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                                            CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

                                                  Gold and Paper

3:00 a.m.

I.Q.'s fingers fondled something thin and metallic under the driver's seat. He held it up to the moonlight. It glistened new.

Reggie took the gold bracelet from him, ran his thumb over the smooth, flat two-inch-long strip. An engraving belonged there. A thin gold chain looped from one end of the strip to the other end.

Reggie opened the car door, and the dome light illuminated.

"That's pretty. Keep it. You can send it to Jackie."

A twinge tightened under Reggie's Adam's apple. He had to swallow. Then he turned the strip over. The tiny inscription reached up, poked his eyes. He blinked.

"Reg?"

He read it again. What did it mean? Was it a joke? It was cruel, if it was.

"Reg?" I.Q. carefully took back the bracelet, as if it were an injured bird. Reggie watched it leave his hand, staring into the gold with deep concentration, sorting the inscription into some kind of sense. No sense came of it.

I.Q. read it. His mouth creased at the corners. He read it aloud: Reggie loves Jackie. He handed it back. His smile faded to a look of empathy.

"Thought you lost it, didn't you? That's...very nice, Reg. Didn't know you had it in you. She'll love it. Knock her socks off. She thought you–"

"Stop," Reggie said, gritting his teeth, palming the bracelet in his fist.

"Jesus, Reg, what's wrong? It's great, don't feel so self-conscious."

Reggie turned on him, wanting to deliver a blow to his mouth that would close it for good. But he couldn't do it. This wasn't his doing, it wasn't I.Q.'s fault. If anything, I.Q. had been unknowingly victimized. He'd lost someone he cared for, but didn't even know that she was gone...forever.

"I...I didn't buy this for Jackie," he began, opening his fist without looking at the bracelet. "I wish I did."

"But it says–"

"I see what it says, Ivan. I didn't do this. It's a hoax."

"A hoax? But Reg–"

"Listen to me." He turned away, looking through the dirty windshield into the desert dark. His breathing quickened with his heartbeat. It's time, he decided. I can't put it off.

"Ivan," he said, turning and taking I.Q. by the hands. He squeezed them. A shiver stung him at the nape of the neck. I.Q.'s eyes narrowed and filled with fear. He regarded Reggie's hands gripping his own. Noticeably, he swallowed, searching Reggie's face for a clue to what horrible words were coming.

The stillness in the Oldsmobile made Reggie's words sound thunderous, but he said them:

"Ivan, Jackie's–she's dead."

A moment elapsed when Reggie thought I.Q. was going to laugh. He stripped his hands away from Reggie's, and the motion caused him to fall backwards, his head cracking against the window. He didn't wince or recoil. After a beat, I.Q. gasped, like he couldn't get any air, and his eyes darted around the car like he had to find the surface. He shook his head in disbelief, enraged. Reggie didn't want to watch and slammed the door shut to cut out the dome light. Suddenly it was snug and dark.

In the silence, I.Q. cried. Seconds and minutes crawled by. Then I.Q. asked in a trembling voice how long he'd known she was dead. Reggie answered him.

"You kept it from me. You knew what she meant to me. Why would you...why wouldn't you tell me?"

Reggie couldn't answer. The truth seemed vile, unspeakable. How had he acquired the belief that his financial future was more important than an immediate moral imperative? The answer sickened him: Reggie Thomas is corrupt.

"Answer me!" I.Q. screeched, shaking his face at him, tears dripping from his chin.

The truth lodged in his throat like vomit, choking him. How can I admit that I wanted to keep the enterprise on track and that telling him about Jackie's death–

"The meth," I.Q. groaned. The words were tempered by comprehension–a sad, sad insight. Even in the shadows of the moonlight, Reggie distinguished a face that lost its will to express sensation. I.Q. wiped his eyes on the back of his hands, fell back limp against the door, and his attention left the interior of the car, drifting, it seemed, to a world of memory.

In a voice diluted by shame, Reggie apologized. He gripped the steering wheel to keep from beating himself in the face with his own fists.

Several moments wandered, then I.Q. asked how Jackie died.

Unemotionally, like a recitation, Reggie recalled finding her in the bath tub, carrying her to the lake, and dropping her back in. At this, I.Q. sneered across the seat at him. Reggie continued, mechanically recounting how he'd called the police and her body had been discovered.

"And–I swear to you–I'll find who killed her," he finished.

I.Q. held out his hand. Reggie started to take it. I.Q. recoiled. "The bracelet." Reggie gave it to him. "Should've been you," he declared.

Watching I.Q. jog off towards the hangar, Reggie wanted to agree.

* * *

The closer Joe got to Paley, the stronger sleep gripped him. Not even the heavy metal music blaring from the radio aroused him. Twice he nodded off. What finally worked was his mind replaying his conversations with the Paley cops back in the Vegas hotel room.

Tooley decided that Josh was the logical suspect to have murdered Jackie. Lee didn't agree. He said Reggie probably did it to keep his business with Chris Paley quiet. Maybe Jackie told Reggie about her agreement with them to accuse Josh of raping her. Reggie might have become infuriated and killed her–accidently. Joe assured Lee that Reggie wasn't the one.

"Who was the last one to see her?" Joe asked, glancing at Tooley.

Tooley's eyebrows lifted. "Not me."

"Then who?"

"I talked to her for almost an hour," Lee said. "She refused to help us. Said she knew nothing about Reggie's or Paley's business–and wouldn't tell us if she did. She called me a few choice words and demanded to be released. I couldn't keep her. Too sticky. She walked."

"Where?"

