Color of Blood(29)

“What kind of questions did he ask?” Dennis said.

“Oh, you know, who owns this company and gee, isn’t such-and-such a Chinese company?”

“What did you tell him?” Dennis asked.

“I couldn’t tell him anything, poor feller. You know, I believe he was quite frustrated talking to me.”

“Mr. Pearson, it appears that you have been working at the Bureau of Mines for many years and some would say, informally, of course, that you know about as much about mining in Western Australia as anyone in the state,” Judy said. “Would that be a fair statement?”

Dennis was amused when Pearson blushed.

“Well,” Pearson said, “perhaps some might say that. Yes, perhaps.”

“And how many times would you say you spoke on the phone to Mr. Jansen?”

“Um, let me see.” He thought for a moment. “I would estimate three, maybe four times.”

Dennis quickly lost interest in the interview and hoped that Judy would end it soon, but she kept lobbing in questions. Dennis finally looked at his watch in dramatic fashion, and Judy appeared to get the message.

On the way out, Dennis said, “What a bore. Was he full of himself or what?”

“Well, he does know quite a lot,” she replied.

Judy dropped Dennis off at the hotel and reminded him she would be back to get him at 2:00 p.m.

Dennis thought briefly about sitting out near the pool to relax, but soon found himself at the bar again, sipping a glass of Macallan.

***

“We found him,” Judy said as Dennis slid into the front seat of her car.

“What?”

“We found him. Jansen—or Garder, I think you said his real name was.”

“Where is he?”

“Near Carnarvon: up north.”

“Jesus, what was he doing up there?”

“Snorkeling; poor fellow was probably taken by a white pointer.”

“A white what?”

“A pointer: a great white shark. Well, that’s just conjecture really.”

“So he’s dead?”

“Good lord, yes,” she said.

Judy described the call that had come into the AFP less than an hour earlier. Two commercial divers had visited one of the countless remote inlets south of Carnarvon to do some lobstering. They noticed a parked car and assumed the diver or divers were in the water. After two hours of collecting the spiny crustaceans, the two divers went back to their car and grew suspicious that they hadn’t seen anyone in the water. They called the police, who ran the license plate.

Dennis felt a little thrill, the same kind of primitive emotional rush he experienced at the end of every investigation. Game over: mission complete.

But today, sitting in the front seat facing Judy, his emotional victory lap was muted. He enjoyed spending time with Judy, the beautiful but sometimes sad little Australian police officer.

“Dennis, do you want to see the car? They have it cordoned off. Or should they just tow it back?”

“How far away is it from here?”

“About nine hundred kilometers.”

“What’s that in miles?”

Judy raised her head slightly in thought. Dennis’s gaze was drawn to a small opal necklace that twinkled in the sunlight. “About five hundred fifty miles. Something like that.”

“Can we drive there?” he asked.

“That would take too long, Dennis. Flying would be better.”

“Of course.”





Chapter 13


Dennis held his armrests tightly. The two-engine SkyWest commuter plane had been in the air less than ten minutes but had run into thermals rushing up from the hot desert.

Amused, Judy wondered if her tough American CIA investigator might be bothered by the turbulence.

“Are you all right, Dennis?”

“Fine,” he said. “Why?”

“You look tense, that’s all.”

“I’m not tense,” he lied, releasing the grip on his armrest.

“I see.”

“Why are you smiling?”

“Because I don’t think you like turbulence.”

“Don’t be silly.” He turned to look out the small window. Below lay a barren, red-gray landscape. Long, oddly angled roads were the only geometric shapes he could make out. It seemed as if someone had taken a giant ruler and pencil and simply scraped random lines in the hard, unforgiving soil.

Judy now berated herself for thinking she had established a softer, more intimate relationship with this Yank. He was clearly angry at her teasing. Why did she have so much trouble judging men? God, Judy, she thought morosely, you are hopeless with men.

“Actually, I am a little afraid of flying,” Dennis said, still looking out the window. “I don’t think I’ve ever admitted it to anyone before.”

“I didn’t mean to make light of it.”

“It’s stupid, really. Of all the things in my life I’ve had to grapple with, a little turbulence is nothing, really. I feel like an idiot sometimes. My therapist says my problem with turbulence is just a metaphor for my fear of losing control, or something like that. What the hell do therapists know?”

“Oh.”

Judy pulled the in-flight magazine from the seat pocket in front and started to flip through the pages, trying desperately to end the conversation that had started as a joking prod, moved to a dismissive response, and ended with a confession. This Yank is so exhausting just to be near, she thought. Still, she felt a small thrill. A man is confiding something personal to me, she mused; how bloody nice.