“It doesn’t matter,” Quinlan said. “Please, Mrs. St. John, you must help us. Would you mind if we looked through your house? Her car is parked just down the street. She’s probably hiding here in the house waiting for us to leave before she comes out.”
“That’s ridiculous, gentlemen, but look to your hearts’ content. None of the help sleep here, so the house is empty. Don’t worry about frightening anyone.” She smiled at them and walked with her elegant stride back into the library.
“Upstairs first,” Quinlan said.
They went methodically from room to room, Dillon waiting in the corridor as Quinlan searched, to ensure that Sally couldn’t slip between adjoining rooms and elude them. When Quinlan opened the door to a bedroom at the far end of the hall, he knew immediately that it had been hers. He switched on the light. It wasn’t a frilly room with a pink or white canopied bed and posters of rock stars plastering the walls. No, three of the walls were filled with bookshelves, all of them stuffed with books. On the fourth wall were framed awards, writing awards beginning with ones for papers she’d written in junior high school on the U.S. dependence on foreign oil and the gasoline crisis, on the hostages in Iran, on the countries that became communist during Carter’s administration and why. There was a paper that had won the Idleberg Award and appeared in the New York Times, on the U.S. hockey win against the Russians at Lake Placid at the 1980 Olympics. The high school awards were for papers that ran more toward literary themes.
Then they stopped, somewhere around the end of high school—no more awards, no more recognition for excellent short stories or essays, at least no more here in this bedroom. She’d gone to Georgetown University, majored in English. Again, no more sign that she’d ever written another word or won another prize.
“Quinlan, for God’s sake, what are you doing? Is she in there or not?”
He was shaking his head when he rejoined Dillon. He said, “Sally isn’t here. Sure, she was here, but she’s long gone. Somehow she knew we were close. How, I don’t know, but she knew. Let’s go, Dillon.”
“You don’t think her mother would have any idea, do you?”
“Get real.” But they asked Mrs. St. John anyway. She gave them a blank smile and sent them on their way.
“What now, Quinlan?”
“Let me think.” Quinlan hunched over the steering wheel, wishing he had a cup of coffee, not good coffee, but the rotgut stuff at the bureau. He drove to FBI headquarters at Tenth and Pennsylvania, the ugliest building ever constructed in the nation’s capital.
Ten minutes later, he was sipping on the stuff that could be used to plug a hole in a dike. He took Dillon a cup and set it near the mouse pad at his right hand.
“Okay, she’s got the Oldsmobile.”
“No APB, Dillon.”
Dillon swiveled around in his chair, the computer screen glowing behind his head. “You can’t just keep this a two-man hunt, Quinlan. We lost her. You and I, my friend, lost a rank amateur. Don’t you think it’s time to spread the net?”
“Not yet. She’s also got my wallet. See what you can do with that.”
“If she keeps purchases below fifty dollars, chances are no one will check. Still, if someone does check, we’ll have her almost instantly. Hold on a minute and let me set that up.”
Dillon Savich had big hands and large, blunt fingers. Quinlan watched those unlikely fingers race over the computer keys. Dillon hit a final key and nodded in satisfaction. “There’s just something about computers,” he said over his shoulder to Quinlan. “They never give you shit, they never contradict you. You tell ’em what to do in simple language and they do it.”
“They don’t love you, either.”
“In their way they do. They’re so clean, Quinlan. Now, if she uses one of your credit cards and there’s no check, then I’ve got her within eighteen hours. It’s not the best, but it’ll have to do.”
“She might have to use a credit card, but she’ll keep it below fifty dollars. She’s not stupid. Did you know she won a statewide contest for a paper she wrote about how much credit card crooks cost the American public? You’d better believe she knows she’s bought eighteen hours, and she might figure that’s just enough, thank you.”
“How do you know that? Surely you had other things to talk about with her? Jesus, you had two murders in that damned little picturesque town, and the two of you found both bodies. Surely that’s enough fodder for conversation for at least three hours.”