The Drifter (Peter Ash #1)(21)

“The black key is for the car,” she said. “The Packers key is for this house. I don’t know about the other two.”

The wallet was leather but cheap, the seams torn and peeling. It held a driver’s license, a library card with bent corners, six dollars in cash, a folded grocery-store receipt for canned soup and instant coffee, and a scrap of torn paper with words written in Jimmy’s easy hand: worth more dead than alive.

Peter looked at the paper. It fluttered in the wind. Something about it was familiar, but he couldn’t grab on to it. He held it up for Dinah.

“Yes,” said Dinah. “The police thought it was a suicide note.”

Something there didn’t sound quite right to Peter, but he couldn’t figure out why. He filed it in his mind for further thought.

He tapped the driver’s license. “This has your address. Where was Jimmy staying?”

Dinah shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Jimmy never told me. He kept saying he wouldn’t be there long. He said he’d let the boys visit when he found a better place.”

“Didn’t the police look?”

“They didn’t find anything. I asked that detective. He was actually pretty helpful. The tavern where he worked didn’t have a different address for him, and the VA didn’t, either. He wasn’t listed with the phone or cable companies, or the power company. The detective couldn’t even find a bank account.”

Peter was surprised the man had tried that hard. “But you must have had some idea, right?”

“If there was an event with the kids, he’d meet me at the school, or come here and I’d drive.” She scratched her chin. “Once, maybe a month before he died, he called to say he was running late. He asked me to pick him up on the corner of Twentieth and Center. He must have lived nearby. It’s not the best neighborhood. I told the police, but they never did find it.” She shook her head. “I kept telling myself I’d go over there and look. You know, go knock on doors. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I think I was afraid of what I’d find.”

“Well,” said Peter. “It’s a good idea. And now there’s a better reason.”

Not that the man’s things were likely to be there anymore. But maybe Peter would find somebody who knew him.

He just had to find a crack, a fingerhold.

—

The last item in the police evidence envelope was a leather belt. Peter ran it through his hands and smiled.

Jimmy called it his traveling belt. It looked like nothing more than a sturdy leather belt, but a hidden flap on the inside opened to reveal a long, narrow compartment. It was a pickpocket-proof way to carry money, and very useful if you were a Marine on furlough intent on getting seriously drunk. He was willing to bet the police hadn’t realized what it was.

Peter opened the flap.

Inside were five crisp new hundreds, folded to fit.

Peter held up the bills. “This is how you knew the money came from Jimmy.”

Dinah nodded. “I knew when I saw it that something wrong was going on. He never kept that kind of money. If he had ten dollars extra when he came over for dinner, he’d sneak it into my desk drawer.”

Peter dug deeper into the belt. Past the hundreds was an accordioned piece of yellow paper. Peter opened it up. It was a flier for a missing person, the corners torn away like it had once been stapled to a telephone pole. It had a young man’s photo on it. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN? PLEASE CALL, with a phone number.

Peter didn’t understand why Jimmy would stash the flier in the belt. Hiding the money made sense, but some flier from a telephone pole?

Peter ran the belt through his hands again. One section was still too stiff. He dug a long finger inside.

It was a folded business card for something called the Riverside Veterans’ Center. Green lettering, cream-colored card stock. The address put it near Dinah’s neighborhood. No name on the card, but on the back, written in a faded spidery black hand, was a phone number.

Who was Jimmy hiding this stuff from?

Peter thought for a moment. The coroner had turned over the belt with the wallet. “Dinah, did they give you anything else? Any clothing?”

Dinah nodded. “His pants and shirt were ruined. But they gave me his boots and his old field jacket. He didn’t like them, but they were warm, and he wouldn’t buy new stuff when we had so little money to spare. I’ll get them.”

She went inside returned with the jacket and a pair of sand-colored desert boots. The boots were completely clapped out, the seams separating, one sole peeling loose. The field jacket was worn but holding. It had been a lot of places. There was a faint spray of dark stains across the front. Blood from when he’d shot himself, maybe. Peter found the hole in the upper-left sleeve where a bullet had barely missed Jimmy’s arm. He’d kept the jacket. He’d said it was good luck, like lightning not striking twice.

Some luck.

Peter dipped his hands into the pockets, looking for anything Jimmy had left behind. Something the police didn’t bother to look for.

A few things. A small spiral notebook in the sleeve pocket with half the pages torn out. A pair of beat-up cold-weather combat gloves in the side pocket. And beneath the gloves, a fat stainless-steel pen, a nice one. On the side of the pen were the words LAKE CAPITAL FUNDS. And a Web address.