Low Pressure

“Even if you don’t care about Moody’s fate, you can’t get vindication for yourself until you know everything, and you won’t know everything unless we convince Moody to give it up.”

He held her stare for several moments, and she knew she’d won when he muttered a litany of curses. “All right, we go back,” he said. “But one thing, and I mean it.”

“What?”

“I’m eating the peach cobbler before we go.”

The overcast day made Dale Moody’s property look even more forlorn. Cypress tree branches weighted down by the humidity drooped low enough to brush the roof of the sedan as it passed beneath them. The murky lake waters were still and sullen looking.

The cabin itself was empty.

As the car rolled to a stop, Dent had such a bad feeling about it that he made Bellamy wait while he went up the steps, onto the rickety porch, and through the screened door, halfway expecting to find only the remains of the former detective.

But there was no sign of Moody, dead or alive.

“He’s not here,” he called to Bellamy, who joined him inside the sad dwelling that stank of stale tobacco smoke, mildew, and mice.

“I’m a bit relieved that we didn’t find him slumped in that chair with his pistol in his hand,” she said.

“Me, too,” he admitted.

She glanced behind her through the screened door. “The lake?”

“If he drowned himself, he drove his car into the water. It’s not here.”

“I hadn’t noticed, but you’re right.”

On the metal TV tray, which seemed to be the focal point of the room and of Moody’s life, were the overflowing ashtray and an empty whiskey bottle. “Conspicuously missing is the .357,” Dent remarked.

Bellamy went into the kitchen and checked the oven. “Also conspicuously missing is the case file. What do you make of that?”

“That he took his evidence with him and isn’t coming back.”

The idea came to Rupe as he was trying to eat a bowl of Cream of Wheat, which was about as solid a food as he could manage.

The second morning after taking the beating from Dale Moody, his gums were still puffy and red and hurt like hell from the extensive dental work. His nose was so grotesquely swollen it spread practically from ear to ear and made slits of his eyes. His own kids would have run screaming at the sight of him.

He’d cooked the Cream of Wheat himself, having called the maid the night of the attack and told her to take a few days off. He didn’t want anybody to see him like this, not even the person who cleaned his commode.

Making up an excuse that stretched plausibility, he’d had his assistant cancel everything on his calendar, including a day’s worth of filming TV commercials and a luncheon for leading businessmen at the governor’s mansion. He’d encouraged his wife

to stay another week or two at the beach.

Rupe Collier had gone underground.

But as he gingerly masticated the warm cereal, he rethought his position. He could be a victim who crawled into his lair and hid until he was once again presentable, which, according to the cheeky ER doctor, could be as long as two months.

Or he could milk this for all it was worth.

Which, after a day of self-imposed solitude, was an option Rupe found much more appealing.

He looked like a monster, but that was why the drastic change in his appearance would be so effective. Customers and TV viewers who were used to seeing him immaculately dressed and groomed would be outraged over what he’d suffered. Victims of violent crime won sympathy, right? They deserved and often got a soapbox, and when they spoke, people listened. Rather than hide his disfigurement, he would grandstand it. He would make his brutalized face a cause celebre.

Excited by the prospects, he fed the remainder of his breakfast to the garbage disposal and went in search of a business card he had planned to throw away, if not shred. Fortunately, he’d done neither. He found it in the satin-lined pocket of his suit jacket. He called the cell-phone number, and it was answered on the second ring.

“Talk to me.”

“Mr. Van Durbin? Rupe Collier.”