"I don't know. She walked out, and I didn't see her again until we pulled her out of the lake."

"Why didn't you drive her back to the bus station?"

"I offered."

Joe asked Tooley what Quinn was doing with him on Friday when he picked Jackie up at the café. According to Tooley, Quinn was the one who called Lee and told him she was leaving on the bus.

"So Quinn was in on this?" Joe asked directing the question at Lee.

"It was his idea."

"What idea?"

"The rape set-up. Getting Josh to cop out. He figured if Josh was in hot water, Lucilva would let him boil."

"How'd Quinn know she'd do that?"

Pitts laughed. "Everybody knows Quinn and Lucy used to bang uglies."

"And Josh hates Quinn's guts," Tooley added.

Lee said: "Once he was in jail, Quinn said he'd sing like Pavaroti–his exact words."

He went on to explain that they had to stop Lucilva. Chris had promised to extend the land leases. But he was in trouble with the bank board over funny loans and irregular practices–they didn't have any of the details. They were still working on a deal when Chris died. In the weeks before his death, he'd met with some government representatives. He was seen in a San Bernardino steakhouse with Congressman Hall, who sits on the House Energy Committee. Lee and his group suspected he was dealing to get out of his S & L jam with the feds, but they had no proof. And they didn't know if Lucilva intended to carry on with his plan or not.

"Quinn," Lee said finally, "said he'd find out what she was up to."

"Has he?"

"Not yet."

So they'd failed to find out what Lucilva was planning, what was going to happen to their little town come September 30th when the land leases expired. They'd failed to find Chris Paley's body, admittedly perplexed over why it had been stolen in the first place. Lee suspected that someone with a like mind as his and the group's had done the deed to hold Lucilva to her father's promise while earning a quick buck for their trouble.

At first Lee wouldn't disclose the contents of the ransom note or details of their investigation, until Joe made him realize that he might pursue this on his own, now that he'd learned of the ten thousand dollar reward for the return of Paley's body.

Lee reluctantly disclosed the graverobber's demands.

"Fifty thousand dollars and the land leases extended for a period that would include negotiations to offer the town up to private ownership. It gives Lucilva until Monday's city council meeting to announce her intentions to agree to the extensions and negotiations and to submit a written proposal to the council."

This meant, of course, there was a good chance the graverobber would be present at the meeting. As for the money, Lucilva had been given until Tuesday to wire the fifty thousand dollars to an account in the Camen Islands.

Joe asked about the FBI.

"Chief Karl decided that since Paley was dead, the FBI had no authority in the theft of the body, so they weren't notified."

"I suggest you do," Joe said. "Might require some international wrangling to get information about the Camen Island account."

Lee agreed to pass the suggestion along to the Chief, but his tone was transparently patronizing. He wanted to suggest that they begin checking the phone bills of certain individuals they suspected for any calls to the Camens, but he decided it was too much for these bo-hunks to handle and left it at that. They wanted to crack this themselves.

Joe hadn't assessed the direction or validity of his inquiries at the outset, but the more he asked, the better he felt. There was something exciting about a good line of questioning that reminded him of good sex with a complete stranger, where you weren't always aware of your partner and there was less of an entanglement with self-consciousness. Things happened for the sake of pleasure in the guise of spontaneity. But the real surprise was having all that naked satisfaction without all the thinking.

"How do you know Lucilva didn't kill her father and make it look like natural causes?" Joe asked. The question surprised Lee only slightly more than it surprised Joe himself.

"She wasn't there when he died."

"Where was she?"

"Don't know. Quinn asked her, but she said it was personal business."

"So it’s still possible–she could be lying. Anyone else want Chris dead?"

Lee motioned with his pipe, circling the air. "Several, I'm sure. Beside the point, though. Doc Rendquist said it was a stroke."

"And you saw his file?"

"Why would I? He's a pathologist, been here for years. Respectable. I trust him."

"Was he someone who thought the way your group did about the town being open to private ownership?"

"The doc? I have no idea."

"Was he a friend of the mayor's?"

Before Lee could answer, Tooley chuckled and said:

"They were in Korea together."

Instantly, Joe settled on his next interviews.

The two hours spent with the Paley cops had opened a few drawers in his brain, and it was time to get back to Paley before his brain locked up for the night. He thanked Lee for his openness, promised to be discreet, offered to help if he was needed, then bid them goodnight.

The early morning hour and his abrupt departure left them droopy-eyed and silent.

And now arriving in Paley at six-thirty in the morning, a melon slice of sun rose over the tops of the Cady mountains. He parked in the Desert Inn parking lot. Leah's Mustang was gone.

Looks like she took the kid home herself.

As he climbed the stairs, he glanced across the street at the parsonage that John Quinn called home. It was dark. No vehicles were parked in the driveway, but the garage door was down, so he could be home. He wanted a hot shower and a couple hours sleep before visiting Quinn–and Rendquist.

The room was cool and dark when he entered. He went straight for the bathroom, slipped awkwardly out of his clothes, the odor of a long night arousing him. Naked, he stood under the hot spray of the shower, the steam swallowing him up, sleep pressing down on him again. The water felt good. He sat down in the tub and let the hot water rain down on him.

He didn't hear the door open, but he felt the cold swirl around the shower curtain and tingle his back. The floor creaked. He slid down further to avoid the expected attack through the curtain, ready to surprise the intruder from down below.

The curtain parted down at his feet.

"Hi, guy." Dutch Youngblood's face, wrinkled from sleep, poked around the curtain. He wriggled his eyebrows and whistled. "Look at those love handles. Oughta work out more."