Page 27 of Mean Streak

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Y ou warm enough back there?” Sam Knight looked at Jeff through the rearview mirror.

Riding in the backseat of the SUV, with its official markings on the door panels and light bar of the roof, he felt like a caged animal in a circus parade, part of the sideshow, but disliking it intensely. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

“Still cold as a witch’s tit this morning. But at least the snow has stopped. Let me know if you need more heat.”

“I will.”

“There’s Buddy.”

Knight pulled off the road and up to the entrance of a local bakery, where Grange was waiting out front. He was holding a flat box and a white paper sack in his gloved hands, stamping his feet to stay warm. As soon as the SUV came to a stop, he climbed into the passenger seat.

“Lord! It’s cold.”

“Thanks for volunteering to get our breakfast,” Knight said. “Coffee smells good. Pass a cup on back to Jeff. What kind of doughnuts did you get?”

“An assortment.”

Knight drove back onto the highway but stayed in the outside lane, driving with care. With so much care, in fact, it was maddening to Jeff.

Grange distributed the coffee and passed the box of doughnuts around. Knight, fortified with a bite of his, addressed Jeff in the mirror. “Dr. James called us this morning.”

Grange corrected him, mumbling around a bite. “Dr. Butler.”

Knight turned to his partner. “Huh?”

“Dr. Butler’s the lady. Dr. James is the man.”

“Oh, right,” Knight said. “I keep getting their names mixed up. Anyhow, Jeff, she called.”

“She called me, too.”

“Did she?”

He nodded as he blew on his coffee. “To let me to know that the clinic is offering an award for information.”

“That’s something, isn’t it?” Knight exclaimed. “Twenty-five grand.”

Jeff said, “I’m humbled by their generosity. To think that Emory’s associates would do that for her. For me.”

“Speaks well of both y’all.”

“Emory is highly regarded among her colleagues.”

“I read about her going to Haiti after the hurricane,” Knight said. “Volunteered for weeks at a time.”

“She’s made three trips and is planning to go again when she can work it into her schedule.”

Grange wiped sugar glaze off his fingertips with a paper napkin. “What does she do about her practice when she takes off like that?”

“Other pediatricians cover for her, and they’re glad to do it because she never forgets a favor and always returns it.”

“Sounds like she’s got a kind spirit,” Knight said as he reached into the box for a second doughnut. “A genuine humanitarian.”

“She is, which is just one of the reasons why I love her. But with all due respect,” Jeff said as he folded his half-eaten doughnut into a napkin and replaced the cap on his Styrofoam cup of coffee, “you’re telling me things about my wife that I already know.

When are you going to tell me something that I don’t know?

Like why you can’t find her and what’s being done to remedy that. ”

“We’re working on it.”

“So you’ve said. Dozens of times. But I see no evidence of it.”

“There weren’t any developments overnight. We’re hoping for better luck today.”

“You’re depending on luck ? Jesus.”

He turned away from the rearview mirror, choosing to look out the window rather than into Knight’s woeful eyes.

They had exited the main highway and were now on one with only two opposing lanes and an occasional passing lane.

It was a twisty road, the curves coming so frequently that the backseat ride was making Jeff carsick.

“Don’t be discouraged,” Grange said. “We’re working on other angles.”

“You mentioned those last night,” Jeff said. “You failed to specify what those angles are.”

“Well, for one, there’s the money.”

Jeff’s head snapped around to Grange, who was watching him over the back of his seat.

“Emory’s money,” the detective clarified, as if Jeff didn’t know to whose money he referred.

“Your wife is loaded,” Knight said. “Family fortune. She could up and quit and never have to ask another kid to say ‘aah.’” He laughed. “If I was that rich, I’d never turn a lick.”

“That’s offensive,” Jeff snapped.

Knight looked at him in the mirror. “Sorry, Jeff, I didn’t mean—”

“Emory would be sorely offended by remarks like that. She works harder because of her inheritance.”

“Is that right?”

“She never mentions her wealth, much less flaunts it. In fact she’s almost apologetic about it.”

Grange said, “Which explains why she gives so much of it away.”

“She’s pledged two hundred grand to an upcoming marathon.” Knight addressed the information to his partner, but Jeff realized the older man had said it for his benefit. “Might take some time,” he went on, “but I guess if she applied herself to it, she could eventually give all her money away.”

