Chapter 65
I was sitting in my car, catching up on email and missed calls, when Roger Teal came out of the building, moving like a man on a mission.
Either Berrien was wrong about his home life and Teal couldn’t wait to be reunited with his wife and daughter, or he had a more pressing engagement in mind.
I waited for his Toyota Highlander to pull out before starting my ignition and following him to the CITGO on State.
For a moment, I feared I’d tailed him for nothing, and Teal just needed to fill up, but he got no further than the pay phone.
In this day and age, the only people who used pay phones are the very abject or the very wary, and Teal wasn’t yet among the wretched.
Whoever he was calling, he didn’t want to risk leaving a record.
I whistled a few bars of the theme from Columbo, since nothing makes a detective happier than following what we in the trade call a “hunch”—stop me if I get too technical—and striking it lucky.
Of course, if I continued to follow Teal and he went straight home from the CITGO, I’d have wasted my time and fifty cents’ worth of gas, but Alcock was paying for both so I wouldn’t be much poorer.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Pittsfield.”
“Nobody goes to Pittsfield. They drive through it on their way to somewhere else.”
“I like to buck trends, and I’m easily amused.”
“And what are you doing in Pittsfield to amuse yourself?”
“Sitting at a gas station, waiting.”
“You’re not selling me on the hidden joys of Pittsfield. Waiting for what?”
“A BMW to come out of a lot so I can follow it.”
“Who does the BMW belong to?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m going to follow it. Duh.”
“Duh yourself. Is this still the Spero thing?”
“I think so. At least, it’s the Spero, but it may not be the same thing.”
“Messy, but you wouldn’t have it any other way. You free tomorrow night?”
“Unless I find another gas station to hang out at, so you’ll have to make a tempting offer.”
“I’ll get naked.”
“I don’t know. Some of these gas stations have pretty good hot dogs.”
“I’ll also pick up barbecue from Wilson County.”
“Hot damn,” I said. “Sold to the nekkid lady with the fried chicken.”
“Clown. And don’t get shot in the meantime, or hit in the face with another block of wood. I don’t want to overorder.”
She hung up. What a thing it is to be loved.