‘I don’t know when. It may have been shortly before she died. It could have been inside the Museum of Natural History. They basically wore the same shoe size. They could have traded boots. It could be anything. But I doubt she gave them up willingly.
For one thing, the jungle boots would be very good in snow. She would have been better off with them than the ones we found in Benny’s hobo camp.’
Marino was silent a moment longer. Then he said, ‘Why would he take her boots?’
‘That’s easy,’ I said. ‘Because he wanted them.’
That afternoon, I drove to the Richmond airport with a briefcase packed full and an overnight bag. I had not called my travel agent because I did not want anyone to know where I was going. At the USAir desk, I purchased a ticket to Hilton Head, South Carolina.
‘I hear it’s nice down there,’ said the gregarious attendant. ‘A lot of people play golf and tennis down there.’ She checked my one small bag.
‘You need to tag it.’ I lowered my voice. ‘It has a firearm in it.’
She nodded and handed me a blaze orange tag that proclaimed I was carrying an unloaded firearm.
I’ll let you put it inside,’ the woman said to me. ‘Does your bag lock?’
I locked the zipper and watched her set the bag on the conveyor belt. She handed me my ticket and I headed upstairs to the gate, which was very crowded with people who did not look happy to be going home or back to work after the holidays.
The flight to Charlotte seemed longer than an hour because I could not use my cellular phone and my pager went off twice. I went through the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post while my thoughts slalomed through a treacherous course. I contemplated what I would say to the parents of Temple Gault and the slain woman we called Jane.
I could not even be sure the Gaults would see me because I had not called. Their number and address were unlisted. But I believed it could not be so hard to find the place they had bought near Beaufort. Live Oaks Plantation was one of the oldest in South Carolina, and the local people would know about this couple whose homestead in Albany had recently washed away in a flood.
There was enough time in the Charlotte airport for me to return my calls. Both were from Rose, who wanted me to verify void dates because several subpoenas had just come in.
‘And Lucy tried to get you,’ she said.
‘She has my pager number,’ I puzzled.
‘I asked her if she had that,’ my secretary said. ‘She said she’d try you another time.’
‘Did she say where she was calling from?’
‘No. I assume she was calling from Quantico.’
I had no time to question further because Terminal D was a long walk, and the plane to Hilton Head left in fifteen minutes. I ran the entire way and had time for a soft pretzel without salt. I grabbed several packages of mustard and carried on board the only meal I’d had this day. The businessman I sat beside stared at my snack as if it told him I were a rude housewife who knew nothing about traveling on planes.
When we were in the air, I got into the mustard and ordered Scotch on the rocks.
‘Would you by chance have change for a twenty?’
I asked the man next to me, because I had overheard the flight attendant complaining about not having adequate change.
He got his wallet out as I opened the New York Times. He gave me a ten and two fives, so I paid for his drink. ‘Quid pro quo,’ I said.
‘That’s mighty nice,’ he said in a syrupy southern accent. ‘I guess you must be from New York.’
‘Yes,’ I lied.
‘You by chance going to Hilton Head for the Carolina Convenience Store convention? It’s at the Hyatt.’
‘No. The funeral home convention,’ I lied again. ‘It’s at the Holiday Inn.’
‘Oh.’ He shut up.
The Hilton Head airport was parked with private planes and Learjets belonging to the very wealthy who had homes on the island. The terminal was not much more than a hut, and baggage was stacked outside on a wooden deck. The weather was cool with volatile dark skies, and as passengers hurried to awaiting cars and shuttles, I overheard their complaints.