Nick of Time (A Bug Man Novel) (26 page)

“Thanks.” He nodded a quick greeting to Alena and walked away.

Both women watched until he rounded the corner.

“That’s him,” Holly whispered.

“Who?”

“The man you asked about. You know, the man—the one with the rifle. He left this morning, just before Nick did. Then you came—then you left. Then he came back, and then you came again. It’s hard to keep it all straight.”

“Why didn’t you tell me he came back? Don’t tell me—I didn’t ask.”

“I didn’t think it mattered. Does it?”

“I don’t know,” Alena said. “Nick’s new in town, and that guy’s new in town—and they’re both staying at the same hotel. Maybe there’s some connection.”

Now Alena heard the rattling of glass and a whoosh of air; she turned and saw a UPS deliveryman backing a loaded truck dolly through the front door.

The man wheeled the dolly straight for the front desk. “Mornin’, Holly. Where do you want these? Same as always?”

“Hi, Donny. Sure, just put them, you know—behind the counter.”

He did so, steering the dolly as if it were a living thing, guiding the boxes behind the counter and bracing the stack with one foot while he worked the dolly out from underneath. “Hear about the rumpus in town today?”

Alena straightened. “What rumpus?”

The deliveryman looked at her.

“Oh, this is Alena,” Holly said. “She’s here looking for her—”

“What rumpus?” Alena asked again.

“At the diner. Ed Yanuzzi was having lunch, just minding his own business, and some guy nobody ever saw before just walked in off the street and started making all kinds of crazy accusations.”

“What did he look like?” Alena asked.

“Beats me—like I said, nobody ever saw him before.”

“Did anybody catch his name?”

“He didn’t say—he just started making wild accusations.”

“What kind of accusations?” Holly asked.

He wiggled his eyebrows. “Like the sheriff is cheating on his wife—like he has some woman he’s keeping on the side.”

Holly leaned closer. “Is he?”

“Ed Yanuzzi? C’mon, the man’s straight as an arrow. This guy was just nuts, that’s all. Remember Marty Keller—that sheriff’s deputy who died last December? You know—the one who leaned his rifle up against a fence post, and when he tried to cross the fence he accidentally shot himself?”

“I remember,” Holly said. “That was so sad.”

“Well, this guy in the diner—he claimed the woman Ed is cheating with is Marty Keller’s
widow
.”

Holly squinted at him. “But Marty Keller wasn’t married.”

“I know—that’s what made the whole thing so crazy! The guy told Ed that he actually talked to the woman—a woman who doesn’t even exist. And then he said—get this—that the woman left a
message
for him this morning. She said she wanted to see him—and when he went to meet her, somebody took a shot at him! And who did he say fired the gun? Ed! He even dug up an old bullet somewhere—he tossed it right out on the table so everybody could see it.”

Both women were staring with their mouths hanging open.

“And good ol’ Ed, he just let the poor guy ramble on. You gotta hand it to Ed—a lot of men wouldn’t have been so patient.”

“This weird guy,” Alena said, “where did he go?”

“No idea. He said his piece and walked out and Ed just let him go—I haven’t heard mention of him since.” He backed the dolly out from behind the counter and gave Holly a wink. “See you Monday. Nice to meet you, Alena—hope I didn’t give you a bad impression of Pine Summit. You don’t often find a guy as weird as that.”

“I know,” Alena said. “I’ve tried.”

When the UPS man left Alena turned to Holly. “Did Nick get a message this morning?”

“Yes—he did.”

Alena stamped her foot in frustration. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“Because I didn’t hear the message—what good is that?

‘Alena, your fiancé got a message this morning.’ ‘Really? What did it say?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Who was it from?’ ‘I don’t know.’

‘Thanks for nothing, Holly.’ ”

“Did he delete the message?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can I check?”

“Alena—”

“Don’t you dare tell me, ‘It’s against the law.’ I would do this for you, Holly. If this was your boyfriend and somebody was taking shots at him, I would do this for you. You said you wanted to help me—well, prove it.”

Holly hesitated for only a second before pointing to the house phone. “Take it over there—punch in this number and do whatever it tells you to.”

Alena listened to the message, then hung up. “That was no ghost,” she said. “That was a real woman’s voice.” She looked at Holly. “The woman said, ‘You asked me some questions
the other night
.’ That means Nick must have met with her before— at night.”

Holly looked down at the counter.

“You told me Nick asked you for directions the other night—
two
sets of directions—and you gave me one of them. When I was leaving, I asked you if Nick told you
why
he wanted those addresses . . . and you lied to me, Holly. You said no, but your eyes said yes. Nick told you something, didn’t he?”

Holly began to roll her head from side to side with an expression of such misery that it looked as if she were seasick.

“What did he tell you? I have to know, Holly.”

“He said he was going to see a lady . . .”

Alena waited.

“And that’s all he said! I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

“The wrong idea? My fiancé runs away less than a week before the wedding and I find him holed up in some hotel paying late-night visits to some ‘lady’? I may be slow, Holly, but I’m not stupid.”

“See, that’s why I didn’t tell you—because I knew you’d probably think that and you don’t know for sure. I wanted you to find him first—I wanted you to give him a chance to explain, ’cause I’m sure there’s a good explanation.”

