No Time for Goodbye - Linwood Barclay [48]
“What do we know about this guy?” I asked. “Is he reliable? Is he trustworthy?”
Cynthia pulled away, sniffed. I handed her a tissue from my pocket and she dabbed her eyes, blew her nose. “I called Deadline. Got the producer. She got all defensive when she knew it was me, figured I was going to give her shit about that psychic, but then I asked her if they ever used detectives to find out stuff for them, and she gave me this guy’s name, said they hadn’t used him, but they did a story on him once. Said he seemed on the up-and-up.”
“Then let’s go talk to him,” I said.
Abagnall had been sitting on the couch, looking through Cynthia’s shoeboxes of mementos, and got up when we came in. I know he spotted my red cheek, but he did a good job of not being too obvious about it.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I was having a look at your things here. I’d like to spend some more time looking at them, provided you’ve reached a decision about whether you want my help.”
“We have,” I said. “And we do. We’d like you to try to find out what happened to Cynthia’s family.”
“I’m not going to give you any false hopes,” Abagnall said. He spoke slowly, deliberately, and jotted down the occasional thing in his notebook. “This is a very cold trail. I’ll start with reviewing the police file on this, talking to anyone who remembers working on the case, but I think you should have low expectations.”
Cynthia nodded solemnly.
“I don’t see a lot here,” he said, motioning to the shoeboxes, “that jumps out at me, that offers any sorts of clues, at least right away. But I wouldn’t mind hanging on to these, for a while, if you don’t mind.”
“That’s fine,” Cynthia said. “Just so long as I get them back.”
“Of course.”
“What about the hat?” she asked. The hat she believed to be her father’s sat on the couch next to him. He’d been looking at it earlier.
“Well,” he said, “the first thing I would suggest is that you and your husband review your security arrangements here, perhaps upgrade your locks, get deadbolts on your doors.”
“I’m on it,” I said. I had already called a couple of locksmiths to see who could fit us in first.
“Because whether this hat is your father’s or not, someone got in here and left it. You have a daughter. You want this house to be as secure as it can possibly be. As far as determining whether this is your father’s,” he said, his voice low and comforting, “I suppose I could take it to a private lab and they could attempt to do a DNA test on it, to find hair samples from it, sweat from the inside lining. But that won’t be cheap, and Mrs. Archer, you’d need to provide a sample for comparison purposes. If there turned out to be a link between your DNA and what they might find on this hat, well, that might confirm that this was indeed your father’s, but it won’t tell us where he is or whether he’s alive.”
I could tell, looking at Cynthia, that she was starting to feel overwhelmed.
“Why don’t we just leave out that part of it for now,” I suggested.
Abagnall nodded. “That would be my advice, at least for the time being.” Inside his jacket, his cell phone rang. “Excuse me one second.” He opened the phone, saw who was calling, answered it. “Yes, love?” He listened, nodded. “Oh, that sounds wonderful. With the shrimp?” He smiled. “But not too spicy. Okay. I’ll see you in a bit.” He folded the phone and put it away. “My wife,” he said. “She gives me a call about this time to let me know what she’s making for dinner.”
Cynthia and I exchanged glances.
“Shrimp with linguini in a hot pepper sauce tonight,” he said, smiling. “Gives me something to look forward to. Now, Mrs. Archer, I wonder, do you think you have any photos of your father? You’ve provided some of your mother, and one of your brother, but I have nothing for Clayton Bigge.”
“I’m afraid not,” she said.
“I’ll check with the Department of Motor Vehicles,” he said. “I don’t know how far back their records go, but maybe they have a photo. And perhaps you could tell me a bit more about the