True-Life Adventure

had had kind of a block about checking Sardis’ alibi— for some reason, it was just something I didn’t want to do. It wouldn’t exactly have been betraying a trust or anything, but I didn’t want to do it.
    So now I knew two things— so far, Jacob had told Blick the truth and Blick had done my dirty work. He was showing off, letting me know he’d checked Sardis’s alibi, and now I knew it was good. Not that I’d ever doubted.
    I went on and told Blick how Joan had said Lindsay called her the day of the snatch, and also how she’d supplied Peter Tillman’s name, and how Tillman had said Lindsay broke a date with him the night before the snatch, and how Susanna had told about Lindsay calling in sick and had mentioned Mike Brissette, and how Brissette had said he’d recently talked to Lindsay on a “legal matter” but wouldn’t say what it was, and how the Timothy A. Hearnes had been thoroughly checked by Atlanta operatives.
    Every now and then I left out some little thing, the way I left out Sardis’s name, to see if it would make Blick ask a question. It did, every time. That meant Jacob had filled him in thoroughly, telling exactly the same story I was telling. Unless, of course, he’d embellished.
    When I was done, Blick said, “Is that all? ”
    I couldn’t tell whether he was jacking me around or whether Koehler had told him stuff that I didn’t know about. Stuff that was either true or that he’d made up.
    “That’s everything I wrote,” I said. “If there’s anything—”
    Blick waved a meaty hand. “Forget it. So where’s Lindsay Hearne?”
    “Howard, about those pills. Do you think you could call the crime lab and—”
    “Not a chance in hell.”
    “It’s been nice talking to you. See you around sometime.”
    “The pills were shaved, douchebag.”
    “What?”
    “Somebody took a knife and very carefully carved them into smaller pills that looked like saccharine tablets. That’s what you wanted to know, isn’t it?”
    I just nodded, I was so shocked. It was true I’d already said I wanted to know about the pills, but I was amazed that Blick remembered and that he’d remembered to ask the crime lab in the first place. Maybe he’d been taking smart lessons.
    “So where is she?” he asked. “The Hearne babe.”
    I told him about Lindsay and the cancer quacks, extracted a promise to let me know when he found her, and turned over the eight names.
    Then I left, thinking I still owed him two or three after that interview. Twice I’d come damn close to leaving without telling him what I’d come there to tell him; he’d goaded me with a lot more relish than good sense. What the hell kind of cop would do a thing like that? What kind of man was so stubborn, so hell-bent on revenge, that he’d endanger other people’s lives to get it?
    Hell of an interesting topic.
    I may never start liking Blick, but that day I started giving him credit— he’s taught me a thing or two abut myself by setting an even worse example than I could.
    It was getting close to six o’clock, so I thought I’d go see if Sardis felt like dinner pretty soon. She’d said she was going to be working late, and I figured she’d still be at work.
    At that time of night you have to ring a bell to get in— I mean aboard. I did, said who I wanted, and someone directed me to Sardis’s cubicle. She was drawing something.
    “Hi,” I said.
    “Paul!” She looked alarmed. “What are you doing here?”
    “I just thought we could… I mean—”
    “Listen, you shouldn’t have come here. We really shouldn’t be seen together.”
    She was right, of course. But I hadn’t realized she was so nervous about it, and finding out made me feel bad. I guess I must have hung my head or something.
    Sardis mustered up an unconvincing smile. “Sorry,” she said. “We can talk about it later. Okay?”
    “Sure,” I said. “See you at home.”
    The thing was getting to her. Maybe because of Tillman’s death. Whatever the reason, she was much more nervous than she had been. I was going to have to think about finding another place to stay. It was the only gentlemanly thing to do.
    No, it wasn’t. I remembered she didn’t have her car. I went back to her tiny office. “Sardis?”
    She looked at her watch. “You’re still here.”
    “I thought if you want to call me when you’re through, I could come get you.”
    She smiled, again a little thinly, I thought. “No, thanks. I went home and got my car after