Back Spin (Myron Bolitar 4)

Miguel. He’d have Esperanza track down that one. If her alibi stuck, his neat little scenario went down the toilet. “Who else knew about you and Chad Coldren?”

“No one,” she said. “At least, I told no one.”

“How about Chad? Did he tell anyone?”

“It sounds to me like he told you,” she said pointedly. “He might have told someone else, I don’t know.”

Myron thought about it. The black-clad man crawling out Chad’s bedroom window. Matthew Squires. Myron remembered his own teenage years. If he had somehow managed to bed an older woman who looked like Esme Fong, he would have been busting to tell someone—especially if he’d been staying at his best friend’s house the night before.

Once again, things circled back to the Squires kid.

Myron asked, “Where will you be if I need to reach you?”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a card. “My cell phone number is on the bottom.”

“Good-bye, Esme.”

“Myron?”

He turned to her.

“Are you going to tell Norm?”

She seemed only worried about her reputation and her job, not a murder rap. Or was this just a clever diversion? No way of knowing for sure.

“No,” he said. “I won’t tell.”

At least, not yet.

31

Episcopal Academy. Win’s high school alma mater.

Esperanza had picked him up in front of Esme Fong’s and driven him here. She parked across the street. She turned off the ignition and faced him.

“Now what?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Matthew Squires is in there. We can wait for a lunch break. Try to get in then.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Esperanza said with a nod. “A really bad one.”

“You have a better idea?”

“We can go in now. Pretend we’re touring parents.”

Myron thought about it. “You think that’ll work?”

“Better than hanging out here doing nothing.”

“Oh, before I forget. I want you to check out Esme’s alibi. The hotel nightman named Miguel.”

“Miguel,” she repeated. “It’s because I’m Hispanic, right?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

She had no problem with that. “I put a call in to Peru this morning.”

“And?”

“I spoke to some local sheriff. He says Lloyd Rennart committed suicide.”

“What about the body?”

“The cliff is called El Garganta del Diablo—in English, Throat of the Devil. No bodies are ever located. It’s actually a fairly common suicide plunge.”

“Great. Think you can do a little more background stuff on Rennart?”

“Like what?”

“How did he buy the bar in Neptune? How did he buy the house in Spring Lake Heights? Stuff like that.”

“Why would you want to know that?”

“Lloyd Rennart was a caddie for a rookie golfer. That isn’t exactly loads of dough.”

“So?”

“So maybe he had a windfall after Jack blew the U.S. Open.”

Esperanza saw where he was going. “You think somebody paid Rennart off to throw the Open?”

“No,” Myron said. “But I think it’s a possibility.”

“It’s going to be hard to trace after all this time.”

“Just give it a shot. Also, Rennart got into a serious car accident twenty years ago in Narberth. It’s a small town right around here. His first wife was killed in the crash. See what you can find out about it.”

Esperanza frowned. “Like what?”

“Like was he drunk. Was he charged with anything. Were there other fatalities.”

“Why?”

“Maybe he pissed off someone. Maybe his first wife’s family wants vengeance.”

Esperanza kept the frown. “So they—what?—waited twenty years, followed Lloyd Rennart to Peru, pushed him off a cliff, came back, kidnapped Chad Coldren, killed Jack Coldren.… Are you getting my point?”

Myron nodded. “And you’re right. But I still want you to run down everything you can on Lloyd Rennart. I think there’s a connection somewhere. We just have to find what it is.”

“I don’t see it,” Esperanza said. She tucked a curl of black hair behind her ear. “Seems to me that Esme Fong is still a much better suspect.”

“Agreed. But I’d still like you to look into it. Find out what you can. There’s also a son. Larry Rennart. Seventeen years old. See if we can find out what he’s been up to.”

She shrugged. “A waste of time, but okay.” She gestured toward the school. “You want to go in now?”

“Sure.”

Before they moved, a giant set of knuckles gently tapped on Myron’s window. The sound startled him. Myron looked out his window. The large black man with the Nat King Cole hair—the one from the Court Manor Inn—was smiling at him. “Nat” made a cranking motion with his hand, signaling Myron to lower the window. Myron complied.

“Hey, I’m glad we ran into you,” Myron said. “I never got the number of your barber.”

The black man chuckled. He made a frame with his large hands—thumbs touching, arms outstretched—and tilted it back and forth the way a movie director does. “You with my doo,” he said with a shake of his head. “Somehow I just don’t see it.”

He leaned into the car and stuck his hand across Myron toward Esperanza. “My name is Carl.”

“Esperanza.” She shook his hand.

“Yes, I know.”

Esperanza squinted at him. “I know you.”

“Indeed you do.”

She snapped her fingers. “Mosambo, the Kenyan Killer, the Safari Slasher.”

Carl smiled. “Nice to see Little Pocahontas remembers.”

Myron said, “The Safari Slasher?”

“Carl used to be a professional wrestler,” Esperanza explained. “We were in the ring together once. In Boston, right?”

Carl climbed into the backseat of the car. He leaned forward so his head was between Esperanza’s right shoulder and Myron’s left. “Hartford,” he said. “At the Civic Center.”

“Mixed tag-team,” Esperanza said.

“That’s right,” Carl said with his easy smile. “Be a sweetheart, Esperanza, and start up the car. Head straight until the third traffic light.”