Code 61 - Donald Harstad [133]
Six minutes later we were in Fontana.
The room wasn't too bad. Two queen-size beds. Shower. Sink. Toilet. Chair. TV. Even a place to hang hangers. It was cold, and the heating mechanism was integral with the air-conditioning. I turned it on, and had instant tobacco smell. Turned it off, opened a window, and tried to set the little digital alarm clock that came with the room.
Finally, Harry said, “If you'd put your fuckin' glasses on, Houseman, so you could read the dials, we could get another half hour of sleep.”
I got it set, but then picked up the phone and left a wake-up call for 08:30.
“What you do,” said Harry, “is why I divorced my ex-wife.”
I blew him a kiss. “Good night, Harry.”
TWENTY-NINE
Wednesday, October 11, 2000
09:12
I was awakened by the phone. I glanced at the clock. 09:12. I groggily wondered why the wake-up call was solate. “Yeah.”
It was Hester. “You guys like to come over here for brunch?”
“Jesus, Hester. They didn't call, and the alarm didn't go off…. ”
“I'm waking you up?”
I told her she was. She, as it turned out, had taken her morning five-mile run, cleaned up, and had been wondering what was taking us so long to call her.
“Brunch?” I asked.
“What about brunch?” came from Harry in the next bed.
“You guys gotta come over here to eat,” said Hester. “Really. You gotta see this.”
That sounded really good to me. “Give us twenty minutes,” I said. I showered first, while Harry contacted a Walworth County detective named Jim Hawkins, and told him that we were going to have a bite at the Geneva Inn. He said he'd try to meet us within an hour.
I drove, while Harry navigated. All the way through a spot called Linton, on a county road, and then north on Highway 120. The real estate got progressively more upscale as we went. We turned left into a kind of obscure drive, and into the parking lot of a very beautiful hotel. Hester, it appeared, had scored big.
My favorite DCI agent met us in the lobby. It was beautifully done in light wood, natural lighting, with uniformed help who exuded confidence and capability. We continued on into the split-level dining room that had huge windows on three sides, with a fantastic view of Lake Geneva.
We sat at a table with real linen. Heavy silver. Quiet atmosphere. Elegant. Refined. Nice.
“Sleep well?” I asked Hester. She looked absolutely refreshed.
“Wonderful room,” she said. “Wet bar, Jacuzzi, balcony overlooking the lake…. ”
“We,” said Harry, “are in the Bates Motel.”
“Poor dears,” said Hester.
A pretty, perky, and efficient waitress, in her twenties, offered us the breakfast buffet. We partook, as Old Knockle would have said. I never wanted to leave.
Over a great cup of coffee, we gazed out the windows at the huge homes on the lakefront. I thought I could make out a sliver of a rounded dome in the far distance, across the lake and in thick trees. As the waitress asked us if we needed more coffee, I pointed to the dome. “Is that Yerkes Observatory, do you know?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Wow,” I said. “We gotta try to get there.”
“What's there?” asked Harry.
“Enormous telescope, the biggest refractor in the world,” I said. “I'd really like to see that.”
“They have tours,” said the waitress, smiling.
“Excellent.” I shifted my gaze to the left a bit. “And that big gray building over there? That wouldn't be the courthouse, would it?”
The waitress giggled. She gestured to the enormous, pinkish gray building. “That one?”
“Yeah … ”
“That's the Hunley place,” she said.
It was a four-story building, although there didn't seem to be any windows on the fourth floor. It was absolutely huge. It made the Mansion in Nation County look like an outbuilding. Composed of a large central four-story block, with arched glass, flanked by two equally large sections with square windows, and flanked again by two wings with vast windows. I never would have thought it to be anything but a government office building