Nightwalker. Part 31

"I wonder if I play any part in this?" Jessy murmured.

"The piano player," Timothy said from the doorway, surprising them all.

In fact, Jessy was so startled by the sound of his voice that she jumped. "Pardon?"

"The piano player. George Turner. He was a distant relative."

Adam Harrison spent his time at one table.

It wasn't the c.r.a.ps table where Tanner Green had died, because that had been removed, but he played at the table that had taken its place.

The pit boss had a name tag that read Darrell Frye, and he kept looking at his watch as he walked around keeping his eye on the various tables. Interesting, Adam thought.

Adam waited until things were relatively quiet and then got Frye talking.

"Hear you had some excitement in here the other night," he said to the croupier closest to him. "A man died or something?"

The croupier looked around and saw that Darrell Frye was hanging around by another table, then grinned conspiratorially and said, "Yeah, a fellow bought it right here, right where we're standing. h.e.l.l of a thing."

"Were you working?" Adam asked.

The other man nodded gravely. "I didn't see anything till the guy collapsed on some poor woman, though. Too bad about the cameras."

"Yeah? What happened to the cameras?"

"It's a big deal up in the executive offices, but they were glitching and not catching everything or something like that. It was supposed to be a big secret, but everyone working here knew it."

Adam filed that away to tell Dillon later and played for a few more minutes, then tipped the croupier and wandered away. He noted that Darrell Frye had finally gotten the break he'd obviously been waiting for. Adam spotted him in the coffee shop and went in himself, ordered a cup of coffee and took a seat, and then he waited.

His vigilance was rewarded when a pretty brunette in a clingy knit dress came up to Darrell Frye. She had a nice figure, long red-tinted hair that was poufed up like something from the sixties and huge sungla.s.ses. Adam found her more than a little suspicious and wondered if the hair was real, or if she was wearing a wig.

She sat down across from Darrell Frye, and at first they spoke too softly for him to overhear their conversation. But in a minute their voices grew heated and their words were clear. "Today. Today, do you hear me?" the woman said, and then she rose and stormed away, stiletto heels clicking sharply on the terrazzo floor.

Dillon was surprised to see Doug Tarleton when he arrived at the station. Doug was wearing civilian clothing and sipping coffee in a chair in the conference room where Jerry Cheever had set up the screen and player so they could study the tapes.

"Doc, what are you doing here?" Dillon asked.

Tarleton grinned. "Taking a break. I've been up to my arms in blood and guts for too many hours in a row."

"You are are an M.E.," Dillon reminded him. an M.E.," Dillon reminded him.

Tarleton laughed. "Yeah, I know. But Detective Cheever here decided to humor me, so here I am. Okay with you?"

"h.e.l.l yeah," Dillon told him.

The technician today was another rookie officer, this one named Drake Barton.

"Where's Sarah Clay?" Dillon asked.

"Over at the morgue, working trace evidence," Tarleton said. "That girl has ambition, and she's one hard worker."

"She is," Dillon agreed. He studied the young tech, hoping that this guy was just as good. "Can you show the c.r.a.ps area for the time before the murder took place?" he asked.

"What are you looking for?" Cheever asked him.

"I'm thinking that maybe Tanner had been playing at the Sun earlier," he said.

"Sure. I'll roll it back," the tech told him. "How far? There are hours and hours of footage here."

"Go back about three hours, but fast-forward until I tell you to slow down," Dillon told him.

"Gotcha," Barton said.

The tape began to roll. Dillon watched the croupiers and clientele running around like something out of a cartoon but saw no sign of Tanner Green.

Then, suddenly, there he was, playing at the same table where he had died.

"I'll be d.a.m.ned," Cheever said.

"Hey, they say the man is good for a reason," Tarleton commented.

Dillon shrugged. "All we've done so far is see that Tanner Green was there before he was killed," he pointed out. "Back it up, please," he asked the tech.

This time Dillon kept his eyes on Darrell Frye. He went through the motions of his job competently, but he seemed nervous. h.e.l.l, he looked like a ferret, Dillon thought.

And he was constantly watching the time.

But Dillon knew that he just didn't like the guy, and that could be behind his impression of what was going on.

"Wait," he said again. "Back up again, then play it again, but slowly this time."

"He ordered a drink. Not exactly unusual at a casino," Cheever said.

"Play it again," Dillon insisted.

"There is is something odd there. I see it, too," Tarleton said. something odd there. I see it, too," Tarleton said.

"What?" Cheever asked, apparently annoyed that he wasn't seeing what the other two did.

Barton, the tech, said slowly, "It's like one of those pictures where you see something different depending on how you look at it, or one of those 'what's different in picture B from picture A?' things."

"Play it one more time, please," Dillon said.

The tape began to roll.

"Stop!" Dillon said. "That's it."

