Dear Wife(59)

The next ping is a block away. I squint at the letters on the page. “What’s on Olive Street?”

“Vinny’s Little Italy. This isn’t the microcell yet, by the way. These are all pings from a cell tower.”

I nod, studying the map. So lunch at an Italian restaurant, at least, was true. “Vinny’s must be a pretty special place, seeing as he went all the way across the river. That’s what, twenty minutes out of the way?”

“Something like that, but it’s a dive. A 76 on the latest health inspection, which is basically like putting your life into their hands. A one-way ticket to a twenty-four-hour puke fest. He was there until just before two.”

“Don’t tell me that’s where he went next, clutching a toilet all that time.”

“Possible.” She locates the 2:00 p.m. dot on the map, then follows the pings south, back across the river then due west. At 2:10 p.m. he veers off another exit, heading north on University Avenue. Her finger stops at another cluster of time stamps, all within a square block.

“What’s this?” I say, looking up. “Why are these dots so spread out?”

“Bigger building. That whole block is CHI St. Vincent, a hospital with a microcell. He walks through the doors at 2:23 and heads to the southwest corner of the building. This is where things get dicey. The hospital is ten stories, including the basement. I can see where he is, but not which floor. I had to do a bit of sleuthing.”

“Again, legal sleuthing?”

She rolls her eyes. “Do you want to know where he was, or not?”

“Just tell me.”

“I held the pings up against the building plans, and then used process of elimination. Four stories I could cross off right away—supply closets, bathrooms, the morgue. I crossed off the floors with patient rooms next. The rooms are too small, and the time stamps would’ve meant he was moving through the walls. It had to be a larger space, and there was only one floor that had one big enough, the second. Suite 203, specifically.”

“Which is?”

“The urology unit. A Dr. Patrick R. Lee.”

“And you know this for sure.”

“One hundred percent.” Jade pauses, and she chews her bottom lip. “But maybe don’t tell anybody I said that. Maybe just take my word for it.”

I puff a laugh. “You hacked into the cameras, didn’t you?”

She doesn’t respond, and I take her silence as a yes.

To tell the truth, I could give a shit how she got the information. The point is, Jeffrey has an alibi, and it’s not food poisoning but a problem with his plumbing. So why lie? He had to know I’d track down the truth eventually. And didn’t he stop to consider that every minute I’ve spent chasing him down the rabbit hole of this reading-by-the-river bullshit, I could have been out there looking for his wife?

“Have you checked his finances?” Jade says, blowing back a chunk of bang. “Could have used a hired gun.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. I’ll take another look, but the accounts are mostly hers. Her salary is more than double his, and she’s squirreled a lot of it away. With her out of the picture, he’ll be a very wealthy man. Even the house is in her name.”

Jade raises an eyebrow. “Want me to keep digging? I could track his movements since Sabine went missing, see if there’s anything out of the ordinary.”

“There won’t be. He’s been careful, stuck close to home.”

“What about his emails, texts, things like that?”

“I’m going to forget you even suggested it, since we don’t have a warrant. Not yet anyway.” I drum my fingers on the desk, considering my next move. “Actually, I do have something I’d like you to do, and that’s keep a watch on the police department sites for me. The website, Facebook and Twitter pages, log-ins on the scanner and whatever else we’ve got out there. I want to know about any strange hits.”

“Define strange.”

“Clusters of IPs coming from somewhere outside of Pine Bluff, most likely a city in the South.”

She gives me a skeptical look. “You think Sabine is on the run?”

“Maybe. Jeffrey said some things that made her seem like she might be unstable, and—”

“Oh, come on. You don’t believe that bullshit story he fed to Mandy in the Morning, do you?”

“Not necessarily. But the sister confirmed Sabine has tried to leave before, and I have reason to believe she had some medical issues that may have been in play here, as well.”

I don’t mention that last little tip came from Jeffrey, and his carefully placed suggestion that Sabine might not have been pregnant. I found some old medical records on her laptop that indicate a string of failed pregnancies, along with correspondence with a local pharmacy about some prescriptions. All leads I’m still chasing down.

I push up out of the chair. “Just keep a watch on the sites, will you? Let me know if you see a bunch of hits coming from the same location. Call me the second you find something.”

“You got it.” Jade scribbles something on a sticky note, then turns back to the monitors. “Now, get out of here, will you? I got shit to do.”

I slide the map from her desk and duck into the hall, my cell phone buzzing with a message from Charlie. I swipe and read the text, which is terse and to the point: Bingo. Charlie is a man of few words, but it’s one I want to hear. I step into the stairwell and give him a call.