"No problem."

"What? Really?" He watched the load come off her: her head raised, her shoulders seemed higher, straighter.

"Not a big deal," he said. "I can have Nancy make the call."

"But does it . . . I don't know. Could you get into trouble?"

"I can't imagine how. We make these kinds of calls often enough. It's really not a big deal."

"It is to me."

"Well then, consider it done."

Her eyes softened.

"Have you tried something old-fashioned, like calling her?"

"Voice mail."

"I don't love the idea of her going missing at a time we're searching the woods in your area."

"I know."

"Do you think there's any chance . . . any possibility that her departure is related to-?"

"No!" she said sharply, cutting him off. "I think she just took off in the truck. She's still just a kid. There was already stuff brewing between us. She was mad that I left the Advocates dinner when I did."

"That surprised me as well."

"And she apparently had a flashback in the middle of her talk-"

"Yes, she told me."

"And that freaked her out, and I think she was counting on me being there for her. And I wasn't. And I feel bad about that, but it is what it is."

He hoped she might explain her sudden departure that night, but she chose not to-and that was how he thought of it: that she made a decision not to share with him, and he took that as a bad omen. He nearly said so. Might have, had she not cut into his thoughts.

"I just want to find her and get that truck back before it blows up on her."

"Did you try her parents?"

"That relationship . . . it's complicated."

He thought she sounded more like a psychologist than herself. "So I'll make the call. We should hear something by the end of the day. It doesn't take them long."

"Should I wait?"

"No. It'll be a few hours at the least. Maybe tomorrow. I'll call you."

"It's really nice of you," she said, her eyes softening.

"Happy to do it."

"I could repay you with a dinner."

"I'm with the girls the next few nights. With Boldt here, I've been distracted. First job, and all that."

"Is he gone?"

"Leaving in the morning."

"How's that been?"

"Interesting. We're kind of working together at the moment."

"On the Gale thing?"

He eyed her. "Good memory."

"Easy name to remember."

"Tell me about it," he said. Every time he spoke of the dead man he thought of his ex-wife. "Boldt was a big help to me. We've got some solid leads."

"From canva.s.sing my place, no doubt," she said, forcing a smile behind it. A smile that didn't come easily.

"Exactly. I've suspected you for some time." He lowered his voice playfully. "I might need another one-on-one just to clear you."

"Talk to my attorney," she said, biting back a grin. She pulled herself out of the chair, leaned forward, and kissed him.

"Thank you," she repeated. She pulled his head to her lips and whispered. "I like your interrogation techniques. Like them a lot a lot."

She left him there, firmly rooted in the chair, his neck still tingling from the sensation of her lips across his ear.

That afternoon the courts dealt Walt a crushing defeat by refusing him access to Dionne Fancelli's medical information and therefore preventing him from obtaining a DNA sample of the child she was carrying. He had her underwear, possibly carrying her DNA; he had a swab from the accused teen, but he lacked the DNA of the child in question. The state, increasingly aggressive in possible abuse and paternity cases, was nonetheless inconsistent. He was debating strategy when Nancy's voice came over the intercom.

"I have a reporter from The Statesman The Statesman, Pam from the Express Express, and a couple of the TV stations all on hold. Hit us all at once."

"Concerning?"

"Martel Gale."

Walt swallowed. Gale's ident.i.ty had not been released. He had expected the information might leak but not so quickly, and he had to wonder if this was somehow Harris Evers's doing, Vince Wynn's attorney. He couldn't imagine Wynn wanting the news public, but it seemed too coincidental.

"Issue a no comment."

"Got it."

His mind reeled. A sports celebrity death would bring the national news next. That, in turn, would bring pressure from the Hailey mayor, state congressman Clint Stennett, and soon, the governor. The cushion he'd hoped for was now gone. The longer the case dragged out, the worse it would get, the more demands he'd receive for an arrest. A good reporter would soon make the connection between Gale and Wynn and Boatwright, and possibly to Caroline Vetta, making his investigation all the more difficult. A good investigative reporter was a real pain in the a.s.s because he or she could beat you to the information, had none of the legal restrictions imposed on law enforcement, and often had more resources at his disposal. One call from Nancy, and it sounded in Walt's ears like a starting pistol. He abhorred the idea that the investigation had just become a race, but there was no denying it.

He shot off an e-mail to Boldt, hoping to give him a heads-up. His office would be the next to be contacted. He called his PIO into his office.

As the office's public information officer, Deputy "Even" Eve Sanchez had the looks and the brains to be a crowd-pleaser. She was bilingual, beautiful, and young. The cameras liked her and so did Walt.