"What?" Even Tarleton looked confused this time.

"The c.o.c.ktail waitress," he said.

"What about her? She's cute-they try to hire cute girls," Cheever said.

"No, no. There's another woman in the background. They're both wearing little sarong things, but look at the difference."

The two outfits looked the same at first. On second glance, though, the waitress serving Tanner Green was wearing a slightly different version. On one, the parrots in the pattern were dark green and in perfect alignment with one another. On the other, they were more of a lime color and arranged at odd angles.

"Picture A and picture B," the tech murmured.

"Does it mean anything?" Tarleton asked.

Dillon looked at Jerry Cheever. "Can you get someone in personnel to let us know if there are any variations in the uniforms for the waitstaff?"

"I'm on it," Cheever said, reaching for the phone.

Tarleton had risen and was standing right next to the screen, staring at it pointedly and blocking Dillon's view.

"What is it?" Dillon asked him.

Tarleton stared a while longer. "h.e.l.l if I know. But there's something else. It's right on the edge of my mind. Maybe...." He sat down but kept staring. "Ah, h.e.l.l. I can't figure it out, and I've got to get back. Thanks for letting me play cop for the hour, guys. And I know I saw something. I'll call if I ever figure it out."

16.

Jessy didn't remember crawling up on the bed with her grandfather, but she felt as if she were lying with him the way she had as a kid when they went to the lake. They would lie on the ground on big beach towels, looking up at the clouds and turning the rare wisps of white magic in the Nevada sky into fairy-tale creatures.

Today, the clouds were strange. They seemed to fill the sky. Timothy pointed up and told her, "There. Do you see him? That's Billie Tiger. Don't be afraid of him. He's a Seminole, but he was captured and forced West, where he escaped and joined up with Sitting Bull."

"How do you do, Mr. Tiger," she asked politely, because, now that Timothy had pointed him out, she could see him, of course.

"He's a good friend," Timothy told her.

Something in her felt sad that he found his friends in the clouds and on the walls, but she wouldn't say so; she loved him too much to hurt his feelings.

"Billie Tiger shows me what happened," Timothy said. "He'll show you, too."

The clouds shifted as Timothy described a town with one long street that was all rutted sand. A breeze blew, but it had only hot air and desert sand to toss around. A tumbleweed danced across the road now and then. She saw a big sign on one building identifying it as the Crystal Canary. Another building was a bank. There were horses and a livery stable. People wore old-fashioned clothes, the women in long dresses, often in pastel flower patterns, and bonnets to protect their complexions against the sun.

"There's the newspaper office," Timothy said. "And there..." He pointed up to the sky. "There's the saloon."

She felt as if she walked with him through the swinging doors into the saloon, where she saw a piano player. He was a handsome man, more brown than copper, with beautiful green eyes, and might have been a deeply tanned white man, an Indian or even a black man.

She was suddenly sitting on his lap, but it was all right, because somehow the man had become Timothy. A young woman was standing next to them, singing.

There were four men at the poker table. She recognized two of them: Ringo-and Dillon. Except that it wasn't Dillon, only someone who looked a lot like him. The other two men weren't familiar to her. One had a goofy smile, and the other one looked mean, the sour and gaunt kind of mean. She didn't like him.

Then the doors burst open, and tall and dark and looming, and seeming to cover the sun, he he was just there. The clouds turned dark when he arrived and seemed to roil with anger. was just there. The clouds turned dark when he arrived and seemed to roil with anger.

She was afraid.

"Hide," Timothy said. Except that he wasn't Timothy anymore, he was the piano player again. "I have to rouse the townfolk."

She crawled under the piano.

The man in the doorway entered and walked to the poker table, followed by four of the biggest men Jessy had ever seen. Then, suddenly, everyone was standing and guns were blazing. She wanted to scream, but she was hiding and was afraid to give away her presence...

Only two men were still standing at that point.

And then...

The swinging doors opened again. A huge man came in, dragging a beautiful woman in deerskin. But she wasn't an Indian, she was a blond-haired white woman.

Jessy looked at the man who was so like Dillon. His mouth was moving as he looked at the beautiful woman, and Jessy strained to hear what he was saying. She could see that the blonde didn't understand him, unable to hear his words over the bullets.

But Jessy could hear him.

And the word he said was here. here.

The guns stopped firing, and she looked around to see that both the men were dead, and the beautiful blond woman was standing alone, weeping.

Jessy woke abruptly. She wasn't lying on the bed next to Timothy but was sitting in a chair in the breakfast room. She must have fallen asleep with her head on the table, just as Nikki's was.

Jessy closed her eyes and groaned. Timothy wasn't crazy at all.

Billie Tiger had just shown her Indigo.

Had she really heard John Wolf speak? Great. Another cryptic one-word message that might mean nothing at all. Here. Here.