The FBI Thrillers Collection Books 6-10 - Catherine Coulter [200]
Detective Flynn said, “I can see by that gleam in your eyes, Agent Sherlock, that there’s more to it than that, and you’re just leading us slowly down the garden path.”
“Enjoy it,” Savich said. “Let her string it out. I promise, it’s worth it.”
Sherlock waved her carrot stick, sat forward a bit. “Turns out that Kurt Grinder had some problem with his bowling shoes and had to stay awhile. Weldon left before he did. When Kurt came out of the bowling alley he saw this guy stop Weldon before he got to his car. They talked for a couple of minutes. Before Kurt could catch up, Weldon and this man went off together, in this man’s car, not Weldon’s.”
Delion said, thumping his fingers on the tabletop, “All right, Sherlock, what man?”
“Kurt said he’d never seen him before, but he got a real good look at him.” She dropped her voice so everyone had to lean forward to hear her. “Kurt said he looked to be in his thirties, had dark hair, lots of it. But what really stuck in his mind was that the guy’s skin was as white as a whale’s belly.”
“And that means,” Savich said, “that if Kurt is telling the truth, and as far as I could tell he had no reason to lie, that DeLoach could be connected to the killings.”
“Or maybe,” Dane said slowly, “someone’s setting him up. Don’t forget. We can’t find him. And him being the killer has always been too obvious.”
Savich nodded. “One of the first things we asked Mr. Grinder was had he ever seen Weldon with black hair and no tan. He laughed, said Weldon was always changing his look, that he loved disguises, but he’d never seen him go that far. Okay, Sherlock, the pièce de résistance.”
Everyone at the table leaned forward again.
“Kurt got his license number.”
“Jesus,” Flynn said, “Kurt Grinder can come work for the LAPD.”
Delion said, “Okay, so who owns the damned car?”
Savich said, “Belinda Gates. Frank Pauley’s wife, the costar of The Consultant.”
No one said a word for a good three seconds.
“But it was a man who met Weldon at the bowling alley,” Flynn said slowly. “The car belongs to the actress?”
“Yes,” Sherlock said. “Savich was thinking that just maybe we could pay a little visit to Belinda and Frank this evening.”
Nick, who’d been silent, said now, “Do you think Belinda Gates disguised herself as a man?”
“Ah, Jesus,” Delion said. “My brain’s getting constipated. Hey, at this point I’m ready to believe in aliens landing in the Hollywood Bowl.”
“The question is, where is Weldon DeLoach?” Savich said. He looked over at Nick and Dane. “Okay, let’s look at this again. Dane, tell us what you make of all those events at the nursing home.”
“Captain DeLoach is demented,” Dane said. “No question about that. But I swear to you, when I first spoke to him, he was lucid. Do you know that when I told him I was FBI, he saluted me? Maybe he really did fall out of his chair, maybe he really did make all that up. I just don’t know.”
Dane turned to Nick, who was sitting with her hands in her lap, just staring down at the remains of her chicken salad, and said, “Nick? What do you think?”
Nick said, “Everyone at the nursing home believed Captain DeLoach had fallen, and no one had been around. I don’t want to agree, but what else can we believe? That’s a lot easier to swallow than a son trying to kill his own father.”
“If,” Sherlock said, raising another carrot stick, “if Weldon really did bang him on the head and toss him out of his chair, the question remains, what wasn’t the old man going to keep quiet about?”
“About the fact that Weldon was murdering people according to his own scripts,” Flynn said. “That’s pretty obvious.”
“Maybe,” Sherlock said, but she was frowning. “Maybe. But you know, that’s just too easy.”
“He wasn’t going to keep quiet any longer about what his son was doing,