane said, “Detective Flynn’s got the place covered and Gil Rainy is there with a half dozen agents. If he shows early, they’ll get him.”

“I still want to go,” Nick said. “I want to finally see Weldon DeLoach.” She turned to Savich. “He really is over forty. Isn’t that interesting? Why would he lie about his age?”

“Who knows?” Savich said. “Maybe ten years ago he thought it was necessary. Hollywood is a town for young people, after all.”

“Maybe,” Dane said. “But he may have had another reason to lie. I really want to look him right in the face and ask him.”

Sherlock looked over her shoulder one last time at Belinda Gates, treading water in the deep end of the pool, her white cover-up ballooning around her. Sherlock called out, “I was going to show you another photo of Sean at his grandmother’s swimming pool. Dillon is holding him and he’s in a swimsuit, too, and you just don’t know who’s cuter. But I’m not going to show it to you now, Belinda.”

Belinda just kept treading water. She laughed again.

TWENTY-SEVEN

It was another beautiful day at Bear Lake. There was no more snow on the ground, and the air was winter-clear and smog-free. The calm water sparkled under the late afternoon sunlight. It had taken them just a little over an hour and a half to drive I-5.

“Not bad time,” Dane said. “Considering.”

“Considering what?” Sherlock said.

“Considering that it’s LA and there are more cars per square foot here than any place in the country,” Dane said. “You wouldn’t believe some of the stories Michael used to tell me when he was just out of the seminary, living in a parish in East LA. I’ll never forget how he’d say that—” Dane’s voice fell off. His jaw tightened and he seamed his mouth together. Control, Nick thought, looking at him, keeping control was very important to him.

Savich said easily, “Gil Rainy was telling Sherlock and me that sometimes it takes him a good hour just to commute into the field office, and he only lives four miles away. Of course, Washington, D.C., ain’t no picnic either, is it, Dane?”

Dane just nodded, not ready to speak yet.

“How about where you’re from, Nick? Bad traffic?”

“No,” Nick said. “Not bad at all.”

“And you’re Dr. Nick, a Ph.D. in medieval history. Do you teach college?”

Nick said, “Yes, I do.”

“Ah. I thought college campuses were usually all jammed up with all sorts of gnarly traffic,” Sherlock said.

“I guess it depends on the campus,” Nick said, then turned to look out the window. Dane saw that her hands were stiffly clasped in her lap.

They parked in the small lot and walked to the entrance of the Lakeview Home for Retired Police Officers, founded in 1964.

They were met by Delion, Flynn, and Gil Rainy, all wearing buttoned-up sport coats but still looking a bit chilly.

Flynn said, “No sign of him. Gil’s got two agents posted out of sight at the turnoff. They’ll call when he shows so we can be ready.”

Dane said, “Anyone speak to Captain DeLoach?”

“No,” Gil said. “A heavy woman with a mustache named Velvet Weaver said that Nurse Carla told her that he wasn’t with it today, he was just sitting in his chair drumming his fingers on the wheels, humming to himself.”

“I’d like to see him,” Dane said.

“Go,” said Savich.

As Dane and Nick walked down the long corridor, they heard laughter, lots of it. The laughter was coming from old voices, and sounded wonderful. They paused at the doorway to a big recreation room where there were several televisions, a quality Brunswick pool table, card tables, and a small library section with bookshelves loaded with paperbacks.

There was a pool competition under way, and half a dozen people were seated around, taking sides, cheering or booing. Mainly they seemed to be laughing because both players—an elderly woman in a loose-fitting loud print dress, and an old codger in gray flannel slacks and a Harry Potter T-shirt, high-tops on his feet—were dead serious about the game, only they weren’t very good. Dane smiled and said to Nick, “You think maybe we’ll want to come here someday?”

“I don’t know. I don’t play pool all that well.”

They walked past the rec room and down another fifteen yards to Captain DeLoach’s room.

She hadn’t laughed much in the past month, she thought.

The door was closed. Dane tapped lightly and called out, “Captain DeLoach?”