said when the guy paid for his gas, he saw dirt and blood on the
cuff of his shirt. He wouldn’t have thought a thing about it except Rollo was canvassing all the gas stations, asking questions about
strangers. It’s him.”
“Oh, yeah,” Adam said and jumped to his feet. “Please say it,
Tommy. Please tell us that this kid remembers what the guy looks
like, that he remembers the kind of car he was driving.”
“The guy had on a green hunting hat with flaps, something like
mine but with no style. He also wore very dark glasses. He doesn’t
know if the guy was young or old, sorry, Adam. Hell, anyone over
twenty-five would be old to that kid. But he does remember clearly that the guy spoke well, a real educated voice, all smooth
and deep. The car–he thought it was a BMW, dark blue or black.
Sorry, no idea about the plate. But you know what? The windows
were dark-tinted. How about that?”
“Surely he wouldn’t have driven the same car up here that he
used to kill Dick McCallum in Albany,” Sherlock said.
“Why not?” Savich said. “If it isn’t dented, if there isn’t blood all
over it, then why not?”
Savich’s cell phone rang. He stood and walked over to the doorway.
They heard him talking, saw him nodding as he listened. He
hung up and said, “No go. He stole the license plates. No surprise
there. He’d have been an idiot to leave on the original plates.
However, those heavily tinted windows, I have everyone checking
on New York cars stolen within the past two weeks with those sorts
of windows.”
Savich’s cell phone rang again in eight minutes. He listened and
wrote rapidly. When he hung up the phone, he said, “This is something.
Like Hatch said, few commercial cars–domestic or foreign
–are built with dark-tinted windows. Three have been stolen.
The people are all over the state, two men and one woman.”
Becca said with no hesitation,”It’s the woman. He stole her car.”
“Possible,” Sherlock said. “Let’s find out right now.”
She called information for Ithaca, New York, and got the phone
number for Mrs. Irene Bailey, 112 Huntley Avenue. The phone
rang once, twice, three times, then, “Hello?”
“Mrs. Bailey? Mrs. Irene Bailey?”
Silence.
“Are you there? Mrs. Bailey?”
“That’s my mother,” a woman said. “I’m sorry, but it took me by
surprise.”
“May I please speak to your mother?”
“You don’t know? No, I guess not. My mother was killed two
weeks ago.”
Sherlock didn’t drop the phone, but she felt a great roiling pain
through her stomach, up to her throat, and she swallowed convulsively.
“Can you give me any details, please?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Gladys Martin with the Social Security Administration in
Washington.”
“I know my husband called Social Security. What do you
want?”
“We’re required to fill out papers, ma’am. Are you her daughter?”
“Yes, I am. What kind of papers?”
“Statistics, nothing more. Is there someone else I can speak to
about this? I don’t want to upset you.”
There was a moment of silence, then, “No, it’s all right. Ask the
questions. We don’t want the government to go away mad.”
“Thank you, ma’am. You said your mother was killed? Was this
an auto accident?”
“No, someone hit her on the head when she was going out to
her car at the shopping mall. He stole her car.”
“Oh, dear, I’m so very sorry. Please tell me that the man who
did this has been caught?”
The woman’s voice hardened up immediately. “No, he wasn’t.
The cops put out a description of her car, but no one has reported
back with anything as yet. They think he painted the car a different
color and changed the license plates. He’s gone. Even the New
York City cops don’t know where he is. She was an old woman,
too, so who cares?” The bitterness in the daughter’s voice was bone-deep in pain, disbelief, anger still raw. “Was there anything distinctive about the car the man stole?”
“Yes, the windows were tinted dark because my mother had
very sensitive eyes. Too much sunlight really hurt her.”
“I see. What was the color of the car?”