He briefed her on Gale and detailed the "potential land mines." They'd spoken about the case periodically over the past few days, but not with the specifics of his suspicions and the Boldt interviews with Boatwright and Wynn-all information she needed. They would take a public position of "ongoing investigation" and therefore "no comment." But McClure's office needed to be warned, and Tommy Brandon and Fiona both needed debriefings with Eve. They scheduled to meet twice daily and he promised updates as he had them. For the time being he would not take any questions or interviews, but when pressed by her, agreed to join her at a press conference the following morning at ten a.m. She would meet him at his house later in the evening to prep him.

With Sanchez gone, he called Royal McClure to warn him and asked Nancy to bring Fiona and Brandon in as soon as possible.

He searched e-mails and his own notes about the case, mentally reviewed discussions he'd had with Boldt, and tried to see loose ends that needed tying off.

One that came to mind was the emergency room admissions for the night of Gale's death. If they offered anything promising, he'd want to lock them down. The Louisiana list server for anyone affected by the Gale prosecution loomed large. It was just the kind of thing a reporter would scoop him on. He fired off a second e-mail to Boldt asking if he could pull strings as he'd offered.

He hung up from another call with Nancy-requesting the emergency room log for the night in question-and felt dizzy.

He needed food. He needed time.

He ordered takeout, called Lisa, and asked her to stay with the girls.

Nancy entered his office waving a sheet of paper.

"Emergency room records," she said, placing it before him.

Walt straightened the sheet and read. Two admissions, one a child with a broken ankle, the other an ax wound to the leg. He stared at the page, unable to divorce himself from his father's jabbing sarcasm about how unreal his son's job was when compared to one in a major city. Each hospital in Seattle probably saw a dozen emergency room admissions a night, some several dozen.

"This is it?" he said.

"You're looking at it."

"Not much help."

"No, I didn't think so."

He ran his hand through his hair.

"One of the guys was going to look into the convenience stores and drug stores-Chateau, and the Drug Store, in particular-and see if anyone remembers anything on that night. Can you chase that down?"

"Not a problem."

"Wait!" he said, holding the page now, wishing he could choke it. "Midnight to midnight," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"He was found on the fourteenth, and we bagged him on the fourteenth. But Royal couldn't give us a predictable time of death. Temperature drops too much each night. He was guessing he'd been there at least a day, and that seemed supported by the degradation-the predation to the face and limbs. So, let's say he went lights-out the twelfth or thirteenth."

"O . . . k . . . a . . . y?" she said cautiously, accustomed to being his sounding board and knowing to stay out of his way.

"Which is why I asked for the twelfth," he said, shaking the sheet of paper. "But it's a midnight start. It's a true day, and if Gale was killed-"

"Late night the twelfth," she said, unable to help herself.

"Exactly. Then we should be looking at the thirteenth, not the twelfth."

"I'll call."

Impatience got the better of him over the next twenty minutes. He would try answering an e-mail, only to find himself holding down the backs.p.a.ce key and starting over. He looked over his "hot list" of follow-ups to accomplish before the press conference, but felt stymied.

His computer rang a tone. He saw notice of an e-mail from Boldt and read it. The detective had managed to contact a man in the Louisiana Attorney General's office, a deputy A.G. by the name of Robert "Buddy" Cornell. Cornell believed he could scare up at least the e-mail addresses for those people on the Gale list server, and hoped to have it to Boldt by Monday morning.

Walt pounded out a thank-you and sent it off.

Nancy was standing in his doorway holding another sheet of paper. She looked different, like she'd tasted something funny. Gone was the playful Dr. Watson who'd sparred with him twenty minutes earlier.

"You need some food or something," he said. "You want to go home, I can handle it from here."

She said nothing as she stepped forward and slid the piece of paper across his desk, the St. Luke's Wood River Medical Center banner across the top.

"That's better," he said, noting right away that there had been ten-no, eleven!-emergency room admissions on the thirteenth.

He glanced up from the emergency room report at Nancy, who stood staring down at him, still as pale as a sheet.

"I'm telling you," he said, "you do not look well."

"Second from the bottom," she said, watching as his eyes found the printed line.

His stubby finger traced across the page. He looked up at Nancy, back to the page, back to Nancy.

"Head injury," he said.

She nodded.

Despite his concern, he wasn't ready to make that call.

25.

Recognizing the caller ID as the sheriff's office central number, Fiona answered her mobile phone, expecting to hear Walt's voice. She was disappointed to discover it was Nancy, his secretary. Standing in the cottage's small galley kitchen, she glanced out the window over the sink into the stand of aspen trees and the blinding shock of lilies mixing with the white bark.