Page 47 of Wild Oblivion

“Well, if he shows back up, I want you to call me immediately. Is that understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.” She gave me a card, nodded to the other officers, and they rolled out.

I escorted them to the door.

Once they were all outside, I closed the door and flipped the deadbolt. I peered through the peephole, watching them walk away down the path. When I walked back into the living room, Henrik asked, “Is she gone?”

I nodded.

“Good. She bothered me. I’m sure the government’s got a file on me as long as a whale’s dick. Everything she wants to know is in there. I’ve got nothing to add. Everybody who needs to know about Zeitspiegel already knows.”

“Where is the crystal?”

He stared at me for a long moment. “Why do you want to know?”

“I can’t protect it if I don’t know where it is. It seems there are a lot of people who want it.”

“I hid it.”

“Where?”

“Well, you see, that’s the trouble. I don’t remember at the moment.”

I looked at him with skeptical eyes. “Is this another act?”

His brow knitted. “No. It’s the God’s honest truth. It’s floating around there somewhere in my brain, but I can’t grasp it,” he said, clutching at the air around his head.

I shared a look with JD.

He shrugged.

“When did you hide it?” I asked.

“I remember the year. It was 1977.” He grinned. “That was a fun year. I was seeing this girl…” he drifted off in thought. “What was her name?”

“Were you living in the Keys when you hid it?”

“Things sure have changed since then.” He paused. “It will come to me. Just pop into my head when I least expect it.”

“How can you forget something like that?”

“Like I said, it was a fun year, and there are some gaps,” he said in a tone that told me he partied a little in the ‘70s. Maybe a lot.

“We’ve got other priorities besides that crystal right now,” JD said. “We need to find that bomb.”

I looked at my watch. The incessant march of time continued on. 10:30 PM would be here before we knew it. “Stay here and look after him. I’m going to go back to the marina and inspect the hull of the boat. That’s the one place we didn’t look.”

23

The day had evaporated. The sun angled toward the horizon, and the sky was awash with pastel colors.

With a dive mask, fins, and a snorkel, I plunged into the water and swam around the boat, scanning the hull for explosive devices.

I didn’t find anything.

I surfaced, flung the water from my hair, and swam to the dock. I pulled myself up and dripped dry, feeling defeated.Where the hell would this clown put the bomb?

Then I had a terrible thought.