Still Waters (Charlie Resnick #9)(49)
A message from Hannah lay on his desk: called four thirty-five, ring back. He would as soon as he got the chance.
“Have a seat,” Resnick said pleasantly enough, but for now Peterson preferred to stand.
“I’d like to know,” Peterson said, “precisely what it is you’ve been doing.”
Resnick waited, allowing the anger in the man’s tone to fade out on the air. “Following the usual procedures.”
“Which are?”
“Making contact, asking questions, establishing when and where the missing person was last seen.”
“Christ, we know all that. We’ve known it since Saturday night. Seven o’clock that evening. Six thirty or seven.”
“Half past two,” Resnick said.
“What?”
“As best we can tell, she left the building at half past two. There’s no report of anyone seeing her since then.”
Alex Peterson sat down. Resnick waited for him to put his face in his hands and he did. When he looked up, it was to say, “There’s got to be something else you could be doing.”
“Not at this stage.”
“At this stage? What do you have to do, wait until someone finds her in a bloody ditch?”
“Is that what you think’s happened?”
“Of course not.”
“Then there’s little more we can do besides wait for her to get in touch.”
“Surely you can ask at the station, the airport, wherever? She had to leave somehow. Maybe she hired a car.”
Resnick leaned forward in his chair. “Mr. Peterson—Alex—I’m afraid in a way you’re right. Unless we have reasonable cause for suspecting foul play, I simply can’t commit more personnel.”
“Jesus!”
“What you might consider doing is taking a photograph to one of those quick print places, getting some fliers made. There’s nothing to stop you asking questions of your own accord.”
“Aside from time.”
I thought this was important, Resnick thought, more important than a few lost fillings and the odd wisdom tooth. It worried him that he felt this bristling animosity toward the man, made him wonder for a moment if he would do more if he felt otherwise. But, no, at this stage he was doing all that was possible.
“Look,” Resnick said, “Jane’s a grown woman, an adult person, perfectly responsible for her own decisions. There’s not a single thing, at present, to suggest that wherever she’s gone, wherever she is, she’s not there of her own accord.”
“I could go to the paper,” Peterson said, “offer a reward.”
“You could. Though in my experience you might be buying yourself more trouble than it’s worth.”
“At least it would be doing something.”
“Yes.” He wanted Peterson to leave so that he could phone Hannah; it wasn’t beyond question that Jane might have contacted her. But there Peterson continued to sit, staring at Resnick through resentful, accusing eyes. Resnick remembered the bruises on Hannah’s wrist.
“I have to ask you again,” Resnick said, “you’ve no inkling where she might have gone?”
“Of course not.”
“No special place, special friend …”
“No.”
“And there was nothing between the two of you, nothing that happened prior to Saturday that might have led to her leaving?”
Peterson was half out of his chair. “That would just suit you, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Making it my fault. Then you could wash your hands of the whole bloody affair.”
“You were the one, wanted me to do more. What I’m looking for is motive.”
“What you’re looking for is to lay blame.”
Peterson was leaning forward across Resnick’s desk, hands gripping the sides. Sweat was blotched across his face and a vein was standing out, blue and strong, to one side of his temple.
“Do you always,” Resnick asked, “lose your temper this easily?
“Only when I lose my f*cking wife!”
“Or ask questions that people can’t answer.”
Peterson blinked and blinked again. At first, he didn’t know what Resnick was alluding to.
“It’s not a good idea,” Resnick said, “to lay your hands on anyone. Certainly not in anger. Do I make myself clear?”
Peterson straightened, the color drained out of his face. “I was worked up, anxious. I’d scarcely slept. Waiting round all that time for Jane to call. Maybe I wasn’t quite in control.”
“Exactly.”
Peterson hated having to back down, but he did. Awkwardly, he brushed the sweat away from his eyes, wriggled inside his clothes. “I don’t normally lose my temper, Inspector. It’s not how I am.”
Resnick stared back at him and didn’t say a thing.
Twenty-seven
It was the same dream Lynn had experienced so many times: the same sense of fear mixed with exhilaration, terror mingled with release. Her arms were tied, chained, she was handcuffed behind her back, the man standing over her, now kneeling, face blurring in and out of focus, changing identity. Michael’s soft voice with that faint Irish tinge she had never been certain was real or assumed. Michael Best’s voice and then her father’s; her father’s and then Resnick’s face. Whose mouth? Whose arms? She rolled out from the knotted sheets, the damp pillow halfway down the bed.