Code 61 - Donald Harstad [97]
Son of a bitch. I said it, in fact. “Sonofabitch” sort of all came out as one word. I startled Darcy, so I apologized. I didn't explain.
“What was his name?” asked Hester.
“Dan,” said Darcy.
“Dan who?” I asked.
“Peale,” she said.
“How do you spell that?” Hester asked what turned out to be the best question of the day.
“D-a-n,” she said, “P-e-a-l-e.” She paused. “Daniel, actually, I think.”
“You're sure?” I asked.
“Yes. I have it in a letter, somewhere. Wait … No, I don't, it was on my old computer, and I got rid of that when I got my laptop.” Darcy shrugged apologetically. “But she did write it. And that's the way it was spelled. He's from England, somewhere around London, I think.”
I looked at Hester. London?
“London? England?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. Didn't I say that earlier?”
“Uh, no. No, you didn't. You said something about 'upper class,' but not English.”
“Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Houseman. Yes, English. Edie thought he might be sort of incognito. Yes. She thought he might be a nobleman or something.”
“Any idea why?” Hester asked. “Any evidence to suggest that?”
“Just the way he behaved,” she said.
“Ah,” said Hester. “Did Edie have any experience that would help her tell that?”
“No,” said Darcy. “Well. Just movies, I guess.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Oh, God,” said Darcy.
It turned out that she was feeling especially guilty since she and Edie had grown apart. She felt that she let herself be romanced, as she put it, away from her old friend by college and then her job.
“It was just circumstance,” said Hester. “Different paths, and her child and everything. And you just grew apart.” She sounded so wistful, I began to think that she was speaking from experience.
We gave Darcy our cards, and told her to call us if she either discovered or remembered anything we might want to know.
The upshot was that if my conversation with Knockle had been good luck, our talk with Darcy had been serendipity.
Hester and I decided to leave as soon as we could gracefully get out. I was really eager to get to the office and run Daniel Peale through the system in both the U.S. and U.K.
As we worked our way to the main entrance, I noticed that Melissa and Hanna were still occupied in their small room, and that Toby and Kevin were still talking to the two friends who had come in with Darcy.
Huck was standing by herself, looking intently at a nondescript oil painting of some idyllic countryside, with horses and birds. The visual equivalent of elevator music. I think she'd turned her back to avoid the hostility emanating from most of the other mourners. I stopped beside her.
“Ugliest painting I ever saw in my life,” I said.
She turned, and actually smiled. “You got it.”
“You be coming right down to the office?”
She looked over her shoulder toward Toby and Kevin. “We're all in the same car. When the boys”—and she inflected the word disparagingly—“get done trying to score with typically quiet grace, we'll have to take Hanna back, and then maybe we can come on down.”
That could take a while, and I really wanted to keep going with Huck, and not give her much opportunity to reflect and withdraw, or to support the others.
“You could ride down with us, so we can get started,” I said. “They could pick you up at our office.”
“That sounds all right, actually,” she said. “If you can give me a few minutes to say good-bye to some people.”
I found Hester again, passing by Toby and Kevin, who were still hitting on Darcy's friends. I idly wondered how their efforts would be rewarded after Darcy talked with her buddies.
I told Hester about the plan to take Huck with us, and she thought it was a pretty good idea. We wanted to catch the reaction of Toby, Kevin, Melissa, and Hanna when Huck told them she was going with us, so we used the old cop trick of facing one another and making small talk. That way, each of us could see about half the room, and yet appear to be looking at each other.
“At about your five o'clock position,” said Hester. “William Chester just approached Huck.”
“Really … ”
“Don't look. They seem