“Which wouldn’t leave any left over for her beneficiary.” Grange looked back at Jeff. “Which happens to be you, doesn’t it?”

He gave the smug deputy an icy glare. “I believe you already know the answer to that.”

“Well, Jeff, we have to check these things out. It’s routine when a spouse goes missing.”

The folksier Knight’s tone became, the less Jeff liked and trusted it.

Didn’t they realize that he was smart enough to know when he was being played?

He said, “If you’ve checked out Emory’s finances, then you know that I don’t manage her portfolio.

In fact, all her investments are with another firm. ”

“Yeah, the top guy at your place of business told me that.”

He gave Knight a sharp look in the rearview mirror. “Excuse me?”

“You had led your company to believe that she would turn all her money matters over to your firm when y’all got married. But she didn’t. That’s what your boss told me anyway.”

“He told you ?”

Knight nodded. “When I called him yesterday and asked him who held the reins for Emory’s fortune.”

It crawled all over Jeff to learn that yesterday, while for hours on end he’d been cooling his heels in the lobby of the Hicksville sheriff’s office, he was being investigated and talked about within his firm.

Which meant that his coworkers knew it wasn’t sickness that had kept him out of the office.

They’d known the nature of the “family emergency” even before they’d heard about Emory’s disappearance on the news this morning.

These yokels had made him out to be a liar to his firm’s senior partner, and that made him livid.

“You don’t manage her money,” Grange was saying, “but you get it if she predeceases you, correct?”

“If you had asked me, I would have told you that,” Jeff said, barely keeping his fury under control. “You wouldn’t have had to call my firm and bothered my coworkers with questions that have nothing to do with Emory’s disappearance.”

“We’ve got to cover every angle,” Grange said.

“Speaking of,” Knight said, “what’s the name of that drug you wanted Emory to endorse?”

“How did you know about that?”

“There were a lot of e-mails on her computer about it. Back and forth, between you, the pharmaceutical company, your wife. Going back more than a year. What was that all about?”

“Since you seem to already know, why don’t you tell me?”

“Be easier if you’d just put it in a nutshell for us,” Knight said. “We’ve got nothing else to do while we’re riding.”

It occurred to Jeff that perhaps he had underestimated these two.

By an act of will, he brought his temper under control, and, when he spoke, he made himself sound bored.

“The company had gone through all the steps with the FDA—and there are many—and had received approval to conduct patient trials.”

“What was the drug for?”

“To help prevent obesity in children who are genetically predisposed. Emory was invited to be one of the participating physicians.”

Grange said, “But when the trail was over, she didn’t endorse it.”

“In her opinion, the side effects weren’t worth the benefits derived from the medication.”

“In other words, it did more harm than good.”

“Those other words are yours, detective,” Jeff said. “Not Emory’s.”

Knight said, “You had encouraged clients to invest heavily in this drug.”

“No,” Jeff said, drawing out the word. “I encouraged clients to invest in a company that is on the leading edge of pharmaceutical breakthroughs that target current medical problems, like childhood obesity, which affect millions of people globally, not only healthwise, but in every other way. Culturally, socially, financially, and so on.”

Knight chuckled. “Skim off the BS, Jeff. The SEC’s not eavesdropping. Translated, a high sign from your wife would have gone a long way toward helping make your clients, and thereby you, a lot of money.”

“Emory hasn’t yet given the drug either a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. She merely withheld her endorsement pending further study.”

Knight and his partner exchanged a look that indicated further study of this issue was also pending. Jeff looked away as though unperturbed.

“Oh, by the way,” Knight said, “would you mind if we sent some guys over to the motel to take a look inside your car?”

“My car? What the hell for? Do you have a warrant?”

“Do we need one?”

“No. Search all you want. Strip it. While you’re at it, search my house, too. Send cadaver-sniffing dogs. Be sure to check the pine grove at the back of our property. That’s an excellent place for a grave.”

Knight looked over at Grange. “Told you he’d be upset.”

“I’m not upset.”

But to Jeff’s own ears, he sounded upset. Rather than give them the satisfaction of watching him seethe, he turned his head to stare out the window. For the next half hour, they drove with only the two in front occasionally exchanging a few words. Nothing important was discussed.

The gaining altitude and curviness of the road increased Jeff’s carsickness. The drop-offs where there were no guard rails made him more anxious than he already was. He wished he hadn’t agreed to come along. The day had started off badly.