City of the Dead (Alex Delaware, #37)(33)

He rose with difficulty, padded out to an unseen kitchen, rattled around a bit, and returned with another bottle. “I’d offer you some but I know the rules.”

“Appreciate the thought, sir.”

Gibbs looked at me. “He always such a kiss-up?”

I smiled.

Gibbs said, “Like you’d say so. You probably taught him to be a kiss-up. Okay, you want a number? I’ll pick one out of the air—one or two a week give or take.”

Milo said, “Always after dark.”

“If you were sneaking off for some mercenary whoopee would you want to be seen?”

But you managed to see.

Milo produced the screenshot he’d taken of Gregory Blanding’s DMV photo. “Was this individual one of the visitors?”

Gibbs snorted. “Visitors.”

He got up again, pulled open a drawer on one of the dainty tables, and returned to his recliner holding a pair of reading glasses.

“Give me that.” He took the phone and studied the photo. “Can’t say yes and can’t say no.”

Milo reached for the phone. Gibbs hesitated for a moment before returning it. For all his curmudgeonly loner stance, glad to break routine and reluctant to let go of the merest novelty.

Milo repeated the process with Tyler Hoffgarden’s headshot.

Rainer Gibbs said, “Yup, he was here. More than once.”

“Even though it was dark—”

“Are you doubting me, young man?”

“No, sir, just trying to clarify—”

“Him I remember,” said Gibbs, “because he was huge. Must’ve been six…five?”

“Six-four,” said Milo.

“Add shoes and it’s exactly what I said, six-five.” Gibbs crossed skinny, sun-spotted forearms across a pigeon chest.

“So you saw him more than once, sir.”

“Didn’t I just say that? Again with the quantifying? By that I meant two, maybe three times. I noticed his size and the fact that his car was puny, one of those little boxes. Ludicrous, like one of those circus shows, a bunch of clowns crowd into a box on wheels.”

“When’s the last time you saw him, sir?”

“Now I’m expected to be your calendar? Not recently, if that’s what you’re after. Weeks ago. Maybe months. It’s not as if I was sitting here taking notes. I just remember this palooka because he was oversized and his car was undersized.”

“Okay, thanks,” said Milo. “Anything else you want to tell us?”

“Not a thing,” said Gibbs, remaining in place. “So tell me, this job of yours, you find it satisfying? All the reprehensible types you come across day after day?”

“There is that, Mr. Gibbs, but we also get to bring justice to victims’ families.”

“But not to the victims, when you’re gone, you’re gone.” Snapping a finger.

“That’s true, sir.”

Rainer Gibbs said, “I could never do your job. Too damn unfinished.”

Milo smiled and stood and I did the same.

Rainer Gibbs looked up at us. “Is it something I said?”

“No, sir—”

“That was a joke, young man. You could both use some humor in your lives. See yourselves out and shut the door firmly.”

By the time we reached the doorway, the fresh bottle was at his lips.



* * *



—

As we approached the unmarked, Milo paused to look down the block at the murder house, then back at Gibbs’s place.

“Crusty old bird. Compared with him I’m sweetness and light.”

I said, “Well…”

He cracked up and loped toward the car.

I said, “What does Hoffgarden drive?”

“Ten-year-old Mini Cooper.”

“So Gibbs definitely saw him.”

He nodded, started up the engine. Turned pensive. “I suppose she coulda been running a very expensive brothel but no evidence of that and my bet is it came out of Gibbs’s horny old head. So let’s give Cordi the benefit. She had a social caller once in a while. Or maybe she was doing her emotional coaching thing.”

I said, “Making the bulk of her money online but seeing a few private clients.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Though with Couch Man being naked, it doesn’t sound like any therapy I know of.”

“Whatever the specifics, Hoffgarden got in and surprised the two of them.”

He nodded. “Guy keeps turning up in all the wrong places. I need to talk to him but the case is bound to go public and I don’t want to spook him into burrowing deep. That’s why I told Moe to soft-pedal it.”

I said, “One other thing: Gibbs is no lover of women. That crack about his wife’s cancer being a joke was pretty damn cruel even if she did cheat on him.”

“Yeah, he’s a vindictive old coot but do you see him as physically capable of doing what we saw?”

“Probably not.”

“Hedging your judgment?”

“I try to avoid always and never.”

“You do that always?”

I laughed.

He said, “Fine, we’ll keep all options open. Now in answer to a previous question.”