“At least you’re sure about something,” Alena said. “Are you sure you can’t remember those directions?”

“I swear—there must have been fifty turns. I’d tell you if I could remember.”

Alena stood there staring at Holly, trying to sort out this whole bewildering mess. Nick had met with some woman—a woman who wasn’t supposed to exist—but she was real enough to leave a voice message on his hotel phone. Nick went to meet with her again this morning—and when he did, somebody tried to shoot him. Alena had no way to find the woman, and it was probably a good thing, considering the mood she was in. But there were two things she knew for sure: She was sick and tired of waiting, and she wasn’t leaving town without a darned good explanation.

She turned and looked at the hallway that led to the hotel restaurant.

28

T
he Mountain View Lodge restaurant was empty except for two tables. Alena sat at one, sipping a cup of coffee and pretending to leaf through a copy of
This Week in the Poconos
that she took from the cashier’s stand. The other table, in the opposite corner of the restaurant, was occupied by the man in the navy T-shirt. Alena had chosen her position carefully; the distance between their tables was too great to allow any exchange of words, but it still offered a clear line of sight—and with no one else in the restaurant, Alena knew she was the only thing the man had to look at.

She kept staring across the restaurant at the man, waiting for him to feel the weight of her gaze and glance up at her, and each time he did she gave him a long, lingering smile—but she also made sure that each time she was the one to break eye contact. She didn’t want to encourage the man too much—not here.

The man eventually finished his meal and went to pay his check. At the cashier’s stand he took one last glance back at her, and when he did she gave him her warmest smile yet.

When he left the restaurant Alena hurried to the lobby and signaled to her waiting dogs to follow her back to the restaurant. She led them over to the man’s table and retrieved his wadded white napkin. She knelt down and held the napkin up to Ruckus’s snout and allowed the dog’s nose to quiver over it, imprinting on its little brain the man’s unique scent combination of saliva, facial oil, and aftershave lotion.

She snapped her fingers once, then pointed to the exit. Ruckus trotted silently out of the restaurant with Alena, Trygg, and Dante following close behind.

There was no breeze in the hotel to disturb the scent pool and it stretched out like an invisible snake in the hotel corridors; Ruckus had no more difficulty following it than if it had been a trail of breadcrumbs. Within minutes the dog had traced the scent to a hotel room. Alena patted the dog’s head, then snapped her fingers and pointed to the threshold of the door; Ruckus tested the air flowing out from the room and quietly lay down.

Alena waved Ruckus and Trygg aside and positioned Dante so close to the door that his snout was almost touching the wood. Alena herself stood close enough to the peephole to prevent the man from catching any glimpse of the enormous animal crouching by her side. She knocked on the door, then watched the pinpoint of light in the center of the peephole; when she saw it darken, she flashed her most seductive smile and made a little wave.

There was a pause—and then she heard the clack of the dead bolt retracting. When Alena snapped her fingers she felt the big dog’s sinewy flank tense against her thigh.

As the door began to open she could hear the man say, “Look, lady, I’m not interested in any—”

But before he could finish the sentence Alena threw her shoulder against the door and at the same moment signaled for Dante to strike. Alena kept driving forward and Dante threw his two-hundred-plus pounds into the fray as well, sending the door crashing open and the man sprawling backward into his room. The man was lean and athletic and he quickly attempted to regain his feet—but before he could even reach a crouching position Dante was on top of him, pinning him to the carpet near the foot of the bed with jaws so massive that they completely enveloped his neck.

Alena stepped out into the hallway and waved Trygg and Ruckus into the room, then quietly closed the door. When she turned around she saw the man groping for a duffel bag resting on the foot of the bed just a few inches from his hand. She walked over and kicked his hand away.

“There better be dog biscuits in there,” she said, upending the bag and dumping its contents onto the bedspread. There were rolled socks and boxer briefs and a Dopp kit made of brown leather—and there was a handgun.

Alena took the gun from the bed and held it up. “Were you planning to shoot my dog?” she asked.

He didn’t answer.

“ ’Cause that would have made me very, very angry.”

The man grabbed at Dante’s snout with his left hand.

“Don’t,” Alena said. “Everybody tries it, but it never works. You try to pry him off and he’ll close your windpipe just like stepping on a hose. And if I make a little twisting motion with my fist—well, we don’t want to leave housekeeping with a mess like that. So why don’t you just relax while I have a look around?”

Alena glanced around the hotel room; it looked largely undisturbed, barely lived in. “Looks like you’re not planning to stay long,” she said. She opened the closet and spotted a canvas drag bag lying on the top shelf. “This your rifle?” She took it down, unzipped it, and slid it out onto the bed. It was a boltaction rifle with a walnut stock and a long black telescopic scope that widened at the fore end like a flashlight.

“Careful with that,” the man said.

“Good idea,” Alena said. “We wouldn’t want to shoot anybody, now would we?”

She took a quick look in the bathroom and saw nothing on the counter but a toothbrush and a rumpled towel—and across from the counter, a heart-shaped bathtub. She just stood there, staring at it for a minute—then she charged out into the bedroom. “You’ve got a heart-shaped bathtub,” she said to the man.

“So?”

“Do all the rooms have those?”

“How would I know?”

“I thought nobody had those anymore. I thought they were old-fashioned.”