The Blue Nowhere

blue Ford in front of the modest colonial house on a pristine plot of land—only an eighth of an acre, he estimated, yet being in the heart of Silicon Valley it’d be worth an easy million dollars.
    Bishop noted that a new, light-colored Lexus sedan sat in the driveway.
    They walked to the door, knocked. A harried forty-something woman in jeans and a faded floral blouse opened the door. The smell of cooking onions and meat escaped. It was 6:00 P.M. —the Bishop family’s normal suppertime—and the detective was struck by a blast of hunger. He realized he hadn’t eaten since that morning.
    “Yes?” the woman asked.
    “Mrs. Cargill?”
    “That’s right. Can I help you?” Cautious now.
    “Is your husband home?” Bishop asked, displaying his shield.
    “Uhm. I—”
    “What is it, Kath?” A stocky man in chinos and a button-down pink dress shirt came to the door. He was holding a cocktail. When he noticed the badges the men displayed he put the liquor out of sight on an entryway table.
    Bishop said, “Could we talk to you for a minute, please, sir?”
    “What’s this about?”
    “What’s going on, Jim?”
    He glanced at her with irritation. “I don’t know. If I knew I wouldn’t’ve asked now, would I?”
    Grim-faced, she stepped back.
    Bishop said, “It’ll just take a minute.” He and Shelton walked halfway down the front path and paused.
    Cargill followed the detectives. When they were out of earshot of the house Bishop said, “You work for Internet Marketing Solutions in Cupertino, right?”
    “I’m a regional sales director. What’s this—”
    “We have reason to believe that you may have seen a vehicle we’re trying to track down as part of a homicide investigation. Yesterday at about seven P.M., this car was parked in the lot behind Vesta’s Grill, across the street from your company. And we think you might’ve gotten a look at it.”
    He shook his head. “Our human resources director asked me about that. But I told her I didn’t see anything. Didn’t she tell you that?”
    “She did, sir,” Bishop said evenly. “But I have reason to believe you weren’t telling her the truth.”
    “Hey, hold on a minute—”
    “You were parked in the lot behind the company around that time in your Lexus, engaging in sexual activity with Sally Jacobs, from the company’s payroll department.”
    The priceless look of shock, morphing into horror, told Bishop that he was right on the money but Cargill said what he had to. “That’s bullshit. Whoever told you that’s lying. I’ve been married for seventeen years. Besides, Sally Jacobs . . . if you saw her you’d know how idiotic that suggestion is. She’s the ugliest girl on the sixteenth floor.”
    Bishop was aware of the fleeting time. He recalled Wyatt Gillette’s description of the Access game—to murder as many people as possible in a week. Phate could already be close to another victim. The detective said shortly, “Sir, I don’t care about your personal life. All I care about is that yesterday you saw a car parked in the lot behind Vesta’s. It belonged to a suspected killer and I need to know what kind of car it was.”
    “I wasn’t there,” Cargill said adamantly, looking toward the house. His wife’s face was peering at them from behind a lace curtain.
    Bishop said calmly, “Yes, sir, you were. And I know you got a look at the killer’s car.”
    “No, I didn’t,” the man growled.
    “You did. Let me explain why I know.”
    The man gave a cynical laugh.
    The detective said, “A late-model, light-colored sedan—like your Lexus—was parked in the back lot of Internet Marketing yesterday around the time the victim was abducted from Vesta’s. Now, I know that the president of your company encourages employees to park in front of the building so that clients don’t notice that you’re down to less than half the staff. So, the only logical reason to park in the back portion of the lot is to do something illicit and not be seen from the building or the street. That would include use of some controlled substances and/or sexual relations.”
    Cargill stopped smiling.
    Bishop continued, “Since it’s an access-controlled lot, whoever was parked there was a company employee, not a visitor. I asked the personnel director which employee who owns a light-colored sedan either has a drug problem or was having an affair. She said you were seeing Sally Jacobs. Which, by the way, everybody in the company