The Final Detail (Myron Bolitar 6)
Page 74on the Web. You plug in a number, it tells you who the number belongs to and where they live. More progress.
He called Big Cyndi.
“I was just about to call you, Mr. Bolitar.”
“Oh?”
“I have Hester Crimstein on the line. She says that she urgently needs to talk to you.”
“Okay, put her through in a sec. Big Cyndi?”
“Yes.”
“About what you said yesterday. About people staring. I’m sorry if—”
“No pity, Mr. Bolitar. Remember?”
“Yes.”
“Please don’t change a thing, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“Put Hester Crimstein through,” he said. “And while I’m on the line, do you know where Esperanza keeps the reverse phone directory CDs?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to look up a number for me.” He read it off to her. She repeated it. Then she put Hester Crimstein through.
“Where are you?” the attorney barked at him.
“Why do you care?”
Hester was not pleased. “God damn it, Myron, stop acting like a child. Where are you?”
“None of your business.”
“You’re not helping.”
“What do you want, Hester?”
“You’re on a cell phone, right?”
“Right.”
“No can do.”
“Look, do you want to help Esperanza or not?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“Then get your ass in here, pronto,” Hester said. “We got a problem, and I think you can help.”
“What kind of problem?”
“Not on the phone. I’ll be waiting for you.”
“It’ll take me some time,” Myron said.
Silence.
“Why will it take some time, Myron?”
“It just will.”
“It’s almost noon,” she said. “When can I expect you?”
“Not until at least six.”
“That’s too late.”
“Sorry.”
She sighed. “Myron, get here now. Esperanza wants to see you.”
Myron’s heart did a little flip. “I thought she was in jail.”
“I just got her released. It’s hush-hush. Get your ass over here, Myron. Get over here now.”
Myron and Win stood in the Hamlet Motel parking lot.
“What do you make of it?” Win asked.
“I don’t like it,” Myron said.
“How so?”
“Why is Hester Crimstein so desperate to see me all of a sudden? She’s been trying to get rid of me from the moment I returned. Now I’m the answer to a problem?”
“It is bizarre,” Win agreed.
“It happens.”
“Sure, it happens. But if it did, why hasn’t Esperanza called me? Why is Hester making the call for her?”
“Why indeed?”
Myron thought about it. “Do you think she’s involved in all this?”
“I cannot imagine how,” Win said. Then: “Except that she may have spoken to Bonnie Haid.”
“So?”
“So then she may have deduced that we are in Wilston.”
“And now she urgently wants us to return,” Myron said.
“Yes.”
“So she’s trying to get us out of Wilston.”
“It is a possibility,” Win said.
“So what is she afraid we’ll find?”
Win shrugged. “She’s Esperanza’s advocate.”
“So something detrimental to Esperanza.”
“Logical,” Win said.
A couple in their eighties stumbled out of one of the motel rooms. The old man had his arm around the woman’s shoulder. They both looked postsex. At noon. Nice to see. Myron and Win watched them in silence.
“I pushed too hard last time,” Myron said.
Win did not reply.
“You warned me. You told me I didn’t keep my eye on the prize. But I didn’t listen.”
Win still said nothing.
“Am I doing the same now?”
“You are not good at letting things go,” Win said.
“That’s not an answer.”
“I want to know what you think.”
Win squinted, though the sun was pretty much gone by now. “Last time, you lost sight of your goal,” he said. “Do you know what your goal is this time?”
Myron thought about it. “Freeing Esperanza,” he said. “And finding the truth.”
Win smiled. “And if those two are mutually contradictory?”
“Then I bury the truth.”
Win nodded. “You seem to have a good handle on the goal.”
“Should I let it go anyway?” Myron asked.
Win looked at him. “There’s one other complication.”
“What’s that?”
“Lucy Mayor.”
“I’m not actively looking for her. I’d love to find her, but I don’t expect to.”
“Still,” Win said, “she is your personal connection into all this.”
Myron shook his head.
“The diskette came to you, Myron. You can’t run away from that. You’re not built that way. Somehow you and this missing girl are linked.”
Silence.
Myron checked the address and name Big Cyndi had given him. The phone was listed to a Barbara Cromwell at 12 Claremont Road. The name meant nothing to him. “There’s a rental car place down the street,” Myron said. “You go back. Talk to Hester Crimstein. See what you can learn.”
“And you?”
“I’m going to check out Barbara Cromwell of Twelve Claremont Road.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Win said.
“A good one?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Chapter 34
Massachusetts, like Myron’s home state of New Jersey, can quickly turn from big city to full-fledged town to hicksville. That was the case here. Twelve Claremont Road—why the numbers reached twelve when the whole road had only three buildings on it Myron could not say—was an old farmhouse. At least it looked old. The color, probably once a deep red, had faded to a barely visible, watery pastel. The top of the structure curled forward as though suffering from osteoporosis. The front roof overhang had split down the middle, the right lip dipping forward like the mouth of a stroke victim. There were loose boards and major cracks and the grass was tall enough to go on the adult rides at a Six Flags.