"The old man in the wheelchair who slapped you? The Major?" said Rigby. "Yeah, why? We called him and asked how he and his associate, the Vietnamese ex-colonel"
"Trinh."
"Yeah. We asked the Major how they'd heard about Officer O'Toole's shooting. The Major lives in Florida, you know. Trinh in California."
Kurtz waited. He knew where the two lived thanks to Arlene, but he wasn't going to reveal anything to Rigby unless he had to.
"The Major told Kemper that he'd been back in Neola for a shareholders' meeting of a company called SEATCO that he and Trinh had started way back in the seventies. Import-export stuff. The Major and Trinh are retired, but they still hold honorary positions on the board of directors."
"Which explains why they were in the state," said Kurtz. "Not how he heard about the shooting."
Rigby shrugged. "The Major said that he called Peg O'Toole's house and office Wednesday evening after the shareholders' meeting. He said he likes to get together with his niece when he's back in the state. Someone at the parole office told him there'd been a shootingthey didn't have any family member to contact for O'Toole, just the Brian Kennedy guy in Manhattan."
"Was Kennedy in Manhattan when they contacted him?"
"He was in transit," said Rigby. "Flying to Buffalo to see his fiancée." She smiled crookedly. "You suspect the boyfriend? They were engaged, for Christ's sake."
"Gee," said Kurtz, "you're right. He couldn't have been involved if he was engaged to the victim. That's never happened before."
Rigby shook her head. "What motive, Joe? Kennedy's rich, successful, handsome his security agency is one of the top three in the state, you know. Plus, we checkedhis Lear was in transit."
Kurtz wanted to say are you sure? but stopped himself. The headache throbbed and muted flashbulbs were going off behind his eyes. He set his hands firmly on the top of the steering wheel. "The Major had a son who killed some people down in the Neola high school back in the seventies" he began.
"Sean Michael O'Toole," said Rigby. "Kemper ran that down. The crazy kid was sent to the big hospital for the criminally insane in Rochester and he died there in 1989"
"Died?" said Kurtz. Arlene hadn't been able to get into the hospital records. "He would have been young."
"Just turned thirty," said Rigby. For a woman who'd just downed four tequilas and two beers, she was articulating her sentences well enough, but her beautiful brown eyes looked tired. Very tired.
"What happened to him? Suicide?"
"Yeah. Messy, too."
"What do you mean?"
"Young Sean didn't just hang himself or asphyxiate himself with a plastic bag or something uh-uh. He doused himself and several other inmates with gasoline and set fire to his wing of the high-security ward during visiting hours. Three others
died as well as Sean and half the wing burned down. The current director says that he still doesn't know where the boy got the gasoline."
Kurtz thought about this. "The Major must have been proud."
"Who knows?" said Rigby. "He wouldn't talk to Kemper or me about his son. He said, and I quote'Let the dead bury the dead. Army officersyou gotta love 'em." She opened the door and stepped out onto the grassy curb. Clouds were scuttling and the wind from the northwest was cold. It felt like late October in Buffalo to Kurtz.
"You have tomorrow off?" said Kurtz.
"Yeah," said Rigby King. "I've worked the last five weekends, and now that your and O'Toole's case is officially closed and the dead gay guys have been turned over to the coroner, I get tomorrow off. Why?"
"You want to ride down to Neola with me tomorrow?" Even as he spoke the words, Kurtz was surprised he'd actually suggested this.
Rigby looked equally surprised. "Neola? That little town down near the Pennsylvania border? Why would you" Her expression changed. "Oh, that's where Major O'Toole and the Vietnamese colonel had their homes and business before they retired and moved to warmer climes. What's the deal, Joe? You looking for a little payback for the late-night slap and want some backup while you brace the sixty-something-year-old in his wheelchair?"
"Not quite," said Kurtz. "There's something else I want to check on down there and I thought it might be a pretty ride. We'd be back by nightfall."
"A pretty ride," repeated Rigby, her tone suggesting that Kurtz had begun speaking in a foreign language. "Sure, what the fuck. Why not? What time?"
"Eight A.M.?"
"Yeah, sure. I'll drink some more and pass out early so I'll be in good spirits for our picnic tomorrow." She shook her head as if bemused by her own idiocy, slammed the passenger door, and walked toward her townhouse.
Feeling some of the same bemusement about himself, Kurtz put the Pinto in gear and drove away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"Shit." He'd answered the Gonzaga cell phone by mistake. He found his own phone.
"I've got some of the information you wanted," said Baby Doc.
"It didn't take you long," said Kurtz.
"I didn't know you wanted me to take a long time," said Baby Doc. "That would have cost you more. You want to hear this or not?"